by Chris Thomas
‘Look,’ said Fowler, cutting her off and pointing at the screen. ‘Something’s happening.’
The screen faded to total blackness, which was all of a sudden broken by a bright spotlight of white, silhouetting a hooded figure strapped to a chair. There was no music, no dry ice, nothing of the usual production values, just a solitary figure, hooded, sat alone in the middle of stark, grey concrete floor.
‘Weird,’ said Brooks. ‘They haven’t gone full in for the blockbuster style of previous episodes. That must be Anwar.’
‘They never usually broadcast on a Monday morning either. No, I think this was something of a rush job. And I wouldn’t mind betting that this is for our benefit only,’ replied Fowler.
Then, on screen, the camera panned around to show the familiar form of the Host walking towards the front of the chair. He stood behind it with his hand on the hood, placed the microphone to his mouth, and spoke.
‘Good morning. Welcome back to the Red Room. Sorry for the impromptu and somewhat hastily constructed episode, but since this is only being viewed by a very select group of people, we decided to dispense with the usual formalities and get straight down to business. Our first guest today is your good friend, Detective Inspector Peter Harris.’
He whipped the hood off of Harris’ head.
Fowler and Brooks looked at each other, stunned, as the camera zoomed in on Harris’ face. Apart from a few red marks across his face and some little cuts, he seemed fine. But as the shot moved closer, his eyes burned with fire, a thousand yard stare that seemed to break through the monitor and straight into the souls of the viewer; he knew he was being watched.
Harris allowed the light to flood into his eyes, to become more accustomed to his surroundings. He had seen the show, he knew the drill and his journey to the chair had been a lot more rapid than previous occupants’. They had known he was coming and lay in wait as he carefully tiptoed through the lightless corridors of the building. When it came to it, he was no match for the two large brick shithouses that jumped him in the dark. He let them take him; better to conserve his energy in the hope that he might just survive long enough for the armed response to arrive.
‘But,’ said the Host, ‘in a break from tradition, Pete here isn’t one of our volunteers, he is going to be … wait for i t… my assistant.’
‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this,’ said Brooks.
‘Can you get a match on the clown’s voice?’
‘I’ll try.’
Harris looked up at the Host as the two goons unfastened his restraints. He waited until the last ankle strap was released and leapt up, aiming to grab the Host by his boiler suit. The Host easily moved out of the way and Harris fell to the floor, unprepared for the toll that his capture had taken, before being pinned down with the weight of the two goons pressing into his back.
The Host knelt down next to him and spoke softly. ‘Look, Pete, there’s no point in trying to fight your way out of this, so if I were you, I would just go with it. You never know, you might find you enjoy it. So, come on, Pete, back on your feet! Did you like that? I know I did. Get him up.’
The goons pulled Harris upright and pushed him a few feet forward.
Harris stood and rubbed his shoulders, looking around, trying to take in his surroundings. All he could see in front of him was the powerful spotlight encasing him in a circle of white. Past it, he could just about make out the silhouettes of two, maybe three bystanders, but nothing more. He glanced in the direction of what he assumed was a door, but the slightest movement of his body implying an attempt to escape and the goons moved closer. The message was clear, he was going nowhere.
‘Pete, Pete, Pete,’ said the Host, as he took Harris by the arm and led him slowly to a large item, in darkness until the spotlight moved to illuminate it. ‘Why don’t you grab the bottom of that sheet for me?’
He gestured to the dusty black piece of fabric covering what Harris could now see was another person. Harris kept his gaze on the Host, who, after a few seconds of reciprocal staring, motioned again with his hand for Harris to pick it up. Reluctantly, Harris bent down and grabbed the edge of the sheet, stood up, and walked backwards. Slowly, the sheet slid back to reveal what it had been hiding. Harris stared in disbelief, his heart racing.
‘That’s right, Peter,’ said the Host. ‘Please accept this little gift as a token of our esteem. The man who killed your wife and unborn son. Mister Saeed Anwar.’
