AJ Elfhawk

On The Way Down

Chapter 11 – What Wouldn't I Do

"I've built walls, a fortress deep and mighty,
That none may penetrate.
I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain.
It's laughter and it's loving I disdain.
I am a rock, I am an island.

Don't talk of love,
But I've heard the words before;
It's sleeping in my memory.
I won't disturb the slumber of feelings that have died.
If I never loved, I never would have cried."

I Am a Rock - Simon and Garfunkel

'ASU Alpha Two, this is Control, come in.'

'Go ahead, chief.'

'Patrol has located four unauthorised vehicles parked up on northbound M1 between junctions fourteen to fifteen, Milton Keynes and Northampton. Please intercept and investigate surround.'

'Heading there now, ETA is four minutes.'

'Acknowledged, report on sight. Control out.'

'Sounds promising.' The officer said clearly through the helmet microphone, pulling out the log to make a note of the radio command time.

'If it isn't them, this SAR might turn into a search and recover. Our golden hour's long gone.' The pilot replied grimly, concentrating as he banked the helicopter right. He descended from 500 metres as they passed the first town. 'There's a lot of potential cover.' Small woods ranged either side across the motorway and eventually the vehicles came into sight along the hard-shoulder, a police car parked at the rear, blue lights still going.

'I'll check the thermal count, switching to FLIR.' The officer touched the screen between them, pressing the radio broadcast as he did so. 'C.O.C, this is Alpha Two, we have multiple suspects heading west. I'm reading ten hostiles, some of them appear to be armed. The two patrol officers in pursuit need to pull back immediately.' There was a long pause of static and the two men waited in silence.

'Come on.' The office tapped his fingers next to the broadcast panel, growing impatient. The news was clearly causing some commotion back at Central Op's.

'ASU, we're on it now. Can you confirm you have a visual on the quarry?'

'Yes, four hundred yards in front but losing ground. No, correction they've split up. One is moving off on a tangent and hostiles are on course to converge with the other. All targets are a mile away from civilian buildings and there's a road running parallel to the M1 but I don't think the pursuit will last that far. Please confirm our orders, Control.' The radio was silent; the pilot next to him exchanged a look before returning his attention to the task as he circled the helicopter around, keeping sight of the events unfolding below them.

'Control, do we have authorisation to engage?'

'That's a negative, Alpha Two, stick to the brief. Alpha team, regroup on Two, please confirm.'

'Roger that, C.O.C. Alpha One is en route from south-west. Fifteen minutes.'

'This is Alpha Three, we're coming in from the south, E.T.A. twenty minutes.'

'Have all ground teams standing by to land, await the signal to deploy. Control out.'

The compartment window opened suddenly as a man wearing heavy body protection lent forward into the cabin and picked up the spare headset to talk to them.

'Officer Hartman, another ten minutes will be too late.' He shouted, having heard the broadcast exchange through their own headsets in the main cabin. The shouting was unnecessarily given the noise-cancelling microphone, despite the rotary blades being even louder with the compartment open.

'I have my orders, Sergeant Readings.'

'So do we, and they come from far higher than base Control, trust me. Having assessed the situation your previous orders no longer apply.' He continued to shout. 'I understand you were expecting to track suspects and direct the ground teams but a situation is in progress and we need to take action. Pilot, I want you to land us in hot if necessary, we can provide covering fire. Hartman, tell Control that we are about to engage.'

'Sergeant, Alpha One will be here in five minutes. You're outnumbered over two to one!'

'I'm not going to repeat my order, I'm the ranking officer, now get to it!' He shut the compartment decisively, and the pilot began to run through the landing drill. After a moment, he looked to the side at the cabin officer.

'Do you want to tell Control or shall I?'

'I'm doing it!' Hartman snapped, hitting radio broadcast again.

Mycroft Holmes sank into the chair behind his desk wearily as the phone began ringing. He took a deep breath, his hand resting on the receiver before lifting it to his ear.

'Hello?'

'Commander Beston here to see you, Sir. Shall I say you're in a meeting?'

'No that's fine, Anne, send him through.'

Mycroft relocated a pile of case folders into the drawer at the side of his desk as a soft knock preceded the door's opening. The assistant moved aside to allow the Commander through.

