The Nothing Job (20 page)

‘Not even remotely amusing, Bung,' Henry said, emphasizing Tope's nickname. ‘No, remember I said I'd take you along on my next jolly?'

Tope visibly brightened and sat upright, doing his puppy-dog impersonation again. ‘The Australia job?'

Henry raised his eyebrows in half-confirmation of this.

Tope's mouth sagged in disbelief. ‘Honest?'

‘No, the nothing job, actually. How does Merseyside sound?'

Tope's whole body sagged in disbelief. ‘You rotten git – sir.'

‘Best I can do under the circumstances.' He flashed the budget printout and shook it. ‘Not enough cash in the account to go halfway there, I'm afraid.'

Tope said, ‘Yeah, something peculiar there …' His voice trailed off when his eyes caught the movement of someone being shown through the door into the Unit.

‘I'm going to have to take a closer look at this,' Henry said, looking again at the printout, but not noticing that Tope wasn't even looking at him any more. He, and everyone else in the long, narrow office, particularly the women, were watching the progress of a tall, well-built and extremely handsome, in a clean-cut sort of way, man as he walked towards Henry, who he stood behind. In a pleasing American accent, the man said, ‘Someone in this office has been real naughty.'

The two men sat across the table from each other in the headquarters dining room.

‘The problem for y'all, as I see it,' the American said, ‘is that every day –
every day
– up to two million people attempt to hack into our computer system.'

Henry gave a low, appreciative whistle.

‘Of that number, about six are successful. Our firewalls are two steps ahead of the state of the art.' He moved and winced as though he had a pain in his chest.

‘Six out of two million. Pretty good protection.'

‘Out of those six, maybe three get one step further before they're stopped and two get two steps further inside and one, maybe, gets through. These six people, who are not the same six every day, are serious hackers. Some professional, some terrorists, some amateurs trying their luck, just to show they can do it.'

Henry watched his American friend, Karl Donaldson, speak. He'd known him for a dozen or so years, having first met and become friends when Donaldson, then an FBI field agent, was investigating American Mob activity in the north of England. Since then their professional lives had crossed several times and they had become firm friends, although this friendship had been damaged fairly recently and had been repaired by a great deal of effort from both men. Donaldson was now an FBI legal attaché based in the US Embassy in London and he was married to an ex-Lancashire policewoman who now worked for the Met.

‘Just recently, though, our firewall has been breached by a very gifted hacker,' Donaldson went on. ‘One who had the opportunity to do a lot of snooping before being tracked and ejected by our IT guys. The hacker was so good our technicians decided to go after him. He was very, very clever, but they stayed with him and because he wasn't quite clever enough, we nailed him.'

‘That's really good news, Karl – but why tell me?'

Donaldson reached inside his jacket, extracted a folded sheet of paper and opened it. ‘Because the hacker is right here' – his index finger pointed down to the floor – ‘in this building and this is the computer ID.' Donaldson gave the sheet to Henry. ‘Thing is, pal,' he continued, ‘the hacker looked at only one file and then extracted himself, followed by our posse. And that's the reason I'm here. There's been a lot of ass-twitching down in Grosvenor Square over this and some people down there want to make a big noise about it – but I've stopped all that shit for two reasons …' Henry waited. ‘One, I want to meet and congratulate him and two, I want to know why he was looking at a particular file.'

‘You're saying your computer system was hacked into by someone working for Lancashire Constabulary?'

‘That would be the assumption. To me, pal, the first step would be to find out where the computer is situated.'

‘When you say “here”,' Henry wanted confirmation, ‘do you mean “here” as in this building, or on this campus or within the force?'

‘My techs say this site.'

To Henry that meant the HQ building, the SOCA building, the training centre, the comms room and the ICT department. The latter seemed to be the logical starting point to trace the wrongdoer.

Henry reached over his shoulder and picked up the internal phone on the wall of the dining room. He dialled a number then asked for the internal number of a specific person in ICT, then redialled that.

