The Pulsar Files, page 13
part #1 of Matt Flynn Series
He could say, ‘no’ or ‘not now’ but she would be around the house for the rest of the afternoon and it wouldn’t be a smart move to upset her. ‘Sure.’
She held something up, cream with yellow flowers splashed over it, tightly wrapped in cellophane.
‘You got me. What is it?’
‘A new tablecloth.’
She reached into her bag and pulled out another similarly-wrapped item.
‘By a process of deduction, I suspect new tablemats to match the tablecloth.’
‘Very good darling, you’re learning.’
He finished making coffee and poured it into two mugs. ‘I’m going back to sit at the table, will I leave your mug here?’
‘No, I’ll come over and join you.’
He let out a silent groan but he told himself it was only for a couple more days.
He sat down, opened his laptop and spotted an email from Sikander, their in-house information and computer guru. It wasn’t information about Chris’s location as he hoped, but details of the Oxford car incident in which Chris and reporter Louise Walker had been involved.
After a few minutes he called to Emma. ‘Em, take a look at this, will you? You’ve got more experience with RTAs than me.’
‘What is it?’ she said walking over.
‘Photographs of a traffic accident in Oxford and the local traffic cop’s report.’
She looked carefully at the photographs and skimmed through the report. ‘I wouldn’t call it an accident. It looks like there’s no damage to any cars or anyone injured.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘Look at the picture of the white van and the Corsa.’
‘Okay.’
‘Look at the gap between them, it’s small but still a gap.’
‘Maybe the car bounced off the van when they collided.’
‘This is why I don’t think you can call it an accident. You see, the material at the front of most cars is polycarbonate, sometimes with a bit of carbon fibre thrown in for strength. It’s designed to absorb the energy of an impact during a smash. As a result, bumpers, as they used to be called, crack, split and fall to bits in a collision. Hence all the pieces of black plastic you see at the side of a road even after a minor RTA.’
‘So, you think the front of the Corsa should be showing some damage if it hit the van?’
‘Yep, if it bounced so far backwards, there wouldn’t be much left of the front of the car, it would be in the road.’
‘In which case, the van must have pulled out in front and the car stopped in time.’
‘Yeah, it’s what we do if we’re coming out a side street and the target is on the main road. We pull across the front of their vehicle to make them brake, a ‘hard-stop’ we call it. It can get a bit hairy if the target driver is not paying attention, or the occupants are desperate to escape and decide to ram us. Most of the time the shock of a vehicle pulling in front of them is enough to make them stop.’
‘Ok, we agree it doesn’t look like an accident, more like a ‘hard-stop’. Would the Met or Oxford Police use a van like this one?’ Matt asked.
‘No way. If we look too much like a bunch of painters and decorators the criminals might pull out guns and shoot us. If they realise it’s the police, they’ll think twice as they know it’s not a good idea to shoot cops and we’re likely to be armed as well.’
‘In which case, it wasn’t the police.’
‘Do we know anything about the occupants of the Corsa, or the van?’
‘We know Chris Anderson and Louise Walker were in the Corsa, but they’re still trying to trace the owner of the van.’
Emma’s phone rang. ‘Morning sir, yes I’m good,’ she said, getting up and walking into the kitchen.
Matt carried on working. A few minutes later he put the car incident to one side. It looked to him just as Emma had said, a hard-stop. Questions about who the attackers might be and what they wanted could wait. What he wanted to know was what happened to Chris Anderson and Louise Walker; did the men in the van kidnap them or did they escape? He believed the latter given the presence of both vehicles and Chris’s call to Kevin, but he needed confirmation.
He had tried calling Chris’s mobile without result until one time it was answered, confusingly, by Kevin. In their panic to flee after the altercation, Chris had left his phone in his car, the same car Kevin was driving back from the police compound; another dead end.
His email pinged, delivering another piece of the puzzle from Sikander. This time, a profile of Louise Walker. The office information guru wrote: ‘Easy-peasy this one. Her newspaper publishes loads about their journalists and she’s active on social media. Even you could find this out, Matt. Then again, maybe not. See ya!’
