Avenger (2 page)

Charles Samuel Pointer III, Charlie Three to his friends, Chuck to his doting dad, was going to get a job.

His father would be impressed. Even though Charlie Three didn't need the work he was setting up for the Christmas vacation, he knew full well that his dad, Charles Samuel Pointer II, admired initiative and determination above all other qualities. Ever since the pioneering days back at the start of the twentieth century, the Pointers had been demonstrating their initiative and determination.

Charlie's great-great-great-grandfather had shown the initiative to emigrate with his wife and two children from Eastern Europe to the United States of America. And like thousands of other immigrants, Josef Podowski arrived at Ellis Island, in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, with nothing more than the clothes he stood up in and the determination to succeed in his new life.

And he did. He was a grafter and he was clever. Even way back then, Josef saw that the future was in communications, and so he made it his business to get in there, starting at the bottom and working his way up.

A couple of generations on, with a lot of hard work, plenty of that famous initiative and determination, and a change of name from Podowski to Pointer, and the family fortune was well on the way to being made.

Charlie Three's grandfather, the great Charles Samuel Pointer I, chose the new family name. He reckoned it sounded substantial and solid, pioneering yet well established and, most importantly,
American.

The business continued to thrive and grow, and on the morning that Charlie Three left for his job interview, it was established as one of the nation's top computer and Internet research and development organizations, firmly placed at the cutting edge of the industry.

Some day Charlie Three was going to take over that business. But there was a Pointer tradition: no one got an easy ride; everyone had to get out there and show what they were made of by demonstrating that famous initiative and determination.

Charlie knew that maybe he wasn't quite as brilliant as his father, and certainly not as dazzling as the great CSP One, as he was known in the family. But Charlie was a trier, and as the only child, it was up to him to carry on the great Pointer tradition. There was no way he was going to let the old man down.

He had kept the interview a secret from everyone, even his father. The job was nothing special; a post boy, a gofer, working for an international finance company over the busy holiday period.

But Charlie Three knew that would impress his dad even more; he could already hear the old man's words when he told him he had the job. 'That's my boy. Get in there at the bottom, Chuck, and show 'em what us Pointers are made of.'

Charlie Three was up early. He dressed smartly and was feeling good as he stepped out into a bright morning and walked away from the family's East 96
^th
Street penthouse apartment, which overlooked Central Park. He took the subway downtown towards Wall Street and the financial district, went through the security barriers into the building, and then joined the lines of workers drinking Starbucks and reading papers as they waited for one of the elevators to take them up to their offices.

On the way up to his floor he took a few deep breaths and repeated the old family maxim to himself: 'Initiative and determination. Initiative and determination.'

The elevator came to a standstill and Charlie Three stepped out onto his floor. He walked along the corridor and went through glass doors into the finance company reception area.

The long reception desk was close to one of the picture windows overlooking the city and the Hudson river and, beyond that, New Jersey. A young woman was standing behind the desk, staring out through the window. As he approached, Charlie Three saw the look of confusion and horror on the woman's face.

He followed her gaze out through the window and at the same moment heard the roaring noise. He recognized the plane instantly; he was interested in aeroplanes. It was an American Airlines Boeing 767.

There was no time to think or do anything else.

It was 8:45 a.m. The date was September 11 2001.

England, 2006

The TV crew from the BBC Look North studio were on hand purely by chance. One minute they were setting up to film a routine interview with a world-famous business consultant, in town to address a national conference; the next they were sprawled on the carpeted floor after an ear-shattering explosion rocked the very foundations of the building.

They were lucky; they were in a convention room at the back of the hotel, with a heavy projection screen between them and the windows, which shattered in the blast and sent lethal shards of glass hurtling in every direction.

It was only when they picked themselves up and ran out onto the quayside that they saw the extent of the damage, and the cost in human lives.

The bomber had chosen to detonate his device at the very centre of the Gateshead Millennium Bridge. The steel structure was pitted and scarred and dented from one side to the other; it looked as though a huge hand had punched into the tubular sections with ferocious power.

On both sides of the Tyne, the multi-windowed buildings, the pride of Newcastle and Gateshead, resembled nothing more than those in a war zone. Every huge window in the Baltic Art Gallery was gone, destroyed either by the nuts and bolts projected by the ten-pound IED, which had spewed out with the velocity of heavy machine-gun bullets, or by the sheer percussive force of the explosion.

