Gray Redemption (Tom Gray #3) (4 page)

“And you want us to find out?”
Farsi asked.

“Discreetly,” Ellis confirmed. 

Chapter
3

Monday
April 23rd 2012

It was just after ten in the
evening when Timmy Hughes walked down the gangway of the Sterling Lines and
walked through the
Saf
Yacht Club to his waiting
Bentley.  The ten mile drive south took a leisurely twenty minutes and he
parked in the Atrium car park just a couple of hundred yards from his apartment
just off Orchard Road.

The streets were still alive
despite the hour, with the majority of the revellers tourists taking in as much
of the city as they could manage in a single day.  As he approached the
apartment building the throng had thinned out to just a few locals.  He
was digging for the keys to the lobby when he felt a dig in his back and a
figure appeared next to him, a sports jacket draped over his right hand.

“Hello Timmy,” the stranger
said.  Hughes didn’t recognise him but the accent was from his own neck of
the woods, just north of London.  A second dig in the ribs told him that
the man was carrying more than just a Carl Gross coat.

“You know the drill.  Nice
and cool, stay calm and follow me to my car.”

The hire car was waiting just
around the corner and Hughes was told to drop his bag and get into the front
passenger seat.

“Roll down the window. 
There’s a set of cuffs under the seat.  Put them on your right hand.”

Hughes again complied and was
then told to thread the other cuff through the door handle and attach it to his
left hand.  After checking it was tight the stranger climbed into the
driver’s seat and set off through the light traffic. 

It was a forty-minute drive to
the
Sungei
Buloh
wetland
reserve in the Lin Chu Kang area and they made the journey in silence after it
became clear to Hughes that his questions were going to go unanswered. 

When they reached their
destination Ben Palmer handed Hughes the keys to the cuffs, told him to get out
and then followed him through the passenger side door.  Hughes found
himself in an industrial estate, deserted because of the late hour.

“Move,” Palmer said, indicating
with his silenced pistol that they should head into the darkness.  They
walked for a minute before Palmer told Hughes to stop and get down on his
knees.

Hughes refused.  Instead,
he turned and faced the gunman.  If this man wanted him dead, it would
have happened by now, which meant he needed something from him.  That gave
him the advantage.

“Care to tell me why you’re
going to kill me?”

Palmer had the gun pointed at
centre mass.  “On your knees,” he repeated.

Hughes was five yards from him
and moved closer, hoping to cut the distance in half so that he would have a
chance to go hand-to-hand, but Palmer put his left hand behind his back and
grabbed the Taser tucked into his waistband.  He hit Hughes in the chest
with the barbed dart and kept his finger on the trigger, delivering fifty thousand
volts down the thin wire.  Hughes dropped to the floor and Palmer gave him
another jolt for good measure. 

“It’s much easier if you do as
you’re told,” he said, standing over Hughes.  “Now, tell me where Len
Smart is.”

“Never heard
of him.”

Palmer delivered another shock
to jog his memory.  “I don’t like it when people lie to me,” he said
calmly.  “You’ve been in contact with Smart and Simon Baines.  Where
are they?”

“Go fuck yourself.”

Palmer brought the pistol up and
shot the prostrate man in the kneecap.  When Hughes screamed and reached
for the wound, Palmer kicked him in the temple, knocking him out cold. 

Hughes regained consciousness a
few minutes later and immediately reached for the wound, but his arms wouldn’t
obey the command.  He lay there helpless, staring up at the night sky, the
stars magnificent in the cloudless night.

For the first time in his life,
Timmy Hughes felt truly frightened.

Palmer could see it in his face,
and welcomed the sight.

“I’m not gonna bullshit you,
Timmy.  You’re gonna die.  It’s just a matter of how long it takes,
and that’s up to you.  Now, where are Baines and Smart?”

He removed the tape covering
Hughes’s mouth and got a face full of spittle in response.