Fowler and Brooks watched on the screen as the colour fell from Harris’ face. He looked around, helpless, as though searching for guidance from the people he knew were the other side of the screen. The silence in the Red Room was palpable, broken only by the loud dripping of water from somewhere in the building. The Host stood with his hands on his hips, watching Harris struggle to think.
Anwar looked up from his seat and shook his head with an air of almost arrogant disappointment, whispering, ‘For fuck’s sake,’ as though nothing more serious had happened than he’d left his mobile in the car.
‘Cheer up, Pete,’ encouraged the Host. ‘Look what we’ve got. The man who killed your wife. Here, on a plate. Look at him. He doesn’t even look like he gives a shit.’
‘What do you think he’s going to do?’ asked Fowler, squeezing his grip strengthener so hard his fingers had turned white.
‘I don’t know,’ replied Brooks, who had now started biting her fingernails. ‘Call Smith, find out how far away he is with armed response.’
Fowler made the call and was met with a very abrupt ‘Fifteen minutes,’ before the line went dead.
‘Stay with me, Pete,’ she whispered. ‘Just keep it going a little longer. Don’t do anything stupid.’
Back on the screen, the Host grabbed Anwar by the jaw and forced him to look at Harris.
‘Pete, look at him. This man took away the most important thing in your life. He mounted the pavement because he couldn’t be bothered to wait for a van turning right and ploughed straight into your wife. It was only by the grace of God that she had just left your daughter in nursery. Doesn’t that make you angry?’
The words were cutting through Harris like razor blades; his breathing increased as he struggled to maintain his self-control.
‘Doesn’t it make you want to kill him that he was jailed for a pitiful six months?’ The Host’s voice was rising, now more of a shout than speech. ‘Despite having only been in the country long enough to get some tart up the duff. Despite having no license. For Christ’s sake, Pete, get angry.’
Anwar began to laugh at Harris. ‘You fucking pussy,’ he shouted, ‘you’re not man enough!’
Harris turned away, head bowed and mind spinning, the white lights disorientating him. He saw the faceless goons, the clown face, the face of his worst nightmare. Whoever else he thought he had seen earlier was no longer there.
‘He’s laughing at you, Pete. Just like he laughed at the system when it was powerless to deport him, thanks to his ‘human rights’,’ said the Host, making exaggerated air quotes with his fingers. ‘But what about your rights, Pete? They were pissed all over by the courts. But now you have the right. You have the power.’
He grabbed Harris’ arm and thrust the handle of a large hunting knife into his hand.
‘If you won’t do it for your wife, do it for the dozens of girls he’s trafficked since his release, his beaten wife, the countless lives wrecked by his drugs.’
Harris held the knife in his hand, watching his reflection in the blade as he rotated it around in front of his face. His breathing was almost hyperventilation, and specks of saliva pebble-dashed the blade as he seethed through gritted teeth.
‘Fuck you lot,’ shouted Anwar. ‘I went to prison for what I did. So what if I killed your wife? So what if I beat my wife, she’s mine. She belongs to me. Those stupid little whores that I took, they were worthless, who cares? The kids buying my drugs, fuck them. They buy more, they use more, I give it to them. This whole fucking country is weak. The people who live here are wea
k, pampered nobodies. If this was the other way around I would already have slit your throat you fucking little piss-stain. If your wife was still alive she would be—’
Before he could finish his sentence, Harris leapt forward, thrust his forearm into Saeed’s throat and pointed the tip of the knife at his eye. As Saeed struggled for breath, he still managed a smirk as the two men locked eyes. After what seemed like a lifetime, Harris let go of his throat, stood up, and threw the knife away.
‘Armed response will be here any minute,’ he said, quietly.
‘Seven minutes to be precise,’ interrupted the Host.
‘How the hell does he know that?’ asked Fowler, as he and Brooks stared at each other in slight bewilderment. Brooks shrugged her shoulders.
Harris continued, somewhat taken aback. ‘They will be here soon and, thanks to this lot, whoever the hell they are, we have your little confession on record. This is what separates people like me from people like you.’