He had to hand it to Siki, the attachments looked comprehensive: photographs, bio of early school life, her current job, and copies of articles written by her. After a degree in English from Glasgow University, she started working as a reporter at The Herald before moving to The Scotsman. Five years later, one of the nationals came calling and she relocated to London.
He started reading one of Louise’s articles when Emma burst in.
‘That was Tony Quigley. Jacko and me are back on the job Monday! Yippee!’
She ran over and gave Matt a bear-hug. ‘As much as I enjoyed a lie-in and shopping when the town is quiet,’ Emma said, ‘I do miss the excitement of work.’
‘If you can call drug dealers taking pot-shots at you exciting.’
She broke away. ‘You can talk, but you know it doesn’t happen every day, not even every week.’
‘Does a situation like the one you’ve just been involved in not give you a chance to reflect?’
She took a seat on the chair opposite. ‘How do you mean, reflect?’
‘Wouldn’t you fancy doing something less dangerous?’
‘Plenty of aspects of coppering are dangerous, anti-terrorist, undercover, people trafficking to name a few.’
‘Yeah, but plenty aren’t.’
‘Like what, traffic and schools liaison?’
‘Don’t be obtuse; you know what I mean.’
‘I do. I’ve been with the drugs unit for over eighteen months and the adrenaline kick you get when you find a dealer’s stash or raid a drug den is exhilarating; better than any other job I’ve ever done.’
‘That’s not healthy.’
Matt’s phone rang. ‘We’ll talk about this again, but don’t get me wrong, I’m well pleased you’re back.’
‘Thanks.’
‘It means I can work at home in peace.’ After receiving a slap on the shoulder for his cheek, he picked up the phone. ‘Hi, Matt Flynn.’
‘Flynny, it’s your favourite information and IT guru bearing more gifts than a fat man with a white beard.’
‘Hi, Siki, you’re on a roll, mate.’
‘You better believe it. The stuff I sent you about Louise Walker is good, yeah?’
‘I haven’t gone through it all yet, but what I saw looks up to your usual high standard.’
‘This, my good fellow, tops it. Call this the icing on the cake. Are you near a pen?’
‘I am.’
‘I hold in my sweaty hand, the address of the place where Chris Anderson made his call to Kevin on Wednesday night. You wan’ it?’
Chapter 24
Two people walked into the Hotel Mercure in Praed Street, London and headed upstairs to room 127. The key to walking into a hotel, as their training had drummed into them, was to look and behave like a resident, even when challenged. If the hotel staff member was insistent on seeing a room card, Matt might pull out his HSA ID, or if the adrenaline rush had left him feeling arsey, stick the Glock in their face. If all else failed or they didn’t want to attract too much attention, he would claim to have made an error; wrong hotel, a common mistake in this part of London with dozens of them all within walking distance.
No such tactics were required today and they reached the room without being stopped. He looked up and down the corridor and then at Rosie, who nodded.
Matt rapped on the door.
‘Who’s there?’ a female voice asked.
Matt was so used to saying, ‘Room Service’ when coming into places like this with the intention of grabbing someone or shooting them, he almost said it now.
‘Louise, it’s Matt Flynn and Rosie Fox. We spoke on the phone.’
The door opened on a chain. Louise Walker looked out with Chris Anderson behind her.
‘Yep, it’s them,’ Chris said.
The chain unbolted and the door swung open.
‘Hi Chris,’ Rosie said on walking inside.
‘Hey, great to see you both,’ Chris said. ‘We’ve been stuck here for the last couple of days without a clue where to go or what to do next.’
‘Hi Louise,’ Matt said.
‘Good to meet you,’ she said shaking his hand.
‘A quick word about room security,’ Matt said. ‘If you need to do this sort of stuff again, door chains are next to useless. All someone needs to do is give the door a good kick and the screws holding it on will part company with the door frame. If you want to be secure, wedge something under the door like a rubber door stop and then push an item of heavy furniture against it.’
