The Pulsar Files, page 25
part #1 of Matt Flynn Series
Matt couldn’t see his face, a combination of the dull light in the cellar and the blocking effect of the chair, but the tone of Leppo’s voice suggested some element of doubt creeping in.
‘I’m not going to tell you people again. Put your fucking guns down!’
Without a clear shot, they couldn’t move from this stalemate position, so Matt decided to do something to break it. He bent over and placed his gun on the floor and Rosie did the same. The HSA agents were spaced a metre or so apart. If Leppo approached to pick up their guns, they would both go for their spare in the rear holster. Leppo might be quick, but before he realised what was happening, one or both of them would nail him. Leppo didn’t budge, suggesting he suspected such a move.
‘Now, back away!’
Matt took one step back to the right and so did Rosie to the left, increasing the space between them.
Matt expected him to come out from his hiding place but Leppo surprised him by dragging the chair to one side. He did it at a slow, methodical pace, making sure he didn’t expose any part of his body. The two figures dissolved slowly as they moved into a darkened part of the cellar, untouched by the light bulb’s weak illumination. Seconds later, they disappeared completely.
‘Don’t move you two! Stay where you are!’ Leppo’s disembodied voice shouted. ‘You can’t see me but I can still see you.’
A door creaked and Matt could tell from increased levels of light and the sharp drop in temperature that it led outside. He waited, not knowing where Leppo was and if his gun was trained on his or Rosie’s head. Seconds later, he heard a car engine start. He sprinted into the darkened area and fell headlong over the dusty cellar floor. He realised he’d tripped over an object left there for that very purpose.
He got up and limped to the door. Rosie, seeing the fate of her colleague, walked closely behind him. Their caution wasn’t for nothing as Leppo had left a few other obstacles in their way, including a chair and a packing case. Matt pushed them to one side and headed outside. An armed officer lay bleeding against the wall, blood trickling down a face wound, but Daniel Leppo, Chris Anderson, and the car Matt heard, were nowhere to be seen.
Chapter 46
‘Quieten down, everybody. C’mon you lot, let’s have some hush.’ Superintendent Tony Quigley looked around at the expectant faces in the packed room, his jowly face locked in a serious expression. ‘That’s better,’ he said, ‘I can hear myself think now.’
It didn’t look like a big audience in comparison to some of the drug raids that Emma Davis had been part of, but it was one of the noisiest. Everyone was buoyed by the news of Simon Wood’s arrest and his first appearance in court. The judge didn’t hesitate in rejecting Wood’s well-paid lawyer’s plea detailing his client’s poor health and terminally ill mother, both fabrications in Emma’s view, and he refused an application for bail. The judge went as far as saying if the jury found Wood guilty, sick or not, he would have no choice but to hand out a long custodial sentence.
‘This is the second raid of Operation Redoubt, our plan to shut down Simon Wood’s drug business for good. The target tonight is a large spice lab which we believe is being operated by Roderick Lamar. Most of you will know him as the nephew of Simon Wood.’
Excited murmurs leapt around the room with the alacrity of fire in a dry forest. It was hard getting anyone interested in Wood six months ago, now with the man in custody and having closed one of his cocaine warehouses last week, they couldn’t get enough. Superintendent Quigley had trouble keeping a lid on the enthusiasm.
‘Quiet now,’ the Super said. ‘This Lamar character we believe is Wood’s right-hand man. There’s talk of Lamar minding the shop while Wood’s inside, but most people think he’s read the runes and expects his boss to be away for the foreseeable; maybe he fancies his chances at taking over the whole operation. Our job is to go there and close his main source of income and, in addition, nab the geezer with his paws on the merchandise. Not only will we take a shed-load of spice off the shelves, we’ll put another big dent in Simon Wood’s illegal operations.’
This time the Super didn’t try to stop them as feet were stamped and hands banged on the sides of their chairs. Soon they ran out of steam, not because of any dimmed enthusiasm for the cause, but everyone was keen to find out the role they would perform in this evening’s raid.
