The Storm Protocol (21 page)

H
e took a sip and then continued.

‘Very informative, some good science, but the best things about it were the friends I made.’

He lifted his glass and it clinked gently against Roussel’s.

‘It’s amazing what friendships can be formed over a few beers,’ he
continued. ‘Anyway, on the last night of the conference, all of the delegates put our business cards into a large hat. One of the guys volunteered to create a distribution list, which he forwarded around to all the others. It’s like having our own private global network.’

Roussel waited for the punch line. He was nothing if not a patient man.

‘The coroner's collective, we called it,’ said Guilbeau with a smile. ‘Anyway, I had previously been very dismissive of the power of networking; I think we all were, but knowing that the guys are out there has been the equivalent of having an extra tool in the armoury. If they have questions about US policies and procedures, they can just ask me. If I have questions about any of the European nuances, I can ask them in return.’

Roussel couldn't contain himself any longer.

‘Your junket memories are very nice,’ he said. ‘But what has this got to do with my case?’

‘Patience, Peeshwank,’ said Guilbeau. ‘Anyway, I thought about your issues with the federal database and the DNA sample restrictions, and the next thing I’m looking at the fingerprint kit on my de
sk, and the two drawers in the morgue. I’ll admit, it's not exactly sticking to established directives; its old school. So I fingerprinted John and James Doe, scanned in the results, and e-mailed them to the collective.’

‘Now, one came back blank
, as I pretty much knew it would. If it’s in the FBI restricted database, then there has to be a reason why, and it’s unlikely to be anywhere else. But I got a hit on the other one.’

‘Really?’ asked Roussel eagerly.

Guilbeau pushed a folded sheet of paper across the bar and swallowed the rest of his beer.

‘Good luck, Peeshwank,’ he said. ‘Let me know how it goes.’

Roussel nodded.

‘Say thanks to the collective from me,’ he said distractedly.

Back at his desk, he unfolded the scrap of paper. One piece of the puzzle had finally fallen into his lap. Victim1 was called Scott Mitchell, and that is where he got another big shock; place of residence was Cork, Republic of Ireland.

Even though Guilbeau had hinted early in the investigation that he thought one or both of the victims might have been foreign, it still came as a bit of a surprise to see it in black and white. A couple of calls later and he had some more information. Scott Mitchell had entered the country on the eighth of May
, on a standard ninety day tourist visa. He had flown from Dublin to JFK, and then onwards to New Orleans International; his final destination.

Another couple of calls later and he couldn’t help but chuckle to himself. Scott had hired himself a Honda Acura from Hertz in New Orleans. Not only was it showing as having a full set of Pirelli P series tyres, but it was dropped back to the gold return area with a full tank of petrol on the twelfth of May. They had found no cars at the house; only a large Harley Davison that was not registered to anyone, so it stood to reason that the owner of the house had fled in the rental car. He was either severely panicked or a very cool customer, reasoned Roussel.

He tried to think of the reasons why Scott would have gone to the place where he was ultimately killed. The most obvious one would have been tourism, but it was a very specific location. It was near to New Orleans, that much was true, but very much off the main roads and tourist haunts. He must have had a specific reason for going.

For the time being, Roussel was going to assume his reason for visiting had something to do with the owner of the house. He rubbed out the question mark next to victim1 and replaced it with the name
Scott Mitchell
. He then absently added the question mark again. He still didn’t know the motives, but one out of three wasn’t bad.

His phone rang again suddenly. He snatched it up and before he could bark a reply, a stream of words hit him. He had to ask the caller to calm down and speak slower. When he eventually ended the call, after much profuse apologies from the forensic technician, he smiled a grim triumphant smile. A text had been received by Scott Mitchell
’s cell phone, a day after he had died; someone wanted some information from him; someone from Cork in Ireland.

#

The car thundered along the road. He contemplated switching his siren on and then thought better of it. The last thing he needed was to be stopped outside of his jurisdiction by a fellow law enforcement officer. It had been so long since he’d journeyed to Tony and Marlene that he had forgotten how long it actually took. Tony was a sticky old bugger. If Roussel was not there on time, he wouldn't get his info, police officer or not.