‘Will do,’ Louise said, ‘although I hope I never have occasion to use it.’
‘Before any decisions are made, first things first,’ Matt said. ‘Do you have any coffee?’
‘Yes,’ Louise said, ‘I went out yesterday afternoon and bought some. I like a caffeine fix too.’
Matt sighed but said nothing, one lecture was enough for the day. Walking out to shops so close to the mainline railway station from Oxford was asking to be spotted by a competent watching crew.
Since discovering the location of the runaway pair and realising they hadn’t been kidnapped, but escaped an attempted abduction, he’d given it a lot of thought. He wanted to know why anyone would attempt to do so and how to avoid a repeat performance in the future.
The picture he’d seen of Louise on her CV didn’t do her justice. She was slim and curvy with shoulder-length brown hair and even without much make-up would still be classified in the ‘gorgeous’ category. However, the single beds spaced about a metre or so apart quickly dispelled any idea of two lovers running away from angry parents.
Looking around, it was a typical budget hotel room with beds, wardrobe, cupboard storage space and a compact, tiled bathroom with power shower. Hotels like this were anonymous and plentiful, great for hiding in or keeping out of the public eye for a spell. Coupled with a false name, it was near-impossible to find anyone if they didn’t want to be found. However, once a searcher knew the whereabouts of the person they were seeking, hotel rooms became death-traps with nowhere to run and with little in the way of weapons for a besieged individual to pick up and use.
With a hot coffee in his hand, Matt sat on the edge of one bed beside Rosie, Chris and Louise seated on the other. ‘Tell us in as much detail as you can remember,’ Matt asked, ‘what happened when you came out the pub in Oxford. Louise, you make a start as, in my experience, reporters don’t miss much.’
‘A compliment; I’ve missed those,’ she replied, glancing at Chris. ‘There’s not much to tell. We came out of the car park behind the pub and drove down the road, Chris driving and me on the phone to my boss. Seconds later, a van shot out of a side street and stopped right in front of us, blocking our path. I thought at first, ‘bloody cheek of these white van drivers’, God knows, there’s enough of them in London. Then, two men got out and rushed towards our car. Chris shouted something like, ‘It’s them!’ and I realised this was something other than a simple traffic accident.’
Matt nodded. How a bystander reacted to a life-threatening situation, a terrorist attack or a plane crash, often marked the difference between life and death. Many survivors repeated phrases such as, ‘I couldn’t believe this was happening’ or ‘I thought my eyes were deceiving me.’ Soldiers and trained non-military personnel reacted on instinct, civilians waited until they could make some sense of the situation, a wait that could cost them their lives.
‘A guy opened my door and I hit him with my phone which seemed to do the trick as he fell on the ground. I then ran over to help Chris who was being dragged to their van in a neck-hold. I picked up Chris’s laptop from the car and whacked the other guy over the head with it.’
‘Well done you,’ Rosie said, looking impressed.
‘Describe the men who tried to grab you, Louise,’ Matt said. ‘Did they speak, do you remember anything they said?’
‘Both guys wore everyday casual clothes, not scruffy like tradesmen. Both looked tall and stocky with short haircuts.’
‘Yeah, like military guys, now I think about it,’ Chris said.
‘Did you hear them speak, hear the accents they used?’
‘I only heard grunts,’ Chris said.
‘One of them said something,’ Louise said. ‘I thought at the time he sounded English, maybe London.’
‘Rough or cultured?’
‘Rough I would say.’
‘They’ve sent a couple of military or ex-military heavies to lift a twenty-one-year student and his smaller female companion. It sounds like they need you bad.’
‘I wouldn’t like to be in their shoes when they report back to base with news of their failure,’ Rosie said.
Rosie was right, those two wouldn’t be making an appearance any time soon. If Matt was in charge, he would now be sending someone better, but he didn’t voice his concerns out loud.
‘Chris, you owe us an explanation. I think you know more about this attempted abduction than you’ve told us so far.’
