The Network Read online

  ‘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.’

  Chapter Two

  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.

  ‘I’ve heard of it.’

  ‘It’s kind of like our own internal e-mail system, only it spans the whole world, or at least the computer-boffins tell me it will soon. But as usual the criminal element is on to it quicker than us, particularly the less savoury types – paedophiles and other types of sex offenders all keen to share their experiences with each other. We have a couple of guys here who understand this information technology – that’s what they call it – better than most. We’ve attached them to the Serious and Organized Crime Group, largely because we didn’t know what else to do with them. However, a few months ago they hooked into a paedophile ring sharing around some pretty heavy-duty kiddie-porn – real nasty homemade stuff. The group calls itself The Network and apparently prides itself on the ability to share this stuff around and still avoid detection. Except they’re not as clever as they think and the boffins not only found out about them, they infiltrated them as well. Just online, though – no live contact. They’ve been pushing for a chance to meet the members who are actually making and distributing the pornography – raping and sexually abusing children.’

  Chopra’s words tore at Sean like grappling hooks, ripping his own past and childhood from the places he’d tried to bury them for so long. He could see the children being abused and filmed – the face of each of the abusers turning into the face of his father – and he could see himself, a small boy again, as the monsters one-by-one … Chopra’s voice snatched him back. ‘You alright?’ he asked. ‘You look like shit!’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Sean lied. ‘Just knackered, that’s all. Go on.’

  ‘Kid stuff isn’t easy to deal with. If you’d rather not I can always look for someone else.’

  ‘No,’ Sean argued too quickly and loudly. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Got any kids yourself?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘I’ve got three,’ Chopra told him. ‘Two girls and a boy. Sean, I’ve dealt with just about everything I could have dealt with and I’m not ashamed to tell you very little of it ever got to me – maybe I just don’t care enough. But this shit – with kids – it’s the worst, you know. If I ever got one of these fuckers on their own … well, let’s just say it’s probably best I never do. My point is there’s no shame in not wanting to get involved in something like this. If we’re going to get you next to these guys, and if you’re going to convince them they can trust you, then you’re going to have to say and do some things you’re going to be very uncomfortable with, and it’s going to leave you feeling pretty dirty for quite some time. So if it’s not for you, be honest and tell me – here and now.’

  Sean wanted to leap from his chair and run from the tiny backroom, blitz through the main office, hurdle the counter and escape into the streets of Victoria below – the fear of facing his past leaking panic into his every sinew. ‘No,’ he forced himself to lie. ‘But why me?’ he asked, suspicious Chopra knew more about his childhood than he possibly could and had picked him for this job for that very reason.

  ‘Because you can think on your feet.’ Chopra answered.

  ‘Can’t all UC’s? Seems to me a UC who can’t think on his feet wouldn’t be much use to anyone.’

  ‘Fair point,’ Chopra almost smiled. ‘Let’s just say you seem to have a little more … criminal cunning than most. Last night’s performance confirmed that. You’re going to need it if you’re going to successfully infiltrate The Network’s hierarchy.’

  ‘Okay,’ Sean relented. ‘So what’s my way in?’

  ‘The Crime Unit managed to form an online relationship with one of The Network’s members – just a joy-stick-jockey, but it got them in.’ Chopra pulled a photograph from the file and passed it to Sean. ‘That’s one Justin Cramer. The plan was to win his trust and eventually meet him in the flesh, tease him along, promise him anything he wanted in the hope that eventually he’d lead us to the next level up.’

  ‘The people actually making the films?’ Sean asked.

  ‘If not them, at least a layer closer to them. Slow, but usually effective.’

  ‘Sounds like a plan,’ Sean agreed.

  ‘Or at least it did,’ Chopra told him, ‘until Cramer went and died on us.’ He saw the concern in Sean’s eyes. ‘Nothing suspicious,’ he reassured him. ‘Heart attack. The point being, his untimely demise has moved things along apace.’

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘Let’s just say the Crime Unit have borrowed his computer and had a little look-see inside. They’ve dug out all his contacts – even the ones he thought he’d hidden – and cross-referenced them with criminal and intelligence records. It was easy enough to see which of his online buddies were also members of The Network, but that wasn’t what they were looking for – this is what they were looking for.’ He pulled another surveillance photograph from the file and handed it to Sean. ‘John Conway,’ he told him. ‘Definitely had email contact with Cramer, but nothing that obviously linked him to The Network. There was something off about his email style – too formal and polite, nothing criminal or suggestive – as if they were maybe coded. Intelligence Records show that about four years ago Conway was stopped by uniform and found with a nine-year-old boy in his car. Conway said he’d found the boy wandering the streets and was on his way to drop him at the nearest police station. The boy turned out to be a runaway from the Midlands and was safely returned to his not too interested parents – no allegations made. Two years later Conway’s not so lucky and gets caught with his hand in the cookie-jar again and gets a two year conviction for indecently assaulting a minor.’

  ‘A boy?’ Sean asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Chopra confirmed. ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘No,’ Sean lied. ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘And that’s where Conway is now, banged-up in Wandsworth coming towards the end of his sentence, due for release in a little under three weeks.’

  ‘And you think he could be a central figure in The Network?’

  ‘We do. We don’t have much on him, but he feels right as someone who could be pulling the strings and finding the kids – probably takes part in the abuse and filming too. If we can get to him, we could get to the core of The Network.’

  ‘So, what’s your plan?’ Sean asked.

  ‘Try and get to him
before he leaves prison. Once he’s back on the streets we lose control of the theatre. In prison we know where he is and when he’s there.’

  ‘And if I should bump into anyone I’ve put inside while I’m there?’

  ‘You won’t,’ Chopra assured him. ‘Conway’s on Rule Forty-Three, banged-up with the other sex-offenders away from the main prison population. It’s a fairly limited number of inmates – we’ll be able to ensure there’s no one there who knows you.’

  ‘What about surveillance? Pick him up when he leaves prison.’

  ‘Way too expensive, way too difficult and way too unreliable.’

  ‘Informants?’

  ‘We don’t have any.’

  ‘Fair enough. But even if I agree to do it, why’s he going to give me the time of day?’

  ‘Ah,’ Chopra told him, ‘because you’re not going to be you, you’re going to be Justin Cramer.’

  ‘The member of The Network?’

  ‘The very same.’

  ‘Who’s now dead?’

  ‘We couldn’t try it if he wasn’t.’

  ‘Then I’m assuming you’re assuming Cramer and Conway have never met?’ Sean asked.

  ‘From what we know we think it’s highly unlikely they would have met. Cramer was definitely not inside the core of the organization.’

  ‘But you can’t be absolutely sure?’ Chopra just shrugged. ‘And you’ve had this operation approved, despite the risk assessment?’

  ‘You’ll find the Director of Intelligence can be quite flexible around risk assessments when vulnerable children are involved. So are you in?’

  Sean felt the demons that silently waited just below the surface of his conscious mind reaching up for him, and he pushed them back down. The thought of not seeing the beautiful young doctor he’d only recently met made his heart sink further – a picture of Kate’s face, her golden-coloured skin and long, black ringlets, tormenting him with what he was about to miss. ‘Yeah,’ he forced himself to say. ‘I’m in.’