‘Bob, Henry Christie … I wonder if you could do me a favour?' Henry then gave Bob the task then asked to him to call back on that extension. As he was talking, Donaldson was acquiring two more coffees from the machine.

‘What can you tell me about the file the hacker looked at?' Henry asked.

‘If I told you, I'd have to kill you.'

Henry tried to laugh that remark off, but a quiver of apprehension skittered through him. He suspected Donaldson of being much more than just a legal attaché. Much more. ‘No, go on.'

‘Because it's you and I trust you,' Donaldson relented. ‘The file related to an American by the name of Corrigan …'

As good as Henry thought he was in covering up his body language or the look in his eye, there was no way he could cover up the effect this name had on him. Donaldson saw the twitches right away.

‘A name that obviously means something to you,' Donaldson said.

Henry stood up. ‘Come with me.'

As they left the dining room, the phone on the wall started ringing. Henry ignored it.

‘Bugger,' Jerry Tope said. He, Henry and Karl Donaldson were sitting in the DI's office in the Intelligence Unit. Henry was behind the desk, the other two occupying the seats opposite. ‘I knew I was being chased. I thought I'd shook the bastards off.'

‘You almost did,' Donaldson said with a tinge of admiration, ‘but you slipped up in a server in the Far East, apparently.'

‘Hong Kong,' Tope said. ‘Shit!' He looked pleadingly at Henry. ‘Am I in it?'

Henry's eyes flicked to Donaldson. ‘Over to you.'

Donaldson paused, adding to the tension, then ruefully said, ‘Nah … but you're on a major warning … and if you ever try it again …'

Tope grinned. ‘If I try it again, sir,' he said, ‘with all due respect, you won't catch me next time.'

‘Jerry – don't annoy him, he might change his mind.'

Tope shrugged. ‘I was only doing it for you, sir, anyway. On your orders.'

Henry's eyes momentarily flickered past the two men in front of him, out through the glass window of the office, into the Intel Unit. Two female admin assistants were in a girlie huddle, giggling and taking sneaky peeks into the office. Henry bridled. They were not trying to get a look at him, but at the big Yank, who was good looking beyond belief, something Henry openly despised him for. Henry leapt up and ripped the door open. ‘Have you two got work to do, or not?' he demanded. The women shot him looks that could have nailed him to the wall before slinking back to their workstations. He closed the door, returned to his chair, muttering something.

‘OK,' Donaldson said, ‘let's cut to the penis-bone here. Why, DC Tope, were you hacking into confidential FBI files? And why were you interested in Walter Corrigan?'

‘I'm afraid only my boss can answer that one. I was just doing his bidding, as is my lot in life.'

Four eyes turned expectantly to the DCI.

Knowing he had nowhere to go with this now, he came clean. ‘In a nutshell, this man's house was being used by a criminal on the run from the UK, a guy called Paulo Scartarelli, who was wanted for murder over here. He turned up in Cyprus and I went over to pick him up.'

‘Without me,' bleated Tope.

‘Without him … The police in Cyprus had info he was using a villa owned by a guy called Corrigan, who they thought was English. They couldn't find anything about him on their systems, which is why I asked DC Tope to have a dig.' Henry paused, looked at Tope. ‘And by the way, may I say you should get out more? You are a serious nerd, pal.'

Tope puffed up. ‘Thanks,' he said genuinely.

Henry shook his head sadly and closed his eyes. He opened them and looked at Donaldson. ‘Over to you. That's all I know. Scartarelli was arrested and that's pretty much the end of it as far as I'm concerned. Didn't really follow up the Corrigan angle.'

Donaldson sat back. ‘Could you and I have a little chat?'

‘He's Mob-funded.'

‘That's why you're being so lenient with Tope?'

‘It's worth it for us to back off, so long as you share information with us about Corrigan.'

‘And if we don't?'

‘I'll go back on my word. We'll go for Tope and Lancashire Constabulary.'

‘We being the FBI?'

‘Yup.'

‘Won't go anywhere.'

‘I know that, but it'll ruffle feathers and tighten assholes.'

‘He was just doing what I required of him – getting information.'

