“Before we die?” Daniel enquired.
“Before we die.”
Spontaneously all four raised their glasses and made the toast.
“Before we die!”
Lynne Daniel took O’Shea, perhaps stereotypically, on a tour of her London home. It was quietly sophisticated, much like its owner.
“He’s rather lovely, Carrie. You should pounce whilst you can. John tells me he’s available.”
It took O’Shea by surprise. But she went with the moment.
“Trust me Lynne, I’m trying. Events keep getting in the way.”
Daniel and Cade were doing their level best to wash away the taste of the French wine with something from north of the border. Clashing his glass against Cade’s, Daniel spoke.
“I like what I see, Jack. We need you to stay. I’ve got a God-awful feeling about this operation. What they did to that girl was…bloody terrible, but I can’t help wondering what next. Your thoughts?”
What they had done to Nikolina Petrov – foreign intelligence asset or not was as close to pure evil as he had ever seen or read about in a book. To kill her was one thing, to strap her naked graffiti-daubed body to a roughly made wooden frame and sink her into the all-consuming mud of the River Thames was another. Waiting for the tide to slowly and deliberately drown her had stepped over the border of malevolent and into the pit of perdition itself.
“My thoughts echo yours, boss. They really do. I cannot erase what they did to her, ever. But I have to focus on the now. When you have success with twenty quid here and thirty there then you up the ante, all criminals become greedy, and I have the same feeling as you. I just wish I knew what that bloody feeling was.”
“Bank job?”
“No, I don’t think so sir…”
“Call me John.”
“I don’t think so…John. It’s not their territory. We’ve seen some local machismo and posturing from the Albanians, but even they stick to what they do best. Again, I think their day is yet to come. Perhaps look at them again in five to ten years. There’s a piece of the jigsaw we are missing.”
Cade’s glass was refilled.
“Do what you can, my friend, it’s actually all you can do. Now, tell me about your plans for New Zealand. Lynne and I harbour a desire to retire there, set up a small boutique restaurant on the Pacific coast too. Small world, isn’t it? I’ve only got a few more years to go. Lynne has kiwi heritage – you couldn’t have said a finer thing about the wine, you smooth-talking bastard!”
They were joined by the two women, fresh from their overly lengthy tour.
“Join us, Carrie. Grab a glass. Let us raise another toast.”
They all stood as Daniel held his again freshly topped up crystal vessel aloft.
“To distant lands and closer relationships!”
In the taxi back to O’Shea’s flat, Cade found himself holding her hand. She was leaning into him. It was all she actually needed. All she really wanted.
In the network of streets in the boroughs, including and surrounding hers, all was quiet.
The taxi pulled up outside the flat, Cade tried to shrug off the effects of the Macallan as he settled the bill and looked across the narrow street to see O’Shea’s hand beckoning from the half-opened door. Her index finger was clearly visible, as were her knickers that hung provocatively off her wrist.
The driver couldn’t help but grin as he offered the change to Cade’s twenty pound note.
“Looks like you are in for a rough night squire. Look after yourself. Don’t forget to use protection!”
The doors locked as the quintessential cab turned left and headed back towards the feeding grounds that made ‘The Knowledge’ such a lucrative trade.
He had barely made it through the door when he was accosted by the intoxicating and intoxicated O’Shea. She was trying, as drunken people do, to suppress her giggles. As naked as the day she was born, she looked wonderful through Cade’s rapidly hazy vision. He wished that Daniel had not been quite so generous with the malt.
“Come on, Cade. Tell me it’s not what you want? Right here, right now.”
“For the love of God woman, keep the noise down, you’ll wake the dead and I think you’d sleep with them too right now.”
She rammed her palm against her mouth, desperately trying to block her schoolgirl giggles.
“Last one upstairs is a fairy!”
She ran, leaving Cade to pursue her, grabbing her abandoned clothes as he cleared the staircase to heaven. He had the best view in the house.
By the time he reached her flat, the alcohol had impacted upon both of them. Cade would claim altitude as a corroborative factor at a later stage. It felt as if he were climbing the hazardous north-west route of his own sexual Everest.
He was more affected than his female companion, who was clearly ready for anything. Anyone, in fact. It didn’t have to be Cade – but it helped.
As he pushed her door closed, she was pulling off his shirt, buttons exploded across the room and his trousers hit the ground as she pulled him on top of her. The roguish driver’s words were ringing in his ears, but it was too late. She guided him inside her and was very much in control. There was no heading back to base camp now.
He woke the next morning, his head laying comfortably on her chest.
“Good morning Sir, is there anything you would like me to take down for you as evidence?” She giggled.
Without raising his head he sealed his lips over her breast and contrary to what she expected him to do he blew out, his mouth creating a youthful sound, resonating on her smooth skin.
It shocked her, but she laughed again. Grabbing a pillow, she tried to smother him. He gave in far too easily, she felt, but just as she had the apparent upper-hand he launched his counter-attack.
