Seven Degress (The Seventh Wave Trilogy Book 2) Read online

  It took the rest of the day for him to accept. Quietly, she shook inside and forced herself not to smile. She looked out of the window. It was her safe haven. Why give away her non-verbals in front of an expert?

  “I accept Carrie, but only because I have nowhere else to go other than the shoddy motel that the Met have housed me in, and for now I hear HRH’s place across the road is full. When shall I move in my one suitcase and tawdry belongings?”

  “Tonight?”

  “Tonight it is. I shall cook, my treat, but don’t get used to it. My spag bol is one of my three signature dishes.”

  “And the others?”

  “If you are a good girl, you may find out.”

  The flirting had started.

  Cade made good on his promise, his worldly goods were placed onto the bedroom floor of the smaller of the two rooms; he closed the door too behind him and entered the kitchen, forced O’Shea to take a seat at the small breakfast bar, opened a bottle of Pinot Noir and poured two glasses which were clinked together.

  “Cheers. And thank you.”

  “For what? You’ll be rewarding me handsomely for a room with a view and in such close proximity to work – I can assure you of that, Mr Cade.”

  To the uninitiated she was cool, frigid almost, but he sensed something more, a far greater depth that he already wanted to explore. Keep your distance, Jack.

  The meal was as described, seasoned perfectly and complimented by a third glass of the Central Otago classic red. She knew she had to set the tone of this relationship – if indeed that is what it had become – if it was to work.

  “Thank you, Jack. Lovely. Unnecessary, but lovely nonetheless. I need to head to bed. We both have an early start and I’m a little drunk if I’m honest.” She leaned towards him and stopped herself.

  “Goodnight.”

  He smiled. It would have been all too easy. “Goodnight Carrie and thank you again. I will finish clearing up and head to bed myself. I will make sure I get some money tomorrow as a down payment. You need to let me know what you want each week.”

  “Why Mr Cade, I can assure you I am far from cheap…”

  His eyes gave away his true feelings, bluer than normal, his pupils dilated slightly and he could feel himself responding physically to her.

  “Indeed, Miss O’Shea, Indeed. Notwithstanding we have a syndicate of bad buggers to pursue, I will find an ATM – if there are any left in this fine city – and put the money on the worktop this time tomorrow.”

  O’Shea waved her hand as she entered her room, a failed indication that she wasn’t that worried about the money. She closed her door, clicked the handle to ensure it was shut, and started to undress. A minute later, she heard Cade enter his own room.

  She sat for ten minutes in an antique white French buttoned-back chair that was positioned at forty-five degrees to her bed. Her curtains were open, and she stared through the window, across the inner-city parkland and smiled as she heard Cade moving around in her guest room. She waited a further ten minutes for him to get into bed.

  She got into her own bed, pulling back the immaculate 700 percale thread count Egyptian cotton sheets and enjoying the feeling of their coolness on her body. She lay in the half light of the street lamps and listened to Cade moving around. She tried to remove him from her thoughts, but he returned, again and again. The sheer thought of having him in such close proximity aroused her – she knew it was wrong – but it felt incredibly right.

  Cade was wide awake, listening for sounds in a foreign house. She was asleep, a pity, he could spend hours talking to her, perhaps he should knock on her door and ask if she wanted a nightcap. ‘No! Far too clichéd Jack and besides, she’d probably kick you out onto the streets and make a complaint first thing in the morning.’

  But she continued to invade his thoughts.

  Cade had closed his eyes again but soon found himself thinking about her, her eyes, those darting looks that she thought he hadn’t observed.

  An hour later he was awake. He had woken with an enormous jolt, the type that normally indicates the dreamer has fallen from a great height, and struck the ground. His heart was audibly pounding.

  He had found himself on a boat, drifting along a major river system. He was hunting for something or someone, but was unable to steer the dream in a direction that suited him. He was going with the tide. The boat slowed and then stopped.