Palmer wiped it away. 
“Okay, have it your way.”  He pulled a small bottle from his jacket pocket
and unscrewed the lid carefully before pouring a couple of drops on his
victim’s hand.  The
sodium
hydroxide solution immediately began to burn through the skin and Hughes
screwed up his face as he fought to battle the pain.

Palmer gave him a few moments to consider just how much suffering was still
to come.

“It’s going to hurt a whole lot more when I put it on your knee,” Palmer
said, holding the bottle over the open wound.  “After that I’ll do your
eyes, one at a time.”

Hughes knew there was nothing he could do except hope for a swift
end.  He wasn’t afraid of death, and he knew that there was little point
in delaying the inevitable, but he wasn’t about to give up his old friends so
easily.

“They’ve gone,” he said.

“Where?”

“Home.
 
Back to the UK.”

Palmer considered this for a moment.  If the British security services
were after these people, it was unlikely that they’d be on a commercial
flight.  “How are they getting there?”

“I don’t know.”

Palmer poured a quarter of the solution into the hole made by the bullet
and Hughes screamed with every ounce of breath in his lungs, but the hand
placed over his mouth stopped the noise travelling.  Palmer waited until
there was nothing left but whimpering and tears.

“Let’s try again.  How are they getting back to England?”

“I don’t know,” Hughes whispered, and Palmer shook his head, positioning
the bottle above his left eye.

“No, wait!  Wait! Sammy Li!”

Palmer moved the bottle and looked into Hughes’s eyes.  “Tell me
more.”

“I handed them over to Sammy Li in Malaysia.  He said he would get
them home.”

“Who’s Sammy Li?  Where do I find him?”

“I don’t know where he lives, but he is a regular at the Atlanta Club in
Kuala Lumpur.”

Hughes prayed that this stranger would fall for his ruse and end up
searching for a fictitious target.  Unfortunately for him, Palmer wasn’t
about to take his word for it.  He took out his phone and hit a
pre-programmed number.

“It’s me.  I need information about a Sammy Li from Malaysia.  He
might be involved in people smuggling.”

He turned to Hughes.  “I have access to several security services
throughout the world.  If you are lying to me...”

He returned his attention to the call, listening intently before thanking
the other party and hanging up.

“Sammy Li comes up blank, but I was given another name.  Care to guess
what it is?”

Hughes knew the game was up, and any more procrastinating would only lead
to more pain.  He felt bad for letting his friends down, but this man
would get the information out of him eventually.  Besides, their boat had
already set sail, and the chances of this man getting through Tang’s security
screen and having enough time to question him seemed remote at best.

“Arnold Tang,” he said, and closed his eyes, waiting for the bullet. 
He felt the tape being placed over his mouth, but the shot didn’t come. 
Instead, Palmer emptied the bottle onto his exposed throat and stood back
quickly.

Hughes began gagging and spluttering, trying his best to expel the
corrosive solution, but Palmer had mixed it at such a high concentration that
it burnt through the skin in seconds and poured into his larynx. 
Screaming was impossible with his voice box destroyed, and moments later his
heart gave out under the overwhelming assault on his nervous system.

“That’s for lying to me,” Palmer said, and strolled back to his car. 
Once inside he pulled out his phone and dialed the number he had called
earlier.

“You were right, it’s Arnold Tang.  Tell me about him.”

*
* *

Farrar looked at the screen and
what he saw wasn’t encouraging.  Arnold Tang had long been suspected of
being involved in a variety of illegal activities, but there had never been
enough evidence to bring a prosecution.  From gambling dens to fraud, the
accusations had been levelled and immediately withdrawn, mainly due to his
powerful connections.

It was also reported that Tang
had two personal bodyguards who travelled everywhere with him, meaning it
wouldn’t be easy for Palmer to get in close enough to do what he did best, and
he said as much to the contractor.

“What about posing as a
customer?” Farrar suggested.

