The Pulsar Files, page 21
part #1 of Matt Flynn Series
There were times when they didn’t have a choice and had to act on instinct, but when they were given the opportunity like now, planning ensured they arrived on the scene with the right equipment, everyone with a clear understanding of their roles and all aiming at the same objective. Mistakes could cost lives and often led to a later inquiry. Such exposure could impact the organisation in a negative way if elements of their operational methods were leaked to the press and seen by their enemies.
He decided not to use the cottage in Surrey or the warehouse in Sussex where they often tested new vehicles and equipment, but the spacious home of Sir Raymond Deacon. Not only did Matt want to include Chris in their discussions to glean as much information as he could about Dragon, but if they needed to hack into Dragon’s UK computers, Chris and Sikandar would be there to do it.
He arrived in Church Langley forty minutes later and drove into Rosie’s road. He parked the car in her driveway behind Andrew’s Range Rover, her Seat nowhere to be seen. She often put her car in the garage, not to protect the paintwork even though he’d told her that red cars faded in sunlight, but to stop enemies attaching a tracker device or worse, a mercury tilt bomb to the underside of the car, a regrettable risk in their profession.
He knocked on the door but received no reply and couldn’t detect a noise inside to indicate the presence of anyone awake. He felt a little annoyed to think Rosie had overslept just when they were about to decide on a crucial part of the investigation, but it soon subsided. It was a selfish response, as she could be nursing a dose of flu or had suffered a bad night due to howling dogs or, in his area, the screeching of foxes. Besides it was a Saturday morning, a day off for most people. He needed to cut her a bit of slack.
He knocked again, and this time it elicited a response from the occupants inside. A shuffling noise behind the door grew louder and at last he heard the sound of deadbolts unlocking. The door opened and to his surprise Andrew stood there.
‘Morning Andrew,’ Matt said.
It didn’t look much like morning to Rosie’s partner. He was still in his pyjamas, a blue dressing gown covering them, his hair tousled as if coming away from a pillow fight and the shadow of a beard making its way into the world with more effectiveness than its owner.
‘Matt, hi,’ he said as he tried to stifle a yawn. ‘Excuse me, I’m knackered. What time is it?’
Matt looked at his watch. ‘Seven-fifty.’
‘Thank goodness, I thought it was the afternoon. Christ it’s cold out here, you better come in.’
Matt walked inside and closed the door. Andrew padded towards the kitchen and Matt followed.
‘Coffee?’ Andrew asked, reaching for the water reservoir of the coffee machine.
‘Yeah, thanks. White no sugar.’
‘I might be half-asleep but I do remember how you like your coffee.’
‘Were you out last night?’
‘Got back to Stansted late,’ he said, spooning coffee into the filter and switched on the machine. ‘We were doing a round trip to Alicante, normally a breeze but on the way out, we had a load of drunks on board and spent time liaising with the local police in Spain after they were all arrested.’
‘Male or female?’
‘Female; a hen party. They were all drunk as skunks and started throwing their clothes around the aircraft.’
Matt laughed.
‘It sounds funny and would make a good YouTube video to see some bloke hit on the head with a pair of knickers, but we had a lot of families and elderly people on board and many of them were not amused.’
‘I can imagine.’
‘One white no sugar,’ Andrew said placing a mug in front of him.
‘Cheers.’
‘What brings you here on a Saturday morning?’ Andrew asked, taking a seat opposite Matt around the kitchen table. ‘Assuming, of course, it is Saturday morning.’
‘If you’re having trouble remembering the day of the week after being in Spain, you’ll be lost next week when you head to the States.’
‘Ha. It’s easier over there as we get three days in Orlando before flying back. A bit of R&R by the pool and my head soon gets back into gear.’
‘I’ll bet, and Rosie tries to tell me you work too hard.’
‘I do, don’t you worry about it. There’s been no sign of Rosie this morning. I take it this isn’t an unannounced visit. She is expecting you?’
He nodded. ‘Yeah.’
