Bacchus and Sanderson (Deceased) (40 page)

“Jonas, they’re going to go after Jonas.”

Juanita nodded, “We have to get him moved. When you’re in heaven, the only person who can authorise a move back to limbo or even into protective custody is the boss. That’s where we need to go now.”

***

              Ben held Jemima’s hand staring at her bruised, scraped face. She’d been lucky, they said. To have escaped from an impact with a car and only have her injuries, was fortunate. William walked back into the room that Jemima was in on the private Kingston Wing of Yeovil hospital.

“Did Annabel say she was going straight back to the house after she dropped you off?”

Ben smiled and said,

“She sent you a text telling you that she wanted Chinese for supper and was going to drink your single malt in the bath.”

William looked out of the window looking distracted,

“Why isn’t she answering her phone? Ben, Jemima is going to be out for hours yet. Would you mind if I slipped off to check on Annabel and come back later to collect you?”

Ben said,

“Don’t worry about coming back, I’ll sleep here. Let me know Annabel’s ok. A text?”

William nodded and rushed out of the room in the direction of the lifts.

              While he waited for Jemima to regain consciousness, Ben powered up his laptop and opened the map of the Caribbean Sea. Jemima drugged to the eyeballs with morphine had mumbled to him to look at the position of the Cortez ships, before losing consciousness as they wheeled her to the operating theatre to pin her broken thigh bone
and set her fractured wrist.

             
Tapping on the keyboard while keeping half an eye on Jemima, he opened the live shipping locator. He tapped in the name of the Cortez ships they had suspected were the ships they were using. The CHC Princess, CHC Amazonia and CHC Cartagena. The Princess was heading down the coast of Ecuador, The Amazonia had gone even further and was just short of Lima and the Cartagena was off the coast of Guatemala.

“Shit! That can’t be right. All of them are the wrong side of the canal.”

Ben re-input the ships he needed to track, refreshed the page, but the result was the same. None of these ships were heading towards the UK.

“OK, think.” He looked down at Jemima in the bed wondering when she would come round. She had worked something out, but what? An electronic pinging sound came from Jemima’s bedside, which made Ben start until he realised it was his mobile phone that he had taken from his back pocket before he had sat down. He read the text with some confusion and then frustration. The text that Jemima had sent him hours before had been caught up on the network and only just delivered. ‘Check out what I have left for you on my Mac
Air. Explains a lot doesn’t it?’

Ben took the mobile Internet dongle from his pocket, plugged it into the USB drive. Once it had found the strongest signal he used a piece of software he had written to remotely log into his home Wi-Fi. Jemima’s laptop was on the network and he used his program to log onto her machine.

              When it opened, he was looking at the same screen he had opened on his own computer showing the position of the three Cortez ships heading north and south along the coast of South America. A second Internet screen was open and when he clicked on this, it showed another version of the program, but displaying the Caribbean sea around Antigua. Three Panamax cargo ships were steaming in formation northeast heading up towards the southern coast of America. A third tab again displayed another version of the program and showed the historical route of the three ships, all had begun their journeys from Buenaventura four days, almost five days before. The final tab showed the projected route of the three ships. All were going to the UK and were due to arrive at their destination port in about ten days. The ships all made a stop at the Canadian port of Nova Scotia and then would cross the Atlantic with each heading to a different UK port. The ports that the projection showed were: Southampton, Liverpool and Felixstowe on the East coast of England.

              Ben considered what he was seeing on the screen of Jemima’s laptop. The ships that they had anticipated the Cortez Cartel would be using were not heading to the UK or Europe. The three ships that Jemima was tracking were heading to the UK within the appropriate time frame and one of these ships was going to the port they expected the drugs to go to. But, and this was a big but, they were not registered to CHC.

              He looked over at the bed to see if Jemima was stirring. The doctor had said that he thought she would sleep until the morning, which considering the trauma and shock her body had been through was to be expected. Disconnecting from his home Wi-Fi, Ben searched the online world shipping register and found the three ships all registered to the same company. The companies’ head office was in the City of London. Opening a new window he input the companies name, Cameron Holdings Corporation Plc., into Companies House search engine and got basic information. To get more details including names of directors he had to pay a one off fee, which he did using his credit card. The details, when they came up, caused him to grin and continue typing. Ben loved a challenge.

Cameron Holdings Corporation Plc. was a shell company, which had a number of registered assets that it leased to other companies. It owned ten tankers of different sizes and three offshore drilling rigs, as well as six cargo vessels, three of which he was tracking. The rigs were all leased to a South American oil company and where based in the Gulf of Mexico. The tankers and cargo vessels were leased to various conglomerates including the South American oil company, but no mention of CHC Industries. The directors where nominee directors, men who were on the boards of hundreds of companies getting a fee from each for lending their names.

Ben looked at each of the companies that leased tankers or cargo ships from Cameron Holdings Corporation, five in all. Again, no hint of any involvement with CHC Industries. One of these was the ship, but which one? Ben’s phone rang, as he was about to look at the list of membe
r’
s interest for Alexander Cortez. He answered the phone and put it onto speaker so he could continue typing.

“Ben, it’s William. Annabel’s missing.” William’s voice cracked with emotion and he fell silent.

“William? What do you mean missing? Not at home? Car not there? Wardrobe empty?”

William said,

“The car’s on the drive, but her handbag is still on the front seat and she hasn’t been into the house.”

