The Phoenix Series Books 10-12 (The Phoenix Series Box Set)

by Ted Tayler

  “Fingers of a hand?” asked Dougal. “Scrape away the earth above that. Let’s find the rest of the arm.”

  Orion called a halt when an arm, ribcage and hip bone became visible.

  “Time to notify the police,” he said, “have either of you got a dog?”

  “Take your pick,” said Dougal, as a show of hands revealed three dog owners.

  “Tell them, your dog was off the leash enjoying a run and must have scratched away at the earth. You called out, but by the time you found him, he’d unearthed the bones. You couldn’t stop yourself and carried on until you were certain it was a skeleton.”

  “No problem,” said the agent with the most curious dog.

  “That’s it for us then, Orion?” asked Dougal.

  “The police will take it from here,” said Orion, “they’ll have heard of Fiona’s disappearance. It won’t take them long to identify these remains. That will implicate Sir James, and his new wife will avoid the prospect of being physically abused.”

  The men returned to the van and set off back to Edinburgh

  “Short but sweet,” said Orion, “I thought I might be up here a while. If you drop me back at Haymarket, I’ll catch the late train home to Bath.”

  “I wish our missions were always this easy,” said Dougal.

  “I’d ask you to elaborate,” said Orion, “but you Olympus people are tight-lipped.”

  They spent the rest of the journey in silence. At Haymarket, Orion shook hands with the four men, and with a brief nod, they got back in the van and left.

  *****

  Monday, 27th to Friday 31st October 2014

  Orion arrived at Larcombe to start a new week. Hayden Vincent had been pleased with his Scottish mission. When he handed him the file of new cases on Friday afternoon, he told Orion an arrest was imminent.

  While he and Erica watched the news on Sunday evening, they saw a handcuffed Sir James Grant-Nicholls, captain of industry, hustled into the back of a police car under a blanket. The arrest was said to be regarding the disappearance of his wife Fiona, and the discovery of a body in the grounds of the house they shared.

  In the main house, Athena opened the morning meeting with an update on the news.

  “I called Aphrodite last evening,” she told the others, “she was devastated. I explained about the domestic abuse Fiona suffered throughout their marriage. In time, she will come to realise she may have had a lucky escape. For now, she’s heartbroken.”

  “To think I had Heracles pegged as one of the good guys,” said Phoenix. “He fooled me.”

  “I called Zeus this morning,” said Athena, “we are to meet again in early January. I told him we needed to select two new names to bring our complement up to twelve, not one as we thought. He suggested one male, one female.”

  “Two women would balance the Gods at six apiece, I take it?” asked Rusty.

  “There were three candidates listed at the last meeting, two men and one woman,” said Athena, “we haven’t vetted them yet. We may need more candidates by January.”

  “We must choose the best two candidates from the three proposed,” said Phoenix, “that’s the only choice.”

  “If we can return to our agenda,” said Athena, “what have you learned, Henry?”

  “Julian Kneiss, known as JK, the make-up artist was picked up in London on Friday. He was blindfolded and brought to the ice-house. I questioned him for two hours on Saturday afternoon. I have the names of the three men for whom he prepared the prosthetics and wigs. They are Albanians, from Tirana, and have been living in the UK for several years. Rusty and Phoenix worked on a plan of action in the orangery yesterday morning.”

  “Did we release Kneiss?” asked Minos.

  “Of course,” said Henry, “we’re not barbarians. We returned him to Pimlico late last night.”

  “What do we plan to do with these jewel thieves?” asked Alastor.

  “We have to find them first,” said Rusty. “We only know their names and their criminal records in their own country. We’re still searching.”

  “I’ve always maintained the Grid has an agenda,” said Phoenix. “One that includes a super crime to make the jewel robbery look tiny. These men are in hiding at present and will only surface when they are due to strike. Next weekend is crucial. Friday night is Halloween. If they favour disguises, then they will be hard to spot. Giles is helping us in the search in the meantime. We can only wait and hope.”

