Shadow Of Malice Read online

  “Fits the story he gives. No major current injuries, but evidence of some old injuries, scars and so on. Just lots of cuts and bruises now, and he has been, yeah, he’s been… assaulted,” the Sergeant reported gravely, awkwardly spilling the final piece of information out as he struggled with the magnitude.

  “Shit,” Thea breathed, turning back to the window and looking at the boy as he turned over awkwardly in the bed, wrapping himself tightly in the sheets, eyes still firmly shut. He looked tortured, and Thea realised she had forgotten to ask the most important question. “What’s his name?”

  “Ciaran. He doesn’t know his surname, just knows he’s called Ciaran.”

  “Jesus Christ, what the hell have they done to him?”

  “It’s the others I’m worried about,” Rankine said.

  “Others?”

  “Yeah, he said there were lots of kids in there, they came and went, different ones all the time.”

  “How many?”

  “He didn’t know, he can’t count.”

  “Can’t count?” Thea couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Where is this place?”

  “Somewhere out in the countryside. A farm he reckons, something like that, which out here could be one of a hundred places.”

  Thea ran her hand through her dark hair and sighed.

  “Are you going to get some specialists in on this?” Rankine asked.

  “I need to talk to Ciaran first,” Thea nodded. “Are there people in your department you trust who can watch him?”

  “Absolutely, there’s a couple of lads and lasses who I’d trust with my life.”

  “Good, one of you needs to be on this door at all times. And tell the hospital that they’re to not give out any details if anyone calls,” Thea ordered, before adding, “I’m going to see if he’s awake.”

  She opened the door softly, creeping in, but all the same, she saw Ciaran’s eyes shoot open and glance nervously at her.

  “Hello,” she said softly. “I’m Thea.”

  Ciaran shuffled in the bed, raising himself up on his elbows, his thin arms poking out underneath his hospital gown, showing further evidence of the attenuated figure he had now become. He looked warily at her, saying nothing, so she pulled up a chair and sat by the bed.

  “I’m really sorry that they hurt you,” Thea soothed.

  Ciaran remained silent, not that Thea was surprised.

  “I can help you. I can put them in prison.”

  Ciaran shook his head, slowly, timidly.

  “What?” Thea asked. “You don’t want them to go to prison?”

  “You need to kill them.” His voice was croaky and harsher than it should have been for a boy of his age. “They won’t go to prison. You need to kill them.”

  3

  There hadn’t been many periods of peace in Jack Quinn’s life. As a kid, he had always found trouble, or more aptly, trouble had found him. It all stemmed, he would argue now, from his upbringing. His parents had both worked, so he had spent his earliest years under the care of his maternal grandmother. She had been a throwback to a bygone age, where respect was the name of the game, and looking after your neighbours was second nature. She taught a young Jack Quinn that it was everyone’s duty to do the right thing and to make sure they stuck up for their friends, so that’s what Jack did.

  Bigger than his peers, at school he would often find himself righting the wrongs of the playground, taking on bullies, and winning. As he got older, the arguments he would have with his teachers in his defence always spun around the simple fact that he had seen something unjust, tried to fix it, and found himself left with no option but to fight. No matter how many times his teachers extolled on him the virtues of telling them if he saw something happening and letting them deal with the issue, that simply didn’t fly to young Jack Quinn. He saw far too many blind eyes turned, or far too many children too scared to come forward and finger their bullies. No, the teachers were wrong, and he was right. If detentions and suspensions were the price he had to pay for doing the right thing, then that’s the price he paid.

  Jack had set his heart on the army from an early age, and he signed up quickly. His goal had always been to get into one of the branches of the UK special forces, and shortly after his twenty-first birthday, he joined the SAS.

  By this point, he had met Isobel, and they were rapidly falling in love. If Jack ever looked back on his life, ever had to pick a moment when he had felt bliss, felt indestructible, this would have been it. For eighteen months, his life had become what he had wanted it to be. He had been a lover and a warrior.

  All good things come to an end, however. Soon cracks had appeared in his relationship as the stresses of deployments overseas had pulled at them both. First Kat, and then Calum, his two children, had helped to plaster over the holes that his job created, but it couldn’t hold them together. Both he and Isobel realised something had to change. Their relationship ended little over ten years after it began.

  Jack had always thought he would die a soldier. Like most young men, he didn’t contemplate old age, but unlike most, that wasn’t down to his own sense of immortality. Quite the opposite. Jack knew he was going to die, and he embraced that fact. As long as the cause was right, his life was worth expending.

  Then the cause had changed.

  The war on terror had been just, Jack knew that. He ardently believed that. Britain’s allies had been attacked, and British lives had been lost. There was an enemy, and that enemy had to be found and eliminated. Jack had absolutely no problem with being a part of the operations. He had served with pride in Afghanistan, but it was in Iraq where he had begun to question himself.

