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Chapter Four: Assassins
As soon as D'Veres jewellers came in to view, Lucas threw an arm around Beth's shoulder, drawing her in tight as they walked down the street. She glanced up at him, smiling from ear to ear while they paused by the window display, looking at all the diamond rings, earrings and necklaces on show. The lighting was soft, just enough to make each gem glitter to its best advantage. The coloured gems, placed in the middle to draw the eye, splintered the light, catching the colour of the exquisitely polished stones. Some were as big and gaudy as Christmas baubles; others as tiny as a spark of light. But none were as big and loud as their astronomical price. An entire Hospital's worth of Nurses would all have to re-mortgage their homes to buy just one of them. Every so often, Beth would gasp with feigned delight and point to one or another.
"Look at that!" she would gush. "Isn't it tacky as fuck?"
Lucas choked back a snort of laughter. "We're supposed to be choosing an engagement ring, remember?"
He disentangled himself from Beth, taking a moment to straighten his tie, adjusting the concealed wire in its lining. Once satisfied they had spent long enough browsing the front of shop displays, he opened the door and gestured Beth in first, making a show of kissing the top of her head as she passed him. He joined her by one of the interior display cases, wrapping his arms around her middle and giving a squeeze for show. Each item was lit up small halogen spot lights fixed into the roof of the case, but they all looked the same to Lucas. Sparkly, ostentatious and expensive.
Naturally, it didn't really matter which one Beth chose, they just needed to catch the sales rep's eye. The wide, spacious interior was made more effective by a distinct lack of customers, making their job that little bit easier. Within minutes, a sharply dressed twenty-something swooped down on them from where she was positioned behind one of the cash registers. She beamed at them, revealing a row perfectly straight teeth that bore the dazzling hallmark of Dentist's bleach, like she was in competition with the gems she worked with.
"Something for the lady, Sir?" she asked, looking past Beth and straight to Lucas.
"We're looking for an engagement ring, actually," Beth replied, cutting Lucas off.
The sales rep turned to Beth as though she'd only just noticed she was there.
"Well congratulations," she exclaimed with a practised, oddly controlled pleasantness. "As you can see, we have a broad selection of engagement rings, ranging in price from-"
"I like this one," said Beth, jabbing a nail at the glass display case.
Lucas was bored already. Real shopping trips were one thing; pretend ones quite another but just as soul crushingly dull. However, he had a pretence to keep up and tried for the sake of the Op to remain with it. Occasionally, he smiled, wrapped a protective arm around Beth's shoulders while the sales rep pushed the more expensive items under their noses. Finally, they directed her towards just one. Pink and white diamond cluster set in eighteen carat white gold, costing damn near two thousand pounds. Within minutes, they were following the rep into a back room, while another, bizarrely identical girl, and took over front of house.
They were shown into a small room, most of the space taken up by a desk with a flat screen monitor PC pushed into a top left corner. Large black ledgers were stacked on shelves behind the desk, causing Lucas to inwardly groan. The information they sought was more than likely in those ledgers, rather than on the computer. A CCTV camera was situated in the ceiling, but the tell-tale red light was already off. Tariq had hacked it and killed it already.
"There's just some paperwork, insurance details and what have you, to get through first," the girl explained, seating herself behind the desk and firing up the computer.
At that moment, Beth made her move.
"Sorry, before we go any further," she said. "Are you guys Kimberly Certified? Can I see your papers?"
The girl looked taken aback for a moment, as though it was taking her a moment to remember what the Kimberly Process even is. But the smile returned a split second later. "Yes, we're signed up to-"
"I would need to see your papers," Beth insisted.
Lucas let the silence spiral for a moment before delivering his own nudge.
"All signatories to the Kimberly Agreement are required to keep certification on the premises," he pointed out. "Unless it's too much trouble. We can go elsewhere."
"I would hate for our big day to come at the expense of third world diamond miners-"
"No! No, of course it's not too trouble," the sales rep cut off Beth's final impassioned comment, but glanced nervously round the room. Ros' Asset could only be correct in his assertion that few customers ever bothered to find out whether the company was sourcing ethical diamonds. "The only thing is, the papers are in my manager's office upstairs. Do you mind waiting?"
"Not at all," replied Beth. Both she and Lucas assured her with a smile.
"Take your time," Lucas added.
They both held their breath while the girl left the room, listening together as their footsteps receded down the passage way outside.
"Quick, Beth, do it now."