  Cade was the only passenger on board. He looked around for guidance, but he was definitely alone.

  The boat became stuck fast on an obstruction.

  He knew he somehow needed to free the vessel, but was powerless to move it. He lacked the required skills and couldn’t, despite an overwhelming desire, be in two places at once. He walked aimlessly around the deck, peering over the edge into murky brown, fast-flowing, eddy-filled water. All he saw was his own face, a vision of dread.

  Stopping at the stern, he found himself drawn to the edge once more. The boat started to rotate, slowly at first, then quicker. He could see the shore, but it was just out of reach.

  If he could just lean over a little further, perhaps grab hold of that wooden frame? From there it was a short swim to the steps. Just a short swim. Even with the tide rushing out towards the sea, he felt he could make it.

  The boat began to spin faster and faster, reminiscent of a much-worn wooden and iron roundabout from his distant childhood, painted in bottle green, its circular metal bars shining from repeated contact with the hands of long grown-up children. Round and around. And around.

  He was nauseous. Out of control and shaking with fear.

  Jump.

  He abandoned the boat which immediately dislodged from the obstruction and drifted downstream. He was now more alone than ever. Swimming against the tide.

  He pushed through the water, for every one stroke towards his goal the river took him two back. Again he pushed…dragged himself through the maelstrom.

  Get to the bloody frame, man.

  He was shouting in his sleep.

  He extended his hand. His arm was shuddering, desperate to take hold of the only obvious form of salvation.

  He made it. Breath.

  He placed his head beneath the surface. The dark brown water was now crystal clear, he could see everything. The river bed, cluttered with historical artefacts, small fish darting between swirling reeds. A hundred or so paces away he could see the entire outline of the boat, which was now stationary in the water, ambiguous outlines of human figures staring back at him.

  He turned, looking around at the incredible sight. He could breathe underwater. He placed his arms outwards, in a crucifix form and began to float, ethereally. It was magnificent.

  He gently wafted his right hand, each stroke enabled him to turn effortlessly in the river. He turned and turned. He began to laugh. Mouth open. The water never travelled beyond his lips.

  As he turned again, her hand brushed across his face, cold, desperately cold. He instinctively grabbed for it, it grabbed back, holding him in a vice-like grip, almost crushing his fingers, not letting him go.

  The euphoria vanished.

  He found himself looking at the girl. She was crying, her tears flowing into the river. She pulled him towards her. She was shouting, but he couldn’t make out the words. Her naked body, three times its normal size, her face stretched, distorted, hideous. Her eyes were pathetic, shallow and lifeless. Disinterested.

  She pointed.

  He turned.

  Another naked female was drifting past them. She was clawing at an imaginary object. Her fingers bleeding. Lost, alone and trapped – as if she were beneath the ice of a frozen lake. She screamed a silent scream and began to swim towards Cade, her fingers lengthening, desperate to reach him. He put his hand out to hers. He was now looking at the hand in minute detail; it was in front of his face, detached from its owner. His own fingers were sinking into her flesh which was rotting, shards of it peeling away and vanishing in the darkness.

  He could see st
raight through her skin, she had become almost translucent. In the shadows he made out more grotesque female forms. They too were beckoning him towards them, screaming, silent, drowning screams.

  He looked at his own hand, it too was semi-transparent. He could see the bones, the ligaments and tendons, blood running through his veins, bright red. As he stared at the limb, it began to fall to pieces, each piece washing away downstream.

  She was still there, floating. She had a crooked half smile but her eye sockets were now empty, obscure black openings in a snow-white face.

  He began to swallow water. He could taste it, it became denser, more acrid. He started to panic, to choke. He tried in vain to swim back up to the surface.

  And then she was gone. They were both gone. They were all gone.

  She just slipped away.

  Cade was alone in a blackened river. Afraid to turn, sinking towards the bottom. Finished. Frigid. Forgotten.

