'Typical yanks, always whining! Anyway, your parents come from India so how American can you be? Besides, the real Americans are totally different Indians, they have tomahawks and casinos, so don't be getting any ideas!'
'Yeah,' nodded Sonny, smiling, 'so different that in fact they're not called Indians but Native Americans who belong to a number of indigenous regional tribes. You've seen too many cowboy films.
'So, now that we have ascertained Adrian's grasp of American culture, let me make it clear. Firstly, my mother was born in India but my father is American by birth and I was born in California. Secondly, I wasn't in the airforce, I was a civilian working on IT projects for the US Air Force. Thirdly, since I have an American passport and train in martial arts, I have both the god-given right and the skills to kick your ass if you say any more shit.'
Adrian placed a finger to his lips and overly acted a thoughtful pose before nodding in complicit agreement.
'Alright, that seems fair - anyway, so when you were a paper shuffler in your man's airforce, did you see any weird shit?'
'Well, anyhow,' said Sonny, 'to answer Rebecca's question, there were these fucked-up vegetables they had at an airbase I was working at a few years back. That was pretty weird.'
They all went silent and paused before Adrian simply grimaced.
'Vegetables?'
'What the fuck?' asked Patrick with an expression of exaggerated disdain.
'Shhhh!' Rebecca scolded, lightly slapping Adrian's arm. 'Tell us about the fruit and veg Sonny!'
'Oh man,' said Sonny with a hint of resignation as he bowed his head, then, grinning and slowly shaking his head, 'there's not much to tell you, Adrian is just going to give me shit and I'm not even supposed to talk about it anyway!'
She fixed him with a mock glare.
'Just tell us - biatch.'
'You know, you have some aggression issues,' Sonny chided as she grinned at him. He leaned forward and looked around the table.
'Alright, about five years ago I was working on military software for the US Air Force, most of it boring shit like system integration but this one time we were on a visit to an airbase as part of a technical implementation.'
'You were implementing vegetables?' Adrian interrupted quizzically, thinking for a moment. 'Where was that? Texas? Up the Chocolate Bayou? Putting in vegetables - in the Chocolate Bayou - You know, as in Chocolate River? Like logging in the Brown Hills of Virginia?'
He nodded emphatically, checking that everybody understood but Rebecca frowned exaggeratedly.
'Chocolate Bayou?' she questioned disdainfully. 'What?'
'It's a real place in America, I kid you not!' nodded Adrian sagely. 'I have an encyclopaedic knowledge of humorous place names and road-side burger vans.'
He started counting off on his fingers.
'There's Bowlegs in Oklahoma, French Lick in Indiana, Monkey's Eyebrow in Arizona - I think - Definitely an Intercourse in Pennsylvania and -'
Rebecca jutted her bottom jaw at Adrian and interrupted him, placing the palm of her hand to his face.
'Shut it freak, talk to the hand.'
Sonny ignored the comments and continued.
'So, anyway children, we're being led from one building to another by a group of soldiers and they're marching, like, a squad of them either side of us and as we go in-between these huge goddam hangers there are these massive plastic greenhouses that have vegetables in them, loads of stuff, like cabbages, cauliflowers, broccoli, I'm telling you, these vegetables must have been fifty times normal size, like a tomato that was the size of a soccer ball!'
Adrian rolled his eyes and banged the table top with his palm making the glasses jump and rattle.
'It's not fucking soccer, it's called - football.'
'Ahhh, whatever man, these things were big though, just rows and rows of them, I tell you, there was some freaky shit going on there.'
'Big tomatoes?' mused Patrick with an arched eyebrow as he took a sip. 'Is that it?'
'It was weird!' Sonny defended as he sat upright.
'Come on, you're telling me it isn't weird for the military to be growing mutant vegetables at an airbase?'
'What were they for though?' asked Rebecca seriously.
'God knows man,' said Sonny shaking his head, 'but they weren't normal, like, if they're doing that to vegetables then maybe they're also doing it to animals; you know, freaky genetic experiments?'
'Yeah,' continued Patrick, 'but there are some old guys who grow tomatoes the size of beach balls in their garden where I come from and they just use shit to grow them - horse shit.'
'I believe', said Adrian as he sarcastically pontificated, 'that the correct English word is manure, Patrick.'
He turned to Sonny.
'So, mutant vegetables you say? What we're talking about here is Giant Killer Tomatoes, right? With teeth? An army of kamikaze-ketchup trained as mean lean killing machines?'
'Ahhh, shit man!' Sonny sighed in resignation. 'They were probably experiments in genetically modified crops or some kind of super-fertiliser to feed the world's starving or something, I don't know, maybe they're growing giant cows too!'
'Yes,' Adrian nodded, 'but what came first? The giant tomatoes or the giant cows to fertilise them?'
Rebecca rolled her eyes as she picked up her drink.