  “Giles, what else have you been monitoring?” asked Athena.

  “Another drone passed over the estate last night around midnight. We did not attempt to disable it. It was clear from its path they targeted the ice-house. The drone was more sophisticated than the one used the previous Sunday. This one carried thermal imaging cameras.”

  “The Grid may have been able to determine numbers of people in the stable block, but they ignored the other outbuildings and the main house,” said Artemis. “That’s significant.”

  “Exactly,” said Henry, “the ice-house has a protective shield which masks our underground activities. The shield hampers any attempt to gauge our numbers there.”

  “Good,” said Athena.

  “Or worse,” said Phoenix, “they may think our defences weak, and they can attack us at will.”

  *****

  In London, Simon Gonzalez was at work on the dark web. Last night’s foray with the drone revealed nothing. Whatever that odd mound was it held no secrets, and the Olympus defence systems didn’t appear to be as vigilant in hours of darkness.

  His first task after he met with Tyrone had been to use the charity registration number he gathered. He hacked into the Charity Commission’s files to extract everything they held on the Olympus Project. He took seconds to locate the Olympus website.

  The Project set it up in 2007. Erebus hadn’t been keen, but Athena and Alastor convinced him a modest site added credibility to the claim they were a charitable organisation. The paperwork Gonzo retrieved from the Commissioners supported that view. Tyrone believed there was much more information hidden from public view.

  Hacking into the administration area at Larcombe proved simple as predicted. Gonzo was soon studying a management structure. There were eight managers. The titles of the positions they held were vague.

  Of these eight, three were Trustees, whose names appeared on the website and every Charity Commission report.

  Annabelle Grace Fox-Bailey (Chief Executive Officer);

  Sir Julian Langford, (Executive Director);

  Michael James Purvis (Chief Financial Officer).

  None of the other managers appeared in any document Gonzo found. There was no record of their pay either, and yet their charity accounts received a clean audit report every year. As for the others who lived there, he found records for hundreds of men and women who had passed through Larcombe.

  Every piece of paper supported the public view that the charity was a terrific asset to service personnel returning from war zones with PTSD.

  Athena, Minos, or Alastor could have saved Gonzo a headache. Everything tallied with how the world perceived Olympus. The real accounts lay in the ice-house, deep in the security systems that Giles and Artemis operated. Erebus wouldn’t have had it any other way.

  Gonzo scratched his head. There was nothing for it. He couldn’t go back to Tyrone and say he’d failed. He must dig deeper. Was there another system somewhere at Larcombe? Could that be what the odd-shaped mound was hiding? It was time to launch an all-out cyber-attack.

  Wednesday 29th October 2014

  Security had always been the watchword for Erebus. The man who envisaged the Olympus Project understood the need for its presence to be felt rather than seen.

  When Simon Gonzalez accessed the data files in the administration area of the main building, Giles was alerted in the ice-house. He understood the limited value of such data, so he remained patient. Giles sat and watched. He could learn a lot from how the hacker operated. It would identify his methods
and enable him to establish a signature.

  This knowledge would then add to the Olympus security shield. If Gonzo tried to attack the main computers, he opened himself up to a reciprocal attack. Giles and Artemis could discover where the attack emanated, without Gonzo realising he had played with fire.

  Patience is a virtue. The attack came at eleven o’clock at night.

  Giles had finished his shift and was asleep next to Maria Elena in the stable block when the call came. He rushed back underground.

  The system was holding firm. Like a game of chess, as the hacker made a move, the system countered it. The step was far from being defensive. Giles knew minute by minute the hacker was getting identified. If the identity had been in the form of an image, Giles would have seen an identikit picture of his opponent form on the screen in front of him. At three-fifteen the game ended. The attack had failed, and on the printer next to him, Giles watched as it revealed the source of the attack.

  “Got you,” he said. It was time to get another Olympus agent out of bed. Why should he have all the fun?

  Rusty Scott joined Giles in the ice-house.

