The Network (2 page)

‘Good,’ Sean told him, the excitement rising in his chest again. ‘Then let’s call the goods onto the plot so I can check them.’

‘Sure,’ Ismain agreed. ‘But there’s just one thing, one little problem that’s come up.’ Sean felt his excitement quickly turning to anxiety. ‘You remember Jimmy Logan?’

‘Yeah. I remember him.’

‘Of course you do, because he introduced us. He vouched for you – said I could trust you – that you were a man I should do business with – right?’

‘What’s your point?’

‘My point,’ Ismain shouted, ‘is that Jimmy’s a fucking grass – so what do you think about that, officer?’

Sean’s belly tightened as he swallowed rising bile. ‘What do I think? What I think is you’re still fucking with me.’

‘No fucking bullshit this time. Jimmy’s a grass and that means everyone he touched is tainted, man.’

‘Fuck Jimmy,’ Sean bluffed. ‘My business is with you – here and now. Jimmy’s nothing but a low-life fixer. So what he introduced us – he’s probably been a grass for years. It doesn’t mean everyone he did business with is dirty, and that means you as well as me, Enrico.’

Ismain sat back in his chair, seemingly calm again. ‘You know what,’ he said, ‘you make some good points. But I got to know if you’re Old Bill, so I had a little think about things – you know what I mean?’

‘I’m listening,’ Sean told him.

‘And I was thinking that if you is Old Bill then right now this warehouse will be being watched, right, and that as soon as the truck pulls up outside all your policemen friends will come swooping down on it, arresting everyone they see, right?’

‘If I was Old Bill – which we both know I’m not – then yeah, I guess you’d be about right.’

Ismain began to laugh, delighted with his own cunning. ‘Only thing is, the truck is going to be empty – so when your police colleagues come running, all they’re going to find is an empty fucking truck and I’ll know for sure that Jimmy Logan is a fucking grass and you’re a fucking cop.’

‘And when nothing happens,’ Sean asked, ‘when none of these imaginary cops come crashing down on us, what then?’

‘You just worry about that empty truck,’ Ismain warned him, lifting a mobile phone from his desk and pressing a sequence of numbers before speaking into the mouthpiece. ‘Send the first truck in,’ he ordered before hanging up. So long as Benton followed Sean’s instructions and held the troops off until he got the call from Sean, they could still spoil Ismain’s day. The two hoodies from outside stepped into the room, meaning Sean was now outnumbered five to one – not good odds if the proverbial hit the fan. Ismain stood. ‘Let’s go. You too, Mr Policeman.’

Sean followed Ismain from the office and along the corridors – a henchman on either side and two more close behind. He tried not to dwell on what they might be armed with – guns would be bad, really bad. He concentrated on his breathing, keeping it short and shallow, enabling him to control his voice when he needed to speak, disguising any nervous tremors. His life was in Benton’s hands – if he called in the cavalry at the sign of the first truck, Sean would be in trouble. Any hint of the police and he could be bundled into the back of a car and driven away to an uncertain future. But if Benton held off until Sean called him, Ismain and his crew would relax, imagining the easy seventy-five grand they were about to pick up. By the time they worked out they’d been played, it would be too late. Benton had to hold his nerve – Sean’s neck depended on it.

They exited the warehouse the same way Sean had entered and stood in the car park waiting. Sean felt the presence of the two men behind him and tried not to imagine the guns, knives or metal bars they could be holding, just waiting for Ismain to give them the sign. He winced at the imaginary pain of a bullet or blade punching through his skin, shattering bone or slicing through vital organs; or the dull, sickening thud of a blunt object caving in the back of his skull. He felt his legs almost give way until he was distracted by the headlights of a single vehicle bouncing down the rough road towards the warehouse – the empty truck.
Whatever you do, Benton, don’t make the call – not yet.

‘Now we find out, right?’ Ismain’s voice broke the silence.

‘You’re wasting your time,’ Sean told him, managing to sound sure of himself despite the tightening of his chest. Ismain looked away from him and waited as the truck pulled up in the car park, the driver and passenger remaining in the cab with the engine still running, the back of the truck pointing towards the warehouse. No one else would be able to see whether it was full or empty. Ismain stepped forward and rolled up the truck’s back cover, the noise disturbingly loud in the semi-darkness.