He grabbed her hips and moved his hands up a notch and began to tickle her vigorously. How did he know? Had someone told him that she was so incredibly sensitive, just there?
She twisted and turned until she was able to sit astride him. She grabbed handfuls of his chest, pulling the hairs as she did so. Her smile was captivating. Although he had nothing to act as a point of reference he felt somehow that she had not been this happy for a very long time.
He didn’t resist. Looking into her eyes he found somebody who he could not only trust but also someone who he genuinely found attractive. Penny, the relatively recently estranged Mrs Cade was pretty – that was undeniable and many men could vouch for that. Carrie was striking, smart and intelligent. And the two, he decided, as she sat on top of him, naked and visibly aroused, were entirely different beings.
Her hips were soon moving in time with his.
They stared intently at one another and spoke at exactly the same time.
“We…are going to be…very…late.”
They walked into the office together, O’Shea was holding a take away coffee, sipping upon its still-hot contents. They were joined by Roberts.
“All right, you two. You look like you’ve been up all night.”
“Not at all, Jason. I’ve always been up as early as possible.”
The quip wasn’t lost on Roberts.
“So, what’s happened in the world of Metropolitan crime since we last left this building Jas?”
“Honestly, Jack? Nothing. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Zambala!”
“Zambala?”
“I’m not sure Jack, I might have just made that one up.”
He smiled, some light relief was needed all around. It had been such a comparatively short time since the team had been knee-deep in chaos and he was aware of the mid-term effect on them; losing Nikolina was bad enough, but to never see Wood again was for some too much to comprehend. Even the arrogant and vaguely misogynistic Wood was better than none at all. His loss was a huge and impactive factor upon the current mental state of the men and women who had been bound together under Roberts’ guidance.
O’Shea spoke next.
“Any news on Nikolina’s funeral?”
Roberts offered a non-committal, “Honestly Carrie, I’m not sure. But if there is one, we will of course attend. We’ve reported her death to the Bulgarian embassy; it’s protocol. They say she has no known family, but Jack mentioned that she had a daughter. God only knows where she might be. We know Niko’s parents are both dead. As for her ‘partner’, well, we all know who he is and why we won’t be in a hurry to alert him, don’t we? Quite where he is, only the man upstairs seems to know.”
He had done that thing with the fingers of both hands as he mentioned the word partner.
The team gathered around the briefing room once more. Going over what they knew, and just as importantly, what they didn’t. Daniel, looking slightly flaky, had joined them.
“Good morning team, apologies for my tardiness. I had a meeting with a Scotsman last night. Got a bit messy.” He need say no more.
“Boss. We are just re-capping.”
“Good, but it seems to me that we are doing a lot of re-capping and not a lot of intelligence collection. Let’s get a proper plan written up and start examining what ifs, so whats, and wheres?’
They all nodded as Roberts’ phone started to rumble on the tabletop.
For nearly ten minutes he appeared to listen more than talk. Occasionally he would add a few words, a couple of questions. And then, after saying goodbye with a furrowed brow, he switched the phone off.
Daniel looked at him quizzically.
“OK?”
“Yes boss, well yes and no. That was the BBC. Panorama to be precise. They want to ride along with us to examine the growing impact of attacks upon ATMs – how cybercrime is affecting the great British public and to get our comment on what they are calling the Great Trained Robbery. They are going to air in a few weeks with a documentary about organised crime on the streets of London and how the victim is almost entirely unaware, how the banks are trying to redistribute the cost, and how ultimately this is going to impact upon the nation’s financial stability. They say they’ve already spoken to someone at the Yard.”
Daniel winced at the headline. He’d heard worse, but surely they could have come up with something a little more inventive? The tabloids could do better, and he hated them.
Roberts continued. “They say they have some source information to support that what we are seeing is the second wave of attacks, that things are escalating quickly, that what we have been investigating is the twenty percent of the eighty that is actually happening.”
Daniel scratched the back of his head – it was an automatic movement, pointless, but it enabled him a second to think.
“But have we really had that many Jason? Aren’t we in danger of opening the floodgates here?”
Two questions, one answer. And it was O’Shea who answered them both, handing out some warm photocopies as she spoke.
“I can resolve that boss. We’ve been doing some background analysis over the last few days and the results are startling. Cynthia can talk to the figures if you need proof. Let them ride along. I don’t think it will make any difference to our crime stats. If anything, we might be able to be, dare I say it? Pro-active.”
It was one of the many new buzz words floating around the Yard, rumour had it that a lot of the junior staff were already playing ‘Management Bingo’ – in one meeting a young officer was waiting for ‘Blue Sky Thinking’ for a full house, but was pipped at the post by a colleague who managed to win the game, silently and to the envy of his colleagues with ‘helicopter overview’.
“You do dare say it Miss O’Shea. And by the way, thanks for your company last night.”
“Boss, you tiger!” said a passing detective. Earning himself a wry smile and a rainy morning’s work as opposed to a size ten in his nether regions.
