Scion (10 page)

“I need a complete wardrobe before I board a flight tonight!” she gasped, staring into his eyes as deeply as her stomach would allow.

Working on commission and faced with one of the stores biggest spenders, it was not a difficult decision.

“Lock in,” he announced to his assistant rubbing his hands in anticipation.

***

Clark
directed the driver to Reagan International. They needed a van. At the second counter, he got what he wanted, a Ford Freestar minivan, blacked out windows and a sliding side door. It had been over forty minutes since he’d called in with Rosie’s number and he would have hoped to have heard back by now. He was beginning to worry; the last thing he wanted was to have to intercept Rosie at Dulles airport.

“Where to?” asked the driver as he turned the
key in the ignition.

“
Head towards Dulles but don’t rush,” replied Clark willing his phone to ring.

Five minutes later his wish came true
. His phone rang.

“
Clark,” he answered.

“Hi, I’ve got the location for you, I’m sending it to your
PDA now.”

“Excellent
.” Clark hung up the phone and removed his PDA from his belt. A message pinged into his inbox and as he clicked the link, the screen changed to a map of the area. A red dot designated the location of the target. Clark zoomed in on the location and checked his watch.

“Tyson’s Galleria and quick, it must be shutting soon
,” he barked.

He looked at his watch again
, it was 7.02 p.m. and it was Sunday. He was no great shopper but he knew shops didn’t stay open after 7 on a Sunday.

***

As Doug rang the purchases through the till, he passed them to Ashley who was carefully packing them in her new Gucci roll-on. One outfit however was kept aside, that was for the airplane. She couldn’t possibly do first class in BR she thought. As Doug ran her credit card through the machine she disappeared into a changing room and donned the new outfit, jeans boots and the most fantastic jacket. Doug really was a star she thought, it all fitted perfectly. As she stepped out of the changing room, she casually glanced at the time.

“Oh my
God! It’s 8 o’clock! I need to get to the airport.”

She grabbed her bag and began to run for the exit
.

“Wait a minute
, I need to let you out,” shouted Doug running after her.

He ran with her to the main doors where thank
God she could see her taxi still waiting for her. She was sure he’d have gone but obviously he was a trusting type. As they walked to the taxi, Doug suddenly threw his hand to his mouth.

“Oh my
God I’ve left your credit card,” he began to turn his head. “Back th…”

Before he could finish
his sentence, his head simply ceased to exist. A second shot thumped through the taxi’s windscreen before lodging itself in the cabby’s forehead. Ashley didn’t even have a chance to scream before the impact on her neck stopped her.

***

“There she is!” shouted Clark.

The van
’s side door slid back as the marksman took aim with his H&K PSG1A1 sniper rifle, the newest in the line and still the most expensive factory rifle available. One thing that never failed to amaze Unit members were the weapons they had access to. It was almost as though they were a testing ground for new weapons. Almost daily, new toys would be delivered and it seemed nothing was out of their reach.

T
he driver kept the speed steady, knowing exactly how his colleague worked. They had been a team since the day they joined the army, twenty years earlier. One was the spotter and the other the shooter and they still held the Green Beret record for recorded kills.

As they drew closer
, Clark withdrew his gun and took aim at Rosie. As the sniper dealt with the collateral, Clark took care of Rosie.

“Leave them
, just take her!” he shouted as they screeched to a stop next to the taxi.

With Rosie dumped in the boot,
Clark ordered the driver to get them to the helipad. Ten minutes later and with one additional passenger, the minivan was speeding towards Dulles International Airport. It was going to be close.

***

It had been a long day for purser Brian O’Toole. He was supposed to have another day off but had received a call two hours earlier. The other purser had phoned in sick and he was on standby. At least Flight BA0292 Washington Dulles to London Heathrow was a night flight and was usually fairly mundane. Also, he was in first class so it should be nice and quiet. He may even get a couple of hours sleep if he were lucky.

By the time he made it onto the plane, pre-boarding had already begun and so far
, it was looking good. He looked at the passenger list and couldn’t believe his luck. Only one first-class passenger was booked on the plane. With only five minutes left before take-off, Brian was already selecting the seat he would sleep in. It seemed that his one passenger wasn’t going to make it. As the captain introduced himself over the PA, the phone rang in the first class cabin. Brian answered.

“Hi
, just to let you know, a last minute booking, First Class, on his way to you now.”

Brian hung
up the phone just as the passenger walked towards him. Ever the professional, he walked towards the man and offered to hang up his coat.

“Thank you.”

“Not at all, sorry, but do you have your boarding card?”

“Of course,” replied the passenger handing over his card.

“Ah, Mr Clark, seat 1A, just this way Sir.”

As Brian showed
Clark to his seat, a noise behind them made them turn. Both smiled as the new passenger entered the First Class cabin. Brian immediately made his way towards the new arrival and offered to take her coat which she graciously accepted as she handed over her boarding card.

“Miss Diaz, seat 4A
.” Brian pointed to the seat to her left.

“Please, call me Rosie.”