  Jack had been there at Abu Ghraib, the infamous jail where Iraqi prisoners of war had been abused and degraded by rogue elements in the British Army. Seeing his own soldiers, his own side acting like that and the contempt shown by the superiors who knew about it, the disdain shown for people who may or may not have been enemies was too much. Jack wasn’t green. He knew that a real part of being a soldier was the ability to switch off that part of your brain that humanised the enemy, and that sometimes that slipped a little, but there was always someone there to help pull you back. That was how they knew they were the good guys, that was how he knew he was right. Now he wasn’t sure.

  The fire of dissent grew quickly, and before he knew it, Jack was out of the army, a whirlwind of circumstances and reactions that left him back home, jobless, and with a young family to provide for.

  Jobs for a man of Jack’s size had come easily enough. He was muscle, protection. There was money in that. Some of the jobs were good, honest trade, some not so much, although, by that point, Jack was beyond caring. When the first offer to do mercenary work came up, Jack took it, and six days later he had found himself in a cargo plane hold, heading for some war-torn part of Central Africa where country boundaries no longer mattered, hoovering up resistance groups who were hassling an oil pipeline system. It was a chance to do something, a chance to escape, plus the money was far too good to turn down.

  He hated what he had become. He felt a failure to his wife, to his children. The world was an evil place, and despite his best efforts, he couldn’t make it any better for them. Drink had followed. Many lonely, silent nights in the stupor of drunken contemplation, Jack had tried to work a way out of his rut, to find a way to make himself the man he wanted to be, but he hadn’t.

  One of those lonely nights, David Warner had found him.

  The tall stranger had approached him in a bar and sat next to him, which Jack had immediately found strange. People weren’t given to talking to Jack. His size was usually enough to intimidate most, and his scowl would certainly do the job if that didn’t. The immaculately dressed black man with the cropped hair who was sitting at the bar next to him barely seemed to have registered him, although Jack knew he must have done. Already from the way he held himself, Jack was sure he was forces too. For a moment, he feared hearing another soldier’s woes and war stories. Jack wasn’t one for small talk, not anymore. Thankfully, the stranger ordered a drink and stared straight ahead, and for a minute at least, silence ensued.

  “It’s hard, isn’t it?” the stranger asked. “When you first lose your way, it’s hard to find a new path.”

  Jack said nothing, although the question was clearly meant for him and suggested that, whoever this guy was, he knew something about what Jack was doing. He had been piqued, he knew that. He felt the stranger shuffle and turn to look at him.

  “I’ll get to the point, Quinn. You’re a good man doing shitty work for shitty people. I can change that.”

  Jack turned. “You are?”

  “David Warner, and I want you to come work for me.”

  “A job?”

  “A proper one.”

  “I don’t do nine to five.”

  “Neither do we. We fight for what’s right, and we do it all day, every day. You’re going to join us.”

  “Does it pay well?”

  “Money isn’t an issue, but you don’t want money.”

  Jack cocked his neck. “What do I want?”

  “You want to make the world better.”

  That had been nine years ago. David Warner had been right, Jack wanted to make the world a better place, and for nearly eight years, he’d done just that, as a Regulator, a part of a vast vigilante network that crossed the globe, targeting people in power who skirted the law and evaded the system. Jack had brought many people to justice. For some others, he’d delivered justice personally. Now, however, he was facing the end of that chapter of his life.

  When he had first been suspended, the anger he expected to feel had given way to relief. He had done the right thing, he had abided by the rules, he had expected reinstatement. As his s
uspension had dragged on, he realised that maybe his time as a Regulator was over.

  The anger he had feared the realisation would bring wasn’t there. He was tired of it all. Tired of killing, tired of hurting, tired of making the sort of decisions which changed lives forever. He knew he had made the world a better place, he had done his part, far more than most people could ever dream of doing, and he trusted that others would follow suit. He wasn’t the only person who felt that way. Adam, David, Mo, and so many other colleagues in the Regulators and the Vehmic courts, which they acted on the behalf of, would fight the good fight. There were even people in the regular strands of justice, like the detective he had last worked with, Thea Watts, who were incorruptible, doing all they could to keep the world safe.

  No, the world didn’t need Jack Quinn’s help anymore. He had done his piece, he would await his retirement, and then he would lead a quiet life.

  He had sold his house, moved a little further from his Isobel, given himself that extra separation he finally realised he needed, and found a new place in the country, just outside the small town of Uckfield in East Sussex. A small, run-down, three-bed cottage, in need of extensive renovations, where both the kids could have a room and spend a week in their holidays, maybe even one day bring his grandkids. It was to be his project, something to keep him occupied as he worked out what to do with the rest of his life.

  At least that was the plan.

  Then the phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “Jack?”

  He recognised the voice instantly, which caught him a little off guard.

  “Thea?”

  “I’m sorry to call. It’s just I think I need your help.”

  4

  David Warner had agonised over how to approach this moment for a long time. There were many moments in his career when he had been forced to deal with awkward situations. He had presided over firings, condemned people to a life behind bars. He had read eulogies at friends’ funerals, held the hands of newly widowed partners. He had been able to approach the enemy and engage them in conversation to find a solution other than bloodshed. He had found down-and-out former soldiers and offered them lifelines at their most desperate. All of those things he handled with ease. The one thing he struggled with was making introductions.

