The Pulsar Files, page 15
part #1 of Matt Flynn Series
‘It sounds like blackmail is a key part of their game plan,’ Matt said.
‘They maybe have considered it to be some form of insurance at the beginning, but when Pulsar sales met some resistance, it looks like they moved into it big-time.’
‘Yeah,’ Chris said, his first pause from shovelling food non-stop. ‘The US Military liked Pulsar well enough but sales were slow as they couldn’t justify the high cost to their paymasters.’
‘Don’t forget, this information doesn’t just reflect badly on Dragon as a company,’ Matt said, ‘it involves individuals in their organisation. If they’re as tough as we think, they’ll stop at nothing to prevent it becoming public knowledge. Otherwise, they’ll find themselves being dragged up in front of a Congressional Committee and looking ahead to some lengthy jail time with their reputations in ribbons. Plus, working for an American company, they’d also face multi-million-dollar lawsuits for damages.’
‘Whoa,’ Chris said. ‘The stakes are even higher than I thought.’
‘If they can pay millions to sweet-talk their buyers,’ Matt said, ‘what’s a couple of hundred grand to track you guys down and stop you publishing what you’ve got on the laptop?’
‘Hell, you’re dead right. Hey, you’ve just given me an idea.’ The cutlery in Chris’s hands stood motionless. ‘Why don’t I leave the laptop where they can find it? Then, they would think they’ve got all the information they need and call off the hunt.’
‘Yeah, but you said everything’s backed up.’
‘In the Cloud and on a back-up drive at my Uncle Kevin’s house, but they don’t know that.’
Matt shook his head. ‘You said it yourself, if they’re smart enough, they’ll know. If I worked for them, and Rosie will tell you I’m crap where computers are concerned, I’d guess as much.’
Matt went to bed about eleven after spending the evening playing cards with Louise and Chris. Rosie had headed home to Harlow a few hours before, back to an empty house as her husband was laid over in Orlando.
Matt headed upstairs after completing a check on the doors, windows and making sure the timer attached to the lamp worked and was set to the correct time. Despite a busy day with lots of driving, it still wouldn’t make much difference to the quality of his sleep. A restless night was a habit he couldn’t shake since his mother died, but for at least one night, at least Emma didn’t have to suffer.
He started reading some of the printouts from the Dragon documents Rosie had been looking at earlier and, like her, he became astonished at the level of their lavishness in bestowing gifts and favours to the chosen few. Perhaps many other large corporations did the same, but he imagined few would risk documenting everything they did and taking photographs of their potential clients enjoying themselves. If they ever found out, for sure, these people wouldn’t be their clients for much longer.
He turned off the light and tried to sleep. He soon fell into a deep sleep, better than at home. When he woke at two, something he did most nights, he didn’t feel bright awake as usual but woozy. Not requiring a leak or something to drink, he settled down again, keen to get back to the best sleep he’d experienced for some time. Seconds later, the sound of breaking glass broke the calm of the still night.
He slid out of bed, pulled on his jeans and t-shirt and picked up the Glock, slipping a spare ammo clip into his back pocket. Even though the gun held seventeen rounds, he couldn’t be too careful. He also slipped into his pocket the small torch he always carried with him. Small enough to slip into trousers without discomfort, it would prevent him falling down stairs or walking into something, ending any chance of springing a surprise on his opponent or getting shot while he tried to pick himself up from the bottom of the stairs.
He opened the door of his bedroom and crept into the hallway. Nothing stirred from Chris or Louise’s rooms; good, he didn’t need either of them becoming targets. He headed downstairs, easier and quieter without his Timberland boots.
When he reached the bottom, he realised the intruder was inside the house as he could hear someone walking around the lounge. If Chris’s laptop had been left there they could now test the naivety or otherwise of the Dragon people, but he knew he’d taken it up to bed with him.
Matt knelt at the bottom, leaning on the last step, and waited. The intruder came out of the lounge, his tread soft but Matt still heard his step on the wooden door sill. The intruder headed towards the stairs while Matt held his position, waiting for the right moment. Now. He leapt up, flashed the torch into the intruder’s eyes, blinding him, before smacking him hard in the head with the butt of the gun.
The intruder fell to the ground, but before he could check him, another gunman opened fire. Matt ducked back; the only thing separating him from instant death the plywood boxing-in the struts of the banister, and the shooter aiming at the front door on the assumption that he came through it. A few seconds later, Matt crawled on the floor, reached around the stairs and pointed his gun down the hall towards the kitchen. He fired blind, straight down, through the open door.
He ducked back and waited. The intruder didn’t return fire, but it meant nothing. The guy had most likely moved out of the way. He would be reconsidering his options after encountering someone with a gun, as Matt would bet the presence of an armed opponent didn’t feature in the intruder’s original calculations.
Matt crawled towards the prostrate intruder, searching for his gun, and when he found it, pocketed it. No way did he want this guy waking up and shooting him in the back. He lay behind the inert body and held up the man’s arm. When it didn’t elicit a burst of fire, he dashed into the shelter of the lounge doorway. With no access between the kitchen and the lounge, Matt couldn’t sneak up on the other gunman and the gunman couldn’t do the same to him.