‘She might still be in bed,’ he said, pushing the chair back and standing. ‘I’ll go and make sure she knows you’re here.’
He noticed Matt’s puzzled face.
‘She often sleeps in the spare room if I’m due in late or making an early start, so I haven’t seen her this morning.’
Andrew climbed the stairs, his heavy footsteps an early warning to Rosie that he was on his way. A minute or so later he walked back down.
‘She’s not there; the bed’s not been used.’
‘What?’ Matt said, standing, his face slowly draining of colour. ‘Did you check the bathroom? Other rooms?’
He nodded. ‘I checked every room upstairs. The bed in the spare room is made up and unused and when I opened the front door to you, the deadlock hadn’t been undone so she isn’t out running. I don’t think she slept here last night.’
Matt walked to the window overlooking the back garden to make sure she wasn’t out there drinking a cup of coffee or doing a spot of gardening. Andrew checked the lounge and other downstairs rooms. When they both drew a blank, he pulled out his phone and called her number. It diverted straight to voicemail, as if switched off. This was a big no-no in HSA; phones had to be charged, switched on and carried at all times.
He looked at Andrew, his half-asleep face now alert and anxious.
‘When did you last speak to her?’
‘I phoned her from the airport, last night. She was in Tesco doing the weekly shop.’
‘What did she say?’
‘I can’t remember. I did most of the talking, telling her I would be late home but the usual stuff.’
‘Did you call her after she’d been at Tesco?’
‘No, why would I?’
‘To tell her you were on the way home.’
‘No, I didn’t get away until after eleven. She would’ve been in bed by then.’
Matt thought for a moment. He reached over and opened the fridge and pulled open a cupboard where he remembered they stored tins and dry foods.
‘Does it look as if the shelves have recently been restocked?’
‘A big shop like the one she does at the end of the week,’ Andrew said, ‘would put bags of pasta and tins of tomatoes in the cupboard and fill the fridge, for sure.’ He shook his head. ‘No, they haven’t been.’
Matt closed both doors. ‘Andrew, I need to go but don’t leave the house today. Okay?’
‘Yes, but why?’
‘Within the hour, some forensic guys will come here.’
‘Forensics? What do you think has happened to her?’
‘I know as much as you do, but in our business we have to assume the worst and believe she’s been kidnapped.’
This was the civilian version. Fearing the worst in their business was finding an agent with a bullet in their head inside a burned-out car.
‘Kidnapped? Why? Who by?’
‘I don’t know any more than you do at this stage, but I need go. I’ll talk to you later.’
Matt walked out to his car and on the way pulled out his phone. He called in and asked for the security office. ‘This is Matt Flynn, code number 675786.’
‘Morning Matt. What’s the issue?’
‘Rosie Fox. I’m declaring a Code 7.’
‘Roger 675786. Rosie Fox is Code 7.’
Code 7 in HSA speak was a shorthand way of saying an agent had disappeared, believed killed or kidnapped. All available agents would now be recalled to London and all leave cancelled. The entire resources of HSA would be deployed in finding Rosie Fox, dead or alive.
Matt climbed into his car and headed towards London. Driving out of Church Langley he decided on a detour and turned into Rosie’s local Tesco supermarket. Early Saturday morning, the car park contained plenty of cars, but not many shoppers as it was early and the supermarket didn’t close until midnight. The absence of old ladies trying to park in small spaces and children running loose while their mother collected the shopping bags from the boot made it easy for him to drive up and down the lanes trying to spot Rosie’s red Seat Ibiza.
He felt frustrated at not finding the car but buoyed by confirming one fact; she’d been taken away in her own car. They knew plenty about the vehicle, as Rosie’s employer owned it. Not only could they put its details on ANPR and have patrolling cops looking out for it, it was also fitted with a tracking device.
His phone rang. Matt pulled into a parking space.
‘Hi Gill.’
‘Morning Matt, terrible news about Rosie.’
‘Yes, but I’m not writing her off yet, not until I see some solid evidence.’
‘I’m not either, Matt and I’ll section anyone who does. This will be treated as a kidnapping by HSA until we know otherwise. Where are you now?’
