The Whitehall Syndicate: A time travel conspiracy thriller (10 page)

Dropping off her coat onto the rack she patted herself down. Where was the MFD? Immediately panicking, she ruffled every pocket of every garment ferociously and exhaled in relief as she eventually found it in her jacket. She looked at it for a second or two. This was the thing that had inexorably destroyed her life, the tiny object for which a man died; for which she had sacrificed her job and maybe her freedom.

After witnessing a man essentially assassinated in front of her, Kim was determined to uncover this conspiracy. Lives were at stake, including her own. Walking up to her laptop she realised that, in her hurry, she had left it switched on the whole time. It didn't really bother her at the moment. Carefully taking the disc out of its cover she slowly pushed it into the machine and a whirring sound began emanating as it worked. Once it was loaded she opened the folder and with a little rummaging, found a detailed schematic.

It made almost complete sense to her straight away, and recognising specific key phrases, she leapt up and grabbed her notes. An intense glance at the words and she slowly began to piece together what each part of the schematic did, what each graph meant. Then she noticed her own contribution and that's when it all clicked into place.

The energy level experiments were a way of artificially creating a test simulation and the energy read-outs where predicted results. Her pupils dilated and she felt her chest suddenly ache. She was looking at plans for the most powerful weapon ever designed.

Frank scratched his brow, his face firmly contorted into a pensive stare. Tony gazed back at him blankly: Frank knew exactly how he felt. “I double checked. All the video logs have definitely been deleted. They think it may have been a computer glitch”

“So what can we do now?” asked his partner, immediately out of his depth. Frank smiled, relishing the challenge.

“Now we do some proper detective work.”

He walked over from Tony's desk to his and picked up the case notes. Whilst he skimmed through the statements, the crime scene photographs and the on-scene notes, Tony lingered idly behind him, expecting some sort of magic from the dogged old pro. Frank couldn't see anything and instead closed his eyes, mumbling incoherently to himself. Tony chose not to disturb him; his partner had a unique way of working; besides, it was interesting watching the man think.

Frank's eyes snapped open, a frown immediately following. He quickly sat down on the leather chair and began typing on his laptop. “What ya' thinking Frank?” Frank continued typing and after a delay finally replied.

“This Bob guy worked in security, and his laptop was found smashed up. But I'm certain a guy like that is supposed have his own security issue phone. There isn't any mention of it in the document.” He scowled as the computer started bleeping error messages at him.

Frank was never put off that easily and began going about things a different way. That also failed, leaving him all the more agitated. “Let me try,” came a sarcastically generous offer from Tony, who understood full well Frank's lack of harmony with computers. Frank shifted over to let Tony work. “What do you want to look up?”

“Try and access Bob Winchester's phone records. They should be free to access now, assuming those server idiots bothered to refresh the case list.” Tony tapped a few keys and up popped a screen. “Okay go to incoming and outgoing calls, around the time the ambulance was called.” Tony tapped a few more and a list appeared. “Two outgoing calls, either side of calling 999,” said Tony, finally realising where Frank was going with this. “Okay now trace that number, let's find out who it is.” A few more keystrokes and a picture came up on the screen, along with an address and a name. Jack Winchester.

Jack stirred and finally gathered up the courage to open his eyes. They immediately began to sting, just as he'd expected. After the weather yesterday, suddenly the sun was scorching down in all its golden glory, and Anisha's drapes were whole-heartedly failing to keep the sun out.

He heard the rustle of people getting ready for their day jobs and guessed it was between seven and eight o'clock. With a little effort, and a little more yawning, he got up just in time to see Gina walk out the door. Green Senior was still fast asleep and Pete had gone, so only Anisha was left. Jack slowly approached her and after trading “good mornings,” asked when she was off to work.

She told him she was leaving in around an hour and Jack knew that basically gave him an hour to get ready if he was going to follow her. Hopping into the bathroom as fast as he could, he emerged promptly wearing a mint green shirt and blue denim jeans. Walking downstairs, Anisha smiled and made a lewd joke about how quick he was.