He ducked down and risked a rapid flash of the torch. When the gunman didn’t respond he knew with ninety-five per cent certainty he’d gone. The five per cent of doubt lay within the provenance of the most experienced and confident hitmen. The sort of man who could hold back from responding to Matt’s volley, knowing the chance of a better and possibly fatal shot would come along a short time later. He didn’t believe these guys were in the same class.
He crept towards the kitchen, his Glock ready to fire at the slightest movement. He reached the kitchen door and found his bullets had splintered part of the frame and also discovered a splattering of blood. It didn’t coat the cabinets or create a puddle on the floor to indicate a dying man, the body of whom he’d find in the garden among the rose bushes, but enough to tell him he’d wounded the intruder.
Torn material indicated a hasty exit through the broken window, but Matt wasn’t taking any chances. He would deal with the other guy first and then make a thorough search of the garden outside.
He returned to the hallway. A sleepy Louise walked towards him, stepping over the body on the floor.
‘What’s going on, Matt?’ Louise said rubbing her eyes, trying to wake up. ‘What was all the noise? Whoa, did I just walk past a body on the floor? Who the hell is it; what’s he doing there?’
Before he could shout a warning, the ‘unconscious’ man leapt to his feet. He grabbed Louise, wrapped his arm around her throat and held a knife at her ribs, which she could feel through her thin nightdress as, despite the dim light, he saw her flinch.
‘Drop the gun tough guy or she gets it.’
The voice sounded East London, rough, menacing, and Matt believed every word.
No matter how good a gunman’s skills, a big guy couldn’t shelter behind a slight woman and if Matt spotted a body part to aim at, shoot him he would. The problem was the lack of light. Streetlight from outside was shining through a frosted glass panel at the top of the main door behind the intruder, and some moonlight was coming from the kitchen window behind him, but it left the two of them in blurry silhouette.
‘C’mon copper, I’m not gonna wait all fucking night.’
Matt couldn’t see another option. He dropped his arm, bent down and slowly placed the gun on the ground.
‘Kick it over to me.’
He lifted his foot to do so when a noise behind the couple made him look up. A dark shadow came flying through the air and something whacked the guy over the head.
Louise screamed and jumped forward, the knife tumbling to the floor. The villain collapsed behind her as if his legs were made of rubber.
She ran over and leapt into Matt’s arms and hugged him tight, her body shaking with fear.
‘Matt, I felt so scared.’
‘No worries, girl, it’s over now.’
The hall light came on. He could see now the bullet holes in the door, and the wall, the prostrate figure on the floor and Chris standing over him, holding something in his hand.
‘Chris, what the hell did you hit him with?’
‘The handle of a walking stick.’
‘Where did you get that?’
‘I found a couple of them in the umbrella stand at the door. I took one up to my room tonight for self-protection.’
Chapter 28
At eight in the morning, the clean-up team arrived at the safe house and proceeded to examine the downstairs part of the house, looking for forensic clues, while a couple of techies repaired the damage and beefed up security.
It was important to fix the broken window, of course, but vital to patch-up the bullet holes. It wouldn’t do to bring a frightened family to a safe house only for them to find it full of the remnants of an earlier gun battle. Matt could have called the clean-up team the previous night as he didn’t believe the aggressors, having lost one of their team and the other suffering from a bullet wound, would be back. He did, however, call out the incarceration team to take away their captive.
He’d passed details of the shooting to the Met Serious Crimes unit who would check hospitals to try and trace the wounded man. Matt didn’t believe their prisoner, the guy Chris knocked out with the walking stick, would say much. If Dragon were prepared to kill Chris’s family in a bid to get at him, they wouldn’t baulk at killing a foot soldier who talked too much. Matt intended interviewing the prisoner himself, but first, he needed to spirit Chris and Louise away from there, as from their perspective, it wasn’t a safe house anymore.
Before going to bed last night, he’d put a call through to the Director. Matt was loathe to wake him as the danger had passed, but Gill would give him a bollocking if he wasn’t kept in the loop. After an incident like this and before blaming his own people, Gill would ask the question: were we the best-placed agency to carry out the job?
For Matt, the answer was emphatically ‘yes’ as HSA were pursuing Dragon but the conversation raised an interesting point. Should the job of protecting two civilians fall within their remit? The police had plenty of expertise in this area with the Witness Protection Programme and the Royal Protection Group, but Matt believed he wouldn’t get close to Dragon if they were the responsibility of someone else.
Having decided to move Chris and Louise, the next question he needed to answer was where? He’d talked to the Director about other safe houses they could use and a couple the Met could offer, when Matt came up with a better idea.
‘We’re packed,’ Louise said walking downstairs. She looked almost back to her usual self after the shock-horror of only a few hours before; almost.
‘Did you get much sleep?’ he asked.
‘Not much after the…the thing with the knife guy. I kept hearing his voice in my head.’
‘I can’t say what happened won’t give you bad dreams as we all deal with things like this in our own way. I can put you in touch with some professional help if it becomes a problem.’
‘Thanks, I’ll bear it in mind. Who are all those people?’