‘Tesco car park in Harlow, her last known whereabouts and the place most likely the kidnap took place; assuming she didn’t go anywhere else after shopping other than straight home.’
‘Can you see her car there?’
‘No, it’s not there. If they put Rosie in her car and didn’t transfer her to another vehicle or dump it, we’ll soon find it. I’ll send some analysts down here to review CCTV and see if we can confirm if this is the kidnap site.’
‘Good. Are you heading into the office?’
‘Yes. The planning meeting scheduled with Rosie and the team to decide our attack on Dragon is on hold for the moment.’
‘I called a meeting of the board and I want you in attendance. See you later.’
Matt smiled to himself, not a happy smile but the grimace of the troubled. ‘The Board’ was a euphemism for a group consisting of government minsters, an Assistant Chief Constable from the Met, the Deputy Director of MI5 and the Head of Border Force. With the resources those individuals could command, if Rosie could be found, this was their best chance.
Chapter 39
Matt came out of the Director’s office, his head reeling. MI5, Border Force and the Metropolitan Police currently offered HSA high levels of cooperation whenever required, but to hear their bosses say their organisations would do whatever they could to help went way beyond his expectations. The problem for Matt was when they asked him for details of how they could assist, he didn’t have much to tell them.
He gathered six agents and four researchers inside the conference room and shut the door. HSA agents could also access the euphemistically named ‘padded cell’, a secure conference room lined with a material that prevented the intrusion of phone and wi-fi signals. This wasn’t to stop those inside making calls or checking Facebook while they were supposed to be listening to the speaker, but to stop those with the capability of listening in to their discussions. Matt didn’t believe this case required that level of security and the normal conference room would suffice.
Matt walked to the front of the room and stood beside the electronic whiteboard. He tapped a few keys on the connected laptop and Rosie’s picture came up on the screen behind him.
‘I’m sure you all realise by now why we’re here. Rosie Fox has been kidnapped. At the meeting of the board this morning, they decided to give us any cooperation we need from all areas of the security services. Let’s make a start and review what we know.’
He backed away from the laptop and looked around at the assembled team.
‘I went to Rosie’s house this morning to pick her up and take her to our planning meeting but she wasn’t there. It was clear from an undisturbed bed and the lack of food in the cupboards that she didn’t come home last night after a shopping trip to Tesco. Her partner, Andrew Milner, couldn’t offer an explanation for her disappearance. I don’t think he is in any way involved in her kidnap, but I sent a forensic team over there just in case.’
‘What does he do?’ Joseph asked.
‘He’s an airline pilot at Stansted Airport.’
‘Does his work schedule explain why he didn’t realise she wasn’t at home last night and we only found out this morning?’
‘He came back late after a problem in Spain. If Rosie’s not sleeping in the main bedroom, he assumes she’s gone to the spare room so she doesn’t get disturbed when he comes in. Last night he felt too knackered to check.’
‘Sounds plausible,’ Joseph said, ‘but what if he’s hiding something. Maybe a domestic gone wrong or she’s away with a boyfriend?’
‘I work with Rosie a lot and I think something would slip if she had a boyfriend. Plus, I saw Andrew this morning, just out of bed. I don’t think he was putting on an act. I may be blinded by Dragon’s aggressive tactics these last few weeks not to see a simpler answer, but I don’t think so. If you guys think I’m wrong, feel free to put me right.’
‘No, you’re all right, mate,’ Joseph said.
‘I think you’re on the right track, Matt,’ Jess Harvey, a fellow agent recently drafted into the Dragon team said.
‘Ok,’ Matt said, ‘let’s move on. I called Rosie last night as she turned into the Tesco car park in Harlow and Andrew called her about five minutes after me; both calls between seven-thirty and seven forty-five in the evening. I drove around the car park this morning looking for her car, but couldn’t see it. She could only be kidnapped when she returned to her car after shopping or on the journey back to her house.’
‘If it was me trying to grab someone,’ Jess said, ‘I would choose the Tesco car park over a street anytime.’
