The Whitehall Syndicate: A time travel conspiracy thriller (19 page)

Gina had seen the mechanics use the cutting tools thousands of times before, and had just finished explaining the basics to Jack when Kim walked in. Kim was naturally timid as it was, but she felt even shyer speaking with Gina around. It was as if she was the outsider. Eventually she mustered up the courage and spoke up, telling Jack where to make the cuts.

Gina was still looking uncomfortable with the plan and Jack felt pangs of guilt starting to build up. Was it asking too much of her to bludgeon his way into her place of work? It was clear from her eyes she was hurt he hadn’t shared all of this with her sooner. Later he would try and make it up to her, but for now time was of the essence.

Gina announced that she would go back to the desk to look out for anyone coming, and Jack agreed with her idea. He flipped on a safety mask and motioned for Kim to do the same.

Carefully placing the first box on the workbench, he turned on the rotating saw. It wasn’t designed for cutting metal so strong, but it would still do the job. It made a skull shatteringly loud whirring sound and lowering it down onto the box, he watched the sparks fly.

It was too short notice for Green to hire somebody trustworthy. Moreover, he wasn't sure if anyone could actually be trusted. He crept up to the laboratory, and saw a clean white van parked by the entrance, with the back swung open and bright yellow HAZMAT suits filling the inside. Only one or two uninterested passersby filled the street, and the road was near silent.

Green stealthy walked over, pulled out a suit and shoved it under his long, brown leather coat. Reaching his car he got into the back seat and promptly began putting it on. He walked out fully clad and whistling a merry tune, entered the lab. Since he had paid to hire out the laboratory he had his own access password so entry was simple, as long as he was careful not to be recognised.

Green wasn't like most of the fancy, middle class peers he sat with in parliament. His family had lost out more than anyone in the depression, and even decades later when he was born they were still struggling. He was raised in squalor, performing backbreaking labour with his dad so that the family could get by.

He knew what it was like to have to do things for himself, and he didn't shy away from tasks just because they were dangerous or hard work. Even now, as he entered the area, he wasn't apprehensive and he didn't have any second thoughts. He had no fear, and that was the scariest thing of all.

He marched through the corridor swiftly, knowing exactly where the safes were. The access codes were in his pocket and he didn't expect this to take long. He realised as he walked under the long, echoing air vent that he hadn't brought anything to carry the boxes in. He would probably have to find something in one of the labs.

On approaching the relevant area of the storage room, he began rapping his knuckles on the thick metal floor of the vent as he listened to the sounds. A voice sounded out from behind him and his ears began to burn. He began exhaling hot breaths and the green tinged visor to his suit became cloudy.

He turned around now to face what looked like a dark skinned woman, but with the condensation on his eye shield, he couldn't tell for sure.

“What are you doing here?” He could almost hear her glaring at him

“I've been ordered to check the radiation levels along every air vent.” There was a long pause and Green took a step towards a metal pipe left on the floor, preparing himself for the worst.

“I see. So why are you tapping the air vents?” Green replied immediately.

“I've got a hunch one of them is broken. If it is we’ll have to fix it to avoid more radiation spreading later on. I'm just being thorough.” Green had regained his composure and was back to his best: cool as ice under pressure.

The woman nodded, as if recognising the problem from experience, before slowly walking away. Green continued what he was doing and after a minute of two, heard what he was hoping for. There was a dull sound where the safe was. Grabbing the metal panelling with his fingers he yanked it backwards and watched it snap off to reveal the sleek black vault.

Pulling the paper from his pocket and entering the appropriate password, he heard the clicking sound of the door unlocking. As he heaved the door open his pupils dilated and his teeth began to grind.

The safe was empty. For the first time so far, he lost all sense of calm and his fists began to clench. He punched the wall in anger and didn’t even flinch at the searing pain.

There must be a mole in the laboratory, someone who was onto him. He closed his eyes and breathed one long deep breath. Loosening his hands now an evil smile crossed his face. He knew just the right person to hunt them down…and eliminate them.

Frank smashed his fist down onto the solid wood door and watched it momentarily rattle on its hinges. While he waited he took in the bright white walls and simple, elegant architecture. The small circular lights embedded into the walls, the pine panelling, the laminate staircase: this was a beautiful apartment building. He didn't normally like apartments, feeling that at his age a house was more suitable. Still, this was one place he could definitely see himself moving into.

Eventually the door creaked open and Anisha smiled at him. Frank could hear suspicious clamouring in the background and finally Anisha opened the door fully to let him in. Frank wasn't in the mood to mess around now and headed straight for Jack, asking him for a word in private. As the two of them marched outside, Jack glanced over and saw Anisha wearing a worried face. Nobody else was home yet. Nobody else to help him.

They stopped in the hallway and Frank cut to the chase. “I can arrest you on a John Doe charge and hold you for a week if I have to. So I'm going to ask you a few questions, and you’re going to tell me what I want to know. Understand?” Jack nodded emphatically, intimidated by his suddenly threatening demeanour.

