The Whitehall Syndicate: A time travel conspiracy thriller (16 page)

He got up to go, and then turned back to her and took a gun out of his jacket. With a strained look on his face he handed it to her and told her to be careful. Kim took the gun and frowned, telling him it was mal-aligned. Puzzled, Jack sat back down again.

“My dad was in the military for a while, he taught me a few things about guns. See look at this handle and this shaft. There're not locked together properly. The electric shock marks are in different places.”

“What does that mean?” quizzed Jack.

“Guns fire when a small electric charge ignites the explosive in a bullet. But each gun leaves a characteristic burn on the bullet and the shaft,
which eventually forms and groove. When the handle and shaft lock in, you can see the groove run across them. But here it's broken. Okay think hard Jack. Where does Anisha keep her emergency piece?”

“Locked in a box in her room.” But that's her gun, the one I found at Bob's house when he was…” trailing off he gulped and Kim nodded understandingly.

“Do you have Anisha’s spare gun or a picture of it?”

“I took it actually, in case anyone tried anything with me.” It was in a plastic bag and he handed it over, an ashamed look on his face.

“You said there were no prints on the handle of the gun used in the shooting, which means someone used gloves. So there should also be none on the shaft. The only way I can figure it is that someone switched part of their gun with Anisha's so that her prints would be left at the scene. They probably couldn't plant the whole gun because Anisha might notice her gun was missing for a while. They couldn't substitute the whole thing in case she noticed the difference with her new gun. I think they had to hedge their bets and hope she wouldn’t spot the shaft had been switched”

She went over to her desk and examined the guns with a lab microscope and her table lamp. Jack took a deep breath and waited silently. After a few minutes Kim slowly said, “I can't tell for certain and I'm no expert but I think I'm right. The patterns on this gun's handle synch up with the shaft of the other one.” Kim could see the relief in his eyes. “It wasn't Anisha's gun that shot Bob. She's innocent.”

It was dark when Jack got back home, but his spirits were considerably brighter. He couldn't believe his relief at Anisha's innocence. Deep down he had hoped it was true but he never expected to find proof. It was one thing he was glad to be wrong about. At the same time though, a small part of him was more miserable than before.

Now that Anisha was innocent he was at a dead end investigating his brother's shooting. All he knew was that whoever had done it was walking around right now with a badly fitted together Beretta.... possibly. He arrived back home to find everybody in their familiar places, and then it hit him, like a brick in the face. He wondered why it hadn't been obvious from the start.

Pete was the only one involved here. He was using Anisha to protect himself, and Anisha being the sweetheart that she was, was defending him tenaciously. Jack gritted his teeth, his head filling with caustic, bitter thoughts. His fists clenched in sub-conscious rage. With a deep breath, he restrained his anger.

As everyone noticed him entering the room they all greeted him and asked him how his planning on the ambulance front had gone. That had been his cover story for visiting Kim and as he sat down he shook his head to show he had no news. This recently adopted lifestyle, the lifestyle of a criminal; it was steadily wearing him down. He was meeting people in secret, keeping things from his friends because he wasn't sure who his friends were, and juggling with moral choices and situations that he never imagined he'd ever have to deal with.

He looked across the room at the group of people, all hard at work trying to plan this crime for him. This was no game and Jack knew it. As he looked over what everyone had achieved for the day, he saw Anisha staring at him. She looked concerned for him, and gave him a smile. It was different from the normal kind she gave, warmer this time and more inviting. Jack smiled back, and felt as if he was looking at his only true friend.

The day was escaping them and but it didn't seem like there was much anybody could do now so most of the group retired early, having to endure the grind of work tomorrow. Green senior was also tired and having no-one left to stay with, Jack went to bed too.

It would be hard getting any rest he thought, not with Kim's small mission looming over him. As he was just about to drift off to sleep he heard a fierce knocking on the door followed by the brutish cliché, “Police! We'd like to ask you a few questions.” Jack was already weary, his body having begun to wind down. Looking around he saw all the plans for the attack where littered on the floor. He yelled out, “One minute officer.”