Matt explained that the forensics staff were looking for clues while the techies were repairing the house and making it safer for the next unfortunate incumbents.
‘What happened to the bad guy? Is he dead?’
Matt smiled. ‘No, he’s not dead, but thanks to Chris he’ll have a big headache this morning. We’ve taken him away for questioning.’
‘That’s good news, isn’t it, that you caught someone? You can find out who his associates are and, I don’t know, use the information to close his organisation down.’
He placed an arm on her shoulder. ‘I wish it was so easy. All the work we’re doing here,’ he said removing his arm and spreading it wide, ‘the research going on back at base and the questioning we’ll do of the suspect, won’t give us more than one or two bits of new information.’
‘What? You can’t be serious?’
‘These guys are professionals, Louise, they don’t leave clues and won’t blab on their mates to us or anybody else.’
‘Can’t you force them?’
‘What’s this? Do I hear you advocating torture?’
‘No, well…maybe I am. It’s important to find out what they know.’
‘We’ll try but using torture can be counter productive. Where’s Chris?’
‘In the bathroom. I swear he takes longer to get ready than my flatmate and that’s going some.’
‘Give me your bag and I’ll take it out to the car, see what’s going out there. You stay here.’
He walked down the path, his eyes and ears alert as ever for any strange movement or sound, although he expected to hear it from antagonistic journalists, not malevolent criminals. The small group of reporters gathered outside must have been alerted by neighbours, as HSA and the Met hadn’t issued any statements, and wouldn’t where protecting witnesses was concerned. They were being held behind a cordon by a no-nonsense member of the HSA clean-up team.
‘Morning John.’
‘Morning Matt. I understand you had a bit of bother last night.’
‘You could say that.’
A tap on Matt’s arm caused him to turn.
‘Excuse me,’ an eager face said, ‘can I ask you what went on last–’
‘No, you can’t.’
Matt walked on, his eyes focussed on the car and not on the reporters who were looking at one another and shrugging as Matt wasn’t a copper they recognised. He put the bag in the boot, closed the lid and headed back into the house.
On walking back into the house Matt spotted Chris. ‘Wonders will never cease.’
‘What?’ he said, his face exhibiting the puzzled expression of a typical teenager faced with making a decision or answering a question before midday.
‘Are you ready to go?’
‘Ready as I’ll ever be.’
He looked at Louise and Chris. ‘On no account say anything to the reporters outside. If they make a move to take a picture, put your hand up and cover your face. All right?’
‘Wait a second, Matt,’ Louise said. ‘One of the reporters out there might recognise me.’
‘They might recognise me too,’ Chris said. ‘If they did, it wouldn’t take long for them to tie me in with the balloon incident.’
‘You’re right, we need to do something. Have either of you got sunglasses or a hat?’
‘You packed my bag,’ Chris said, ‘you know what I’ve got.’
Matt looked around, but a safe house only contained the items necessary for a short stay, although he felt grateful it extended to walking sticks in the umbrella stand.
‘We could cover our heads with a jumper or a t-shirt,’ Chris said, ‘I’ve got a couple of them in my bag.’
‘No, that will make the sharks out there ultra suspicious. Hang on, I’ve got an idea.’
Matt went into the kitchen and spoke to one of the forensics guys. A few minutes later he came out carrying two forensics over suits.
‘Put these on. Louise, try and tuck as much hair into the hood as you can, see if we can confuse them. What else can we do to improve it?’
He thought for a moment. ‘I know. Carry Chris’s bag between you, as if it’s heavy or contains something delicate. Human nature will come into play and I’ll bet they’ll focus on the bag and not on the faces of you guys. In fact, seeing the white suits might make them think it’s something contagious and make them back off. What do you think?’
‘Good idea,’ Chris said nodding. ‘It will be good to get something back on journalists for a change after all the rubbish they’ve written about me and my family. Sorry, no offence, Louise.’
‘None taken. It sounds like a plan, Matt.’
‘Good. Get ready and follow me out.’
Resembling two scientists from the Porton Down Research Laboratory carrying the last known example of Spanish Flu virus, they walked slowly to the car behind Matt, their backs to reporters and their faces almost obscured by white hoods. Matt didn’t often buy a newspaper, didn’t have much time to read one, but he would do so in the morning and find out what unusual ideas the reporters made of this.
They drove off without the usual thrusting of cameras at car windows or shouted questions, the standard accompaniment when anyone exited a house after a shooting had taken place. Matt felt sure he wouldn’t be called into Gill’s office in the morning, the Director’s face like a man with a piece of gristle stuck down his throat, the morning edition of the Daily Mirror spread out in front of him.
They turned the corner at the end of the road, and after making sure no one had followed, he told Louise and Chris they could remove their forensic suits.
‘Thank goodness,’ Louise said, ‘it’s getting hot in here.’
‘Me too,’ Chris said, ‘although I like the idea of a disguise. We did a lot of dressing up at uni.’
‘You don’t mean what I think you mean?’ Louise said, her expression one of mild shock.
‘Don’t be daft. I mean dressing up for themed parties like Star Wars and Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Didn’t you do it when you were there?’
‘It must have come in after my time.’
‘You were probably in the library.’
