Snatched From Home: What Would You Do To Save Your Children? (DI Harry Evans Book 1) (28 page)

Andrew Woods swung his feet round and lifted them onto his desk, crossing his legs at the ankle he reached for the Tupperware box. He retrieved one of the bland salad butties his wife was forever supplying him with. Using the fork she’d provided, he ladled a scoop of low fat coleslaw onto the nest of rabbit food. Thank goodness she didn’t know about the stash of chocolate bars kept in the bottom drawer of his desk. This was his ten o’clock snack. At two he would have a bigger meal followed by another snack at six. He hated the night shift; there was nothing to do but routine maintenance jobs after midnight. Before midnight there would be spikes in activity as people came home from work and logged on to the Internet.

Certain events would see a spike in activity on Twitter or Facebook as the public applauded or condemned some minor celebrity, politician or sportsman. His desk was festooned with monitors displaying reports from the banks of servers on the main floor. Row after row of servers were connected, forming a supercomputer to handle the millions of queries typed daily into his employers’ search engine. He’d thought working for Google would have been more energising, romantic or at least exciting, but it transpired he was little more than the night-watchman for the digital security systems protecting the server farm.

An alert sounded from his computer. Pushing the last of the sandwich into his mouth, he turned to see what the problem was. It was the daddy of all problems. The entire server farm was showing an overload. Normally the server ran at seventy per cent capacity with spiked peaks up to ninety – during the Olympics it had hit an all time high of ninety-seven point two three per cent as people used social media to discuss the opening and closing ceremonies – but never before had he seen it hit one hundred per cent.

Woods set off his system of searchbots to determine what was causing the increase in searches. As he waited for the results, he scanned the Internet news channels to see if there were any breaking stories driving people online. Nothing he found seemed important enough to cause such a sudden upturn in traffic. Within minutes the searchbot delivered its report. Ignoring all the irrelevant data such as dates and times, Woods focused on the important parts.

System Check:              Compromise Found

Source:                            Unidentified
IP: 00.000.000.000

Details:                            System Check – Code
: brainpeg

Status:                            Ongoing

‘System check?’ His voice was a confused mutter. He scanned the report again. The IP address rang false: a full row of zeros. Someone was cloaking their identity. He was savvy enough to work out the code brainpeg was an anagram of the surnames of Sergei Brin and Larry Page, Google’s founders.

Woods deliberated a second. This was a new situation as far as he was concerned. The system had never been compromised before. Then he put in a call to Google’s UK head office on Buckingham Palace Road, London. He adjusted the settings on the server farm to a maximum of eighty per cent capacity while he was being routed to the head of Digital Security. It was a protocol that allowed them to replace or maintain individual servers without the remaining servers risking an overload.

When he was finally put through, Woods explained the effects of the compromise, watching in disbelief as his monitor showed the rogue programme commandeer more and more server space, while pushing out all other search queries. Where once it had occupied thirty per cent of the server’s full capacity it now occupied forty per cent of the new limit.

Relaying the information to the man on the other end of the line he was given an immediate answer.

As instructed he cut the servers back to twenty-five per cent until the man had contacted Google’s head office in Los Angeles to see if they knew anything about the compromise to the server farm.

Bhaki and Malcolm had fallen silent. Malcolm was reading a horror novel, using the interior light to illuminate the pages. Bhaki fiddled with his phone, texting back and forth with the girl he’d met on Wednesday night.

A beep from the tracker console alerted them the quad had been moved.

‘Bloody hell. They’re early.’

Bhaki ignored Malcolm as he watched the light blinking on the console map. When it reached the road, he twisted the ignition key and called Evans. The phone went straight to voicemail, so he called Campbell, who instructed him to keep following and to call in every ten minutes or once the bike stopped moving. Bhaki drove the Astra diesel hard until he was within a half mile of the vehicle carrying the quad, then hung back, thankful for the driving rain which would help to hide his presence.

‘What’d your guv say?’

‘Just told me to follow them as per the plan. They can’t join us because of the other business. Once we’ve located their base we’re to call in the locals.’

‘Typical bloody bosses. Leave us out in the cold all frigging night, then swoop in for the raid where all the glory and excitement is. Bastards.’

‘What do you expect? You’re a PC and I’m a newly promoted DC. You don’t get chief inspector’s doing stakeouts. Just keep your eyes on that tracker and let me know which way they go. They’ll be at the ’66 any minute now.’ Bhaki’s exasperation at the man was starting to show, but he didn’t care. The sooner they knew where the quad bike would end up the sooner he would be back in his own team, away from the bigoted slob. He just hoped they’d be wrapped up in time for him to get in on the kidnapping case, although he was doubtful.

‘My money’s on east. It’ll be some bunch from Liverpool or Manchester. Tenner says I’m right.’

‘No chance. We’ve spent half the night guessing that’s where they’ll be from.’