  “Morning, I won’t ask how you slept.” It was O’Shea with freshly brewed Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee. She was sat cross-legged on the edge of the bed, wearing an over-sized shirt. Her hair was a little tousled. She looked great.

  “My goodness, that’s good. What is it?”

  “Expensive. That’s what it is!”

  With eighty percent of it being exported from the Caribbean to Japan, she considered herself lucky to obtain one of the world’s more expensive beverages. Grown at altitudes of over five thousand feet, it had become favoured by the richer set for its distinctive aroma and lack of bitterness.

  She had her contacts, this girl, and liked the finer things in life.

  “You were dreaming, Jack.”

  “Sorry.” He placed the mug of heady liquid on the bedside cabinet.

  “Nikolina?”

  “Yep, among others. Terrible images. What they did to her. The way they left her in the river.” He closed his eyes. The images had gone for a while. “It was inhuman.”

  She leant over and kissed him on the forehead.

  “You look like you’ve not slept in weeks. Go back to sleep, Jack.”

  He already was. The dream would return once more and then it would never visit him again.

  Chapter Three

  The team slowly paraded into work the following day. Some were bedraggled, drained and still running on empty. Roberts was only marginally better, having knowingly broken the fabled eight hour rule.

  It was apparent that the preceding days had taken it out of the team. Having had staff shot at, almost killed and worked to exhaustion, they had also witnessed the death of their newest collaborator and importantly, the tragic loss of one of their own team – albeit at his own hand.

  Daniel, contrary to his own implicit instructions, had arrived earlier, dapper in a dark grey suit and a red, white and blue tie. He was one of those managers who appeared to survive without sleep, in fact he appeared to thrive on it.

  Word spread around the office that the new ‘guv’ had summoned everyone back into the briefing room, and so within ten minutes they had all been rounded up and took up every available seat in the compact room.

  “Team, good morning.”

  A resounding response of ‘guv’ echoed around the room. Daniel’s impassioned speech the previous day had obviously struck a chord.

  “OK everyone, accepting what has happened to you all over the last week, I need to quickly formulate a plan of attack. This is not to say that I do not recognise the physical and mental strain this has put you under, but if we are to strike back at this group – whoever they may be – then we need, in my humble opinion, to do it quickly, decisively, and sadly, within the law. However, we also need help and sleep and as we know an army marches on its stomach.”

  Everyone continued to nod.

  Sensing a mutual bonding, he continued.

  “To me, there are three important issues here. One, the scale of the operational capability of the group calling itself The First Wave is unknown. Two, our ability to assimilate their activities and translate them into actionable intelligence is equally, ambiguous. Last, but by no means least, this group are directly and indirectly responsible for the loss of two of our team.”

  He looked slowly around the packed audience.

  “And, let me tell you folks, there will be no more deaths or injuries of any kind on this team. Do I make myself clear?”

  He did. Explicitly.

  “Lastly, Sergeant Roberts is, as of this moment, an acting inspector. He’s going to be working closely with me on this project, as is Inspector Cade. I’m sure I speak for you all when I offer congrats on the various promotions?”

  There was an approving rumble around the room which ended with one of the team theatrically coughing the phrase ‘first round is on Jason!’

  “Indeed,” said Daniel, warming to the team. “However, before we get too carried away, we have some serious work to do. Jason will be running the day to day logistical needs of Operation Breaker, Detective Constable Paul Clarke will be acting as Jason’s second in command, albeit he didn’t know until now. Jack…Inspector Cade will take an oversight of the operation and will be assisted by Carrie who will provide some right hand support.”

  The latter got a huge and ice-breaking cheer from the team.

  Daniel shook his head and couldn’t help but smile.

  “You despicable bunch of inbreds. Go on, get to it. Start getting into the hearts and minds of an active Eastern European crime cell. Think like they think. Ask yourselves where next? Why? When? How? And make sure you eat.”

  He then turned to Carrie O’Shea.