Jack felt divided. On the one hand he hated her for the way she'd betrayed him and plunged everyone around him into this perpetual nightmare. But when he looked at her he couldn't believe that she was capable of it. She looked so sweet and innocent, and talking to her, Jack could almost feel the goodness in her heart.

None of it made any sense. Jack pondered it over for a moment and realised that he wasn't trying to catch her red handed; he was following her because he wanted her to be innocent.

Wolfing down his omelette he stared at her from across the room, slipping on her shoes and now holstering her gun. The next piece of egg stopped dead in its tracks, hovering between the plate and his
mouth. If she was holstering her gun, then how could the one tucked in his bag also be hers? She didn't have an ankle holster and he knew where she kept her spare gun: it was still there inside the glass case on her night-stand.

With a final look in the mirror, Anisha said a cheery goodbye before heading out the door. Jack virtually threw his plate in the sink as got up to follow her. Seeing senior still asleep, he grabbed a sheet of paper from by the phone and wrote a quick note instructing him to try and get the drug today. No obstacles were getting in his way today.

There was a loud, repeating knock on the door and Jack opened it to see a haggard-looking
Caucasian man. A younger,  sharply dressed black man stood next to him. “Hello, can I help you?”

“I'm detective Wilkinson, this is Detective Slade”

“Hi, erm how can I help you?” asked Jack, simultaneously taking a bite from his doughnut.

“We're just investigating a case which lead us here,” began Frank cagily, “and we were wondering if we could see your mobile phone.”  He noticed that the man seemed perplexed by the interruption.

“Here it is,” he said carefully, taking a cheap-looking phone from his pocket. “I haven't had my other one with me for over a week now, so I'm using my SIM card in this disposable instead.” Tony diligently collected it. “So what's this about?” he asked bluntly.

“Your brother.” Jack's face fell immediately.

“What about my brother?” Frank discerned the note of worry in his voice.

“I'm afraid your brother was involved in a shooting yesterday but he's stable now and expected to recover.”

“Oh God.” Jack's face fell, his composure lost instantly.

Frank had seen a good many liars in his time, and he would have bet his badge Jack wasn't one of them. He seemed genuinely worried about his brother.

“If you contact the hospital on this number, they'll tell you more.” He passed him a small slip of paper, which Jack absently took while delivering an auto-pilot thank you for the news. Frank and Tony turned and left, for the time being having reached a dead end. As they headed back to their vehicle, Tony quietly said, “I think he's telling the truth.” Frank merely nodded.

Following Anisha on the tube had been annoying, not least because he was no expert at tailing people. Having to peep at her through the window joining the carriages at each stop had hardly helped either. With its slow, hot, sweaty carriages and grubby decaying walls, the Underground was a throwback to the old days of London.

It was a time that was looked upon with disdain: a time where people were content living in their dilapidated city and progress was slow; a time that the new generation were now paying for. Jack looked around at his carriage. It was grimy and rusting, and as he rode on it there was an ever-growing part of him that worried for his safety.

More bodies were flooding the train now and Jack's view was becoming more and more obscured. Eventually he couldn't see anything and had to hope Anisha got off at the same stop as usual. Luckily she did. Following her again, his mind began to wander to Pete.

She had already mentioned that they had a relationship, which didn't work out, and he wondered how close she now was with him.

              Realising he was veering off topic, he regained focused just in time to see her disappear behind the main door to a huge towering building. Stealthily approaching it, he could see that engraved on the plaque by the entrance was the government surveillance insignia. She was at work after all. Unfortunately though, this didn't actually prove innocence. With her access codes there was plenty that she could be doing. Files she could be deleting, people she could be watching. Jack suddenly realised that if she had already reached her cubicle and logged on, that she could be watching him right now. Although he knew it was unlikely, the thought left him unsettled,.

Time dragged on as Jack watched the only door to the tower to make sure she didn't leave. There wasn't much else he could do. The more time he spent staring at the door, the more he thought that something wasn't quite right with this situation. First Pete was placed in suspicion's spotlight, and now Anisha? Plus in both cases, it seemed
that further probing exonerated both of them. It was enough to make one paranoid. Jack looked up high at the office windows and wondered if he was just wasting his time.

