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

  “A wave?” It was Cade’s voice.

  “Naturally. From there the path of the wave twisted and turned and all he could do was surf along on the crest of it. He was given small luxuries, which even with his background of comparative wealth were unfamiliar to him. A Tag-Heuer watch, a wallet, nice shoes. Sadly, the female of the species finished him off I suspect. You know, like a praying mantis?”

  Roberts mimicked, in a somewhat comedic manner, the insect attacking its mate before adding a final question.

  “But why?”

  Cynthia Bell, O’Shea’s analytical support officer, walked over to the group and dropped a still-damp, recently printed photograph onto the desk.

  “That’s your male of the species boss. Just faxed through from the BBC. Miss Fleming provided it. Grainy, but it’s very much him.”

  O’Shea shrugged her shoulders and offered an apologetic grin. The cat was out of the bag and besides, someone needed to take the lead on this. Simple mathematics was all that was required to see why Fleming was better on board than off. Multiply a hundred or so customers by five thousand pounds. In just one week. Daylight robbery – daylight trained robbery. And with none of the normally associated violence, it meant that the authorities were at best likely to ignore the trend. It was like stealing a child’s candy, but easier.

  The photo had been taken as he was leaving his hometown in the Black Sea town of Constanta, full of promise, a sparkle in his dark brown eyes. Another photo followed, landing gently and partly obscuring the first. This one showed the same hopeful young man. This time he was wearing upmarket clothes, a limited edition wristwatch and a confident smile, borne out of ceaseless hours of lovemaking with a demanding and athletic woman. His life couldn’t be any better. His face told the entire story.

  The third photo had been taken by Cade months later. The eyes were still dark, darker. His skin was whiter and his smile gone. His prized Swiss watch was missing, now sitting proudly on its new owner’s wrist. His feet held onto the equally coveted shoes, brown speckled brogues, barely run-in, the soles still shiny in places. All that was missing was the price tag.

  His neck gaped as a result of a single slicing blow, from which, even with a warning and immediate medical care, he was never going to survive. Instead of seeing out his days in his albeit lesser hometown, with its lesser trappings of success, where he would have reached a reasonable retirement age on a sun-drenched coastline, he would instead drop to the floor like a piece of discarded rubbish, his soul left to flutter in the wind, trying unsuccessfully to make its way home.

  “Pointless death at the hands of people he respected? Or a misguided youth who couldn’t see the writing on the wall? Either way, he shouldn’t have died on our streets. So tell me Carrie, what else does our BBC reporter know about this group?” Daniel looked around the team, including them all in his gaze.

  “Not much more yet, boss. Her belief is that he was killed because he was too aware. A law-abiding young man lured by his own Siren onto the rocks of his untimely death. He’d served a purpose in placing devices on bank machines around the city, thus reducing the threat of losing a more experienced operator. He was cannon fodder, nothing more. I’m surprised they even left him with his shoes. The more I read, the more I hear…”

  “Thank you Carrie.” Daniel interrupted in a timely fashion. He could tell things were getting emotive and he needed his team to remain focused.

  The day slowly proceeded. Snippets of information here, dead-ends there, until one by one the staff left the building and headed to their respective homes. Like most investigations it was three percent action and ninety-seven percent monotony.

  Chapter Five

  Ten hours after Roberts had left his home station the normally manic streets of London had started to quieten. As with most metropolitan cities it never truly slept, just took a moment to recover and shake off the excesses of the day before the sun hopefully rose across the English Channel, its stealthy, lengthening fingers reaching out across the Thames estuary, casting shadows on the northern and southern shores of one of the truly iconic waterways.

  Across the mudflats and past the burgeoning industrial networks the sun’s pathway had once more illuminated historic and newly constructed buildings, had awoken flocks of starlings, aroused sea birds and had brought early warmth to a city seen by many to be powered by a cold, self-interested and callous heart.

  Those that worked through the night knew different. For them, the Old Girl was theirs, a place they identified with, belonged to, and if someone should choose to berate her, they would react. Better still, if another group were to attack her they would close ranks, find a common bond, lose the inhibitions that existed from day to day and actively resist any marauder.

  History had shown how the people of London had done this, time and time again, coming together, talking to one another, embracing awkwardly and finally working in union to counter attacks upon their lives.

  In a few years they would do it again. It wouldn’t be the last time either.

  Fortunately, with the odd exception, life in London, whilst chaotic, was comparatively normal in that it was really no different to any other major city. Men, women, rich or poor, black and white, tall, short and everything between, worked in relative harmony to keep the blood pumping through the veins of the place they called home.

  For hundreds of years it had survived, a settlement built upon a river, a centre of trade and colonial might. They turned up in all weathers to earn their salary, co-exist and then head home to their loved ones.