Lucas fitted a phone tap while Beth copied the hard drive on the computer. While the files were being duplicated, Beth also started rifling through the most recent ledger. Lucas tried to look over her shoulder, but the writing was too scrawled to see properly. Once the phone bug was in place, he got up on the girl's chair to take down the make, model and serial number of the CCTV camera – useful for hacking them and recording images remotely.
"Anything interesting?" he asked, glancing down at Beth.
She had her camera out and was taking snap shots of the pages without reading them. "Dunno," she replied.
"Just take one of the others," he said. "They won't notice it missing for ages and we can give it to the Asset to replace."
Without further prompting, Beth took one of the older ledgers from the shelf and stuffed it into her handbag. She was just fastening it up again when the footsteps of the Sales Rep sounded from outside. Beth and Lucas glanced at one another for a second before swooping down on their seats, careful to be sat back where they were before she left and in roughly the same pose. The door opened just as Lucas was straightening his tie again, the girl beamed at them while waving a few papers.
"Here you go," she said, arranging the papers neatly in front of them. "We signed up to the Kimberly Process back in 1999 and our certificates have been renewed annually ever since then. All our diamonds are sourced from conflict free zones including Angola and Liberia. Ever since the company learned of human rights abuses taking place in certain other areas, we shut down our mines there and we no longer purchase stones from the open market. As you can see," she explained, gesturing towards the document in front of Beth. "We own all our own mines and we know exactly who sourced them and from where."
"That sounds brilliant," Beth enthused, looking over the paperwork.
"Yeah," Lucas agreed. "Both Sarah and I need to be absolutely certain our wedding is completely ethically sound."
Having already obtained a company statement straight from the horse's mouth, Lucas decided not to press the issue any further lest the rep should become suspicious. All they needed to do for the remainder of the purchase was act the role of loving soon-to-be-weds.
Ros clicked through the images attached to the email with a look of disgust marking her features. She saw what she needed to confirm Beth's report that Doctor Lahan was truly dead; an image showing her body collapsed in the doorway to her place of work. Other images showed the pock-marked wall and shot through windows, shots that had missed. Whoever was responsible took the woman down in a hail of bullets, just two of which hit their target: one in the stomach and another in the head. Some small mercy coming in the fact that she would have been dead before she hit the ground. Just a thin trickle of blood ran into the nearby gutters. Needing a break, Ros closed down the photo viewer and stared blankly at the computer's desktop for a minute. She took a deep breath and sat back, processing slowly the details of what she had seen. The first thing that struck her: it wasn't a professional. If it was a professional, they were seriously out of practice to miss that many times. She had counted eight individual bullets, including the two that struck Maya.
After her short break, she looked at the CCTV stills again. One showed a car slowing down, its break lights blurring red in the Parisian smog, just as Doctor Lahan was lowering the shutters on her business for the night. She zoomed in on the number plate, but it was too blurry to see properly. She took a screen shot of the enlarged plate, attached it to an email and forwarded it to Tariq, requesting a clean-up without stating why. Lucas had yet to be informed of his former fiancée's death and she didn't want the whole of the Grid to know before him; it was bad enough that Beth Bailey had been the first to learn of it.
Printing out a few more images of interesting, various shots of passers-by and vehicles in the locale, before heading towards Harry's office with them. On the way there, Jo Portman stepped through the pods with a stranger in tow. He was an Asian man, young: no more than early twenties. His face looked familiar, but she couldn't quite place him. With the memory too hazy to act upon, she kept her attention on Jo.
"Keep an eye out for Lucas will you, Jo," she said. "As soon as he gets here, send him straight in to Harry. Without delay."
"Sure," Jo nodded. "Oh, Ros, you remember Mahdi, don't you?"
She was about to depart for the Office, but stopped as the memory dropped suddenly into her mind. Mahdi was just eighteen, had infiltrated a cell of Muslim extremists in his local Mosque and acted on his own raw initiate to save both Lucas' life and hers. She gave him the number of their recruitment people, but never expected to hear from him again.
"Of course!" she replied, turning back to face the newcomer. "The English Defence League Op three years ago. Are you joining Section D?"
Mahdi looked flushed with pride. "Yes, Ma'am," he replied, grinning. "You recruited me, along with that other fella."
"Lucas," she reminded him. In those terms, a lot had changed since those heady days. "Well, Jo will show you the ropes and if you need help, I'm Section Chief and usually around somewhere. Good to see you again."
