People in the cafe started to leave their seats, drawn like moths to the light. Mutters echoed through the room.
‘Shit.’
‘What the fuck?’
‘Was that The Shard?’
A man in his twenties sitting at a table adjacent to Raynor took his phone from the table and started recording the scene.
‘YouTube here we come he muttered.’
Raynor stood and approached the man, who on seeing Raynor’s approach started to look a bit anxious.
‘Have you no respect? People might have died in there.’ He grabbed the phone from the man, threw it to the floor and stamped on it.
‘You complete bastard!’ The man exclaimed.
When Raynor went to grab him he conceded.
‘No, you’re quite right. That was wrong of me.’ He then fled the cafe as fast as he could.
Raynor smiled. Mission accomplished.
The cafe was a maelstrom of panic and confusion. Raynor slipped out unnoticed.
Three down, seven to go, time against me. Come on then Nate, let’s get a shift on.
‘You’re sure?’ Virani asked. ‘Absolutely positive. Lilies?’
Sam shrugged.
‘Jay, I’m not a botanist. I wouldn’t know the difference between a lily and a daffodil. Jenkins told me Saunders is obsessed with his plants, and I saw some in his office. Bloody smelly things too.’
Sam put his pad and pen on the desk and opened a web browser on the screen in front of him. He navigated to Google Images and typed lily. A seemingly never ending collage of lily images appeared on the screen.
‘Looked like one of these.’ said Sam, pointing to a pale, funnel shaped flower.
‘But it’s red and yellow, mostly red. Do we have a name for it?’
‘I think I can do better that that.’ Virani replied as she picked up the stack of research that Barford had delivered earlier. She thumbed through the pages until she found the picture. ‘Here we are.’ she said, passing the image to Sam. Sam took one look and jabbed the image with his index finger.
‘That’s the one. We need to do something.’
‘Right, let me think about our best approach to this, we don’t want to go steaming in, all guns blazing, so to speak. In the meantime, is there anything new from your side?’
Sam took his phone from his pocket. He opened his inbox and tapped the mail from Mickey. An image of William Thomas filled the screen. He handed the phone to Virani.
‘Bloody hell, Sam. Where did you get this?’
‘SCU4. 1978. Jayshree Virani, meet William Thomas. I can’t tell you where it came from, as I don’t want to implicate you in any way.’
A slight scowl crossed Virani’s face.
‘What I can tell you, though,’ Sam continued, putting his phone down on the desk. ’is that if we need any evidence about SCU, I can get it all.’
At that point, the door slammed open and Barford hurried in.
‘It’s happened again Jay. He’s blown up the bloody Shard!’
Virani held her composure, though Sam was sure he saw a brief look of defeat in her eyes.
She said ‘Okay, Neil, find Upex, assemble a team, you know the score, get over there.’
Barford left the room as quickly as he’d entered it.
‘This is getting bloody ridiculous.’ Virani turned to Sam, a determined look in her eye. She wasn’t going to let Raynor cause any more damage.
‘Sam, I don’t care how you do it. Stop him.’
She looked at the picture of William Thomas before looking back at Sam. Sam had never seen her looking so serious. So determined.
‘You obviously know people who can get into places we can’t.’
She waved the photo to emphasise the point.
‘So use them. This thing’s more important than a couple of hacking charges. Give them whatever they need.’
Sam nodded and stood to leave before Virani added.
‘Just be careful. Do not put yourself directly in harm’s way.’ She forced a weak smile.
‘Just get the bastard, Sam.’
Chapter Thirty-Two
Sam found an empty office and quickly claimed it as his workspace. He shut the door, not wanting to be disturbed by the madness going on in the main office, and sat at an empty desk. He let out a long breath, wondering when this would all be over.
He unlocked his phone and opened his contacts. After scrolling through the list and finding Mickey’s number, instead of pressing the call button, he lifted the receiver of a phone on the desk he was using and dialled it.
Mickey answered promptly. ‘Hello?’
‘Hello Mick, it’s Sam.’
‘How’s it going mate?’
‘Not good. There’s been another explosion, this time The Shard.’
‘Jesus.’
‘Yeah, I know. I need your help.’
‘You’ve got it.’
Sam stood and looked through the blinds in the window looking out onto the office, using his fingers to separate two of the slats like a character in a bad American cop show. The coiled cable linking the receiver to the base was stretched to its limit.
Sam started telling Mickey about the latest attack and how Virani had instructed him to find Raynor. Mick listened intently, not daring to interrupt. Sam concluded the update and asked.
‘So what do we know about William Thomas?’
Mickey took a deep breath and explained the history of William Thomas, a retired two-star general with an exemplary military record. Breezed through basic training, but went slightly off the rails when turned down for a position within the Special Air Services.
After a thorough talking to, he bucked up his ideas and became a member of the Special Covert Unit Programme.
Once his five years of rampaging around the globe were complete, for reasons unexplained, Thomas was allowed to remain in the army, and continued his climb through the ranks.
He became involved in training SAS recruits, serving at the headquarters in Hereford for several years and becoming part of the selection panel. This position leant itself well to his top-secret involvement with the SCU programme, giving him access to the best of the rest of the SAS applicants.
‘So there’s a damn good chance that Thomas recruited Raynor.’ Said Sam.
‘Looks that way. There are a few details I’ve found out about his personal life too.’ Mickey added.
‘Go on.’ Encouraged Sam.
‘William Thomas retired to Newbury, Berkshire, shortly after the SCU programme was mothballed. He made a lot of investments, mainly in technology companies, and lives a very comfortable life from a military pension and dividend payments from his investments.
‘He lost his wife about seven years ago. She was stabbed in Newbury. He blamed the police and the local authorities for not doing enough to curb violent crime.
‘When he found out the murderer was an illegal immigrant he started a one-man campaign against the government.
‘Nobody took any notice, of course. He was just seen as a bit of an eccentric who’d suffered a great loss.’
‘Poor bastard.’ said Sam. ‘Anything else?’
‘Well he and his wife were quite active on the amateur dramatic scene. He’d even had a few parts as an extra.’
‘That explains how he pulled off the tramp act so well. Good work mate. Did you get his address?’ asked Sam.
‘Yeah, it’s all here, Sam. Even got bank details if you want to know how much he’s worth.’
Sam could hear Mickey tapping the keys for a few seconds before saying.
‘I managed to get around that firewall, you see. The Barclays one.’ A pause. ‘Bloody Hell.’
‘What is it?’ Asked Sam.