“I know that your brother was shot because he was investigating Michael Green. I know that Green was conspiring with five former felons and I know about his laboratory side project. I know that you're involved in this and what I want to know right now, is why.”

Jack had to admire the way he cut straight to it, in that calm but menacing voice. But his mind was in a storm and with Frank's menacing gaze beating down upon him, he struggled to piece together a convincing lie.

“Come back inside,” he said, trying to buy some time.

Frank slowly turned to go in and Jack's mind whipped into shape.
If he lied, Frank would only be back and he would investigate everyone in the house. That meant Anisha, and what she had been doing at her job. Also, if he did arrest Jack now, it was all over. He couldn't do his task and someone would kill him.

As risky as it was, the only option left was to tell the truth, or at least enough of it to cover himself and keep the man at bay. After all, Frank may have some useful information, much like what he just mentioned about the criminals.

As Frank walked in, he motioned to Anisha that it was okay and he began telling him in detail about Kim and the laboratory, but left out everything to do with the Green assassination. Frank listened intently but if he was shocked, he failed to show it.

Slowly getting up, he said, “It's against normal procedure but I think we can help each other out.” Jack began nodding in agreement and Frank asked him to bring out the five boxes and the names he had come up with. He said he didn't have the boxes but he did have the names, and once he handed them over Frank got out his mobile and checked them.

As he suspected, they were two of the names of the five suspects he had already. He took a disc with the unidentified prints and said he would run them tomorrow to double check.

The conversation now turned to the five boxes. Each one contained what seemed like a random object but Kim was at home right now trying to piece them together. One box had the blue crystal. Another had some kind of metal coil in it. The third had a rounded vile of lightly fluorescing green liquid. The next one along contained a complicated looking circuit board and the final one had an encrypted FLD. They had slightly chipped the circuit board while removing it but apart from that, all the items seemed
undamaged.

Frank scratched his stubbly chin, sporting the same confused expression as Jack and Kim a few hours earlier when they had liberated the items.

It was Frank's turn to share information and he told them what he knew about the five ex-thieves. He also had a theory about the metal coil. “There was a newly invented quantum coil that was being housed in a vault at a technological safe house. I remember the facility reported a theft a short while ago after discovering the item missing but with no alarms having gone off.”

“So what makes you think this is the coil?”

“The area the coil was stolen from is the same area Green met the five criminals.” Jack was intrigued and continued listening.

“Anyway, when we checked out the theft of the coil, we found that its vault had been accessed by one of the previous owners. We looked him up but then he had disappeared so we assumed he had stolen the item and gone on the run. Of course by the time anyone noticed the coil was missing, there were no longer any surveillance logs left, so we never found him.”

“So what do you think now?” asked Anisha, following the pattern of his story and predicting where it was going.

“I think that someone had him killed and extracted his eyeballs for the retinal scan to the vault. Mr Winchester, did you put every item back into the same box you got it from?”

“Yes we did, why?”

“Well if we know what box the coil or whatever item came from and we know the fingerprint on the box, we can work out which crook stole which items.”

Kim woke up to the smell of stale coffee and glanced around. She was on her cream coloured couch, part of a black and white set. All the boxes sat on the floor beside her. Shaking her head, she remembered lying on the couch to rest her eyes for a few minutes. It must have turned into a few hours.

She looked over at the notes on her desk and yawned. Yesterday had been the hard part and all she had to do today was piece it all together. She got up and walked over to the study to look through all of her papers laid out on the desktop. She had just woken up but was as alert as ever.

Rearranging the papers and jotting bits and bobs over them, she booted up her laptop and began comparing them to the schematics she had got from Dr Lewis. As her eyes darted from pad to pad and back to
the laptop screen it all slowly dripped into place, like water seeping through a sponge.

There was a device in the schematic that had almost no details associated with it, and on closer examination she saw that it was some sort of generator. As best as she could tell it caused some kind of temporal flux and needed four specific components. Each of which were among the contents of the five boxes.

Looking across it now she saw more clearly what kind of device it was. It wasn't a laser or a bomb, but instead some sort of time machine accessory. She checked her watch and decided it was too early to be worrying Jack. She would call in a few hours when he was definitely awake.

Jack stirred as he heard Green senior snoring.  Jack had fallen asleep before the old man had got back home. Looking across the room, Jack saw a document folder on the chair, which wasn't there before, and assumed it was the fruit of Green's labours. This morning was a particularly frosty one, but the sky was clear and it looked as if the day was going to get warmer and more pleasant later on.

Jack struggled out of his makeshift bedding and immediately felt a chill. He quickly popped on a sweater, and sauntering over to the folder, he pulled it open to reveal a single sheet of crisp cartridge paper.