'Haa-Ha,' she sarcastically sing-songed. 'well at least it's better than 'Brown Log, Ohio' or whatever it was; unless you have anything else to tell us that is remotely interesting?'
'Well,' Adrian said languidly as he thought for a moment and gazed at the ceiling, 'there was the time I was working in Frankfurt and I bumped into this strange looking guy in the street, all sweaty and flushed with a guilty expression on his face. The weirdest thing was -' he paused for effect and the others leaned forward expectantly -
Time, ladies and gentlemen -
'ARMED POLICE!'
The words had been coarsely yelled before Adrian could finish his sentence for the attentive group of workmates and there certainly was no time for any of them to comprehend that the main entrance door had been violently thrown open to the Eagle's Court public house, the oak frame shuddering and recoiling from the force and urgently yielding to four heavily armed men who stormed into the bar wearing black balaclavas, combat fatigues and bullet proof vests emblazoned with the white letters of police stencilled across their chests.
'DOWN! Down on your knees! Hands behind your heads! NOW!'
Simultaneous to the forceful entry via the main door, four other men in identical gear surged from behind the bar itself, evidently having entered via a rear access door, their repeated and insistent vocal commands decipherable even above the clatter of chairs being kicked out of the way, pint glasses crashing to the floor and the tremulous cacophony to be associated with eight firearms officers bursting in to capture a group of terrorist suspects.
Within an instant, Patrick, Rebecca, Adrian and Sonny had been surrounded, implicated as the object of the C019 police firearms unit raid by the pointed barrels of MP5 sub-machine guns, a Benelli pump-action shotgun and a couple of Glock 17 pistols.
As they sat in shocked confusion, completely disoriented by events, the moment was seized upon as four officers leapt forward and emphasised the meaning of the command to get down by shoving each of the dazed revellers to the floor, down onto their knees, man-handling their arms and hands behind their back, rapidly hand cuffing them and then pushing them to lay face down upon the floor.
To complete the task, each officer quickly knelt down and clamped one shin across the lower legs of their designated suspect, effectively gluing them to the carpet and preventing them from wriggling about to any appreciable extent, capping off the restraint of their prone captives by efficiently threading a zip-lock plastic tie about the ankles.
It was Rebecca who had recovered at least some of her senses first, starting to yell expletives back over her shoulder as she shouted for an explanation of what was going, her three male companions uttering cries of compliance in ironic contrast.
Her long blonde hair was spilling over her head as she laid face down, spreading over the beer stained and snow dampened carpet, whipping back and forth as she jerked her head from side to side, trying to look up and comprehend what was happening.
She could see that the bar was now heaving with a sudden swarm of assorted police officers that seemed to have come from nowhere, although the previous patrons had been hustled from the premises by the burly men she had seen chatting to the barman when she had entered with Sonny. They were obviously plain clothed officers detailed to clear the place immediately after the inception of the raid.
'What the fuck is going on?' she roared fiercely, jerking her shoulders in violent spasms to indicate to the armed officer bearing down on her that she was shouting at him. 'Get the fuck off me!'
The weight was suddenly released from her legs and back but before she could consider that her request had been granted, she found herself roughly pulled up to her knees and lifted bodily to her feet, two officers tightly gripping her upper arms to hold her steady. A female officer approached and quickly but efficiently gave her a thorough pat down, feeling all over her body for lightly concealed objects. After a nod from the stone faced police woman, Rebecca felt herself lifted again and was immediately propelled out of the pub so that her toes simply scraped across the carpet and through the snow as she was effectively dragged outside and into the back of a waiting police van.
Within minutes, all four friends had been transferred to separate vans and were unknowingly en route to the same secure interrogation facility, an excursion organised by courtesy of the United Kingdom's counter-intelligence and security agency; Military Intelligence, Section 5.
IM - Incriminating Messages
Jolene had decided to delay the journey to Krefeld after receiving a call confirming that the raid on Open-EZ's premises was to be undertaken that very morning. She had been uncharacteristically hesitant in making the decision, mulling it over with a frown before finally deciding that their ability to react to further developments would be inhibited if the situation changed drastically whilst they were travelling. She considered that it was better for them to stay put and wait for further news, after all, the raid could direct them back to mainland Europe again and she really did not want to risk wasting time in a fruitless journey to the UK.
A further series of calls had confirmed that the MI5 operation was starting, was under way and then had been successfully completed. The Open-EZ personnel had been rounded up in a series of operations in locations all over England, some of them dragged from their homes and one group even grabbed as they sat in a bar drinking. Jolene had peremptorily insisted that the computer server dumps from the Reading office be sent to NSA headquarters immediately and it was just a matter of time before their forensic data specialists came up with some firm intelligence.
It was approaching one o'clock in the afternoon and the team had finally set off in convoy in a couple of rented cars to their original destination, Sergeant Stanley driving Jolene and Dale with PFC Oliver following up with Jackson as they made their way to Burg Linn in Krefeld. Although the journey would take just over two hours complete, they were only halfway when Jolene's phone began to trill yet again.