They were the nearest thing he had now to parents, Tony and Marlene. As well as being his lawyer, Tony had been his dad's best friend. When his parents
had died, he hadn’t had to think about a thing, Tony and Marlene had made all the arrangements. During those college years, they had been the ones ringing and visiting. They were the couple sitting proudly in the second row, eyes shining with unshed tears and glowing with southern pride, at his graduation ceremony. They had not wanted him to go north, but of course, he knew better, and the enforced distance between them had started to make things awkward and stilted.

Since he’d come back, he’d found it too difficult. He loved them both as people, they just reminded him too much of the loss of his parents. He knew it wasn’t their fault. If he got there in time, this time, he would try and explain it to them.

For the next hundred miles or so, he anxiously juggled brake and accelerator, his eyes nervously scanning the clock. An hour and twenty minutes later, exactly seven and a half minutes before dinner was always served, he shot through the gates and up the gravel drive, coming to a skidding halt outside the modern ranch style property.

#

It was two o'clock in the morning before he got home. He felt emotionally drained; no, drained wasn't the right word. Purged was a better one. He’d told them how he really felt. The confusion over his parent’s death and the feelings of resentment he’d had towards them for stepping in to take the place of his mum and dad.

Even though he knew that wasn’t what they
’d been trying to do, he explained how he had ignored those feelings and blamed them anyway. He described the emotions and insecurity that the failure of his law career had triggered. How he’d wanted to run away and yet had gone straight back to his childhood town. And most of all, he told them how he wasn't even sure where his home was any more.

In return, they told him of their displeasure at what they termed his abandonment of his legal career, and to a lesser degree, his abandonment of them. There had been a lot of
tears, a lot of words, and strangest of all, a lot of laughter. He couldn't remember the last time he had genuinely laughed at shared memories of his parents. He knew he would be back to see them again soon, and they knew it too; a healing of sorts had begun.

Tony had walked out with him to the car
, at the end of the night. They had shaken hands and then mutually and spontaneously hugged each other tight.

He
’d handed Roussel a letter-sized manila envelope. Roussel could see it was bursting with documents.

‘I hope you find what you are looking for
, Charlie,’ Tony had said gravely.

He
’d tapped the brown envelope gently.

‘And I’m not talking about this
, either.’

‘I know,’
Roussel had responded. ‘Thanks Tony; for everything, I really mean that.’

‘I know you do.’

He looked at that self same envelope now, sitting in front of him on the kitchen table. He extracted the bundle of photocopied documents; Tony had retained all the originals like all good lawyers. He opened his leather bound notebook and clicked his pen into action.

He read every document, methodically cataloguing the salient points one by one, sipping his coffee and making the occasional notation as he went. It took him a full hour to read the stack, but strangely, even though it was two am, he did not feel in the least bit tired.

He looked at the name and address he had written down;
Thomas Eugene O'Neill, Cork, Republic of Ireland
. He compared it to the name he had written down on that first night; the name from the gravestone.

Damn, now he knew why he followed his hunches. The name stared back at him.
Mary O’Neill
.

He wondered if t
he captain felt the same way as he did about coincidences.

15
th
May 2011 – Five days after the Storm.

The beginning of compunction is the beginning of a new life. – George Eliot.

The double doors of the master bedroom were the closest point in the house to the sea. He always slept with one door very slightly ajar, so he could hear the lapping of the waves. He always felt, as he was getting up, that you could reach your hand through the gap and touch the ocean; it was as close as that.

He glanced back to the large king-size bed. The satin sheets were pulled tight around a softly snoring mound. He personally never
cared for covers; he didn't feel the cold.

At this stage, he didn't even bother to learn their names. They were the lucky ones as far as he was concerned, removed from the stable to live with the stallion in luxury for a while. Truth be told, he wasn't that interested in sex and the girls knew it. For them
, it was only a temporary reprieve, but they grasped it willingly with both hands. For him, it was the chance to be near another human being; to feel the heat radiating from their bodies, without having to get too close. He didn't like close; he didn't do close.

He left her to her dreams
, and wandered out through the doors and down onto the shore. He picked up a handful of stones, flat ones, and started skimming them out across the small breakers.

His father had built the house
, literally with his own hands.

David’s grandfather
had been a stone mason and master craftsman, and Pat
the Bull
had inherited a love of working with his hands. Simple and honest toil, he used to call it.

He’d built the house just before the twins were born; just after his legitimate business was beginning to flourish. The
time of contentment, before greed and the need for material possessions and massive wealth had overtaken his original requirement for simple comfort and happiness.

