A/N: Wait a minute, did I put the right postage on the ownership of Chuck? Might that be the problem? Can't remember.
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Pre-dawn traffic was understandably light and the two SUVs were making excellent time from the RAF base at Northolt into the center of London.
Chuck fidgeted nervously. Reilly didn't notice, but Sarah did. She reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. He looked back at her and gave her a somewhat wan smile, taking her hand on his shoulder and giving it a squeeze. "I'm worried about him," he said quietly. "You know what they did to the others. It was brutal...horrible." Reilly nodded his head silently.
"I know. But you've got to put that aside. He needs you to. It's the best chance we've got. We're all worried, but the best thing we can do right now is to find him as quickly as possible."
Chuck squeezed her hand and said, "You're right. I won't let it distract me."
"I know," she said.
They turned off Horseferry Road onto Thorney Street to approach Thames House (the name of the building housing MI-5) from behind. It was a huge old gray stone office building, relatively undistinguished from the other older buildings Chuck had seen on the approach. To take his mind off Bryce, he had tried to pay attention to this new city; well, he thought, "new" to him at least, actually an ancient city. He found that the architecture of London was surprisingly eclectic. There were stone buildings hundreds of years old right next to modern glass skyscrapers, and it all seemed to fit. At least to his eye, nothing seemed out of place.
Halfway down the block, Thames House had a vehicle entrance. Cole, driving the car in front of them, stopped to talk to the guard. After a few moments, the guard retreated to the entrance and pressed a button. The large bollards blocking the entrance lowered into the pavement and the cars proceeded inside the building.
Reilly followed Cole and parked next to him. The six of them got out and began to follow Cole into the building rom the garage. At a booth just inside the entrance both Cole and Reilly showed their identification and signed a logbook. Team B showed their ID, signed the logbook, and were given visitor badges by the woman in the booth.
They followed Cole and Reilly around the metal detectors and through the corridors until they reached an elevator, which Chuck remembered was called a 'lift' in British English.
Cole and Reilly in the lead, they stepped out on the third floor. Cole asked the woman at reception for a Ms. Cathy Gale. Soon enough, a stout middle-aged woman with prim glasses came out to meet them.
"Hello, Barker, Reilly. These the Yanks?"
"Yes." Introductions and handshakes were exchanged.
"This way then," she said, leading them into a conference room with a computer set up at one end of the table and a large screen against the far wall facing the computer. There was coffee set up along one wall and everyone helped themselves to a cup.
She sat down at the computer and gestured for the others to sit. She said, "CCTV cameras. Don't know whether it's common knowledge in the States, but we have quite a few of them over here. They estimate that the average Londoner is caught on camera three hundred times in any given day. There are about half a million cameras in the city recording what's going on. So far as we know, there is no city more thoroughly covered than London. Can't honestly tell you about Beijing or Hong Kong or something like that. The Chinese don't really share their stats. Anyway, you'd think we can put them to some use."
She pushed some buttons on the computer in front of her and the monitor came alive. "Very helpful that you could give us the exact time of the phone call you received, Carmichael. That's what did the trick. I think this is what you're looking for."
The screen showed a nighttime scene of a mostly empty walkway with a dark building on one side and the shimmer of lights off water on the other. Walking towards the camera were two men in business suits, but the walkway was otherwise deserted. As they got closer, their faces came into focus. It was Bryce Larkin and Tommy Delgado. Quietly, Chuck said, "Bingo." He was keeping one eye on the timer running in the lower right corner of the screen. The images he was looking at were filmed more than three minutes before time of Bryce's call. The two men kept walking into the camera frame until they passed from view under it. Still a bit less than three minutes before the call.
Gale left the view as it was, now showing an empty walkway. Amy said, "Where'd they go?"
Gale said, "Patience, Lass."
They watched the empty walkway for another few minutes. Five men came out of the frame walking away from the camera. All five wore business suits, but the camera only caught the backs of their heads. Three of the men were mostly carrying two others with arms around their shoulders. Chuck was watching the timer closely. There was no audio, but from the rocking and gesticulating the men seemed to be somewhat boisterous, maybe drunk. As they watched, one of the men being carried took something from his shirt pocket, spoke into it and threw it into the water by the side of the walkway. The timer matched the time of the call to Chuck. The man seemed to twitch or spasm immediately afterward and the men carrying him seemed to stagger slightly, as if they were suddenly carrying more of his weight.