  “This is who has been causing us the problems on behalf of the Grid,” said Giles.

  He handed Rusty a name and address.

  “Simon Gonzalez, twenty-four years old, former Google employee. It seems I’m off to Lewisham in the morning to collect a computer nerd.”

  “As soon as, Rusty,” said Giles, “take him straight to Henry on Level 3, We need to learn everything we can from Gonzalez. He must know things about the Grid, and perhaps about that next big robbery.”

  Thursday, 30th October 2014

  Bridie Carragher started another day doing what she did best. The Wishing Well café on Kilburn High Road was a magnet for customers who couldn’t give a toss about their waistline. People who enjoyed generous portions, whether from her all-day breakfasts, her snacks, or her legendary cakes.

  Regular clients visited the café at different times during the day to sample all three, washed down with good-sized mugs of tea or coffee. The place was always busy, and the gossip-mill made an excellent trade.

  This morning, Wayne Sangster took his usual chair. To watch his partner at work, and to keep his ears open for a hint of business. The lone Triple S investigator was ready to help if required. There had been a lot of gossip on the jewellery robbery five miles up the road, three weeks ago now.

  They never arrested anybody for that. Nobody was even in the frame. Around here, it wasn’t uncommon to hear of things that had fallen off the back of a lorry turning up for sale. Bridie warned Wayne that it was cigarettes, dodgy designer watches, and perfume. She didn’t hold with anyone dealing drugs in her café, so they gave it a wide berth.

  As he scanned the newspaper and took a sip of his steaming-hot coffee, Wayne caught a snatch of a conversation behind him. A foreign accent, Eastern European. He glanced at the mirror on the end wall. A pair of men sat at a window table. One was wiping up the last scraps of his runny egg yolk with a piece of toast. The guy opposite him only drank tea. A newspaper lay folded on the table between them.

  The tea drinker lifted the paper to reveal what was underneath. The man opposite him choked. Wayne was too far away to tell what he had seen, but it hadn’t been a cartoon or a Page Three model. He was itching to find out. The conversation had ended; the tea drinker was unsuccessful. His potential buyer wasn’t interested. Whatever it was, it must have been too costly for his pocket.

  Wayne’s ex-copper’s nose twitched. He smelled money. Could this have something to do with that robbery? Did that guy try to off-load a pricey bit of bling once stored away in someone’s safe-deposit box in Hatton Garden?

  He left his coffee on the counter, and as the door closed on the seller, he said goodbye to Bridie and followed him.

  Januz Goga wondered where to try next. This necklace burnt a hole in his coat pocket. Aleks said it was worth five million in a posh Mayfair boutique; a fence would take it for a pittance. Januz had wanted the piece for himself. Ndrita had been his girlfriend for six weeks before the robbery. Januz hoped the necklace convinced her to move in with him. Ndrita took one look at it. She knew he had stolen it and threw it back in his face. He heard language from her he never expected. They had broken up that night.

  Now, Januz would take ten thousand for it. To get rid of it before Aleks discovered he had brought an identifiable item from the bank against his wishes.

  Wayne followed unnoticed at first. Januz was careless; his mind distracted by the necklace and the loss of his girlfriend. Januz stopped at a crossroads. Which way should he turn? Who could he ask for help? Aleks and Zamir had taught him what to do to stay safe. His instincts took over. As he moved further up the High Road, Januz realised he had a tail. The man looked like a cop. The big guy sat at the counter in the café.

  He phoned Zamir.

  “Are you busy? Can you pick me up? I’ll be in the Wishing Well. Do you know it?”

  Zamir agreed to collect him in fifteen minutes. Januz turned and headed back the way he had come. Wayne stood fifty yards away on the opposite side of the road. He decided to make a phone call too, in case the guy thought he was following him. He rang his old boss.

  “I may have a lead on that jewellery robbery, boss,” he said.