By now most of the group were awake and looking just as anxious. Green senior saw what Jack was doing and ran over to assist him. All their ordered notes were being mixed up but the pair had no choice. Shoving things under the sofa and hiding them under stacks of newspapers on the coffee table, Gina tried to help them by shouting, “one second. Let me put some clothes on.”

As Green senior and Jack got up from the job, Anisha opened the door and greeted the officers with a composed face, the smallest hint of a smile evident. “Sorry about that, we were all asleep.” Frank stroked his jaw line and tried to work out what was going on. “I'm looking for a Mr Jack Winchester and I'm authorised to enter the house if I have to,” he said carefully.

His eyes peering into the apartment's interior, behind where Anisha stood in the doorway. Jack came out into the hall and up to the door. With his most convincingly innocent voice he proclaimed “That's me officer. What can I do for you?”

“It's about your brother. If you'll step outside for a second, we can talk.” Jack's grin began to fade but he caught it just in time and strained his cheek muscles back into a smile. He wasn't supposed to know anything was wrong. Nodding, he glided his feet into his blue slippers and walked out into the hallway of the apartment building, closing the door behind him.

The two men suddenly arched over him, becoming more hostile. “Jack Winchester, your brother phoned you prior to his being stabbed and then again after calling 999. Is that correct?” began Frank. Jack realised that the only way they would be asking was if they already knew, so he reasoned that he might as well answer truthfully.

“Yes that's right. The first call was to send me a message about how he was doing with work. It was a typical thing, nothing out of the ordinary. The second one said he was injured.”

“So he was injured,” he paused and made a speculative face while gently bobbing his head left to right. “So…did you go to him? Try and help him?”

“No I tried phoning 999.” Jack stopped as he realised that they would have his phone records. “But I was panicked, you know. I accidentally pushed some key on my phone or something and it wouldn't dial. All I could do was to check local hospitals later on when I did get it working again.” Frank stepped aside and Tony jumped in.

“So you're telling me that you heard your little brother, your
only
brother, was seriously injured and you couldn't call 999?”

“Yeah, that's right,” began Jack, not liking the tone. Before he could take the offensive, Tony interjected.

“So your only brother is there, dying and you know about it. As far as you know, there's no help on the way, and we know how close you were too him because we have the co-ordinates of your phone when he made the second call, before you turned it off. Are you telling me that even then that close, and with that much at stake, you didn't go to your brother?” Jack wasn't sure if they knew anything but he was confident the logs had been erased, otherwise there wouldn't be any need to send two detectives here.

“No, I didn't. I should have yes, but I didn't. I panicked and I did nothing. I just waited and hoped.”

Frank eased down his partner and thanked Jack, then turned around and began walking off. As Jack asked what the visit was all about, Frank either didn't hear him or chose to ignore him.

Kim walked out of the laboratory, a look of anguish clouding her otherwise cute face. She was on her lunch hour, which meant she finally had time to take care of the heist. It sounded daft when she thought about it like that, as if she was comparing herself to some sort of jewel thief. No, all she was doing was opening six safes and removing the contents. It was a straight forward task; at least that's what she kept repeating to herself, a simple mantra to calm her nerves.

She was beginning to sweat and the gentle smear of perspiration gave her forehead a shiny appearance. Her clothes felt stuffy and her skin was starting to redden. She began breathing deeply to try and calm herself down, and cool herself off. The air was frosty and stale.

Reaching into her pocket she pulled out the small scrap of paper from yesterday. She was on one of the floors below ground level, stood in a bare concrete corridor with the occasional breezeblock lining the walls.

Kim stood opposite a simple wooden door, which was the only thing that broke up the walls of the corridor. Her list told her that the safe should be next to the door, but she couldn't see anything.

Remembering her classic movies, she began tapping on the walls around the door and heard dull thuds. As she continued across the concrete the sound suddenly changed pitch to a hollow plunk. Running her bare fingers across it, her fine senses detected a slight discrepancy in the wall, which formed a panel. Pushing on it from side to side seemed to have no effect but she rammed her palms into it for the sake of chance, and the panel fell off to reveal a safe.