'Lovell,' she quickly answered.
The voice mumbled on the line, impossible for Dale to hear.
'Hang on a moment, I'm going to put you onto loudspeaker.'
Dale raised his eyebrows at the sudden inclusivity as a voice with a Baltimore accent started to emanate from Jolene's phone as she held it out on the flat of her palm.
A slight throat-clearing cough choked from the speaker.
'Yeah, I was just saying, we have some preliminary intelligence from the Open-EZ transfers, it's not confirmed yet but it looks like it could be useful.'
'What do you have?' Jolene asked urgently, glancing at Dale.
'Well, we have lots of encrypted files so they'll take a bit longer but we have isolated a few transactions to bank accounts across the globe and we're working on following up with them, however, in particular, we have a payment to a holiday home firm called 'Scottages' that may be significant to the current situation. They rent out cottages and farmhouses in Scotland in the United Kingdom and it would appear that Rey Faber, through Open-EZ, booked a farmhouse at a place called Oban from the beginning of December 2009 to the end of March 2010. I'm sending over details right now as it seems that it could be an ideal location for a safe-house.'
'That is great!' Jolene gasped with excitement. 'Have you informed Operations in London?'
'Yes, they are aware and are using this intelligence in their current appraisals. The British military forces are organising a raid on the premises on our behalf since their Prime Minister wouldn't allow US troops to mount an operation. They have been informed that a group of terrorists is hiding out there and that a weapon of significant destructive power may be secured in the vicinity. Their instructions are to capture if possible, or kill and destroy as appropriate.'
'Excellent!' Jolene enthused, glad that she had taken the decision to remain on the European continent. 'Keep me informed of their progress. Do you have anything else at the moment?'
The voice was silent for a moment.
'Well, there is something, but it is confidential and for your ears only.'
Jolene looked at Dale and frowned.
'Give me a second -'
Switching off the loudspeaker and placing the phone to her ear one again, Dale could no longer hear anything except a muted mumbling but he became intrigued as a look of extreme consternation spread across Jolene's face.
'Alright, thanks,' she suddenly breathed, 'keep me up to date.'
Dale watched as she ended her call and slowly placed the phone within an inside pocket of her jacket.
'Everything alright?' he enquired.
Jolene looked at him and her frown tightened again, she blinked a couple of times and sat back into her seat, discretely glancing at the back of Stanley's head. She cleared her throat with a couple of slight coughs and licked her lips to wet them.
'Text messages were sent from a pre-paid handset to a cellular number registered to Open-EZ and in use by Rey Faber, signed into a network mast in the UK on Friday when the first attempt was made.'
Dale expressed a wry look and grinned unsurely.
'So somebody was communicating with Faber but used the wrong number, since we know that he was in The Hague on Saturday. So what? There is little point tracing the pre-paid since they would have certainly purchased it without leaving a trail. At most we would get a very general location fix for where the message was sent from.'
Jolene shook her head.
'That wasn't all -'
She paused and became thoughtful, looking out of her passenger window with a distant gaze.
'Stanley!' she suddenly barked. 'Call the embassy in The Hague and have them send across the main entrance logs for the whole weekend, I need to check some details.'
'What's going on?' asked Dale with confusion as he watched Stanley start to dial on his phone. 'Am I missing something here?'
'Text messages,' said Jolene distractedly, 'sent on Friday and then Saturday from two different pre-paids. The phone issued to Faber by Open-EZ received a message first, from the pre-paid in the US. The caller repeated the same message to another phone in use in The Netherlands, which we can assume was actually being used by Faber. If the wrong number hadn't been used to start with we'd be none the wiser, they must have realised their mistake and tried again. NSA have back traced all the other calls and texts that were made to Faber's second phone and it definitely ties into this whole thing.'
Dale gave a cursory shrug.
'Well, we already know they must be communicating, do the messages tell us anything significant?'
Jolene shook her head but not as if she was saying 'no'; she actually appeared to be unwilling to accept the truth that was suddenly dawning on her.
'DL Collection @ GV, GV Visitors, Leaving Now,' she intoned solemnly.
'What?' Dale grimaced.
'Just a few of the messages received by Faber,' Jolene explained,'"GV" for Gertrude Verker? "DL Collection" for when you went to pick up
Dirigo Lux
? "Visitors" for when we went to get her statement and "Leaving" for when Jackson's car was rammed? The times are too close for them to be anything else.'
'They've been tracking our movements the whole time?' Dale asked incredulously.
'Tracking us?' Jolene echoed. 'They've known what we were doing before we even started doing it. They may also have known that we were visiting Paula Krom.'
'So are we being followed?' Dale offered unsurely. 'We'd have spotted them by now wouldn't we?'
Jolene stared at him for a moment, her jaw wavering slightly as she appeared to think about the implications.
'Not just following us Dale, working with us!'