The Whitehall Syndicate: A time travel conspiracy thriller (6 page)

Jack stood over him threateningly, still massaging his hand. It was one of the few times he'd ever thrown a real punch and he didn’t remember the last one hurting so much. His hand was bright red and throbbing painfully. Still, Pete was down and clearly scared.

“What the hell are you doing?” he finally spluttered out. Jack wasn't a natural tough guy. He thought about acting like a menacing thug but decided against it.

“I'm asking you a few questions,” was his short, confident response. “Why did you delete the surveillance logs at Jenny's café yesterday?”

“What are you talking about?” With an intimidating glower, Jack kicked him in the gut to refresh his memory. Anisha squeezed her eyes shut and turned away.

“Why did you delete the surveillance logs at Jenny's café yesterday?” After another groan of agony he replied, “I didn't. Look, I was here all of yesterday after work.”

“The log was deleted some time yesterday night,” Anisha coughed out, her voice raspy.

“I was here all of yesterday night. I can prove it.” A solemn look ran through Anisha's eyes on realising that he might be innocent.

“Go on then,” said Jack in a calculated voice.

Pete picked himself up and walked over to the computer on the oak coffee table, pulling up some files. Anisha watched the screen intently, just in case he was trying to call for help. Eventually he loaded up a low-res movie clip and played it, turning to Anisha with doe eyes. “I'm sorry, I did use your password. I found it in your dresser drawer. I used it to try accessing our cameras yesterday. I missed the start of the match and I was hoping one of the cameras got it. I couldn’t retrieve the file over our computer anyway. All I could get was a low quality preview. See?”

Jack's innards began to sink as the same thing Anisha had realised hit him as well. He began forwarding through the file to check for sure. Pete was there all night; he'd fallen asleep on the couch. Anisha confirmed that the files were government coded. They were genuine, which meant Jack had just caved in the face of an innocent person. He didn't have to say what he was thinking; his expression said it all.

The horn honked, abruptly waking up Kim. She was sat on a cheap padded seat in the equally cheap and cheerful Cherry Pie nightclub. Not being much for clubbing, and having endured a shattering day at work, she would never have come here were it not for Imran's birthday. The night he'd planned for tomorrow had unexpectedly been cancelled, and desperate to celebrate his advancing years, he had organised this substitute. Considering the short notice, he was more than impressed with the turnout.

Imran had a thick but soft black beard that was flamboyantly styled into the letter I, which clearly reflected that he was the sort of person who did things merely for the sake of doing them. Today was no exception. He had heard this was the cheesiest club in all of London and despite hating cheesy music, had decided to come here to see if it was true. Bright lights shone down opalescent rays while exotically dressed students danced with the sort of retro moves not seen since the time of land-line phones. It was the sort of place that was embarrassing to go to, but great fun once you arrived.

Kim wasn't anti social - she liked fun as much as anyone, but for some reason she had a reputation as the boring one of her group. The one who always had an excuse for why she wasn't going to make it out. As she sat in her comfy chair, she wondered if that was such a bad thing.

A couple of people from the other lab groups had also come along, and were severely inebriated by the look of things. Bleach blonde Adam slipped next to her and with a drunken slur asked her to dance. After politely refusing him, he declared that he would sit there anyway, just to keep her company. He began to say something but the music was so deafening it drowned him out. She didn't care much and nodded anyway, pretending to hear him.

As they continued to make false conversation, Kim thought back to what she'd heard in the office. She leaned into Adams ear and yelled, “So how's work going?”

“Not bad,” he yelled, looking a little dizzy.

“What are you up to these days?”

“You naughty….,” he began, with a mischievous smile. He followed it with a playful shaking of his head, which only seemed to daze him further. “I can't tell you that.”

“I won't tell if you don't,” pushed Kim, all the while wearing a sweet smile.

“Ah, err,” was the only response, and after a pause, “Well
it's this thing. Energy on release from chonton, no chron, con crhon-,”

“Chronotrons”

“Those.” he exclaimed with a toothy smile. “Oh God,” he moaned and his head thumped against the table, the alcohol having finally got to him.

Jack and the girls stood in the sterile waiting room of the hospital ward, pacing up and down nervously. Pete was having some emergency procedures carried on his nose and the doctor had just finished. Visitors would be allowed in any moment. IN a moment of guilt, Jack wondered if he should leave, seeing as how he was probably the last person Pete wanted to see.