‘And he's so good, we're interested in having him for a big fat fee.'

‘Let's keep that on the back burner, shall we?'

‘Out techies are very impressed with him.'

‘He's mine, and I love him,' Henry said petulantly. ‘Hands off.'

‘Corrigan,' Donaldson said, bringing them back to the topic in question.

‘Mob-funded, apparently.'

‘Did you know there's more money to be made trafficking people across Europe than bringing Mexicans across the border to the US? That's a non-starter, these days. Old hat. Big business is over here. People, hookers and drugs. There's a big mind-shift by the Mob. They see easy profit and they're willing to chase it.'

‘Corrigan?'

‘He's an organizer and a good one. But I don't necessarily want him, I want what's behind him.'

‘And what's behind him?'

‘Miami, Atlanta, New York, Detroit and LA. The Tantini family. Big, brutal and very rich. They stop at nothing in the pursuit of wealth and won't leave any stone unturned to get to sources of wealth.'

‘Somebody tried to kill Scartarelli, by the way.' Henry told him about the fun they'd had in trying to get the fugitive on board a plane.

Donaldson considered this. ‘Interesting.'

‘I nearly get my arse shot off and you call it interesting,' Henry said. ‘Mm, anyway, that's all pretty much in the past for me. I did my job, Scartarelli's in custody and I have other plates to spin.'

Donaldson shrugged. ‘Fair enough.'

‘All we're interested in doing is getting him charged with murder.'

‘I'd like to interview him.'

Henry stifled a terrified chortle. He was more than familiar with Donaldson's interview techniques and their effectiveness.

‘All above board,' the American reassured him. ‘Intelligence-gathering. Just doing my job.'

‘I'll see what I can do.'

But Henry's mind wasn't on Scartarelli. As soon as he had finished with Donaldson, having arranged to see him later in a social setting, Henry's attention spun to his computer. He logged on to the Internet and typed the name Jonny Motta into Google and pressed Search. That was as far as his hacking skills went.

From the results he entered the BBC News website and scanned the items relating to the police shooting of this man. His brief recounting of his own knowledge of the incident to FB seemed to fit very well with what was written in the news reports.

Jonny Motta was a known gangster, an Italian with Albanian connections, who was supposedly involved in people-trafficking, particularly young women who would become prostitutes for him. He was known to be violent, carried weapons, and was suspected of carrying out a shooting in Liverpool where a man was callously gunned down outside a club in the city centre. The man was supposedly one of Motta's rivals.

The police raid, organized by a detective superintendent called Paul Shafer, seemed to have been executed by the book. It was only when Motta was challenged and responded by producing a handgun did he get two 9mm Glock bullets drilled into his chest. Every indication was that the firearms officer adhered to procedure, shouted several clear and unambiguous unheeded warnings and only then opened fire. The officer was now suspended from firearms duties as per normal procedure, but was carrying out an admin role in some back-room office somewhere. This suspension was pending the result of the investigation, inquest and any CPS recommendations, but it seemed that, from what Henry read, the officer had nothing to fear – except the thought that he'd killed a man and that would be with him for all his life.

He spent about an hour tabbing through a lot of fairly repetitive reports, then after checking for any news updates on the Rolling Stones he logged out and sat back.

Straight up, he thought … then his brow furrowed as an image kicked into his brain. He logged back in, found a grainy image of Motta and felt as though he was vaguely familiar. Then again, maybe not. He logged out and sat back for a moment before picking up the internal phone and dialling the chief constable's number.

Jane Roscoe intercepted the call. ‘Chief Constable's Staff Officer, Chief Inspector Roscoe … can I help?'

‘It's me, Henry.'

‘Henry who?'

‘Henry Christie.'

‘Oh, hello. Can I help?'

‘Can I speak to the chief, please?'

‘About …?'

‘The investigation he's asked me to do.'

‘I'll see if he's free.' She sounded cold and distant. The phone clicked and MOR music started playing softly in his ear. Then she came back on the line. ‘I'm afraid he's busy right now.'

‘Can you ask him to give me a bell?'