  “Carrie, I need you to start supporting the analytical aspect of the op. In fact, I want you to take the lead – you are the senior analyst now. Work with Cynthia – she’s already plotting the basics and has a lot of source knowledge within the wider financial community. Let’s start drilling down on our intelligence holdings, shall we? Start an i2 chart and let’s see how quickly we can gain a visual understanding of the group. I need to know what their numbers are…”

  O’Shea was rapidly taking notes. She knew the i2 software back to front – it was the go-to of any modern analyst, its maker saying it turned data into intelligence, which was just what the Breaker team needed.

  “…I need to know every possible ATM event in the Metropolitan area over the last six months; if you can throw the net out over the Home Counties forces even better. Get the Business Objects system to run a query on anything that is related to Eastern Europe, but specifically Romania and definitely anything financial.”

  O’Shea was liking what she heard. This was more suited to her skill-set than pursuing criminals on a bloody bus!

  “Oh, and Carrie, when you’ve done all that, think about what you might wear tonight.”

  “You taking me out, boss?” She put on a coy look. “A bit forward for day two.”

  “Ha ha! No, hardly, I’m far too old for you young lady, delightful on the eye though you are. But I will be feeding you, you are Jack’s date at my place. Did he not tell you? I want you to meet Mrs Daniel. Good chance for you and Jack to become acquainted too, as you will be working so closely.”

  “I look forward to it, boss. Coffee?”

  “Good stuff. Seven o’clock, Jack’s got the address, and tea would be smashing.”

  Cade and Roberts were busy brainstorming the last week. They tracked back to Petrov’s arrival into East Midlands Airport, the regional hub serving the cities of Midlands’ England. They spent time looking at every minor detail.

  They needed to examine her departure from Spain. Interpol Madrid would be the liaison for that.

  Her arrival, her interview, her confession; was it genuine? They both agreed that yes, given her demise, it must have been. Hindsight is always a wonderful thing in any investigation.

  They ruled out a few people, including the hapless but vaguely lovable Geoff Pullen, the faded Ibiza-based club DJ who had provided the first link in the chain that was to become Operation Breaker. />
  Unwittingly engaged in a police pursuit across two counties, driving his own battered but much-prized Vauxhall, Pullen had somehow deputised himself as a County Sheriff – and despite his perceived hatred of the police he was actually enjoying it, right up until the point where guns were actually drawn and a Romanian criminal had succumbed to an early death behind the wheel of a white Mercedes Benz.

  Somewhat to Cade’s relief, it appeared that Pullen had slipped back into a spray-tanned obscurity.

  Their radar then locked onto the driver of the Mercedes saloon that had arrived at the airport to pick up Nikolina Petrov. Her misguided decision to get into his car had started the series of events that confirmed her trust in Cade and had led to the unknown driver suffering a hideous injury, caused by his diminutive passenger, almost moments before his demise. She had told Cade she enjoyed the smell of his flesh burning under the searing heat of the car’s cigarette lighter.

  They needed to liaise with Leicestershire Police to obtain as many details as possible about him. Were his fingerprints recorded anywhere in the British database? If not, could Interpol London get them checked with Interpol sites in Bucharest, Budapest, Belgrade, Chisinau and Sofia?

  They still had no idea who the young male was that lay alone in the mortuary with his throat slashed. Perhaps they never would. Days after his discovery in the doorway his fingerprints had failed to draw any positive – or for that matter, negative responses from across Europe. He didn’t exist. How was he connected?

  Next, the two males who had also died on the streets of London. Shot by police firearms officers or killed in a pursuit. They added their own chaos to an already busy operation in a busier city. Again, who were they? Were they linked by nationality or criminality or both? Were they linked at all? The same enquiries would need to be made. They carried absolutely no identity documents, therefore it would be critical to use their DNA, ‘prints or dental records to identify them. The single greatest problem being that in order to identify them, they had to have a start point in their host nation. If these individuals were criminals, but criminals without a known history, they would effectively be ghosts.