Written in ink were a few random words, none of which meant anything to Jack. He was too awake to try falling back to sleep so instead he went into the kitchen and made himself some coffee. As he sat on the counter drinking it, his phone vibrated loudly. Cradling it to dampen the sound, he saw it was a message from Frank to confirm the names of each thief and which item they stole. He wasn't exactly sure how it helped him but once Kim rang him up with more details it might do.

For now he planned to enjoy a quiet Saturday morning. With almost no-one having to work today, it was clear that everyone intended to enjoy a lie-in. There was still some work to be done but mainly it was everyone's frayed nerves that were the problem now.

As he slowly made his way to the shower, he couldn't help but wonder what had taken Green senior the whole of yesterday to do. He didn't want to complain, since Green had helped them out a lot so far, but there was still some doubt in the back of his mind.

Washing his mug in the sink, he started wondering how he could exploit the people that were threatening him into this whole plan. Now that he had something of Green's he had some leverage. The only problem was that his leverage was against Green.

Since whoever was intimidating him clearly didn't like Green, it made sense that they would only be too happy to see Jack blackmail the politician. Jack rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands, his fingertips massaging his scalp. He knew had to find a way to use the objects: they were the only real power he wielded right now.

Frank normally had Saturday off but this whole week he had been pulling double and triple shifts every chance he got. This case was his greatest puzzle yet, and he was determined to rise to the challenge. On a personal note, he wanted to prove to everyone that detectives were still needed, and that there was still a place for reasoned thinking rather than just endless video monitoring.

Tony was next to him right now, dressed in his usual slick pinstripe suit, with a charcoal shirt and ivory tie. As Frank looked over all of the records on his computer, he couldn't help feeling like he was going round in circles. He had a list of names, dates and items stolen, but only a few tenuous connections. As of yet, nothing had pieced together in that machine-like brain of his.

Tony scratched his head, also seeing nothing new as of yet. While Tony stared at the screen, looking for a connection, Frank rubbed his chin and walked over to his partner's desk to grab some notes. Tony was so focussed he didn't even notice him leave.

Something had been niggling at Frank since yesterday. Green looked likely to reach the role of Prime Minister within a few months. He would lead all of England, so why did he feel he had to jeopardise all of that to build a weapon. The inevitable conclusion Frank drew was that Green had some sort of global interest.

He looked back at the information Bob had been working on and noticed that Bob's research had mainly been restricted to the British sector. As he flicked through the pages, he saw several connections come up to one man: Russell Mason.

The name normally wouldn't have made Frank look twice; it seemed like a typical financial transaction for a political advice service. But as he read the codes on the heading of the table, he saw that the money was deposited to an account in America. It was the only foreign account on the whole list.

He called Tony over and asked him to work his magic with computers to find out what he could about the man. Tony tapped some keys and pulled up the NJD list. It was a combined list of criminals, terrorists and other assorted felons, which was made up of lists from Interpol, the FBI, OSS, CDI and individual police records.

Frank and Tony watched as the computer flashed its searching banner. It was a special search that Tony had devised, which checked the name, the account and any similar or possibly linked transactions.

Tony was sat down and Frank was leaning behind him, and as the progress bar moved along, Frank began drumming his fingers on Tony’s shoulder. He was getting impatient. The search came to a close and on the screen a box popped up with the words NO RESULTS FOUND.

Frank let out a stifled grunt of annoyance and Tony turned around to him. “It's possible this guy is clean.” Frank shook his head.

“No this has to be a link to something.”

“Well then it's a false name. It's going to be hard to trace,” said Tony slowly. Frank smiled a little.

“If police work was easy it wouldn't be any fun.” With that Frank walked back to his desk, leaving behind his pondering partner. ‘Police work
is
easy’, thought Tony. Maybe Frank was making some kind of joke or maybe it was a reference to something. Either way it wasn't important, so he turned back to the screen to try and find a name.

Kim tried phoning Jack again and after a few tense rings he picked up. She heard him answer, “Hi there mum,” and realised straightaway that he had company. After some shuffling sounds he explained he was in the bathroom and was free to talk. She detailed what the five objects were, and Jack listened absorbedly and thanked her for calling.

Pete was home today so he had to watch him, and he also had a lot of planning to do to make sure Monday went off without a hitch. Kim sympathised, and saying goodbye, hung up to let him get on with it.

After a second of pondering, she went back to the schematics to try and work out what this machine Green was building actually did. As far as she could tell it made a high energy beam that seemed to fire outwards, and that coupled with all the mystery surrounding it made her think it was a weapon. But now she had seen this new generator component more clearly, she wasn't entirely sure how it fit in and the weapon theory was looking shaky.

She still had some information from Dr Lewis that she didn't fully understand, and she sat down on the couch reading it, hoping that, in context, it would be the key to solving the conundrum. Getting out a grotty old pad, she wrote down the key facts that she knew so far. It was only just reaching lunchtime but her mind had already started wandering.

She started doodling randomly on the corner of her page. It was a nervous habit she had had from when she was very young. It was never pictures of any kind, just lines and swirls arranged to look pretty, almost building up a picture frame around the page.