'Good morning Geoff,' Mycroft stood to greet him with a warm hand shake, walking around in front of the desk. 'Take a seat. Anne could you sort us out some tea, please?'

'No need, thank you. I can't stay long.' The Commander smiled genially, sitting down in the arm chair Mycroft had gestured towards. Mycroft nodded at Anne and she closed the door, before taking a seat opposite the uniformed policeman.

'We've had an update on the body found at the Tennyson Road premises. His name was Kevin Smith.'

'I presume there's a reason we're interested in him?'

'There is indeed. We ran his prints and there are two matches. The first is a count of GBH at a bookies in Green Park.'

'If I recall correctly, that print was left on the employee's glasses, which was over two months ago. What's the second match?'

'It's a link to organ trafficking.'

Mycroft was silent a moment in thought. 'So we know who our Mr. Smith was taking orders from. What stage of the trafficking was he associated with?'

'We aren't certain, some aspect of the transfer, possibly harvesting. His prints were one of the ones found on the containers we seized from the independent courier.'

'So it's feasible Mr. Smith had nothing to do with it besides moving some boxes. He doesn't sound like a major cog if he was still doing cash grabs to make ends meet. But it's certainly more to go on than we had before.' Mycroft noticed the Commander's expression become more uncomfortable. 'Is there anything else?'

'Yes, Sir. He sustained several cuts to the forearms from a fray, but there were no puncture wounds. His body has been released to post-mortem which will probably be scheduled for tomorrow now, but the marks on his neck make strangulation the likely cause of death.'

'I see. I suspect on closer investigation it will be apparent that he was suffering from alcohol poisoning.' The Commander nodded slightly, clearly happier to no longer pursue the case.

'I suspected the same myself. Well then, I'll leave you to it, Mr. Holmes. Thought I'd pop in as I was just passing through when the call came in. I hope the information will be of some assistance.'

'Undoubtedly. Give my love to the family Geoff, keep in touch.'

Mycroft returned to his desk as the Commander closed the door. He sat with one arm crossed over his body, the other covering his mouth as he contemplated the news. It was an important connection, but would it provide a link to his brother? It didn't really tell him anything he hadn't guessed before.

He had been disappointed with how the raid was handled at the time. Rather than set up a staged delivery of the goods, the police had stormed the registered address on the courier's schedule and found nothing more than a houseful of stoners and a cocktail of drugs. Mycroft thought even a layman could have guessed that a high level criminal gang would have a lookout watching the house, ready to collect when the coast was clear. The mission commander had sighted concern over the elapsed time since the scheduled delivery, and had assembled a raid team to act before members of the gang waiting on the consignment began to get jumpy.

Instead, they'd missed the chance to catch the next link in the chain. Mycroft had suggested reviewing all scheduled transplants for the next three days at any private hospitals in a fifty mile radius. Anyone with the capital to purchase an organ certainly wouldn't be going through the NHS. He'd hoped that transplants which failed to go ahead might identify medical practitioners potentially involved in the pirating scheme for questioning. Two operations that were cancelled both cited patients as unfit to undergo surgery, and it was impossible to establish suspicious activity. For all they knew, the target hospital could have been anywhere within a hundred mile radius, or more.

Mycroft had also had his staff go through medical records of known wealthy individuals, along with their past year's financial activity. Of course, most of the finances were suspect, but it had been narrowed down by some with pre-existing medical conditions and those currently on a waiting list for transplant. Mycroft had been most suspicious of a woman with chronic kidney failure and daily dialysis keeping her alive who was not on the waiting list at all. When questioned, she'd insisted that at eighty two, she'd had enough and didn't want to deprive another of the chance for life. A noble lady, if it were true, and unfortunately need didn't prove intent. It had been a long shot, and the trail had gone cold. For now, they had to monitor the leads and hope someone slipped up.

Anne came in carrying tea, disturbing Mycroft from his contemplations.

'Would you mind pouring, please?' Mycroft asked politely as she set it on the side. He managed a smile in appreciation although his hands were shaking. He kept them occupied by retrieving one of the case files from his drawer.

As he took a sip from the teacup and set it down, the trembling lessened. There was no point in dwelling on fear, it wouldn't solve the problem.

If Moran's criminal outfit had the gall to try and use his own brother in their black market organ trade, then he would rain hell down upon them first.