Chapter 13

Walker replaced the handset slowly before switching off the small desk light, throwing the penthouse into complete darkness. He leaned back in his seat and looked out across the emptiness of Central Park to the dozing city that never sleeps. Twenty five years ago, Walker had sold his soul to five men; it had been a very lucrative agreement. He sat in a $40 million dollar apartment, his house in the Hamptons was worth at least that again and he had holiday homes in the Caribbean and the South of France. He also had a private jet and more money than he could spend in many lifetimes. However, Walker was now wondering whether it was all worth it.

The call had not gone well
. The anger in the men’s voices was evident even before they discovered the reason for the call. Two had been roused from their beds with the promise that if the emergency didn’t warrant their involvement, heads would roll. The emergency did warrant their involvement but the revelation of what had happened and the threat to the five men meant tempers flared. Initially their wrath fell on Walker but he had managed to push some of it back when he reminded them that he was the one who had cautioned vigilance all those years ago. Their anger needed to be vented and the next obvious recipient was The Unit and their botched operation. The Colonel bore the full brunt and his penalty was quickly agreed. Permanent retirement. Walker was to see to it immediately after “pulling his finger out of his ass and fixing the fucking issue”. The undertone was clear, one more failure and the Colonel would not be taking Walker’s fall.

With t
hat, the men had ended the call. Walker knew the five men would be panicking. They had everything to lose. And when you had everything, everything was a lot to lose.

Chapter 14

Scott
woke up to a plate of eggs and bacon pushed through a slot at the base of the door. He checked around the room and quickly concluded it had not been a dream.

“What time is it?” he shouted.

“Seven a.m.,” came the terse response.

In two hours he was supposed to be at a meeting with his tutor to talk about his aims and ambitions for his Economics degree. Just as well it was going to be delayed
. He had no idea what his aims and ambitions were. Up until two weeks ago, he didn’t even know he’d be going to university, never mind Cambridge. It had been a very weird few weeks and had all started with the strange letter he received three weeks earlier. A meeting was scheduled which he was invited to attend; a meeting which according to the letter would have a significant impact on his future. The meeting was set to take place in law offices in Singapore.

Scott
, never one to miss an opportunity, requested leave from his employers, something he had never previously done and it was therefore accepted without question. He had then travelled to Singapore and arrived at the designated offices for the meeting which was nothing like what he had expected. It was over almost before it had started. Basically, his mother, a woman who had died before he had known her, had little to leave him except the one thing she treasured above all else. Education. It seemed his mother was a Cambridge graduate and had had some influence at the University, so much so, that she had somehow and completely anonymously managed to secure the placing of her child (sex yet to be determined) two months into her pregnancy. The lawyer had gone on to explain that the rather strange arrangement had been organised in haste and no further explanation given. Except that almost 25 years from the date of the letter, a place was reserved for her child on the Economics course at Trinity College, Cambridge, along with accommodation. All costs would be borne by her estate and a small sum of money left over would provide a basic allowance. Scott was overcome with emotion. He had never known his mother and she had only ever been described to him as beautiful, wonderful and generous. He had never even seen a photo. He had no idea who his father was, whether he was alive or dead. Nobody knew, his mother having taken that knowledge to her grave, three months after his birth.

His employers had not been overly happy at his change of plans
. However they had accepted that it was a once in a lifetime opportunity and within an hour of his notification, they offered him a significant bursary to stay within their employ while he studied, guaranteeing him a substantial increase on completion of his course. They were extremely keen to retain his talents. Never considering anything else, Scott accepted the offer gratefully.

***

It was 7.35 a.m. when the shit started to hit the fan and as far as Harris and Kelly were concerned, it never really stopped.

The door burst open and the custody sergeant rushed into the room, his face filled with dread.

“Jesus, what’s happened?” asked Kelly having just walked into the office herself. Harris was sitting sipping a coffee looking as bemused as ever.

The sergeant caught his breath before he could respond
. It had been a long night and a distressing one. He had replaced his friend and colleague from the previous night who remained critical in Intensive Care.

“The prisoner, one of the rugby guys, he’s dead
!”

“What do you mean he’s dead?” asked Harris
.

“Not breathing dead.”

“But how?” asked Kelly, worried he had been murdered.

“No idea, we pushed his food under the door, went back a half hour later to pick it up and found him dead. Stone cold, must have died during the night
,” he gasped.

“But he was completely fine last night
,” objected Kelly.

“Well who knows, sometimes your time
’s just up,” said Harris imparting his wisdom to the group.

Kelly
looked at him quizzically. She knew sometimes people just dropped dead but it was incredibly rare and was another bizarre twist to their already baffling case.

“
You’d better let the Chief know,” she said to Harris.

“You call him, he’s got a soft spot for you
,” he said smiling.

Kelly
instantly blushed, the over lingering looks of the pervy old Chief had not gone unnoticed.

Before she had a chance to pick
up the receiver, it rang. With her hand already on it, she answered before the end of the first ring.

“Hi, I’ve got the FSS on
Line One for you.”

“Thanks
.” And before she pressed the flashing red light to take the call, she whispered to Harris.