‘Take a look inside,’ Ismain gestured to Sean, a wide smile spreading across his face. Sean stepped forward and peered in before moving away. ‘No, no,’ Ismain told him, ‘all the way inside.’ Every fibre of Sean’s body told him not to climb inside the truck. He weighed up his chances of escape if he made a run for it, which he decided were pretty good – he was in decent shape and doubted whether his would-be captors were, but if they had guns … He climbed into the back of the truck and looked around – empty, just as Ismain had promised.

‘Now what?’ he bluffed.

Ismain looked at his men, all of them smiling and laughing at the joke they thought they were playing on the police. ‘Now,’ Ismain told him, ‘now you get the fuck out of the truck.’ Sean shrugged his shoulders pretending he didn’t know what was happening and jumped down from the back. ‘And now,’ Ismain continued, ‘we wait.’ He held out his hand. ‘Shake my hand,’ he ordered.

‘Why?’ Sean asked.

‘Because I fucking told you to,’ Ismain barked, still smiling. ‘Because I want all your police friends to see you’re happy with the goods.’

‘Like I said – you’re wasting your time – and mine,’ Sean told him, reaching his hand forward for the shake.

‘We’ll see,’ Ismain insisted, searching the night around them for signs of life, approaching lights, the sounds of sirens or revving engines, ready to drag Sean to one of the waiting cars and spirit him away. Sean stood close to him, praying Benton remembered his instructions and followed them to the last. The seconds crawled by, each one feeling like a lifetime, until finally he was sure enough time had passed and Benton had held his nerve.

‘Well?’ Sean asked. ‘We gonna stand here all night, or we gonna do some business?’ Ismain looked him up and down before returning his gaze to the surrounding land. ‘I got seventy-five grand sitting in the back of a motor with one of my boys – d’you want it or not? Laptops I can get anywhere – you ain’t the only supplier.’

‘Okay,’ Ismain relented. ‘I was wrong – you’re good. But I had to be sure. No offense meant.’

‘None taken,’ Sean played along.

Ismain nodded and pressed another sequence of numbers into his mobile. ‘Bring the truck round. Everything’s cool. Everything’s sound.’

As they waited for the truck, Ismain spent his time apologizing and appeasing, explaining why he’d been within his criminal rights to be suspicious of Sean and anyone who’d done business with Jimmy Logan in the past. Sean waved his apologies away as if they were unnecessary, aware that there is no honour amongst thieves, just greed and paranoia: and greed overcomes even the deepest of suspicions. Finally another truck pulled into the car-park, only this time Sean stepped forward and rolled the rear cover up, letting out a long satisfied whistle when he saw the stacks of boxes still wrapped in cellophane and bearing the name Sony. He felt Ismain at his side – all friends now. ‘Nice,’ Sean told him and pulled himself into the back of the truck, tearing the cellophane open and pulling a box free, opening the lid and peeling back the thin foam sheet that covered the laptop inside. ‘Beautiful,’ he added as he took the computer from the box and flipped it open, turning the power on, the screen blinking into life.

‘I can’t guarantee they’re charged,’ Ismain warned.

‘They’re fine,’ Sean told him, ‘more than fine. You get any more like this I wanna know – understand?’

‘You’ll be the first person I call,’ Ismain promised.

‘Okay,’ Sean continued. ‘I’ll call my man forward and he’ll take your man to the cash – alright?’

‘Make the call, man,’ Ismain told him. ‘Make the call.’

Sean pulled his mobile from his pocket and found the number for Benton in the directory. He made the call, Benton’s anxious voice answering almost too quickly. ‘Hello.’

‘It’s me,’ Sean told him. ‘The goods are sound. Send Danny to the warehouse. He can take one of Enrico’s men to see the cash. I’ll wait here.’ He hung up and began the wait, his heart pounding with excitement now rather than fear. Ismain had tried to double-cross him, but Sean had seen it coming and turned the tables. Soon Ismain and his cronies would be scattering around him like frightened rats as the arrest teams moved in on all sides.

‘What’s that?’ Ismain suddenly asked.

‘What’s what?’ Sean asked, jumping down from the back of the truck.

‘I heard something.’

‘You’re hearing things,’ Sean said casually.

‘No, man. I fucking heard something.’

‘You’re talking shit,’ Sean stalled.

‘Fuck. Old Bill,’ Ismain declared, his instincts serving him well, as if he could smell the approaching police no one else had seen or heard. ‘Get the truck out of here,’ he barked at his subordinates.