  Sadly, despite a fierce loyalty to the city, many acts took place which were either unwittingly condoned or deliberately ignored. One could cherish his or her city but there were limits, and no one wanted to push the boundaries too far. With knives being carried by so many there was no longer such a thing as a fair fight. With this came a chance for those that had little to lose to exploit the loopholes, prey on the weak and target victims.

  If the victim were a corporation, with even lesser risk of being detected, then all the better.

  It was acceptable, wasn’t it?

  Roberts slept soundly, the first time in a week. Ten miles away O’Shea shuddered, woke momentarily and remembered where she was and with whom. She felt around under the duvet before brushing her hand against Cade’s equally naked body and for a moment decided that he needed to be woken up too. His breathing was rhythmic and like Roberts he was sleeping soundly for the first time in days. He was mumbling under his breath, words that were indistinct but no doubt important. Against her lustful and better judgement she chose instead to hold his unreceptive fingers, tucked her hips into his, found a cool spot on her pillow and fell back to sleep.

  Less than half a mile away a solitary rider steered his expensive and somewhat rare Scott Pro Racing mountain bike along the pavements, hugging the shadows, better not to be seen by intrusive cameras.

  If the male heard a vehicle approaching he would keep on riding, never focusing on or acknowledging the traffic. It was normal, even at a few minutes after three in the morning. It was the dead of night, when shift worker’s skin started to develop a grey pallor and a vice-like headache ensued. Even a passing police patrol would only consider the rider worthy of a stop if he exuded a good enough reason.

  The fact that the cycle was stolen was reason enough, but the two officers who whipped along the main thoroughfare were hungry, their sergeant had called up for them to get him some food after a manic few hours and his order was now sat alongside theirs on the foot well of their vehicle, sweating under the hot downdraft from the heater.

  The cyclist didn’t even attract a second glance.

  With a clear opportunity to operate in the amber glow of the street lights, the first thing the cyclist did was to place a small piece of paper over the security camera on the bank cash machine – a camera most customers did not even realise was there. His actions were simple and effective and left no obvious evidence trail.

  He kept
his back to the panning and zooming lens placed higher up on the corner of the building and for all intents appeared to be a customer carrying out a transaction on his way home from work.

  The whole act took three minutes. Slipping a grey and green cover from beneath his jacket the male had stuck it into place expertly, allowing just enough time to let the glue to set before adding another new device above it. He was the consummate professional. Practised and paranoid, discovery was his nemesis.

  The devices discovered by banks up until this point were relatively unsophisticated, albeit visually giving the impression that they formed part of the machine. Within the framework was a simple cash trap, it was rudimentary, but it worked. With the banks catching up and learning from their costly mistakes the offenders had sought once more to stay in front.

  Their next move was to install a device that could read the two lines of magnetic data encoded in the black strip on the rear of the bank card. Having gathered this they needed other operatives, those less expert in technological advances but possessing old-fashioned street skills. The technique became known as shoulder surfing. The customer would approach a high street cash point, shield their personal identification number, carry out the transaction and obtain their hard-earned cash.

  Walking away from the site they would be wholly unaware that the device hidden from view had just captured their bank data. All the team needed was the matching PIN.

  Women and children were by far the best operators when it came to obtaining these and they would do so either by blatantly watching a customer which was rarely successful or better still, but not without increased risk they would collide with them in the street, using their children as a distraction. Those that were desperate for a simple source of income would even expose their children to arrest. They did whatever was needed to keep a meal on the table. Besides, children were a commodity, they had more.

  By the time the victim had realised their purse or wallet had been removed, it was too late. Even with a daily transaction limit of a few hundred of the local currency it was more than worth the risk when multiplied by the sheer number of potential targets in a city of seven and a half million people.

  Eventually the wallet would be discarded in a litter bin and most would never be seen again. For many victims the most frustrating aspect was losing valuable data, they could just claim the money from the bank but it might take months to rebuild the contents.

  To make matters worse, society soon accepted this as a victimless crime.

  This method of offending continued for some time. It was lucrative and spread across the globe when and wherever there was a chance of a victim. There was no honour among thieves and they were even known to prey upon each other. Operating on someone else’s patch however was strictly forbidden, rigorously enforced.

  Roma gypsies swarmed into some areas of north London, begging and stealing, brilliant opportunists, they would also work with their more conventional peers, content to take their cut, better still to steal it and a little more when their stupid employers were distracted.

  Equally the latter group knew not to step on the toes of their powerful competitors from Albania who had imposed a fearful reputation, using a cellular structure, their mafia had begun to spread across the United Kingdom.

  Alexandru was very aware of just how far his reputation could take him should the need arise, however he was no fool and knew that he would be cut down swiftly if he tried to operate in London and more so within the realms of prostitution, illegal people trafficking and the heroin trade. That belonged to the Albanians, the Russians and to a point, syndicates from West Africa.

  He had once said mockingly, but enviously, ‘They want the money from the drug trade in Britain, let them have it! Plenty more fish in the sea.’

  Nearby a song played on a radio. Robbie Williams at his snarling best singing about the devil.