“I’ll leave Miss O’Shea to deal with that remark. Do yourself a favour? Before she puts you in hospital get yourself and the rest of the team out on the streets and start looking into each of these, start close to home and then cascade outwards. I want EVERY one of these branches visiting.”
He placed a sheet of A4 into the detective’s hand and then threw a few copies of the recent attack statistics across the table to the rest of the group.
Cade picked one up, scanned it slowly, blew an almost silent whistle and then spoke.
“A hundred and thirty occurrences. Is that right, Carrie?”
“If you mean is it too high? No, I suspect it’s too low, Jack. These are the local ones that people could be bothered to report. But already I’m picking up some chatter from the banks too. The devices are getting more sophisticated, and the banks are now more scared about their reputations than their losses. The stakes have been raised. Someone has turned up the heat and the losses are far greater than we realised. This is serious stuff, Interpol-type stuff, and it’s occurring under our noses.”
“Explain their losses, Carrie.” Cade was all ears, staring intently at her, purely business-like.
“Remember how you talked us through the Lebanese Loop method a while back? The metal tool that they use to trap cash? Then banks started to report that the odd note was failing to show up? Well, more recently customers are reporting that their cards were remaining in situ and now…”
“Go on…”
“Now the cards are being inserted into the hole in the wall, money is being requested and it is being delivered. The card is being returned and hey presto everyone is happy.”
Cade looked confused.
“So why the interest from the banks, the BBC?”
“Remember that kid you and Jason saw at the mortuary?”
He did. Vividly. His blue lips and maroon open wound were tangible.
“A BBC reporter, who ironically had money taken from her savings a few weeks ago, decided to follow up on the story. She was incensed by the theft from her account but more so about the murder which took place in the area that she lives.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Neither did the reporter at first, but the more she delved, the more she found out. She can prove the boy was involved. She had twenty pounds missing in one transaction. She reported it but the bank just refunded her without question. We were never informed. A close source told her over a drink that hers was the fiftieth such transaction – that week!”
“And?”
“And the following week at the same branch, her card took longer to return than normal. Already suspicious, she got down close to the machine and noticed a gap in the surround. A plastic frame had been added. The glue pads were losing their grip. A perfectly matched device had been attached to the machine and to the unwary it was completely legitimate. Until she peeled it back and saw some electronics strapped to the inside. She knew then that she had stumbled across something interesting, took a discreet photo, stuck the device back down and reported it to the bank, who asked politely, but firmly not to discuss it outside the branch. She was offered a complimentary cup of coffee and a free session with a financial advisor.”
“But she smelled the proverbial rat? They hadn’t got a clue about her work, I guess?”
“Indeed. Within five minutes the device was removed. But the most telling point of all, and she didn’t realise at the time, was that she saw him.”
“Who?”
“Our mystery boy. As she left the branch, she saw him. She knows now, of course, but what she saw she described as a startled rabbit. A boy in a man’s world. Working beyond his limits and to a journalist who had worked in some of the world’s worst places, among its worst people – he stood out like a…”
“Bulldog’s wedding tackle?”
“Yes, Jason, that. She walked after him, tried to approach him. He started to walk quickly, a man running from a woman. She considered it odd but kept pursuing him. She kept up with him too until a white van intervened, the cargo door opened and he was all but dragged in. It was on stolen plates. Anyway, another week passed and then five thousand disappeared from her savings within twenty-four hours. Now the bank was listening. She w
as refunded of course, but she also had the makings of a great story. She asked if she should report it to the police and was told it was pointless as we weren’t interested in financial crimes of this nature. That’s when she walked into the public counter downstairs and asked to speak to someone. I was free, so I did.”
It was Roberts, again. “OK, I’m hearing all of this, so what did you tell her?”
“I told her we would be interested in anything she dredged up, but that for now it wasn’t a significant problem. I gave her my card, and I took hers. I didn’t think she would be in touch. I’m sorry if I’ve done wrong.”
Roberts asked a straight question. “Julia Fleming?”
“Yes.”
“Then we’ve both had the pleasure. Turns out she’s been doing more dredging than a Thames silt shifter Carrie. She’s identified the young lad, obviously slipped someone somewhere some money and managed to trace the kid back to his family in Romania. She just told me that she travelled there to meet them. Turns out he had hope. A rare series of opportunities had fallen unexpectedly at his feet after he had been spending a lot of time surfing the internet. He was offered a chance to travel the world and work in the financial sector. At least that’s what he was told. He travelled to England, legitimately, met a girl, all too conveniently in a pub, fell in love and soon became embroiled in her circle of friends and activities.”
Cade nodded, adding emphasis to his interest. O’Shea and Daniel were also listening in, the latter sipping on his second black coffee of the morning.
“Educated and from a decent family, the lucky lad had soon been blinded by the appeal of a voracious, slightly older lover who swiftly led him down a path previously unseen. A lamb, if you like, to the slaughter. She even convinced him to have a tattoo. The same one that all of her friends had; blue, inside the right wrist.”
Seven Degress (The Seventh Wave Trilogy Book 2) Page 5