After a long, exhausting morning running another errand, Green sat in his study, munching away on a low fat pasty. Crumbs and flakes lazily drifted from his mouth, all over the desk and down his trousers, scattering over his documents and forming transparent smudges on his papers.

It was just over a month until the next election and the party was experiencing a pressure-cooker of responsibility, with everyone taking up the slack for everyone else. He'd been lumbered with some simple paperwork and having done the difficult part, was taking the time to consider how his plans were going. He still had to finalise his address at the Royal Hall, and the prospect of sitting down yet again with his speech-writers was too much for him to bear. They were either overzealous or archaic and stuffy, and none of them seemed to care what he actually wanted to say.

He reached over to his desk drawer and pulled out a small folded piece of A4 paper. Carefully unfolding it, it revealed a list of names written in his handwriting.

MAX LEVINE

DR DANES

MARTINO GOMEZ

HUGO TYLER

KLAUS Scholz

DR RUHBAKER

DR LEWIS

ARNOLD POCKLINGTON

KRISTIN CHE

Green scanned down the list and spotted Dr. Lewis. As casually, as a man altering a shopping list, he whipped out a fountain pen from his shirt pocket and crossed off the name. With a semi-melodic hum he returned the pen to the desktop before folding and placing the paper
back into the drawer. There was no time to waste lazing around- he still had to finish off this work and rearrange his schedule to free up time to see his cousin.

It was nearing lunch and nothing. If she did have plans to meet her conspirators, surely she wouldn't waste several hours first. While he waited he decided to look up the name he had found in Bob's house, using his phone. Wireless internet access was so much slower than Jack was used to but thankfully, even though he wasn't aware of it, it was also much harder to trace.

Tapping a few buttons he accessed what Bob hadn't been able to.  The program on Bob's phone was designed for ease of use and Jack  was easily able to cross reference the list of finance transfers with department heads. The phone vibrated, returning four matches.

Examining the information Bob had sent a little more closely now; he saw that there were two special identity labels for each of the four matches, with TT written on each. At first he ignored it but then mulling it over, something clicked in his mind, and Jack smiled as he worked it out.

Bob had labelled the list for those who had time travelled. With a glimpse at the help file to show him how, he searched for flat rentals over a time of nearly thirteen months ago. If they had time travelled, these people must be living somewhere. He smiled as both names came up, each with an address.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Anisha leave the building and walk across to the sandwich stand right opposite. He tucked the phone away and instantly became alert again. Working her way through the short queue she got a small toasted sandwich in a surprisingly greasy bag and, after some chat to her co-workers, returned to the building in an anti-climax.

Jack was running out of time to plan this fabricated assassination and find the party responsible. He didn't want to waste another day, and so far that's what this seemed to be. Assuming Anisha wasn't going anywhere, at least not today, he began walking back to the underground station, having now decided to pay a visit to the first name
on his list: Kim Bexley.

Abruptly, the small room became saturated by a loud warning alarm: an unpleasant whining and waning similar to an ambulance. Green heaved himself up from his chair and over to his jacket, which he had callously dumped on the brown leather couches.

Knowing the alarm well, he thrust his hand into the inside pocket to pull out his palmtop, which was blaring away. His eyebrows furrowed as he saw that there was a message flashing across his screen in large, red capitals. SECURITY BREACH. He quickly sprawled across to his laptop on the desk and began hammering on the keys, his hands slightly unsteady now. Accessing his security log he also simultaneously activated his audio messenger.

He could feel his lip tearing as he nervously bit on it, and he began drumming his index finger on the desk while impatiently waited for the connection. Finally it activated. “This is Mr Gr-,” he paused just in time to remember his alias. “This is Mr Walsh-Robbins. Can you check the security of my package. It's in the south west terminal, Locker 180204. It's urgent.”

The voice on the other side didn't even reply and instead Green could hear him barking orders at people. After a nerve-racking pause he heard the words, “I'm sorry. The locker has been cleared.” Green uttered profanity so obscene that the operator shivered icily. Even with an alarm system installed, someone had managed to break into his locker.