Ben thought for a moment and then said,

“Can you call dad and Juanita?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Call them and see if they can do anything from where they are. Jemima’s still asleep and will be for a while, so I’m on my way. See you in fifteen minutes.” Ben closed his laptop, slid it into his rucksack, picked up his phone and headed to the door. As he stepped into the corridor he heard a shout and looked up.

“Benjamin Sanderson. Put the backpack on the floor move back three paces and then lie on the floor with your hands on your head.” The five policemen were in full riot gear with body armour, helmet and sub machines guns all pointed at Ben. The laser lights tracking backwards and forwards across his chest.

***

              “And?” asked Ernest, “What’s happening?”

Juanita looked at Ernest with an unfathomable look on her face. She gestured behind her and said,

“She understood and agreed, but,” she paused for a long moment and then continued saying,

“She hasn’t the resources. Syria, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan; need I go on. She’s busy. So,” she waved behind her again.

“Good evening Ernest, or is it good morning, I never know. You have me. I understand from Juanita I might be the victim of an attempted kidnapping. Charles Cortez must be very desperate. So Ernest you have the pleasure of my company.”

Ernest looked at Juanita and then back to Jonas, incredulous,

“Really? Jonas, I love you dearly, you know I do, but body guarding?”

Juanita held up her hand as William’s voice interrupted Ernest’s protests.

“Ernest, Juanita can you get here now. Annabel’s missing.”

With a flick of her hand, they were outside William’s house on The Avenue. Juanita spoke to William focusing on him and the urgent summons.

“William why do you believe Annabel is missing?”

William looked at her and then Ernest and then turned to Jonas.

“I don’t think we’ve been introduced.”

Jonas knew if he didn’t say the right thing he would have no credibility and would be able to offer nothing.

“Jonas Sanderson, Ernest’s brother. And you?”

“William Bacchus, his son. Hello, Uncle Jonas.”

Juanita interrupted,

“William?”

William focused and said to Juanita,

“Her car is on the drive, handbag on the passenger seat and she hasn’t been into the house. Ben has done all of the ‘have you checked for an empty wardrobe’ jokes. I’m left with kidnap after what happened to Jemima.”

Ernest looked at William confused,

“Jemima? What’s happened to her?”

William exploded in frustration,

“What?” he roared, “What the fuck have you useless spooks been doing? Jemima was the victim of a hit and run. She’s in Yeovil hospital recovering from orthopaedic surgery to repair her shattered thighbone and wrist. She thanks you for the protection you offered her, as does Annabel.”

              Juanita beckoned to William to come with her. She moved across to the Audi. Standing in front of the car, she appeared to focus on a point behind the Audi’s windscreen. A cloud emerged from the inside of the car rising to the level of the car’s roof. At a metre square, the cloud filled the interior of the car. William looked at Juanita, not sure what he was seeing or what to expect next. The cloud cleared leaving a transparent cube that showed a film of what was happening outside William’s house. Juanita raised her left hand from waist level and the scene began accelerating backwards in time. In the top right hand corner was a time and date stamp showing the time of the images in the cube and another showing the current time in Sherborne. The images rewound with such speed that within seconds they were back at the point when Annabel had dropped Ben in Long Street typed a text to William, put the phone in her pocket and then turned into St Swithin’s Road.

“That was about four o’clock,” William said. Juanita nodded in agreement indicating the timer at the top of the screen. They continued watching as Annabel turned into Newland, As soon as she had completed the turn a red van accelerated hard and came within inches of her bumper. The Audi accelerated and then turned hard into The Avenue. As Annabel turned, they saw the van surge past her on the wrong side of the road and then swerve back in front of her blocking the road.               The images continued, showing Annabel swerving to avoid hitting the van, hitting the kerb and then sitting, staring out of the windscreen stunned. The passenger from the van leapt out, pulled open the rear door and reached across Annabel squirting a fine mist from an aerosol into her nose and mouth. Juanita stopped the replay and rewound it to the point that the mist was fired into Annabel’s face. Moving her hand forward palm forward, she zoomed the image until they could look at the aerosol.  The canister was a blank generic canister with a small logo of the University of the Pacific pharmacology department.

              Juanita pulled her hand back and restarted the replay. The driver had joined his passenger and they were dragging Annabel out of the car.

A passer-by came over to offer assistance; at least that was how it appeared on the silent playback.

William said to Juanita,

“Can your playback capture sound as well as picture?” Without answering Juanita rewound the images back for a few seconds and then lifted her left hand up from her waist palm down. As her palm came up, the volume increased. Restarting the playback they heard the passer-by sake,

“Is she OK?”

The driver said,

“We’ve called an ambulance, but I think she might have had a heart attack. They should be here in a moment. Excuse me.”

The two men continued to ease Annabel out of the car onto the pavement and it was possible to hear the sound of a siren approaching from the direction of Coldharbour. The passer-by began to wander off as an ambulance came around the corner and slid to a halt. The driver jumped out and wrenched open the rear door, without ceremony they bundled Annabel into the back, strapped her down and the ambulance raced away. The passer-by looked as if she was going to come back and question the van driver, but an aggressive look and posture stopped her in her tracks and she walked on.

Jonas said, still watching.

“This is professional. It took planning and organisation.”

The passenger from the van reversed Annabel’s car onto the drive and then got into the van, which drove away following the same route as the ambulance.

Juanita stopped the playback with a gesture and said to William,

“Well, we know what has happened and we can be sure who was behind Annabel’s kidnap. Now we need to find her.”