A little way along the A66, the cattle wagon flashed its indicator. Putting his Blackberry on speaker, he got Campbell. ‘Sir, it’s Amir. They’ve turned off the ’66 and are now travelling north towards Caldbeck.’ Bhaki listened to Campbell’s reply, nodding his head as he listened. Before Malcolm could open his mouth to ask, Bhaki told him that Campbell had instructed him to keep reporting back. When they had a location for the robbers’ base he would despatch some help to make the collar.

‘We may get the glory after all.’

Bhaki ignored him and kept his eyes on the north-bound road. Driving conditions were deteriorating as the wind picked up. Small branches were being swept from trees bordering the road. The narrow two-lane highway was pitted with tight corners, bumpy straights and myriad potholes. Hanging well back to prevent being spotted, Bhaki trailed the cattle wagon by tracker alone. After about fifteen minutes, as it passed through Hesket Newmarket, the light on the console map pinged off the B road. Bhaki navigated his way along a series of single-lane back roads until he was near where the wagon had stopped.

Bhaki continued along the road until they were out of sight behind a small wood and turned the car round in a gateway. He opened the door and gave his radio to Malcolm. ‘I’m going up there for a look-see. I’ll call your mobile to let you know what I find.’

‘You’re a bloody fool going out there on a night like this. Why don’t you just call it in?’

‘Because I want to make sure.’ Bhaki wanted to get a lay of the land in case there was any other route in or out. The last thing he wanted to do was end up in a high-speed pursuit or precipitate a manhunt. This surveillance job gave him a chance to repay Evan’s faith in him. Despite brushing off Malcolm’s earlier comments, he was starting to wonder if there may be any truth in the accusation he was only there to fill quotas.

Evans drained his hip flask and scowled across the room at Chisholm. ‘Is the money in their account yet?’

‘Not yet. Like I told you earlier, the programme has to finish its cycle before we can make the transfer.’

‘I thought it was supposed to be done by now. It’s ten past eleven for fuck’s sake.’

Chisholm grimaced, unwilling to make the admission. ‘Google somehow caught onto my programme. They shut down three-quarters of their server farm. I’ve put in a patch to the programme and taken exclusive control of the remaining servers.’

‘I don’t give a shit about that. When will the algorithm be finished?’

‘If they don’t pull the plug on the other servers it’ll be done in five minutes.’

Campbell gave voice to what they were all thinking. ‘And if they do pull the plug?’

‘Then we’ll fail.’

‘No way, Jabba. That’s not an option. Do whatever you’ve got to do but get that money into the Foulkes account in the next minute.’ Standing up Evans took a deep breath. ‘On my head be it. If the shit hits the fan, I’ll make sure that I’m the one holding the fan.’

This latest setback was grating on Evans’s nerves. His career was over, but all he could think about was those two children. If Chisholm’s programme failed and those kids were hurt, the guilt would rival the pain of failing Janet. If he’d followed procedure to any degree, Grantham or Hadley would have called in SOCA. Their team would have specialist knowledge of what to do. Instead he’d been his usual self and had eschewed sharing the case. Now it looked as if his quest for one last piece of glory may charge a price he was unwilling to pay.

‘That’s it done, guv. The money is in the Foulkes’s account.’

‘Right then, Jabba. Pay the ransom.’ Evans wiped his forehead. To think it had come to this. Paying a ransom without proof of life went against all the rules and basic common sense. Yet they were left with no option. ‘And don’t forget to make sure you trace where the money goes.’

‘Will do. I’ll send confirmation the money has been transferred via the contact form.’

Evan’s mobile sounded. ‘What?’ Cocking his head to one side he listened to the caller as he paced the office.

‘Thanks for keeping me informed. Let me know what the outcome is.’

His colleagues looked at him expectantly. ‘Bhaki’s scouting out the farm where the rural thieves are based and is again requesting backup.’

He felt none of the usual elation at this success. Judging by the silence from Campbell and Chisholm they felt the same way.

‘That’s it done, guv. The ransom’s paid and the message sent.’

‘Thank you. Well done.’ Evans was hit with a level of fatigue he’d never experienced before. All they could do now was wait for the kidnappers to get in touch and hope they would release the two kids.

Campbell reached for his phone. ‘I’ll call Lauren and give her the news. Hopefully it’ll ease a bit of stress for the parents.’

Marshall kicked the chair across the lounge. As soon as he’d seen the girl helping the boy out of the window, he’d known events had turned against him. What had promised to be an easy job had turned into a nightmare. Two hours had passed since he’d re-caught them, but his rage had grown as realisations of the consequences of their bid for freedom had wormed their way into his brain.

Big though he was, he’d managed to catch the boy as he was dragged along by his sister. Soaked to the skin, he’d hauled them into a shed and bound them to a tractor with cable ties. As an early punishment, he’d stripped the girl of the sweater was wearing.