  This one wouldn’t be any easier. In fact, it may be one of the hardest. Right now, he was introducing Adam Morgan to a new partner. A replacement for Jack Quinn. It was something he had always known he may have been called upon to do, such was the nature of their job. He just didn’t realise it would be in these circumstances. The one solace was that he truly believed that Adam’s new partner was going to be good for both Adam and David’s wider team.

  “Emmie Weston, Adam Morgan,” David introduced the two of them. “You’re going to be partners,” he added, despite being completely sure that the two of them had worked that out within seconds of being in the room together.

  Now the three of them were sat around David’s desk in his office. David behind the sleek mahogany desk, Emmie and Adam on the other side, their backs to the frosted glass doors and windows that looked out over the main floor of the Regulators London field office from their raised vantage point.

  “Pleased to meet you,” Emmie replied politely, offering a slender hand from her long and toned arm. She was only a couple of inches shorter than Adam and with them both sitting, the difference was barely visible.

  “Likewise,” Adam grinned back. David knew this would be a shock for him. Jack and Adam were close, a real double act. David had loved their passion for the job. It had been one of the reasons he had spent so long finding the right partner for Adam. He knew that no one would replace Jack, but there would be someone who could continue to bring out the best in Adam. Someone who could help transition him into being the senior member of the partnership. That wasn’t to say he had been Jack’s sidekick – they were quite clearly equals – but Jack had been the one to bring Adam under his wing when he came in. Adam now needed to take that responsibility on. Emmie would hopefully allow him to do that whilst keeping him grounded.

  “Ms. Weston here just completed a secondment at the Manchester branch. She’s been transferred here for her first full rotation. You’re to show her the ropes.”

  “Not a problem at all,” Adam would relish the challenge, David thought. “Where did you come from, Emmie?” Adam asked his new partner.

  “Come from?”

  “Before you were a Regulator,” Adam explained.

  “Oh.” Emmie slipped her hand through her shoulder-length light brown hair. “I was at university. Oxford.”

  Adam cocked his head, and David saw the slight look of confusion on his face and decided to interject.

  “She applied straight out of university.”

  “Applied? What? How? I didn’t know we had adverts down the Job Centre.” Adam looked even more puzzled.

  David pulled a face. The answer was one he was proud to tell and equally ashamed to tell. “There was a server that we didn’t secure properly. Emmie here found it and applied using it, whilst pointing out our security flaw.”

  “How did you even know to look?” Adam turned to his new partner.

  “My grandad was a Regulator,” Emmie explained. “He trained me from a fairly young age, said he could see something in me. Set me up for this life.”

  “Your grandad?” Adam’s mouth hung a little open now. David was sure it was exaggerated. “That is absolutely nuts.” Adam looked back to David. “You do pick them, don’t you?”

  “I wanted someone who at least had a chance to keep up with your boundless enthusiasm,” David replied, not trying to hide the playful barb.

  “I don’t think it will be a problem, sir,” Emmie joined in.

  David was sure it wouldn’t be.

  5

  His hands worked quickly. They had to. Mo Younis was running out of time, and the program he had hoped would get him past this final hurdle was stalling. It was his fault, he knew that much. The program had simply been hastily coded, this was not his best work. He cursed himself silently and then cursed himself again for cursing.

  Sweat began to form on his brow under his loosely curled hair. If it looked like it hadn’t been washed in longer than Mo would ever care to admit, that’s because it hadn’t. There hadn’t been time. They had been moving around from one location to another. Sometimes an abandoned factory, sometimes the house of a relative or friend of someone who knew someone, sometimes the rear room of a small business. Wherever it was, the three men on this mission would stay hidden the whole time they were entrenched, only ever venturing out, tentatively, to use the toilet. They ate, slept, prayed, and worked together with this one goal in mind: find the data, extract it, and get out alive.

  They were in one such business now, above a local store that sold simple, day-to-day products, mostly local, but some imported from the sub-continent. One of the brothers, Ahmed, really appreciated that. He had been born here, in London, Dagenham to be exact, but he had spent much of his childhood growing up back in Pakistan and had a love for chocolate Barfi, a milky sweet of Indian origin. The proprietor of the store, a cousin of a cousin of the other man with them, Suleiman, had been only too happy to give his esteemed guest as many Barfi as he could stomach.

  The shop owner had been the only person they were allowed contact with. They hadn’t been told his name, and he hadn’t been told theirs. The shopkeeper believed it was as much for his security as it was anyone else’s, but he was wrong. His security wasn’t even secondary to theirs, but such lies had to be told to get them access and to allow them to carry out their task. In the end, he hadn’t really committed a crime, so he was probably safe if anyone ever came knocking.

  His shop was on a main street in London’s Ealing district, just a couple of doors down from Ealing Common tube station. It was a busy road, with people coming and going at all times, entering into many different cafes, bars, shops, and other establishments, many of them using phones, tablets, and laptops, pretty much all of them making most of the host of free Wi-Fi hotspots in the area. Just as the three of them were doing now.