"That was the call," said Chuck. "He threw away the phone so they wouldn't be able to identify who he had called. Then they hit him with a taser or stun gun or something."
They watched as the five men walked down the walkway before turning onto a side street.
"I can take us onto that side street, but before I do, I want to show you this," said Gale.
She moved her mouse and clicked. The monitor view changed to one of what seemed to be the same walkway, but there were no buildings along the side, merely a small grassy space with a couple of shade trees. The water was on the other side of the frame, indicating that the camera was focused in the opposite direction from the prior camera. Five men in suits staggered down the walkway, their behavior identical. Chuck checked the timer. Three minutes before the call. The five men walked toward the camera and passed under it out of the frame.
"I don't.." Amy started to say, but Gale held up her hand to forestall the question.
"This is about forty meters east of the view before." They watched the empty walkway on the monitor until two men in business suits walked into the frame and proceeded to walk away.
Chuck said, "To draw us off. Two men come from one direction and seem to keep going. Five rowdy drinkers come from the other direction and seem to keep going. But they did a switch."
"Exactly, Carmichael. If you hadn't told us, we'd never have noticed anything out of the ordinary. Two men come and go. Five men come and go. Had to watch this one a few times before we figured it out. It was the phone. The phone being thrown in the river. That's what did it."
"Where's the footage of the switch?" asked Sarah.
"Ah. Yes, that's the trick. Right. We have the cameras all over, but not one there. Something wrong with the power to that stanchion. Every time we put a camera in, it short circuits. We've been on with the power boys a dozen times in the last few months. They'll fix it, they say. Promises, promises. Anyway, it's a blank spot."
"So, whoever took them hired local help," said Chuck. "People who would know that the camera there was out of order."
"That makes sense," said Gale. "It certainly wasn't a bloody coincidence."
"It was the hunters," said Sarah. "No question about that now. They took Delgado too."
"Yeah," said Casey. "Goddamit."
"Ms. Gale, let's go back to the kidnapped men, please," said Chuck.
"Right," she said. A few clicks of her mouse later, and they were shown the side street with the five men staggering down it. As they got to the end of the block a white van pulled up and the three men helped the other two get inside. Gale said, "It's a Fiat Scudo. One of the best-selling vans here in the UK. Fake registration plates, so that leads nowhere. I'm going to speed this up." They watched as Gale ran the clips of the Scudo driving through the London streets, moving from camera to camera.
"The van ended up in New Southgate. As we leave the city center, there are fewer cameras. This one was put in only last week. I expect the gents in the van didn't know about it." They watched the van turn a corner. "That was at about 23:50 last night. It hasn't been seen since."
"Bloody 'ell," said Reilly in frustration. "So, we've lost the buggers."
"Not so, Reilly." Gale put a small smile on her lips. She gestured at the screen on the wall. "That street is a dead end."
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The MI-6 van pulled up around the corner from Pigeon Court, in the New Southgate neighborhood of London. There were ten homes on the Court, each with a detached garage, four on each side of the road and two at the end. They had checked with the MI-5 computers and the names of the homeowners had been unremarkable and raised no alarms and no hints as to which home might hold the men who had snatched Larkin and Delgado off the streets of Limehouse.
Team Bartowski, together with Cole and Reilly, left the MI-6 vehicle. They had decided that Amy and Cole would do a quick recon to see if they could narrow down the search for the white van. The whole crowd of them would be too conspicuous and might spook the men holding the prisoners.
Cole and Amy walked down the street and into the court.
It was about 7:30 in the morning and the day was shaping up to be a beautiful spring day. The sky was a sparkling blue with a few cotton ball clouds sliding across it too high to cast shadow. It had rained recently and the breeze was fresh. The temperature had climbed to a pleasant 12 degrees Celsius, brisk but comfortable.
The homes were tidy, but small. They appeared to be identical, as if the developer had used the same design for them all. Some had laundry lines hanging outside, perhaps evidence of the lack of a dryer in the house. Some of the bushes were overgrown, making it hard to see all the structures from the entrance to the road. No white vans were parked on the street, but it was likely that the van was secreted in one of the detached garages.
They were about halfway down the street when a man came out of his front door, turning behind him to give it a quick jerk, to confirm that it was locked. He stepped down the few steps to the ground and turned to his garage.