What concerned him more was how the incident had affected his relationship with Anisha. He didn't want it to come down to her choosing between them, but something else was also lurking in the back of his mind, something more sinister.

With all their leads only finding dead ends, he had to entertain the idea of actually killing Green. He only had eleven days left now. In amidst all the days' activity, it was a sobering thought. What did he know about assassinating people? He was just an ordinary man who had been dragged into this extraordinary mess.

After some more pacing he made the decision that he had been creeping around undecided. The decision on his course of action for the next fortnight. He would continue trying to find out who was responsible for all this and try to keep himself alive that way, but when it came down
to seven days remaining, he would switch his attentions. From then on he would work on a way to murder Michael Green.

Pete's nurse emerged from one of the mottled white corridors of the hospital. The process of re-aligning nasal cartilages and preventing bleeding was only a minor one, but it was still a relief to get the news everything was fine. Anisha was the quickest to head off after her, Gina a short way behind. Jack didn't move.

A few paces down the corridor Gina also slowed to a halt, freezing midway. From the other end, Jack waited until he saw Anisha walk into the room and then let out a deep breath. After a few seconds to collect his thoughts and control his guilt, he walked over to Gina and asked why she wasn't following.

“Neesh's one of my best friends and this means a lot to her, but I don't know. I still don't trust him.”

“But he had the videos, they proved it wasn't him didn't they?”

“Yeah but that's just it. He gets accused and just happens to have those videos with him? Isn't that a bit co-incidental? You know what, I'm probably just being paranoid.” With that she continued her walk back towards Pete's room and, taking a hard gulp, Jack did the same. As they reached the room they ran into Anisha walking out.

“What are you doing?” asked Gina.

“I had a word with him, you know. Told him what's going on and why we…why you did what you did,” she explained. “He does understand,
it's just,” she paused, “he needs some time to make sense of everything.”

Avoiding an awkward situation suited Jack fine, and the three of them all shuffled back outside the hospital, away from the septic odour and dim lights, to take in a mouthful of fresh night air. Getting back into their blue-grey minicab, they rode back to Anisha's apartment in silence.

The pigeons cooed and the clouds rumbled threateningly as Green came downstairs to make a cup of coffee. The kitchen was marbled and tiled, in line with the rest of the house, and the stone felt cold on his bare feet. Moving into the living room he grabbed the remote and flicked on the television to hear the news as he boiled some water. Silently and
subtlety, a shadow flashed across the large double window, too fast for him to notice. He quickly put some bread in his toaster and returned to the news: a technical problem once again holding back the latest NASA launch into space.

As the adverts started playing, Green muted the TV and attended to his coffee machine. Selecting white with two sweeteners he watched as coffee poured into the mug below. The cup was virtually molten, but Green was used to it and swigged half of it down straight away. A crackling sound from the front lawn fractured the silence and Green poked his head next to the window to investigate. A garden was a rare thing to have living in London. They'd virtually become extinct in the capital as space became more and more precious. Looking over now, he saw his rose bush outside had been trampled. Probably his neighbour's dog he thought, though he didn't see Tazzie around anywhere.

Not wanting to get unnerved, he turned the television back on and sat down with his coffee. His eyebrows furrowed as he heard the back door creak. It was warm this morning and he couldn't remember if he'd left it open or not. Pop. Green flinched and for a second he could feel his heart rattling in his ribcage. Glancing across he saw the toast was ready. Trying to calm himself down, he turned the television off, and breathed in and out to dissipate his jangling nerves.

He lived in an open house, with no doors joining the lower rooms. Slowly walking in to the living room he saw a piece of dirty white paper sitting on the doormat. As he edged forward he could smell something rancid. It got stronger as he closed in on the note, until he was fighting his eyes from watering. On the paper, in a murky red and brown colour, was the message WE KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING. It was written in a vile paste of excrement and blood.

He covered his mouth with one hand and picked up the sheet from the corner using the other. Hurriedly walking across to his study, he yanked at the ivory handle and opened the desk drawer to reveal a heap of other notes. WE KNOW YOUR SECRET, THE TRUTH WILL COME OUT, MURDERER, WE KNOW, and many more. He slipped in the latest to the collection and wiggled the drawer shut with a heavy breath.

The desk had a plush antique style with an ivory finish and it left him with an odd sense of guilt, storing something so disgusting inside something so perfect. Still it made no sense reporting it. It would only draw unwanted attention. Leaving his office, Green headed for the kitchen sink to wash his hands. For today, he would have to cut breakfast short.