He turned to walk away but his path was blocked by the goons.
‘Sorry, Pete,’ said the Host, ‘unfortunately we can’t just let you leave.’
He pulled out a gun and aimed it at the back of Harris’ head. Just as the words came out, a loud clatter in the corner of the building distracted everyone’s attention. Seizing his chance, Harris spun his arm around, knocking the gun away from his face, then grabbed the Host’s arm and kneed him in the chest.
Back in the office, the screen went black as the transmission cut.
‘What the fuck is going on? Was that our boys going in?’ said Fowler, clicking at various windows and links, trying to retrieve the feed.
‘I hope so,’ replied Brooks, as she went and sat back at her desk, taking a large swig of water.
WHEN THE GUNFIRE STARTED, Harris ran and jumped behind a large pile of pallets. The Host, reeling from the blow, was then struck by shots in the shoulder and stomach. He turned, ran in the direction of Harris, and was shot again in the back. As he fell feet away from the pallets, Harris ran out, grabbed the Host by the arms, and dragged him to safety behind the makeshift barricade.
‘They’re early,’ spluttered the Host.
Harris looked up to see the two goons get riddled with bullets, blood and scraps of their red tracksuits flying through the air until finally they slumped in a heap on the floor.
Two men strode out of the darkness and stood in front of Anwar.
Harris struggled to regain his breath, before finally quietly replying, ‘I don’t think that’s the police.’
42
The man stood in front of Anwar, aiming a small machine gun directly at his head.
‘Hello, Saeed, my brother,’ said the man, as he peeled off his balaclava.
The sound of his voice made Anwar sit up and shift nervously in the chair as much as the restraints would allow. Behind him stood another, larger man, weapon slung over his shoulder, unsheathing a large knife.
‘Aleksander,’ Anwar laughed, nervously. ‘My friend. Thank god you are here. Untie me quick. The—’
The butt of the machine gun struck him on the side of the jaw before he could finish the sentence.
‘You think we are here to save you?’ laughed Aleksander.
‘How did you know I was here?’
‘That stupid little whore who you let escape after you left us for dead, Daisy or whatever the fuck her name was. She contacted us and told us that we could find you here. I told you not to do something you would regret, you pathetic little piece of shit. Now, we are going to make you realise your mistake.’
‘Come on, brother,’ begged Anwar, nervously. ‘It was just business. Let me go. The drugs, the house, the girls, I’ll give you the lot.’
Aleksander took the knife from Janusz and held it to Anwar’s throat. ‘I already have them.’
Harris watched through the cracks in the pallet. He had to do something. As he went to make a run towards the men, a hand grabbed his top and pulled him back.
‘Don’t do it,’ said the Host. ‘Let them take care of him.’
Harris struggled to free himself but the fatigue stopped him. The Host held him tight and he looked up to see Aleksander slowly plunge the knife, point-first, into Saeed’s neck. Saeed convulsed backwards and forwards as the blood frothed up in his mouth and he began to suffocate. Aleksander took a step back, spraying Saeed’s body with bullets until, finally, his head slumped forward as the last breath left his body.
The two men stood looking at Saeed for a short while before spitting on his body and turning to leave. Just then, a small black projectile landed between the two men and the chair. Aleksander and Janusz looked at each other but, before either could react, a blinding flash and deafeningly intense bang knocked them both off their feet.
Harris rubbed his eyes, his ears ringing after the explosion, and through the smoke he could see beams of light tracing around the area, searching for their targets. A dozen figures clad in black and carrying machine guns ran into the room. As Aleksander and Janusz began firing their weapons, they were picked off by precision shots to the head and fell to the floor. The smoke started to clear and, briefly, there was silence. The men fanned out and began scouring the room.
Harris looked down at the Host, who was lying on his back, struggling to breathe. Harris knelt beside him and propped his head up on a folded-up sheet. Taking a deep breath, he grabbed the top of the clown mask and slowly removed it.
Eric stared up at him, coughing as fluid accumulated at the back of his throat.