What was worst wasn’t that they’d tried to escape. He could understand that. Hell, he could even forgive the knee she’d planted in his balls. In her position, he’d have done the same. What galled him was the fact that they’d seen his face. He hadn’t had time to cover up and had needed to switch a light on when he was securing them to the old tractor. The hooked scar on his left cheek would be enough to identify him, just as it had always been. A ten-minute search on a computer would have police looking for him.

‘Fucking little bitch.’ Another chair flew across the room. ‘What the bloody hell we gonna do now?’

Alker didn’t answer him. Marshall knew what he would suggest. What he would want to do. Like most predators, Alker was a coward at heart. Marshall wasn’t often this angry, but when he was, he was prone to lashing out at anyone who offered an opinion he didn’t like. No way would he get an honest answer from Alker until he calmed down.

‘We’re gonna have to do them, aren’t we?’

Alker kept his silence.

‘Seriously, Billy. What the fuck are we gonna do?’

‘I reckon you should ask the boss that question. It’s his decision. Not ours.’

This was the last piece of advice Marshall wanted to hear. The boss would be most displeased to learn just how close the kids had been to escaping. He’d want to have Alker punish them. The boss would want him punished, too. He was supposed to be in charge. But for a stroke of good luck on his part, the kids would have got away.

Now he was caught between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, there was the boss, a no-nonsense man who wouldn’t hesitate to use whatever force necessary to punish failure. On the other were two children who could identify him to the police.

Logic dictated that he kill the kids so that they couldn’t identify him. Alker would probably be happy to do it for him. Yet the kids didn’t deserve that. They’d done nothing wrong. It was wrong for them to suffer at the hands of Alker for his mistakes. At the same time, his boss wouldn’t want the kids dead if the ransom was paid. If that happened, the parents would have nothing to lose by going to the police. It would only be a matter of time before the police were knocking on his boss’s door, and he didn’t want to be the man responsible for that. Another thought flashed across in his mind and it was the most worrying of all. The easiest way for the boss to solve the problem of identification was to have him killed.

He had no choice but to make the call. He went upstairs to get his phone. Seeing the charger lead without a phone attached re-ignited his rage. He had to force deep breaths into his lungs to stop himself from losing the plot completely. With a massive effort, he managed to control his temper and look about the room. He took in the plaster on the floor from the ceiling. There was a white trail towards where his phone had been charging.

The kids must have found the phone.
It has a security lock, but what if they cracked the code?

There were only two people who could answer his questions. He scampered downstairs, grabbed his mask and ordered Alker to follow him.

Entering the shed, he marched over to the two kids, roaring questions as he walked. ‘Where’s my phone? Did you call the old bill?’ When he didn’t get an answer, he leaned in close to the girl who shrank back against the tractor. ‘If you don’t answer my questions by the count of three I’m gonna hand you over to him.’ His thumb jerked in the direction of Alker who was wearing his Tony Blair mask.

‘One… Two—’

‘It’s in Kyle’s pocket. We tried to call, but didn’t know the code… I’m sorry… please don’t hurt us.’

Dragging his phone from the boy’s sodden jeans, Marshall tried to switch it on without success. Water dripped from the casing and the screen was cracked. He remembered the struggle he’d had when he’d caught them. The boy had fallen arse first into a puddle.

Marshall didn’t dare trust her. He needed definite proof, so he gave a terse command to Alker.

‘Nooo, Please, I’m telling the truth. I didn’t call the police. I couldn’t unlock it.’

Alker laid his meaty fingers on the girl’s left hand and gave a sudden jerk. The resulting snap was accompanied by a scream.

Marshall took hold of the broken pinkie. ‘Did you call the cops?’

‘No. I swear it. I didn’t call anyone.’ Tears streamed down her face, shaming him for his bullying of a defenceless girl.

He believed her now. There was no way she was tough enough to lie when he was twisting her already broken finger. Sickened at what he had just done, Marshall’s temper softened as frustration replaced his anger. Without his phone he couldn’t contact the boss. The boss’s latest mobile number was stored in his phone and was not shared with anyone else who was here. Now the only way he could get in touch with his employer was to call the boss’s club and ask the manager to have the boss call Alker’s mobile. The boss would know something had gone wrong and would be furious, before he even heard Marshall’s news. Still, he needed the boss to let him know if the ransom had been paid or not. He might have set up the system preventing anyone from tracing where the money went, but he wasn’t privy to the log-in details for the account where the money would end up.

Looking at the naked girl and sodden boy, shivering in the cold night air, he suddenly wished they’d managed to escape. Whatever happened, tonight would not go well for them. ‘Go and tell the boys to put their masks on. Then get this pair across to the other shed where we can keep an eye on them.’ He held his hand out to Alker. ‘Give me your phone. I need to call the boss.’

Marshall made the call as Alker walked to the other shed where Williams and Johnstone were unloading the stuff they’d stolen on the night’s first run.

Marshall sighed, thankful the rest of the gang of petty thieves who helped steal from the farms were waiting in a van near their next target. The last thing he needed was a bunch of coked-up idiots bouncing about causing mayhem.