The rhythmic pitter-patter of the rain woke up Jack; now resting on Anisha's plush blue sofa. She was in her room and Gina quietly lay on Pete's bed. Looking at the clock across the hallway he gasped as he saw it was almost noon. He had already wasted half of his day. On the other hand, with the last two nights free of sleep, perhaps a lie in this morning was justified.

From the hush it seemed like the girls were also sleeping off their fatigue. He twisted a bit and shuffled down the couch to get more comfortable. His stomach felt hollow and yearned for a good meal. Maybe he'd cook something today, to apologise to Anisha for putting her in this position with Pete.

The pressure seemed to be off him a little today. He hadn't received a suitcase or shoebox or any other creepy messages in the night and for the first time in his vacation - if you could still call it that - he seemed to have some control over what was going on. He had some sort of a game plan and it felt like he understood properly what was at stake.

Concluding that sleep was a lost cause, he stretched and took in a long yawn. With the minimum of effort, Jack hauled himself off the couch. He shook his head and rubbed his eyes to clear up his vision. His body was athletic and well toned but right now it felt tired and beaten. Walking across the room to where his jacket lay slumped, he pulled out the small booklet on using a knife, and wandered into the kitchen to get one.

The floor was covered in linoleum, patterned to match the wood grain of the rest of the flooring. Searching the drawers slowly to make the minimum of noise, he finally found one and tiptoed back to the living
room. Checking to see that no one was around, he began to read the booklet, and at the same time practise.

Kim's bloodshot eyes softly focused on the huge queue for the coffee machine. Everyone in the lab looked like the living dead. She shuffled into line, not too happy at having to spend her lunch break waiting for coffee when she could be draped on a couch in the staff lounge. But she, like half the lab, desperately needed the caffeine.

All of a sudden, even though she couldn't see anything, she sensed someone behind her. She could feel their body heat radiating as they slowly crept up. What if Adam had blabbed about their conversation? It could be her bosses telling her she's fired, or worse…. terminated. She gulped and took a deep breath, but remained anxious. Out of nowhere she felt a sharp stab at her left shoulder.

Almost yelping out, she just managed to contain herself and jerked around by reflex.

“Hey Kim. Great night yesterday.” She let out a slow, relieved breath.

“Yeah Imran, it was fun. Today's not so great though.”

He grinned and said, “Well in my opinion you can always tell how good a night was by how bad you feel the next morning.” She smiled and allowed herself a gentle laugh.

“Then I guess last night was awesome!”

He did another Cheshire Cat grin and added, “You know the best bit. Thanks to time travel, I got to have my birthday twice!”

“Does that make you a year older?” The both chuckled.

She was at the front of the queue now and filled a huge cup of black coffee to the brim. Seeing that the staff lounge had somehow become packed solid, she instead retreated to the calm of her office. Occupying her desk was the summary of what the team had found out so far about decay rates. She leafed through the report, this time thinking about energy release and Chronotrons.

Jack was in a pair of dark beige and olive green khaki's with a black T-shirt on top. Gina had chosen a fruity, stripy top with assorted colours, and a pair of long dark blue jeans, both borrowed from Anisha.
The two of them were furiously tidying up now, waiting for Pete to return home with her. Anisha had suggested that now they knew Pete was trustworthy, it would be safer if the four of them all stayed at her apartment.

Since Anisha already had a spare key for Gina's flat, she had decided to pick up some of their things on the way back from the hospital. As the bell rang, everyone clamoured for the door, wanting to make a good impression. They still had a lot to make up for, Jack in particular. The photographer entered the spick and span apartment, immediately greeted by two smiling faces, eager to make amends.

Pete could be stern and cruel when he wanted to be, but in general he was an easygoing guy. He knew lots of friends who had made mistakes and he was the first to forgive them all. Jack stepped up to him and shook his hand, looking solemn. “Listen, about last night. I am so sorry-,”

“It's okay,” interjected Pete softly, “I get it.” They both looked relieved as the tension eased, and then Anisha helped Pete into his room. It was cleaner than it had ever been before: all the magazines had been stacked away and all the FLDs and camera equipment neatly stored out of view.

Pete crashed onto his king-size mattress, tired and slightly sore from his stay on a hospital bed. He was glad to be out of there and for now he just wanted to rest. The doorbell rang and he heard the quiet, muffled sound of Gina shouting, “I'll get it.” Arching back, Pete didn't even bother to get changed. He simply closed his eyes and heard Anisha say “That's right mate, get some rest.”