The line went silent while
Palmer considered the suggestion.  The reply wasn’t what Farrar wanted to
hear.

“I don’t do undercover. 
You hired me for my skill set, and I don’t go outside my comfort zone. 
That’s how mistakes happen.  Just give me the names of some known
associates and I’ll have a quiet word with them.”

Farrar looked through Tang’s
profile and found two men suspected of being heavily involved in the
trafficking operation.  He started to read out the details but Palmer cut
him off.

“From now on,
no details over the phone.
  Go to the website and enter this code.”

He read off a series of numbers
and got Farrar to repeat them.

“Leave a message and I’ll call
you tomorrow,” Palmer said, and hung up.

Farrar did as instructed and
gave the names and addresses of Tang’s men.  He ended the note with
instructions for when Palmer located his targets:

When you find Baines and Smart,
find out what ‘Saturday the ninth of April, option three’ means. It is vital,
repeat,
vital
that you get this information.

Farrar hit the Send button and
then called Veronica Ellis for an update.  He found her in a less than
accommodating mood.

“We just started looking
yesterday,” she said when he asked how things were progressing.  “You have
to realise that last year they managed to evade a countrywide manhunt when
every police force in the nation was looking for them.  If these people
don’t want to be found, it will be almost impossible with such limited
resources.”

Farrar knew that her point was
valid, but he wasn’t about to cut her any slack.  “Can’t you draft anyone
else in to help?” he asked.

“In order to fund some extra
overtime I would need to know more about the operation, otherwise I can’t
justify it.”

“It’s beyond your pay grade,
that’s all you need to know.”

The statement didn’t sit well
with Ellis, but Farrar’s next words almost had her screaming venomously down
the phone.

“If you can’t get this done with
the resources you have, I’ll send over the names of six of my operatives. 
You can set them up with accounts and give them grade one access.”

Ellis took a few deep breaths as
she formulated an appropriate response: one that didn’t require Farrar to go
and fuck himself.  She knew that denying him access to the network would
simply send him scurrying to the Home Secretary, but the more she considered
the request, the more she could see it work in her favour.

“I guess that’s the only way we’re
going to find them,” she said, feigning disappointment.  “Email the names,
I’ll fill out the paperwork and have the accounts set up within the hour.”

“No!” Farrar said, a little too
quickly.  If the accounts were set up through the proper channels, it was
possible that his bosses might find out about them and start asking some
awkward questions.  The last thing he wanted to do was alert them to the
fact that Campbell and Levine had skipped town from under his nose.  Even
worse was the fact that he now needed to bring MI5 into the mix.  Despite
his earlier bluff about making a complaint to the Home Secretary, that was the
last thing he wanted to do. 

His men weren’t really cut out
for this kind of work, but he wanted to have something in place, just in case
Palmer failed to deliver.

“Just… keep this below the
radar.  I don’t want other agencies interfering with this case.”

Intrigued, Ellis promised to do
all she could, but made it clear that his latest request meant it might take
some time to put things in place.

Farrar thanked her and hung up,
and Ellis went straight to Gerald Small’s office, grabbing Harvey and Farsi on
the way.  They found the technician tucking into a sandwich in front of a
bank of monitors, each one displaying network activity.

“Busy?” Ellis asked.

Small pulled his feet off the
desk and scrambled into a proper sitting position.

“I…
erm
,
was just…someone was trying to hack the network.  I was just running a
trace.”

“Calm down, I’m not the posture
police.  I need you to come with me,” Ellis said, and the head of the
Technical Operations department dutifully followed her to the conference room,
throwing Harvey a look that asked what was going on.  He got a shrug in
response.

Once inside, and with the door
closed, Ellis explained the situation.

“I need you to create six new
network accounts, all with grade one access.”

“Sure,” Small said, wondering
why this couldn’t have been done in his office.  “Just send me the
requisition forms and I’ll set them up.”