The B
ull had been a tough man, and an even tougher father. He’d come from harsh roots; so much so in fact, that he used to call himself a
common
man. He’d been a worker from the working-class. He’d been fiercely proud of who he was and where he came from, and no amount of money and riches could make him forget that. He’d never let anybody else forget it either, least of all his two sons.

David himself was now as rough and tough as they came. You had to be to survive in his game, even if so much of it was a performance; an act. But it had not always been that way.

Being twins, himself and John had done everything together. Like all working men made good, his father had wanted the absolute best for his boys. David had always thought that it was his
class
that separated him from his classmates. He spoke the same, dressed the same, thought the same, but they always held something back; always kept something in reserve.

He remembered distinctly
, overhearing a conversation between two sets of parents in the car park of the school, as he waited for John to come down. He was always a nosey and inquisitive kid. They had used the word
distasteful
to describe his family. It didn’t sound like a compliment, but at the time, he did not really know what it meant. He had looked it up in the dictionary. He could still, to this day, recall the exact words he had read;
unpleasant, offensive, or causing dislike.
Years later, he’d had it framed in big letters, and it hung on the wall of his home office; it still provoked some very comical reactions.

It
had been about two months after that comment that his universe had shifted completely on its axis. His attitude to the world completely changed. His father had been killed, and he’d realised he was rich. It had never occurred to him before, but back then, it had opened up a whole new vista of opportunity. He had never looked back.

And then John had been
killed. He’d immediately cloaked himself in a shell of impenetrable hardness. Over time, the urbane exterior he had built up during his school years rubbed off. Like any hastily applied paint or varnish, it eventually wore off, leaving the surface exposed and open, so he’d had to encase himself in concrete. When you got down to the core, he was still the same lonely frightened teenager.

He never allowed people to see the vulnerable side of his personality
, and he consequently wrapped the concrete in a blanket of hate. Pretty soon that was all he was; the man who was solely driven by rage.

You have
to have money to make money. His was the ultimate case in point; the proof of the pudding. He used money as another weapon in his arsenal; to bribe, to open doors, to purchase the stuff of his dreams and to buy trinkets he didn’t want. He was still basically that spoiled teenager; whatever he wanted, he got and there was nobody to say no to him. Sometimes, early on in his bereavement, he’d wished there had been. Now, nobody dared and nobody would.

There was a discreet cough behind him.

Ben Collins was standing on the private beach, keeping a polite distance away. As well as being his most trusted business adviser, Ben was about as close as David got to a friend.

Of course, Ben was paid exceptionally well, but David knew he wasn't in it for the money. That was why he was still alive and still working in his current position; they both understood who the boss was
, and where the lines were drawn. Strangely enough, despite all of that or maybe because of it, Ben actually liked him.

David nodded curtly behind him
, toward the patio doors.

‘Get me a new one,’ he said. ‘I’m bored with this one. Make sure she's gone
, by the time I get home. I want another installed in her place. And blonde this time; I’m fucked off with all the brunettes.’

Ben nodded his understanding.

‘And get the car brought round in about half an hour,’ he said. ‘I’m going to have a shower, a little bit of breakfast and then we’ll go and take a look; see how the site is shaping up.’

‘I’ll make sure
we are ready and waiting,’ responded Ben smartly.

Twenty nine minutes later, he was refreshed and eager to face the day. Breakfast was always the same; a cup of decaffeinated coffee, a glass of orange juice and a bowl of Alpen muesli (the cheap ones just weren't the same somehow.)

He bounded down the steps and his driver, Tony, hopped out and opened the door. David slid into the back next to Ben; he always sat on the left side of the car, furthest away from the nearside and possible attack.

He noticed with some amusement
, that Tony wouldn't engage drive until he had clicked his seatbelt into place; the true mark of absolute authority.

‘I know the time
scales have been tough,’ said David. ‘But what’s the story on the facility. Will I be impressed?’

More by luck than judgement, the holiday home that David’s father had built all those years ago
, was less than five minutes drive from the proposed new manufacturing plant. David was keen to impress his new business partners. He had put a third of the money upfront from his own stockpiles, with virtually no guarantees. But given who his new business partners were, he supposed that guarantees were not something you came upon easily. And property was not giving the returns it had; time for him to try something new.