"Morning," said Cole.
"Morning," the man said, a little cautious.
Cole took out a fake ID wallet and showed the man a fake badge. "Police. Looking for a white van. Seen one here?" Cole gestured with a sweeping hand to encompass the cul de sac.
"Oh, yeah. Right. That would be Mason. House on the right at the end. Number 7."
"Brilliant. Mason? That a man or a woman?"
"Man. Lives alone. No family."
"Doesn't own the house though," said Cole. "Not the name on our records."
"Oh, no. Renter. Owner is in Malta. Has been for more than a year already."
"First name for Mason?"
"Buggered if I know," he said. Then, with a glance at Amy he said, "Pardon, Ma'am."
Amy smiled at him. "It's alright. You seen him today?" asked Amy, with a perfectly serviceable English accent.
"Oh, no. I think he works nights usually. Like at a club or something. Never see him in the morning. He in trouble or something?"
"No. Nothing like that. If he had his van out last night he might be a witness to something, that's all," said Cole. "Hell, probably didn't even realize what he saw. We just want to talk to him."
"Do you know if he was out last night?" asked Amy.
"Sorry. Don't know," the man said.
"Right, then," said Cole. "Thanks very much. Don't want to make you late for work." He and Amy began to walk down to the house down the road, the one occupied by a Mr. Mason. The house looked quiet and still.
Cole said, for the benefit of the rest of the team listening near the van, "Quiet here. We're checking the garage."
Cole lifted the garage door up a few inches, worried that it would make noise and alert the house's occupants if he lifted it too high. Although Mason might live alone regularly, it was likely that they would find at least four men and two prisoners inside. He kept one eye on the house, but there was no movement he could see through the windows.
Amy got down on one knee and put her phone under the edge, using the phone's camera as a mirror. "That's it," she said. "Plate matches the van that picked them up in Limehouse."
"Right," said Casey in their ears. "Let's go in."
"Right," said Amy. "Cole and I will take the back and you four come in the front."
"Good," said Sarah.
She and Cole saw the other four coming down the road at a light jog, three of them with weapons in hand. They drew their own weapons and headed around the side of the house. There was a rusty fence with a gate. Rather than running the risk that the gate would squeak as the opened it, they choose instead to vault over it.
The back yard was overgrown with weeds. There was a bicycle propped under a shed and a broken lawn chair propped up against the wall.
Cole went to the door and looked at it. He said, "Give the word and we'll come in."
"Ok, Barker. We're at the front..."
Amy said, "Movement in a second-floor window. Can't make it out, but something's awake."
"Ok," said Casey. "On three, Barker."
Cole stood back from the door and braced himself.
"One...two..." said Casey. Cole launched himself forward. "...three."
Cole's heel hit the door a few centimeters above the door lock. The door burst open. Weapon at the ready, Cole shuffled into the house, Amy right behind him. They heard the sound of the front door being kicked in and the others entering.
They found themselves in the kitchen of the house. Cole turned to the right, and Amy to the left. As she entered the room adjacent to the kitchen, sweeping it for danger, she was taken by surprise.
A man swung a heavy hand holding a semiautomatic pistol down on her wrist, knocking her gun out of her hand. Before she could react, he grabbed her by the throat with a meaty arm, twisted her around to use as a human shield and stepped into the kitchen. He held the gun to her head with his right hand, while keeping her in place with his left arm around her neck.
As he entered the room, the man found Cole facing him down the barrel of Cole's own gun.
"Let her go," Cole said coldly.
"I don't think so," said the man. Amy glanced down to see that the man was barefoot and in his boxer shorts. His breath stank and the stubble on his cheek brushed harshly against the side of her face. She caught Cole's eye and he understood.
Amy's hands grabbed the man's wrist to push his gun away from her head and, at the same time, threw her head backwards and heard the crunch as the back of her head broke the man's nose. With the gun pointed at the ceiling, Amy stomped on his instep, breaking some bones in his foot and stepped to her left to jam her right elbow into his solar plexus. He huffed and started to bend forward in pain. Her knee came up and slammed into his wrist, knocking the gun to the floor. She followed through by using his straight arm as a lever, pushing her hip back and throwing him up and over her shoulder to crash to the floor at her feet.
There was the sound of a dull crack, like a branch breaking.