But most terrifying of all were the bodies. The bomber had chosen his moment well. Dozens of businessmen and women, in Newcastle for the first time, had been taking a morning stroll from one side of the bridge to the other, getting some good Tyneside air before their conference began. It was 0830 hours; locals were crossing the bridge on their way to work, just as they did every morning.

Now they lay in grotesque, twisted shapes on the bridge and on the quayside. Those who had been closest to the suicide bomber had been hurled from the bridge into the cold, dark Tyne and were floating lifelessly in the water.

As the news reporter and cameraman ran from the hotel into the scene of devastation, they came to a standstill at the first horrifying sight of the carnage. Vehicles had skidded to a halt; drivers were running to help. There were moans and screams from the injured and, in the distance, the first police siren could be heard.

Then the reporter shouted to his ashen-faced colleague. 'Start shooting!' There was no response: the cameraman just stood and stared. 'Richie! Shoot it! Come on!'

With trembling hands the cameraman raised his camera and began to record the scene of horror. Within a day his footage, heavily edited, would be seen on television screens in every corner of the globe.

Black Star had struck again.

Elena's PC screen flicked into life; contact was reestablished.

SO HOW YOU DOIN', GOLA?

THE SAME. I SAW WHAT HAPPENED IN NEWCASTLE. HE WAS SO
BRAVE.

ALL MY ANGELS ARE BRAVE, GOLA, THEY GOTTA BE. WE TRAVEL A LONG ROAD BEFORE THEY'RE READY TO TAKE THE FINAL STEP TO FREEDOM.

YES, I SEE THAT MORE AND MORE. I SORT OF ENVIED HIM WHEN
IT WAS ALL OVER.

WHY'S THAT, GOLA? TELL ME???

BECAUSE EVERYTHING SEEMS POINTLESS. STILL NO NEWS OF
DAD, HE'S RUN OUT ON ME AGAIN. EVERYONE'S LET ME DOWN ALL MY LIFE.

YEAH, I KNOW THE FEELING.

IT'S NEVER REALLY BEEN RIGHT SINCE MUM DIED. WHY IS EVERYTHING
SO UNFAIR?

CAN'TANSWERTHAT, GOLA, JUST KNOW IT IS FOR PEOPLE LIKE US. BUT ARE YOU REALLY READY TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT???? MAKE A DIFFERENCE, LIKE WE SAID?????? YOU AND ME HAVE COME A LONG WAY, TOO, BUT IN A SHORT TIME.

Elena turned away from her laptop screen and looked at Danny to her right, and then at Marcie Deveraux, who was sitting on her left.

'Be careful,' said Deveraux. 'You know what to say. Exactly as we've discussed, and nothing more.'

Elena nodded and her hands went back to the keyboard.

I THINK I'M READY.

There was a short delay before the next pop-up appeared on Elena's screen.

THINKING ISN'T ENOUGH. YOU'VE GOTTA BE CERTNN BEFORE YOU TAKE THAT ULTIMATE STEP.

Deveraux leaned closer to Elena. When she spoke, her voice was insistent, but calm and assured.

'Ask the question. Just as I told you. And maintain contact and keep him online for as long as you can.'

Elena hit the keys again.

BUT WHAT ABOUT YOU??? WOULD YOU DO IT???

THOUGHT YOU'D ASK THAT!! AND I WILL DO IT, WHEN THE TIME IS RIGHT. BUT FOR HOW IT'S MY ROLE TO HELP OTHERS, LIKE THE ONES WHO'VE GONE BEFORE. LOOK, I UNDERSTAND COMPLETELY IF IT'S TOO MUCH FOR YA. THERE ARE OTHERS OUT THERE WAITING.

'Don't ask about the others,' said Deveraux quickly. 'Keep it on you, and your commitment.'

Elena nodded and took a deep breath. Just writing about what Black Star was proposing was enough to make her shiver. But she nodded again and began to type.

NO, I AM SURE. I'M CERTAIN!!! WE HAD ENOUGH! I WANNA
SHOW EVERYONE EXACTLY WHAT I THINK OF THIS CRAP WORLD!!!

There was a longer delay, and Elena glanced anxiously at Deveraux. This was usually a sign that Black Star was about to close down.

'Maintain contact,' said Deveraux quickly. 'Ask about his real name. He knows yours. Ask him!'

But before Elena could begin to type, Black Star came back on screen.