Spice wasn’t a single drug but a wide range of laboratory-made chemicals designed to mimic the effects of the psychoactive compound contained in marijuana called THC, tetrahydrocannabinol. A highly addictive substance, spice was capable of turning lively teenagers into zombies, as the residents of many towns and cities in the UK could testify. In prisons, the drug was a serious problem, its addictive nature encouraging repeated use to prevent the onset of an angst-inducing ‘downer.’ To drug barons it was manna from heaven as it provided them with a steady flow of eager customers who would dig themselves deeper and deeper into debt. Spice was now at the heart of the drug/debt culture in most prisons and the main reason for the increase in inmate violence.
They left the briefing room twenty minutes later and piled into vehicles; four detectives in two cars and half a dozen uniformed officers in a van, with another for the prisoners. Jacko didn’t say much as they headed east towards an address in Essex. It was a large county and the laboratory was located in the extreme south, near Grays, many miles away from Emma’s house in Ingatestone to the north of the county.
‘Did Arsenal not do well last night, or something?’
He looked over, a strange expression on his face at this poor woman who knew bugger-all about the beautiful game.
‘They didn’t bloody play, did they,’ came the grumpy reply.
‘How am I supposed to know? What’s bugging you tonight? Sally give you the old heave-ho again?’
‘She wouldn’t dare.’
‘What then?’
He didn’t respond.
‘C’mon Jacko,’ she teased, ‘what’s up? Tell Aunty Emma, why doncha?’
‘Emma, I’ve got a hangover, leave it out, will ya?’
She got the message, turned up the radio and stared out of the window. East London passed by in a murky blaze of street lights and neon signs, accompanied by the whisk-whisk of the windscreen wipers. She’d been to places like this before during raids and seen them from the window of the train when commuting into London. Matt grew up in the East End, his parents Irish rural stock eager to escape the grinding poverty of a subsidence farming community. She couldn’t imagine living in some of these places; damp, rat-infested tenements, neighbours speaking a language she couldn’t understand, strange smells clogging her nostrils at all hours of the day, and the vacant look of the dispossessed standing on street corners.
Her job brought her in contact with many such people. Enterprising men from Pakistan and the Middle East, unable to find a job due to the lack of practical skills or a mastery of English, they turned to selling a principal export of their home country, marijuana, opium or heroin. They soon realised they had a great advantage over the local London dealers, they could speak the language of their suppliers. Through this they made fortunes and ensured a regular supply for the aimless people whose only escape from lack of money, despair and failure was in their heads.
Simon Wood was something of an anomaly, privately educated and with a degree from a leading UK university. He didn’t have a reputation as a violent man, a requisite for those trying to establish a long-term foothold, but he had a knack of surrounding himself with a group of trusted lieutenants who would do whatever he needed. Lieutenants like the man they hoped to meet tonight, Roderick Lamar.
Emma and Jacko reached the rendezvous point before everyone else, a rutted farm track surrounded by woods and fields. Despite trying to keep the small convoy together as they barrelled along the A13, the vans fell behind. They’d lost the second squad car about twenty minutes before when the officers inside stopped for a piss, but they arrived a few minutes later and the two vans ten minutes after that.
Based on their intel, the spice laboratory was located in the building she could see in the moonlight about two hundred metres in the distance. The size and shape suggested an old hay barn, but not one derelict and falling to bits, this one solid and fit for purpose, either converted by a cash-strapped farmer or more likely by drug dealers, diverting cash from Spice sales to create a sophisticated rural laboratory.
With the team all in one place, Emma called them together. The faces of the detectives could be seen, but the armed response team were near-invisible with all-black clothing, black helmets and visors.
‘Is everyone clear about what we’re here to do?’
The detectives nodded, the ARU clanked their equipment.
‘The place we’re interested in is the large warehouse over there,’ she said pointing at the faint outline in the darkness. ‘Can you all see it?’