She made her apologies for having to rush off and ducked into Harry's office, where Ruth was already seated at his side. The flicker of irritation must have shown on her face, because Ruth was soon gathering her belongings and making for the door, with Harry gazing after her as she went, closing the door firmly behind her. Once they were sealed in and Harry had closed the blinds, Ros laid out the stills she had printed on his desk. When he returned to his seat, he glanced over them with a familiar look of detachment in his eyes. She narrated his way through the pictures with her early observations.
"Definitely not a professional," he concurred. "A resident of the flat up stairs even heard the gunshots, so they didn't even use a silencer. First day on the job, maybe?"
It was a possibility. "Either way, Tariq's working on cleaning up an image of the number plate. Even if the plates are false, we can still use them to track down the vehicle. Even if it's burned out, we can still check for evidence. It's a long shot, but still worth the effort."
"Even if the plates were swapped, it was probably with the other vehicle. It's a matter of tracking through the records," Harry added, thoughtful. "Let's just hope the vehicles were bought in France itself."
However, all that would have to wait. Ros' reply was cut off with a soft knock on the door, quickly followed by Lucas peering round a narrow aperture. Harry, looking gratified that the Senior Case Officer at least remembered to knock, waved him in and gestured towards Ros' seat. She claimed Ruth's recently vacated seat at Harry's side. The pair of them watched as Lucas got settled, his gaze was suddenly tense and nervy as his eye line darted back and forth between them.
"Wh-what is this?" he asked, suppressing a slight stammer. "Have I done something wrong?"
"No, Lucas, it's nothing you've done," Harry was quick to reassure him. From there, he gave way to the tender, feminine sensitivities of Ros.
"Doctor Maya Lahan was found dead late last night-"
"What?" Lucas cut over her, eyes widening in shock. "What happened?"
"She was shot dead at six pm yesterday evening," Ros answered, keeping her tone calm and measured. "She-"
"Who was meant to be looking out for her?" he cut over Ros again, a flush of anger creeping into his face. "I thought we were looking after her."
With Lucas' distress levels rising, Ros knew she had to tread carefully. She chose her next words carefully.
"Because of what happened here prior to her relocation, it was decided that it would be best if only sparse records were kept here," she explained to an increasingly angry Lucas. "Her security arrangements were known only to the French-"
"Because you thought I might get hold of them and track her down again?" he was incredulous. "Who took this decision?"
Ros drew a deep breath. "Lucas, you know I cannot disclose that-"
"I did," Harry said, flatly. "And I would do it again."
Sometimes, Harry's forthright attitude surpassed her own and left her in the dust. Anticipating an explosion, she closed her eyes and mentally counted to three. But all that happened was a thickening of the already tense silence. When she looked back at Lucas he looked hurt, angry and betrayed.
"You had no right…" he stammered again, now out of anger and got to his feet. "You just… you had no right to judge me-"
Ros rolled her eyes as her fragile temper snapped.
"We had every right," she retorted, using the royal 'we' to emphasise the fact that she stood shoulder to shoulder with Harry. "After the years of lies and deceit you fed us, damn bloody sure we had the right so don't you dare sit there pontificating about us sitting in judgement on you."
Her rebuke looked as though it had come as a slap in the face. He looked stunned, his eyes shining with suppressed tears. Sometimes, it's as though he forgets they know the truth about them, and he still thinks he commands the same respect and trust. But he needs to know he must earn it back. She glanced over at Harry, to see how he was reacting to Lucas' emotional outburst. But, as ever, his expression was utterly unreadable. He was sat resting his chin in his hands, looking back at Lucas like a patient parent waiting for the teenage tantrum to pass. Eventually, however, he felt able to speak.
"Lucas, we're both truly sorry for your loss and we understand-"
"You understand nothing!" Lucas shot back in a low voice. "Spare me the sanctimonious self-justifications for your criminal negligence-"
"Stop, Lucas," Ros commanded, fixing him with an uncompromisingly hard glare. "Do not think for one moment that the history between us will stay my hand when taking disciplinary action against you. Calm down, right now."
For a moment, the silence between them was lethal. Filled only by Lucas' ragged breathing as he formulated some equally stinging retort, that cut right over Harry's interjection.
"No," replied Lucas, growing more audible. "Nor for one moment do I fool myself into thinking you won't roll out our shared history to arbitrarily punish me according to your own personal caprices-"
"ENOUGH!" Harry slammed his fist down on the table, making both Lucas and Ros flinch and recoil. He glowered at the pair of them, equally, in turn. "I. Said. Enough. The pair of you." Harry paused, making certain he was holding the attention of both of them. Noting their satisfactorily agog stares, he continued down the more diplomatic route. "You are sailing much too close to the wind, Lucas-"
"You're on her side!" Lucas shot back, eliciting a groan from Ros.