OK. GOTTA GO NOW. WE'LL TALK AGAIN VERY SOON, MAKE PLANS. THIS CRAP WORLD'S GONNA DISCOVER WHAT A SPECIAL PERSON YOU ARE, GOLA!!!!!!!!!!

The screen went blank. Black Star had gone, and as Elena sat back in her chair, her hands were trembling.

Deveraux picked up her 'secure speech' Xda mobile, tapped the screen and put the device to her ear. She glared at Elena. 'You should have kept him online. The longer we have contact, the more chance there is of locating him.'

'We don't even know Black Star is a
he,'
said Danny, springing to the defence of his friend. 'And it's not Elena's fault if you can't find the target.'

'It's a man, I know it's a man,' said Deveraux over the ring tone in her ear.

Her call was answered. 'No good,' said a voice without waiting for the question. 'He's spoofed his ID through the Philippines and Berlin. We'll never find him like this.'

Deveraux hung up, turned to Fergus Watts and shook her head.

They were getting nowhere. In the four weeks since Elena had been making regular contact, Black Star, or the 'target', as the shadowy Internet figure was now termed, had never once disclosed a single personal detail: gender, age, location. Nothing.

Fergus was sitting in a wheelchair. He still wasn't used to it; it was almost as bad as being cooped up in a prison cell. Around his neck dangled the earpiece lead of a mini iPod. He had surprised Danny when he'd bought it three weeks earlier, saying it would give him something to do during any down time they had. He'd chosen the smallest and cheapest model, an iPod Shuffle, and it had accompanied him everywhere since Danny had shown him how to load it with the old rock music he liked.

He looked over at his grandson. 'Why don't you and Elena go outside for a while? Get some air. You've both been stuck in here for too long.'

The two teenagers needed no second invitation; they too had begun to feel like prisoners.

The room being used as the operational base was small and tucked away at the back of a hotel just outside Oxford. The hotel was Danny and Elena's ACA, and their cover story was that they were living and working there. The living bit was true enough, but their work had nothing to do with the hotel.

The small hotel, used mainly as an overnight crash pad for sales reps during the week and for budget-conscious tourists visiting the university city at weekends, was owned by a couple who had taken early retirement from the Security Service. Like many such places, it was used occasionally by MI5 when they needed a safe and completely secure base for one or more operators.

Fergus waited until Danny and Elena had left the room before speaking to Deveraux. 'What is it with you? Is this how you're trained to run your people?'

Deveraux frowned and shook her head. 'What are you talking about?'

'Elena! You're not going to get results if you push her like that. She's young – she's not like one of your operatives. She's the only lead you've got to Black Star, but she's going to lose it if you don't lay off!'

Fergus's outburst had no effect on Deveraux; she was as calm and assured as ever as she went over to the coffee pot standing on a table in one corner of the room. She slowly and deliberately poured herself a full cup. 'I'm only interested in the mission, not in making friends.'

'Friends?' said Fergus, moving the wheelchair closer. 'I doubt if you've ever had a friend in your life. You're obsessive, like a machine.
All
you think about is the work.'

Deveraux's smile was not one of friendship. 'Like you?' For a few moments they stared at each other, both recognizing and silently acknowledging the similarities that made them so good at what they did. The best. But neither of them would have chosen to work together.

'Look, we didn't want to have anything to do with this job,' said Fergus. 'It was you and your boss who forced Elena into believing she was the only one who could get to Black Star. All that emotional blackmail stuff:
she
was his only known contact;
she
could help save so many innocent lives; the old "your country needs you" crap!'

Deveraux was unimpressed. 'You're making my heart bleed, Watts. Just remember, you and Danny are only part of this mission because Elena insisted on it.'

'Yeah,' said Fergus as he continued staring into Deveraux's eyes. 'And it's fortunate for us she did, isn't it? Because you and me both know what the alternative would have been.'

Deveraux didn't reply. There was no need. All that had saved them was the fact the Elena was the only person known to have made contact with Black Star.

Now Deveraux and Fergus were allies, reluctant allies, thrown together with one common aim.

'Just lay off a bit,' said Fergus. 'Elena's worried about her dad – and that creep she has to deal with day after day.' He watched as Deveraux took a sip of her coffee and then glanced towards the window.

'Joey's disappearance. . .' said Fergus quietly. "There's nothing more you want to tell me about that, is there?'

Deveraux turned and looked straight at Fergus. 'No – nothing. From what I understand, he was always completely unreliable.'

'Was?'

Deveraux smiled again. 'Figure of speech.'