‘Just about.’
‘We hammer the door down and once inside, grab anyone we find and handcuff them, no excuses or exceptions. Okay?’
‘Yep,’ several voices said.
‘I know you’re all wearing bulky and awkward gear,’ she said feeling a touch under-dressed in a simple flak-jacket, ‘but try not to damage the laboratory equipment as we need it for evidence. Right. That’s it. Any questions?’
She looked around but didn’t hear anything. ‘Let’s go,’ she said.
They walked up the track, muddy in places and rutted by the big tyres of large farm machinery. The men in the ARU didn’t seem to mind as they all wore boots, but the more lightly-shod detectives kept to the edge where the grass verge offered more solid ground.
The windows of the warehouse were blacked out, but little chinks of light escaping suggested someone might be at home. While the door banger got himself prepared, Emma walked to the corner of the warehouse and looked around. In what appeared to be a tarmacked car park, big enough to house eight or maybe ten cars, she could see four, proof that this journey into deepest Essex would not be wasted.
The laboratory door jumped open under the force of the door banger, a scratched hunk of metal with ‘Terminator 2’ written on the side.
The assault crew piled in, Emma, Jacko and the other detectives following behind the black Kevlar-clad figures. Emma smiled when she saw the contents of the warehouse, everything bathed in bright overhead lights. On three long metal benches she could see metal pots, filters, glass jars, bottles of chemicals and, scattered around on all surfaces, a dusting of green leaves.
Spice production was usually done in two stages, a lab first made the chemical and turned it into a white powder. Second, wholesalers would dilute the powder with something like acetone and spray it on to leaves such as tea. The contents of this warehouse looked to Emma like a second-stage lab and she would bet the pile of boxes in the corner would be filled with leaves ready to be coated, or packets of the finished product. She made her way inside to take a look when the lights conked out.
‘Bloody hell! Torches out everybody!’ Emma called, ‘and for Christ’s sake no shooting unless you make a positive identification of a target.’
She didn’t see anything that looked like an office on the way in, and she assumed the electricity control box would be at the other end of the room. She made her way there by torchlight, careful not to bump into any of the lab equipment or the Kevlar-clad assault team.
In an untidy room at the back, looking more like a storeroom than an office, she spotted the electricity box, high up on the wall. She reached for a chair to give her a leg up when she heard the sound of car engines firing up. She searched around for a door and hoped the boys out there in the lab area were doing the same.
At last she reached outside, the cold air hitting her with the force of a slap after the clammy heat inside the lab. She looked left and right but couldn’t see any cars. Emma ran around the corner of the warehouse, her gun at the ready; nothing. She walked back, staring at the row of trees in front of her and spotted the tell-tale red brake lights of a number of cars moving away in the distance. She ran across the car park and let out an animalistic screech to the trees when she discovered another road, tarmacked and leading the opposite way from the track the police team had used.
She threw her arms up to the heavens; what an almighty balls-up. When first sighting the cars in the car park, she should have guessed the drug gang had an escape route and detailed a member of the armed response team to guard it. She pulled out her radio and called it in, but without a decent description or registration plate, a passing patrol car had little to go on and she didn’t feel hopeful.
She walked back inside the warehouse, the lights restored and the lab lit up in its former glory. She spotted Sarah Leggett, one of the detectives in her team, sifting through the pile of boxes in the corner, but Emma could see they contained nothing but air. Seeing them and the departing cars one word popped into her head: setup.
She walked towards the young detective. ‘Did someone switch off the lights or did we have a power outage?’ Emma asked.
‘With modern consumer units like the one they have here, it’s impossible to tell, but my money’s on a pre-arranged plan. As soon as they heard us banging the door, they legged it out the back. The last one kills the lights to slow us up, and they disappear down the road. Easy-peasy.’
‘Someone should have been watching the vehicles.’
‘It’s easy with hindsight. Don’t beat yourself up about it, boss.’