During the long silence, Ros glanced sideways at Harry, wondering what suicidal urge in Lucas had prompted him to interrupt their mercurial boss for the fourth time. The grief card was only going to get him so far and, evidently, it had already been expended. Now Harry was looking only at him, his green eyes darkening with barely suppressed fury.
"I have laid my reputation and career on the line for you," he explained, his tone dangerously low, just hiding the simmering anger. To emphasise his point, he jabbed an accusatory finger in the direction of Lucas' chest. "After the manner in which you entered our service-"
"I didn't ask you to do that-"
"You did, actually," Ros pointed out, matter of factly.
Harry ploughed on, before Lucas could be drawn back into a row with Ros. "You have had five, maybe six chances to calm down. For now, all your involvement in operations is suspended pending further disciplinary action-"
"Harry, no," Lucas' anger turned on a trice to desperation.
Harry, however, merely continued as though there had been no interruption. "You will be confined to desk duties until that date, of which you will be notified by Human Resources. You are dismissed for the remainder of the day. Good day to you."
Lucas' shoulders slumped in defeat as he looked from Harry to Ros. However, Harry was already filling in the necessary form and Ros was pretending to read it to avoid having to look at Lucas. When he got no reaction from either of them, he got to his feet and slammed the door shut on his way out. Once they were alone again, Harry dropped the pen and leaned back in his seat with a deep sigh.
"That went well," he said, burying his face in his hands.
Ros shrugged. "Could've been worse."
Wearily, Harry got to his feet and procured a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. The nice crystal ones he normally used for the Home Sec and the DG. They both deserved it after that.
She found him on the roof of Thames House. He had his back to her, looking out over London. The air was clean and crisp that high up. The sounds of the traffic distant below them. It was where the agents came to clear their heads and talk free from the threat of listening devices. He was motionless, wrapped in his jacket and ready to go. Only, Ruth looked up and saw Lucas head for the roof space instead of the pods, still raging with fury over what had happened. For the moment, she held off approaching him; lost as he was in his own thoughts. But after a moment, Lucas sensed her presence and glanced over his shoulder to see her.
She was momentarily taken aback by the expression on his face. Pained and drawn, it was like being catapulted back to before Christmas, when he was being blackmailed by Vaughan Edwards. But when their gaze met, he raised a pained smile instead of running away.
"I guess you knew," he said, calm again now. His hair was moussed up in the soft breeze that always swept the rooftops of London.
She shook her head. "Only because Harry and I had sat down to dinner when he got the call."
Despite the fact that he'd been improving steadily since the winter, she was still immensely relieved when he stood back from the railings at the lip of the building. He closed the gap between them, where she then led him to a makeshift seat that was actually planks of wood wedged between two old chimney stacks. They sat side by side, looking out over the sea of roofs and chimneys, punctuated by an array of towers, the Gherkin glittering amongst them, St Paul's in the far distance, on the other side of the river.
"I am sorry for your loss Lucas," she said, turning to look up at him. "I know Doctor Lahan meant a lot to you."
The fact was, he was willing to throw his whole life away for her sake. Well, that and covering his own tracks, but Ruth guessed now wasn't time to bring up the grey areas. But the only expression in his eyes now was sadness. Sadness at the loss of an old girlfriend, for an old flame so decisively snuffed out. The last hope gone.
"Thank you, Ruth," he said, tonelessly. "I guess you heard…"
His words trailed off, not that he needed to say anymore. Although Harry's office was as good as sound proof, the row was still audible. Pretty much everyone on the Grid picked up on it. She tried to tell Harry that bringing Ros in to break the news would be incendiary. But, it was correct procedure. Since when had Harry cared about procedure?
"I never mean what I said," he murmured. "I was just… you know."
She rested one hand on his forearm. "I'll talk to Harry, Lucas," she said. "But do as he says. Take the rest of the day off, try to get some sleep and give yourself time. Come in tomorrow and apologise."
She didn't seriously expect him to look pleased about it, but there was no change in his manner at all. However, she managed to coax him down and into her car for a lift home. Whatever was happening, no matter what, she still had the sickening feeling that Lucas was next on the assassin's list.
Thank you for reading and apologies for the slight delay. Reviews would be appreciated, thank you.