  He considered it his anthem.

  The second device that twenty-four-year-old Dorin Gabor had placed upon the cash machine was equally well made. This was the next phase. A cell phone was taped inside the housing and its on-board video camera was initiated when a customer carried out a transaction.

  Simple, but rather brilliant it allowed a nearby team to monitor the activity, and return later in the guise of a customer who would remove the device, clean the surrounding fascia and leave with enough data to make the risk outweigh the consequences of being caught.

  Later, at a safe house the members of the group would download the bank data and using the footage from the cell phone they were able to discover the PIN number. The subsequent ill-gotten goods were either used and traded in London, shipped as pure data on portable memory devices or sold online to the highest bidder. It was a thing of criminal splendour.

  As a modus operandi it would eventually be discovered, but not before countless victims had had their accounts attacked, which at best were used to purchase commodities online via the internet or worse still, systematically emptied, the funds never likely to be recovered due to a warren of offenders who would quickly conceal the monies and making them all but disappear.

  Gabor would receive the equivalent of a month’s wages for a few days’ work. He was still woefully under-rewarded, but he had seen what had happened to the boy from the Black Sea. Better to be fed and given cash or drugs than finish his days in an anonymous doorway. Dead.

  The new devices were arriving at the safe location in north Kent and from there distributed to the teams. The distributors used a ‘shotgun’ system, flooding the international mail centres with devices in the hope that many got through the system. As they were made of plastic and didn’t fit within the criteria used by border agency search teams, the majority made it to their destination.

  Utilising the darkest hours, and often at the weekends they spread their web of financial gain across the city. With luck on their side and the continuing stupidity of the financial world, they could make enough to head home. As long as Jackdaw was happy they could be too, and rumour had it he was more than content. For now.

  The greatest asset the team had was mobility. Once the banks had discovered the devices, or by working with the victims had realised that something was wrong, they would begin investigations. But they were often two steps behind; the team had already picked up their simple operation and moved onto Bristol, Leicester, Luton, Manchester and Nottingham.

  There were hundreds more targets and when they were exhausted there was the rest of Europe, north America even Australia, but not the Asian countries.

  Alexandru had a healthy respect for people in that region and had declared it out of bounds. Fear of reprisal was his key motivator and financial gain was its equal. He would rather allow what the banks described as ‘an escalating cancer’ to spread independently in financially driven locations such as Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong, allowing him to operate in a licentious manner in Europe.

  If the twain never met, he was content. He was greedy, but he wasn’t a fool.

  Spain was an hour behind the United Kingdom. In Madrid, earlier but still the middle of the night a cell phone rang next to the hearth of a traditional log burner whose embers were still glowing; the last remaining indicator of a previously red fire.

  The fireplace sat in a traditional home, approximately an hour north of the capital city. Strategically located in the foothills of the Sierra de Guadarrama Mountains it had been purchased, like many of his assets via a career in the criminal underworld where cash was king.

  Despite the agreeable climate in Spain the Guadarramas could surprise with their climatic extremes and the owner of the sprawling property, known as La Najarra, had long outgrown the desire to be cold.

  He looked at the cell phone screen and chose to ignore the call. Somebody wished to discuss business and he no longer cared for such interruptions. His days of having to agree to everything, having to take risks, were a thing of the past, locked within a vault of memories in a country far away to the north east.

&
nbsp; He motioned to the girl who walked back into the living room wearing a falsified smile and a short black kimono.

  “Put another log on the fire, it is dying down…”

  She considered it beneath her but immediately did as she was told, picking up the freshly cut timber and bending provocatively in front of him, placing the wood onto the embers which quickly built to a flame and once more warmed the vaulted room. The nameless girl turned, slipped the dressing gown from her shoulders and strode towards him.

  He smiled, a sense of physical excitement building within him. Was there nothing he couldn’t have?

  In the nearby undergrowth a European wildcat called out to its mate, disinterested in the carnal activity within the homestead a few metres away, visible to anyone foolish enough to be roaming around the mountains on such a cold night. Within seconds the cat was gone, blending skilfully into its environs, hunting for the vulnerable.

  The following morning Alex was woken by her again, she was persistent if not a little desperate. She met his needs but as lithe and enthusiastic as she was she would never replace Nikolina. No one ever would. He had misread her. She had betrayed him, and she deserved what she got.

  With luck, their daughter would inherit his genes. He missed her, but she needed to be isolated from him, for now. The risks were too high in a corner of society that used threats and kidnapping as a reward mechanism.

  When the time was right, he would get her back from her secure location, once he was somehow able to get back into his mother country. The border police were watching for him constantly, only a complete change of facial appearance would enable him to cross over the invisible dotted line.

  So for now, she would stay. But only until her schooling was complete, and she had become a young upwardly mobile female with the world at her feet. Educated, intuitive, smart, proud of her origins, but so far removed from criminality that even a free lunch would offend her.