She looked around the room for Jacko but couldn’t see him and guessed he would be outside having a smoke. She walked past the lab equipment, much of it being pawed over by restless coppers, all dressed up and with no sign of a party. She headed outside but didn’t see him standing amongst the small knot of coppers, helmets on the floor and flak-jackets lying open to the cool night air.
‘Anyone seen Jacko?’ she asked.
‘Not for a while,’ one replied. ‘Not since the lights went out.’
‘Me neither,’ said another.
She walked around the outer perimeter of the building, feeling apprehensive at finding Jacko injured, believing he’d sprinted out at the first sound of engines firing and the villains had run him over or left him beaten up on the grass.
She started to walk over the drug gang’s escape route when her phone rang.
‘Emma, my good lady, how are you? Are you looking for me?’
She didn’t know many Jamaican men and none knew her mobile number.
‘Who is this?’
‘Roderick Lamar.’
‘How did you get my number?’
‘That’s for a discussion at some later point.’
‘What do you want? Are you phoning to gloat about your amazing escape?’
‘What do I want? Wrong question detective. What do you want?’
‘I want you and your crew inside, is what I want.’
‘Not going to happen. Let me give you a clue who is sitting beside me right now. Short, greasy hair, dark skin and a fat nose. Are you outside looking for him?’
‘Jacko? You’ve got Jacko? I’ll fucking kill you Lamar.’
‘Tsk, tsk Emma, such a temper. Have a listen to your man’s sweet voice.’
‘Emma, it’s me. Do as he says or he’ll kill me.’
‘The boy’s right, Emma,’ Lamar said. ‘Do as I say or you won’t see him again. Now listen up.’
Chapter 47
Louise re-read an article she’d written on a spare laptop that Lisa allowed her to use. Before coming down to help Lisa make dinner, she called her editor, Kingsley Vincent. He gave her his usual line about her continued unauthorised absence and something about her feet being in deep water and anything else the idiot could think of. Vincent was a fine journalist and could edit and improve anything Louise put in front of him in a matter of minutes, but a terrible people-manager.
Tired of his excuses and accusations, she asked to be transferred to the head of news reporting. When she told him her story, he wanted to hear more and at one stage threatened to throw Kingsley from the roof of their building for treating her in such a cavalier fashion. She knew she couldn’t reveal everything without compromising their position here at Windsor, but promised to write something soon and send it to him when she’d finished.
‘Where’s Chris?’ Lisa asked, standing at the cooker and stirring the pasta sauce. ‘The food’s almost cooked.’
‘Still in his room, I suspect. I gave him a knock when I went past about five minutes ago. He knows as well as anybody that you don’t like him being late for dinner.’
‘He seems to be spending more time in the Orangery. Maybe he’s out there.’
‘What the round, glass building in the woods?’
‘Yes.’
‘I think it’s creepy out there, surrounded by all those trees.’
‘It’s not creepy at all. I used to play there as a child. Once I fell asleep and, unknown to me, Daddy and all the staff were out looking for me.’
‘I wouldn’t sleep out there if you paid me and if that’s what happened to Chris, I’m not going down to find out.’
Lisa turned the heat down on the sauce. ‘I’m not going outside either as it’s too cold but I’ll go up and check his room. Could you pour the water into glasses, please?’
Louise opened the large walk-in fridge and picked up the water jug; chilled and filtered tap water flavoured with lemon and some herb whose name Lisa wouldn’t reveal. It tasted wonderful and refreshing but Chris wouldn’t touch it; she filled his glass straight from the tap instead.
She closed the fridge door and stopped when she heard a faint but strange noise outside. It sounded like metal scraping on metal, as if something had been dragged against the steel water collector that stood against the wall, close to the kitchen window. The kitchen was quiet as Lisa didn’t like the radio or other music playing during dinner, the only sound being the occasional pop from the sauce. She leaned over to place the water jug on the table when she heard the sound of whispered voices.