‘I didn’t realise when I first met you, honest I didn’t. When I said I didn’t believe the downing of the balloon was an accident, I assumed it had to be something to do with my dad’s business.’
‘Yeah, but now I think you know different.’
‘Yes.’
‘So, come on. Let’s hear it.’
‘I shouldn’t be saying this as I could get drummed out of the organisation, but I’m a member of a secret computer hacking group.’
‘INEXIS,’ Matt said.
‘Whaaat? How do you know? It’s secret.’
‘It’s our job to find things out. Go on.’
‘I’m interested in military stuff because of my dad, yeah?’
They nodded.
‘To cut a long story short, I downloaded a load of documents from an American company called Dragon Technologies about their new helicopter, the Pulsar.’ He went on to tell them about Dragon’s dirty dealings and the guy who headed International Security at Dragon, Daniel Leppo.
‘Let me see if I understand this,’ Matt said. ‘This American outfit, Dragon Technologies, make this fantastic new helicopter that everyone is going gaga about, but some people are baulking at the price.’
‘Yep, it costs way more than an Apache and faults have been found in the AI software of the Arrow Battlefield System; it takes away pilot control and starts to work autonomously.’
Matt held up a hand. ‘Let’s not get too bogged down in detail here. We’re interested in motives, not technical specs. Dragon employ incentives, nothing new there in the defence business, to entice military men and procurement managers into buying the product.’
‘Yep,’ Chris said.
‘But, and it’s a big ‘but,’ they’ve moved way beyond a ticket to Wimbledon or a week in Ibiza, to call girls, drugs and blackmail.’
Chris nodded like a toy dog, his enthusiasm, getting the better of him. ‘Not only that but the killing of my family, the death of Latif Artha and now they’re targeting me.’
‘One at a time. Who’s Latif Artha?’
‘He was a weapons specialist at an outfit called QuinTec.’
‘I’ve heard of them,’ Rosie said. ‘They test military kit on behalf of governments.’
‘That’s right. Artha published various documents about Pulsar, firstly saying it was overpriced and then when he discovered a fault in Pulsar’s weapons system.’
‘Some of the new developments incorporated into Pulsar,’ Rosie said, ‘must be high on a military wish-list. I can think of a few uses for a quieter helicopter and one invisible to radar.’
‘Artha didn’t dispute that it’s a fine aircraft and, on paper, gives the military some significant advantages, if they can swallow the high cost. He moved his criticism away from cost when he found out that the weapons system, which is controlled by artificial intelligence, could malfunction under certain conditions. It then takes control away from the pilot and starts selecting targets on its own. Who knows what it will do then; kill civilians, attack markets, shoot at friendly troops?’
‘That sounds dangerous,’ Rosie said.
‘You said something before about killing Artha,’ Matt said. ‘Did something happen to him?’
‘He was driving along the M40 on a clear night when he veered off the road, down a steep embankment and crashed into an abandoned quarry. When they conducted the post-mortem, they found his bloodstream full of alcohol.’
‘Classic drunk driver scenario; happens all the time.’
‘This is what the verdict of the inquest into his death concluded, but they failed to take into account Artha’s religion. He was a strict Muslim; no way does he drink alcohol.’
Chapter 25
Matt and Rosie led Chris and Louise out of the Hotel Mercure in Paddington towards a waiting black cab. Once inside, Matt sat on the fold-down seat to allow him to monitor the traffic behind them. They were heading towards a safe house in Islington, or Canonbury as some of the locals liked to call this part of London.
‘Safe houses’ in any branch of the security services were no safer than any other house in the street. If HSA installed multiple security systems such as floodlighting, infra-red alarms and a couple of fierce dogs, it would soon give the game away. They were classified as ‘safe’ on account of their anonymity and having no connection with the people temporarily staying there.
If an intruder broke into Kevin Anderson’s place in Oxford looking for the address of Chris’s new location, they wouldn’t find it. With the accommodation sorted, the most important thing now was to ensure they weren’t being followed.