She looked down at her list of access codes and shock suddenly set in, as if she was falling backwards. She didn't know which password was which. There was a warning label on the control panel, which clearly outlined the grim consequences of entering the wrong code more than three times. Kim began to think a bit more about it, and realised that the warning might be to deter people such as herself. It was a game of bluff and double bluff and Kim was caught in the middle. There was no choice but to try any code and hope for the best.

She went down her list and tried the first one. There was a beeping sound and she grimaced, a part of her expecting to be caught straight away. Prompting for another, she tried the second code and again there was a beep. Sweat was just swimming all over her face now and she had to wipe herself down with her sleeve. She moved two down the list and tried again, holding her breath. She exhaled in frustration as the panel beeped once again.

Could she just give up? As long as she didn't try another code, nothing more could happen. Thinking about Jack and Dr. Lewis, she knew she had to be brave. She had to get it right this time. Looking down the list, she returned to the third one and typed it in. She paused for a second, considering the possibility that Klaus had sent Dr. Lewis the wrong codes, maybe trying to set him up.

Swallowing a mouthful of musty air, she finished typing it and her body slumped with relaxation as she heard the door of the black steel safe grind open. There was only a small green box inside, probably paint over some sort of metal. On top of the box was a small electronic keypad. Kim didn't worry about that now: she grabbed the box and swung the safe door shut. A few moments later she had the panel back in place.

Pulling back the rug in the disused conference room, she saw a few floorboards that look notably worn compared to their counterparts. Pulling them off with the minimum of effort, she saw what she expected: two safes next to each other.

Both were the same as the other four she had gotten past so far, except slightly smaller. She now had four of the small boxes in her handbag and she was expecting the liberation of these next two to be easy: only two access codes remained after all, and she had four attempts.

Looking down at the panels she saw the label's had changed. The warning for these was different. It demanded that you enter the correct code immediately or the security system would be activated.

That hot flush Kim had had before now returned, accompanied by the same nervous sweating. It was her worst odds yet, a straight fifty-fifty choice. Two numbers remained on the list, and she took in a deep breath and closed her eyes. Her finger began swirling in vague circles until it found the page. Looking down she saw that she had chosen the
second number and began entering it into the left panel, her eyes constantly darting between the panel and the sheet to make sure that she typed the code correctly.

Closing her eyes she pushed the final button and waited. There was no sound. Opening them, she checked to make sure that she had actually pushed the button. The panel lights had gone from red to green. It was open. Pulling out the box she shuddered a little at how close she had come. She quickly typed in the final code on the second safe and waited, with a smile on her face now that the job was almost over.

Suddenly her ears were assaulted by a bellowing as the alarm system began blaring out its siren. Kim had no time to comprehend what had just happened. She kicked the rug back over and ran out of the room, sprinting down the empty corridor and into the laboratory section. Hyperventilating to catch her breath, she tried to appear calm and collected as she greeted her co-workers. She furiously wiped the sweat from her forehead and adjusted her collar; her clothes making her feel claustrophobic.

The door suddenly flung open as Imran burst through. She had a guilty look stamped all over her but he didn't notice. Instead he yelled out, “There's been an uncontrolled cycle of the chronotron. It's overloaded and cracked open and its leaking radiation. Can't you hear the alarm? We have to leave!”

Without waiting for her, he pelted out of the door and to the exit, all the while screaming warnings to anyone that would listen. It was interesting to see how a situation like this revealed someone's true character. Kim felt a turbulent calm set in, realising that she hadn't been caught. She knew that in these matters the laboratory is locked down immediately, even though the radiation doesn't become dangerous for hours.

As a sea of bodies rushed around the corridors in blind panic, nobody noticed Kim again slipping into the room. She tore back the rug and pulled open the safe. Even with the alarm shrieking, she heard a whooshing sound as the door opened. However, instead of the green box she had expected, there was a semi-translucent, red Perspex box
instead that seemed to have an object inside.

She had to come out soon or she would be unaccounted for when they took a role call outside. She quickly pulled back the lid to peer inside and jumped back, flinging the box down as she did. From inside the red Perspex container, a pair of human eyeballs stared out at her.