‘Me too,’ Joseph said. ‘Even though there are CCTV cameras, it’s easy enough to do it without revealing faces or the vehicle.’
‘They did that all right when they took Rosie in her own car.’
‘We don’t know much more at this stage,’ Matt said. ‘I’m looking for ideas how we can progress this. We have people updating ANPR, locating the car tracker and checking Tesco’s CCTV. Siki, how are they getting on?’
‘Someone’s looking at Tesco’s CCTV pictures in Harlow as we speak,’ Sikandar Khosa, their chief researcher said, ‘the ANPR information has been loaded, but I just found out, the tracker’s been disabled.’
‘Damn, I thought it would have given us a head start, if only to a burned-out wreck,’ Matt said.
‘That’s probably how they’ve disabled it, set the car on fire or drove into a quarry.’
‘What about town centre cameras, Siki?’ Jess said.
‘In Harlow?’
‘Yeah. If we can locate the car on CCTV, it might tell us the direction they’re going and maybe give us a picture of the occupants.’
‘I’m on it,’ Khosa said, writing it down.
‘I don’t think anyone in this room is in any doubt,’ Matt said, ‘that Dragon are behind this. The way I’m thinking now, I could go over their offices and put a gun to the MD’s head. If he doesn’t tell us where Rosie is, I’d happily put a bullet in him.’
‘We’d all like to do the same,’ Jess said, ‘but it won’t help us to find Rosie if he knows.’
‘Finding Rosie and doing what we were planning to do this morning, taking the fight to Dragon, have just become intermeshed. This seems like as good a time as any to discuss how we do it.’
‘We go back to the plan you outlined a few days ago, Matt,’ Sikander said. ‘We get Chris Anderson to hack into Dragon’s UK systems, find out who the main players are, what they do, how they’re funded and where we can find them.’
‘I’m not sure this sort of stuff will be documented,’ Jess said.
‘Sure it will,’ Joseph said. ‘I can see them emailing the US asking for approval to carry out some things and requesting more money, that is, providing we’re not dealing with a loose cannon over here. The UK people will need to make contact with their US counterparts on a regular basis requesting guidance and giving them updates. It might be in code but Siki and Amos should be able to unravel it.’
‘We could retaliate by kidnapping one of their people,’ Kamal, the youngest member of the team said.
‘It has its merits,’ Matt said. ‘The upside being we could trade their guy for Rosie, but it could lead us into a situation we don’t want to be in. What if they send us one of Rosie’s ears or fingers through the post? Do we do the same to their guy?’
‘For sure, but if we get the right guy we might be able to put a stop to the activities of their dirty organisation.’
‘I don’t like it, Kamal, if feels more like revenge than a fair trade.’
‘It doesn’t matter if you like it or not,’ Joseph said. ‘We’re looking for the best option to bring Rosie back. Her safe return isn’t only your concern, Matt, we all want her back.’
‘Do you think I don’t know it?’ Matt said, slamming his fists down on the desk in front of him, ‘but I feel responsible as we’ve been working on the Dragon case together.’
‘Boys, boys, calm down,’ Jess said. ‘We need to focus on the task in hand. Rosie is a friend to us all, we all have a stake in this.’
‘Agreed.’
‘You’re right Jess,’ Matt said, ‘arguing will get us nowhere and it won’t bring Rosie back. We all need to get back to work and do something. Jess, follow up on the ANPR checks and Tesco cameras. Amos, you take town cameras. Joseph, talk to Border Force and make sure she isn’t being taken out of the country.’
‘And you?’ Joseph asked. ‘What will you be doing?’
‘C’mon Siki,’ Matt said, ‘we’re going to Windsor. We need to speak to Chris Anderson.’
Chapter 40
With Rosie’s kidnap at the forefront of his mind, and realising he and Sikandar could also become targets, not to mention endangering the people they were going to see, Matt took a circuitous route to Clifton Manor in Windsor. Sikander Khosa didn’t notice as he had never been to the house before and spent the journey looking at his phone.