  “Are you serious, Wayne? Shouldn’t you be telling the police?” said Orion,

  “I thought the people you’re working for might be interested,” said Wayne. “The police up here aren’t making any headway.”

  “Wayne, call it in, mate,” said Orion, “Stick to missing persons and security advice. That could be dangerous.”

  “Fair enough, boss. I’ll give you a ring next week, maybe.” Wayne ended the call as the tea drinker passed by on the other side.

  Januz reached the café and went inside. Bridie came over to take his order.

  “Are you ready to eat now? I saw you in here earlier.”

  Januz shook his head.

  “Tea, please,” he said.

  They both looked up as the doorbell rang; Wayne was back. The two men stared at one another; Bridie hugged her partner and kissed him on the cheek.

  “You can’t keep away from me, can you?” she said, “pop upstairs to your office. I’ll bring you a meal once I’ve sorted this gentleman out.”

  Wayne went upstairs to the flat. If that was one of the robbers, he knew about him and Bridie now. It could mean trouble.

  Downstairs, Bridie took the mug of tea to Januz.

  “That man has an office upstairs?” he asked.

  “Triple S, he runs a security firm,” said Bridie, “it’s not a proper office. We live together.”

  Bridie then returned to her cooking. Zamir entered the café and nodded to Januz, who got up and left at once.

  “Why did you need me to get you?” asked Zamir.

  “I was followed from that café by a fat guy who runs a security firm upstairs. He may have seen me trying to sell a piece of jewellery.”

  “You fool,” said Zamir, “don’t tell me you carried a piece out despite what Aleks warned.”

  “It was for Ndrita, but she chucked me,” said Januz.

  “Throw it in a skip, in the river. Get rid of it today. Aleks has heard the next job must be tomorrow night.”

  “What do we do with the guy who saw me?” asked Januz.

  “We sort it ourselves. Aleks can never find out, do you understand?”

  Januz nodded.

  *****

  Henry Case was entertaining Simon Gonzalez on Level 3 of the ice-house. Rusty had collected him from Lewisham and returned to Larcombe by late-morning. Henry passed the afternoon talking with the computer hacker.

  To Simon, it was a friendly conversation. He was asked his motives for trying to hack into the charity’s systems. Why was he interested in the rehabilitation of the nation’s servicemen? Didn’t people such as him play war games, or use their skills for financial gain?

  Simon found it easy to ta
lk to the man. That was odd because he had never been a friendly individual. He protested at getting dragged from his bed by a red-headed giant and bundled into a van with his hands tied. This man waved a dismissive hand and told him not to worry. Then they shared a pot of coffee. He even offered him biscuits.

  Henry was a patient interrogator; this Gonzalez character would tell him everything before tonight. The drugged coffee was working its magic.

  *****

  Friday, 31st October 2014

  The media’s attention focussed on Westminster. Public outcry over the railway station bombings was not abating. People saw terrorists everywhere, and the Muslim population suffered as a result. It was irrational. A tiny minority was responsible for the attacks, but that did not dissuade the mobs in the streets.

  The government might have managed that situation if it was the only problem. The in-fighting between organised crime gangs and the slaughter of over twenty people left many fearing for their safety. There seemed to be little progress in combating organised crime.

  Then there was the jewel robbery. Only a week ago, in one of the biggest hauls recorded in the UK, a gang had stolen between forty and fifty million pounds worth of cash and gems. The police had spent hundreds of hours hunting for clues but getting nowhere.

  The government was under pressure. In the media, the opposition parties received as much criticism as those in power. The public had lost confidence in the authorities’ ability to keep law and order.

  At Larcombe, Athena opened the morning meeting.

  “Events in the capital could turn nasty,” said Minos. “Whether or not the Home Secretary survives this, is debatable.”

  “You reap what you sow,” said Rusty, “we’ve taken too many steps backwards with this softly, softly approach to policing. This was inevitable.”

  “We will keep a close eye on how it develops,” said Athena, “but we must carry on with Olympus matters now. What have you to tell us, Henry?”