‘Wait a fucking minute,’ Sean tried to stop him. ‘We got a deal. These goods are mine.’

‘Not yet they ain’t,’ Ismain told him, the sound of approaching cars increasingly obvious to them all despite the lack of sirens or flashing lights.

‘Fuck this,’ Sean kept bluffing. ‘I’m outta here. This is your shit, Enrico – you sort it out.’ He pushed past Ismain and his bodyguards and headed for the Range Rover while Ismain banged on the side of the truck and shouted his orders.

‘Get this fucking thing out of here,’ but it was too late, the unmarked police cars swarmed into the car park and around the warehouse, cutting off the only road of escape. A mixture of plain-clothed and uniform cops spilled from the vehicles, chasing down the hooded figures running in all directions. Ismain stood still, resigned to his fate and already planning his defence, watching as one of the plain-clothed cops kicked Sean’s legs away and booted him in the stomach as he lay on the floor. Sean pretended to groan with pain and gave the big cop standing over him a wink of appreciation.

‘You fucking set me up, Ismain,’ Sean shouted. ‘You’re finished, you dirty bastard, you’re fucking finished.’

‘No,’ Ismain protested above the din of the screaming, shouting police. ‘It wasn’t me, man. It must have been Jimmy – he set us both up. I’m gonna kill him, man.’

‘Fuck your bullshit,’ Sean spat back as the burly cop led him to an awaiting police car and tossed him in the back before jumping in next to him. The driver sped off, leaving the scene of settling anarchy behind them; Ismain’s protesting voice trailing away till there was nothing.

‘Alright, Sean?’ the burly cop asked.

‘Yeah, cheers Nathan.’

‘Didn’t hurt you, did I?’

‘No, I’m all good.’

‘Interesting last-minute change of plans.’

‘I knew Ismain would try something.’

‘How come?’

‘Because it’s what I would have done,’ Sean told him. ‘It’s exactly what I would have done.’

Next morning Sean sat in the back office of the small, crowded room that was the official epicenter of all undercover operations undertaken in London, the South-East and beyond. The offices of Specialist Operations Ten, more commonly referred to as SO10, were tucked away off a long corridor in New Scotland Yard – suitably covert for an organization that existed to be exactly that. Visitors were met with a small sign on the door stating ‘Admission Strictly for SO10 Personnel Only’. Beyond the door was a chest-high wooden counter where all visitors had to wait until they were checked by whichever member of the team happened to see them standing there. Sean hadn’t been kept waiting long before he was whisked through the main office – small as it was – and into the back room, where he now sat watching DS Arif Chopra reading through the report of the previous night’s fun and games. Finally Chopra looked up, dark, sunken eyes peering out from his square face, the grey stubble that spread down from his cheekbones matching his thick, short, salt and pepper hair – all connected to his short, stocky body by a squat, muscle-bound neck. His overall look of menace and distaste had been honed through fifteen years of permanent undercover work.

‘So,’ Chopra said, ‘you changed the plan at the last minute, without telling anyone.’

‘I had to,’ Sean argued. ‘I had no choice and I did tell someone – I told DC Benton.’ Chopra stared at him darkly, his face impossible to read – like the face of a snake.

‘Fair enough,’ Chopra eventually agreed. ‘Looks to me like you did the right thing. The goods turned up and the baddies got nicked and you’re alive and well, so that’s a result.’ Sean exhaled the breath he’d been unconsciously holding. ‘You can go back to Southwark now and get on with investigating all them frauds that must be waiting for you – if that’s what you want.’

‘Meaning?’ Sean asked.

‘Meaning,’ Chopra began, ‘there’s a job come up – something a little unusual, but important – not a deployment you can do part-time. You’ll have to stay away from the CID Office at Southwark for a few weeks at least, probably longer.’

‘And you can swing that with my DCI, can you? She won’t be happy losing one of her few DSs for weeks.’

‘She won’t have any choice,’ Chopra told him, an expression as close to a smile as he ever had slightly bending his lips, ‘but don’t worry, we won’t piss her off too much. I’ll get the Commander here to give her a call and promise her that her assistance won’t be forgotten. That’ll keep her happy – always does with the ambitious types.’

‘I appreciate that,’ Sean answered, ‘although I haven’t said I’ll take the job yet.’ Chopra tossed the file he was reading to one side and lifted another that had been propped up against the side of his chair, opening it up at the first page.

‘Heard of the internet?’ Chopra asked.