“FSS!”
and then hit the loudspeaker. The sergeant, realising he was finished with, left the office and closed the door behind him.

“Hi,
Detective Sergeant Kelly here,” she announced after hitting the flashing button.

“Morning detective, I’m Brian Musgrave a supervisor here at FSS Huntingdon
. I’ve got a couple of things here. Probably most importantly for you, we have a match between your suspect and the serial rapist. However, not with the latest victim.”

Kelly
and Harris digested the information which didn’t really make sense. They’d only caught him because of the last victim. If anything matched it should have been that.

“Are you sure?”

“Until we run the tests again, yes. Unfortunately I can’t verify it with the tester…”

“Why not?” Harris butted in.

“Actually that’s the other reason for my call, it seems there’s been a terrible accident.”

Harris and
Kelly could do nothing but stare at the phone in disbelief.

“John Yates one of my team seems to have fallen over in his chair and broken his neck. He’s dead.”

“Don’t touch anything, that area is a crime scene,” said Kelly quickly. That was one too many coincidences.

“But you can see the tear in the carpet where his chair must have caught
…”

“Brian trust me, everything to do with this case is not as it seems.”

Another phone ringing interrupted them. Harris stood and walked across to the other desk and picked it up.

Kelly
took the phone off speaker and picked up the receiver and proceeded to tell Brian exactly what to do. As she ended the call, she looked across at Harris who seemed to be just holding the phone in mid air and staring blankly at her.

“
What?” she asked

“That was the hospital, all three of the rugby men
died during the night!”

“But only one was critical, the other two had fractured limbs.”

“I know but all three died.”

“Holy shit!”

“And then some!!” added Harris.

After a moment or two of silence
.

“What next?” asked
Kelly. “What next?”

As the time neared 8
.00 a.m., their fellow detectives began to arrive. Jokes about the previous day’s dropping quickly died down as they were brought up to speed as to the turn of events. The arrival of the Detective Superintendent who headed the department silenced the room. His absence on the previous day had been noted, particularly following the Chief’s involvement. If Detective Superintendent Keith Addison had not been basking in the Mediterranean sunshine with his latest conquest, he may have been slightly more prepared for what was about to hit him. Unfortunately, his flight from Malaga had not landed until 2.00 a.m. whereupon he’d gone straight home and crashed out. He hadn’t seen the news, read a paper or even listened to the radio in the previous twenty four hours. He had also ‘accidentally’ left his cell phone in the office on the Friday, so that his wife couldn’t catch him out on his ‘weekend with the boys’.

Kelly
and Harris briefed him and brought him up to speed.

“Fuck!
How many dead, did you say?”

“Seven and the custody sergeant is c
ritical - less than a fifty/fifty chance,” replied Harris.

“Fuck!”

A knock on the door announced the entry of Detective Constable Ben Merrick.

“Sir, sorry to interrupt but I’ve got a Detective Inspector Newell on the phone from Newcastle
. He urgently wants to talk to the officer in charge of the rape case.”

“Put him through
,” replied Addison.

“Line 3,
Sir,” he said before leaving the room.

As they waited for
Line 3 to start flashing, all wondered what next. As it started to flash, Kelly pressed the button, instantly connecting them to DI Newell on speakerphone.

“Hi, is that DCI Harris
?” asked Newel.

“Yes, you
’re on speaker with Detective Superintendent Addison and Detective Sergeant Kelly.”

“Good morning,” replied Newell.

“How can we help?” asked Addison.

“
If you’ll bear with me here, Sir. About two years ago, I was investigating a serial rapist who had raped six women in less than a year. Anyway one night we get a break, he’s just raped a girl and she escaped and managed to give us a good enough description in order to track him down. We went in and caught him comatose in his bed, caught him bang to rights exactly where she said. He comes round and protests his innocence, doesn’t know how he got into the room etc… you know, the usual. Anyway the last victim disappears, we don’t know where she’s gone, presume a break down or that she was a student who went home without giving us her address. He’s fingered as the serial but his DNA doesn’t match, which felt right as he just didn’t match the profile. But the CPS in their infinite wisdom reckon he must have planted the false DNA and that we should go for prosecution anyway. They use the victim’s running away as her being too scared to go to trial and before you know it, the guy’s sent down for 15 years.”

“Oh my
God!” said Kelly.

“What?” asked Newell
.

“You’ve not had any rapes like it in the last year have you?”

“Nope, not a one, which was beginning to make me think we did get the right guy.”

“
But what you describe is exactly what’s happened here. Can you send us everything you’ve got?” said Kelly.

“
Will do. Can you let me know what happens, I’ve got a young guy up here stewing in prison for what this pair have done.”

“Definitely
,” replied Addison ending the call.

Silence filled the room as each worked out what the implications of the call were.
It was Kelly who broke the silence first.

“The only issue we have is the DNA match
. Other than that, it’s completely the same.”

“I’m willing to bet a few bob the young scientist didn’t fall
. This whole thing stinks!” said Addison.

Noticing they were off their call
, DC Merrick stuck his head in again.