‘First things first,’
answered Ben. ‘I took the limited documentation you gave me, and ran it past a couple of specialists; guys we already have on our payroll. Obviously, seeing as the data is mostly blinded, they couldn't synthesise anything, but they could confirm that it would, in their opinion, act on a specific area of the brain.’

‘
So, it’s good stuff, right?’ asked David.

‘Well
, that remains to be seen,’ said Ben. ‘I don't like talking out of school, boss, but you’re putting an awful lot of your own money into this. Do you really think it's worth it?’

David looked across at Ben.

‘I appreciate what you're saying, Ben,’ he said. ‘But there are two reasons why I’m doing this. The first reason is because I can, and the second reason is because I can potentially screw over that cock-sucker Black Swan; destroy his life the way he’s destroyed mine.’

‘Why not just have him killed and be done with it,’ said Ben.

‘Because it would be too quick and he is too well protected,’ replied David. ‘I want the bastard to suffer.’

‘You're the boss,’ s
tated Ben, without a hint of irony.

‘Yes I am,’ said David with a smile.

‘So, based on the information in that same set of documentation,’ Ben continued. ‘I selected and engaged a reputable firm of chemical process consultants and engineers. They basically compared the tooling and processes that were left behind in the factory, with what we want to produce. The end result was not as good as we’d hoped.’

He paused.

‘Given they only stopped manufacturing about a year ago, we thought a large percentage of the production equipment would be available for re-use. Unfortunately, it turns out we can’t use a thing. Not a nut or a bolt.’

David scowled.

‘Before you get too downhearted,’ said Ben hastily, ‘it actually accelerates, rather than delays the schedule.’

‘How so?’ asked David
, with a puzzled expression.

‘Think about it,’ said Ben. ‘It’s like anything really. If you are trying to fit new stuff in around old stuff
, it can be very fiddly and time consuming. This way, all we have to do is rip everything out and build up the production lines from scratch. Okay, on the capital side and the equipment side, it will end up costing us more, but on the manpower side, the project will come in significantly less, which will balance our budget nicely.’

‘So what about the facility itself?’ asked David. ‘You still haven’t answered my original question. Will I be impressed?’

‘You’ll see,’ said Ben.

They made the rest of the short journey in silence. The BMW M5 slipped through the front gates. David was amused to see the sign
.

G&E Chemicals
, in partnership with ADXR Corporation
.

They glided into the spot marked
managing director
.

David waited for Tony to open his door as he always did. They walked through the automatic revolving
entrance, and into a plush and opulent reception area.

David nodded his approval
.

‘This is a big change since last time,’ he said, acknowledging the transformation
.

It had been an
empty shell when they had first viewed the building.

‘A bit of a reversal really,’ agreed Ben.

‘What do you mean?’ asked David.

‘Come with me,’ said Ben
, and led the way down a small corridor.

A s
ecurity ID system with a corresponding pin code now existed on all of the main doors within the facility. Ben wordlessly handed his boss a proximity card which also had his name and photograph on it.

‘Can I?’ asked David
eagerly, indicating the reader.

He loved gadgets and technology.

‘Sure,’ said Ben.

‘What’s my pin?’ asked David.

‘See if you can guess,’ replied Ben with a smile.

David smiled in return. Ben knew him too well. There was only one pin number he ever used. He was lucky it was so memorable. He flashed his badge and punched in the digits
8384
. The door clicked open. He thought of John a little sadly. Even though they were twins, they didn't share a birthday. He’d been born at two minutes to midnight on the eighth of March; John at seven minutes after, so John's pin would have been
9384
; much more difficult to remember.

Ben had walked ahead of him into the main production area, so David didn’t get a clear view until he was well inside. As the igniters started firing up the rows of fluorescent strip lights, he whistled quietly under his breath.

‘Jesus, you weren’t joking, were you?’ he said.

The last time he had
visited the site, it had been full of equipment. Now, there were dismantled machines and industrial skips dotted across the expanse. David was just about to ask a question, when Ben started talking.

‘I know it doesn't look like we've done much,’ said Ben. ‘But....’

He started curling over his fingers, one by one.

‘We’ve ripped out all of the old machinery. We have ripped out all of the wiring and electrics, and completely reinstalled all the cabling with all the requisite ancillaries
, including battery backup, generator and multiple incoming supplies. An air conditioning system has been installed, and we have fully insulated the building, which is also fully re-clad, redecorated and painted. All the office blocks, toilets, everything else has been done, down to fresh concrete paint on the floor.’