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In the front of the house, Sarah, Casey and Reilly entered quickly after Casey had kicked in the door. They spread from room to room. Chuck, being unarmed, followed. In his ear, he could hear the sounds of the team talking to each other, declaring this or that area "Clear."
The house had no basement and it didn't take too long for them to clear both the first and the second floors. They assembled in the kitchen over the body of the house's only occupant, his head lying at an odd angle to his shoulders.
"I'm sorry, guys," said Amy. "I killed our only lead." She looked miserable.
"Not your fault, Love. The silly bastard should have learned to fall right," said Cole, giving her a one-armed hug.
"Well, there's nothing to be done about it now," said Sarah. "Let's search the house and see what we can find."
Between the six of them, the search of the house and the garage (and van) was accomplished very quickly. There were several pistols, a shotgun, a few bags of weed, a very extensive collection of pornography, and a half-dozen sets of identification, only one of which was in the name Mason.
Reilly said, "We can get a forensics team to tear this place apart and get us fingerprints and all that."
Cole said, "We should call Alice."
"I don't want to call Alice," said Reilly. "We'll do better with the technical blokes."
"Alice can bring the technical blokes with her," said Cole.
"Who's Alice?" asked Chuck.
"Chief Inspector Alice Carter. Police," said Cole.
"We could call Oscar instead," said Reilly.
"He doesn't have the clearance she does," said Cole.
"Yeah, but..." Reilly started.
Sarah said, "Why don't you want to call Alice?"
Reilly looked glum, so Cole said, "It's his ex-wife."
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Chief Inspector Alice Carter came out of her car and walked into the house through the broken front door. She was an attractive brunette in her late thirties, with a serous expression and a manner. Some neighbors had begun to congregate in front, craning their necks to try to see inside. She ignored them.
Cole met her in the foyer of the house. "Hello, Cole. In trouble again, I see?" She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.
"Not as bad as the other bloke this time, Alice," he said.
He led her into the kitchen where the body still lay on the floor. A pile of ID's sat on the table with the weapons they had found.
"Syd," she said when she saw Reilly.
"Alice," he responded. There was no warmth in the exchange.
After some quick introductions to the Americans, Carter knelt down beside the body. "Broke his neck, looks like."
"Yes," said Cole. "Pretty well executed hane-goshi," referring to the judo throw that Amy had used.
"Ah, well, he should have learned how to fall," she said with a shrug.
"My words exactly," said Cole.
She looked at the broken nose on the corpse. "And he was getting the worst of it before the fall, from the looks of it. You?" she asked Cole.
"No, me," said Amy.
Chief Inspector Carter looked at Amy for a few moments and suddenly grinned, transforming her look from severe to quite joyful. "I think I like you, Ms. Turner."
Amy bowed her head in acknowledgement, but said, "I killed our only lead, though."
"Not your only lead. This is Anthony Ross. They call him 'Black Tony.' He works...worked... for Reggie Farnham. One of our local mob chieftains. Based out of Shadwell. If Black Tony was involved in something, it was on behalf of Reggie. He's the man to talk to. Right charmer he is."
"Can you take us to him, Chief Inspector?" asked Chuck.
Carter stood up. "I can, Mr. Carmichael. But first, I'm like to know what I'm getting myself into here. I trust these gents," she gestured at Cole and Reilly, "but don't know you all."
Chuck looked at her seriously and said, "Fair enough. A couple of rogue intelligence officers, Americans, were kidnapped off the streets of Limehouse last night by a team of five men, six counting the driver. We have them on CCTV getting into the van that's now parked in Black Tony's garage. We thought we'd find them here, but no joy, obviously. It's very important that we find those men as soon as possible."
"Right, then. Let's not waste any time in that case. Let's go see Reggie."
"Thank you," Chuck said, glancing at his watch. It was about ten hours since Bryce's plea.
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A/N2: The statistics I presented regarding the ubiquity of surveillance cameras in London are as of 2020. I do not know what the same statistics were in 2008, but I was there in 2013 and was told that there were more cameras in London than are found in any other city in the world. Consider that carefully the next time you are in London and feel the need to re-adjust your underwear.
A/N3: Ten hours for Bryce to be held by the Fulcrum Hunters. Let's hope our friends are in time. What do you guys think? I know a lot of you don't like Bryce very much and wouldn't mind at all if we only find a body.