‘First time,’ he spluttered. ‘First time I take on Host duties and I fucking get shot. I only did it because that wanker killed my brother. What are the chances?’
‘Who are you?’ said Harris, grabbing Eric by the jaw.
Eric’s stare penetrated deep into Harris’ eyes. ‘I am the Righteous.’
Harris let out a small laugh as Eric’s eyes closed and his head rolled to the side. Harris stayed kneeling in silence for a few moments longer, as if in deep contemplation, before feeling the barrel of a gun in his spine.
‘Get up. Get the fuck up,’ shouted the officer. ‘Hands behind your head and move away from the body.’
43
‘Ladies and gentlemen of the press,’ began Detective Chief Inspector Smith. ‘I can confirm the following details of the incident which took place here. At around nine a.m. this morning, an officer of the Metropolitan Police Cyber Crime Unit infiltrated this building behind me and was able to smash an international crime ring involved in illegal broadcasts taking place on the so-called “dark web”. The sophisticated operation involved the capture and torture of criminals, allowing viewers to bid for the chance to take part. The group had been closely monitored by our team and I can confirm that the group was headed and bankrolled by two Polish criminals, Janusz Kaczmarek and Aleksander Nowak. They were aided in the U.K. by two former British security service agents, who will at this moment remain nameless. Along with a number of other associates of Eastern European origin, these armed and dangerous individuals were removed by our armed response unit during the filming of one of these despicable shows.
‘Their latest victim, who is yet to be positively identified, was also found at the premises, but unfortunately we were unable to save his life. We were able to rescue another civilian who appears to have been caught up in their activities and we will be taking him for questioning. I can also confirm that none of our officers were injured in the assault. We consider this to be a hugely successful operation that has brought about not only the end of a dangerous group of individuals, but also of a sinister underground show where people were murdered for fun. We will be making further announcements as and when necessary. That is all.’
Smith smiled and walked away. Amidst the cacophony of questions and shouts ringing in his ears, he heard his phone ring in his jacket pocket.
‘Yes?’ he said.
‘Nice little speech, Detective Chief Inspector, although I do wish you would use the phrase “deep web”
instead of “dark web”. It makes us sound like a bunch of common psychopaths.’
‘Surely that’s a good thing? Makes the bunch of bullshit I just spouted about the Polish seem more believable.’
‘I do hope so, Smith, for your sake. It was one huge mistake sending that video in to your colleagues.’
Smith went white. ‘What?’ he stammered. ‘What makes you think that was me?’
‘I’m surprised you even feel the need to ask. You knew full well what would happen, that it would prompt an investigation. Did you really believe that you could threaten us like that? That we’d just leave our most valuable asset alone?’
‘Fuck you,’ replied Smith. ‘I don’t have to listen to—’
‘Just make sure that this case is wound up as water-tight as possible. We’ll leave our contact in place to keep an eye on you. I would hate to have to release details of the contents of your hard drive, or your bank account, before you’ve managed to sign this one off.’
‘Look,’ he said, as firmly as he could without being heard, ‘I’ve done what I agreed, at great personal risk, I might add. You have to keep your end of – oh fuck.’ The line had gone dead.
ALISTAIR ENDED the call and placed his phone on the white leather arm of the seat. Jarvis snapped down the lid of the laptop and placed it in the central console of the back seat of the limousine.
‘Well, that seems to have gone better than we could have planned,’ said Jarvis.
‘Are you sure that they won’t be able to trace any of Eric and Stan’s recent activity back to us?’ asked Gilbert, from across the table.
‘As sure as we ever are about anything,’ replied Jarvis. ‘By their nature, they lived their whole lives off radar. There’s no paper trail, nothing linking them back to us.’
‘So that’s it then,’ said Alistair. ‘Probably best if we all lay low for a while. It is a crying shame about Eric and Stan, but they knew the game. Apart from that, I think everyone had the outcome that they wanted. Plus, it would appear that we owe a huge debt of gratitude to this brave young lady. It was a truly amazing stroke of genius to involve Mister Anwar’s old associates. Although it did somewhat scupper our original plans.’