Day Eleven
Sally dropped Dave off at 07:15, she had arranged to have breakfast with Olivia and Michael, neither of them asked what was going on, Michael said all his customers were now up to date, nobody was behind with their payments. “Dave certainly has a way with words, and actions.” They heard the helicopter take off, it would have to refuel a couple of times before reaching the island, the pilot had been told to wait for Dave then take him back. On the island, he was expected, Military Police had set up a base in the wooden building where the radar screen had been, the window had been boarded up, the contents of the caves were being photographed, catalogued and then taken onto a landing craft, the senior officer thought they were roughly half way through everything. He was shown into an underground room, it was small and stuffy, there was a single bulb hanging from the ceiling. The only furniture was a desk, chair and filing cabinet, he didn’t think he would be there for long. His first job was to check the paperwork on the desk, some of it looked like doodles, he put everything in a plastic tub he had been given. Next it was the drawers in the desk, it was mostly pens and pencils, there were packs of labels but nothing of any significance. He took everything out the cabinet, he didn’t stop to look at anything, he knew it would delay him if he started. Outside, he looked for more tubs, another two he thought might do it. The drawers were taken out the cabinet to check nothing had fallen down the back, he didn’t find anything else. The three tubs were stacked outside, in the makeshift canteen he ate bacon rolls and drunk coffee, the pilot was sitting dozing. He asked where the possessions of those on the island were, two tubs in the corner of the hut were pointed out, “I will take those as well, is there some way to make a call from here?” “Use the phone on the desk, it has a satellite uplink.” He dialled the number for the Admiral, “sir, David Stretton, I’m on the island, can you locate the possessions of the dead and those taken to hospital, have them sent up to me.” An hour later, he was on the way back, at one of the refuelling stops, he called Sally, he said for her to wait at Olivia’s when she finished work, he would be back by 18:00. The three of them heard the helicopter return, Sally thanked Olivia and Michael, she drove round to the barrier, she saw Dave and four soldiers, each carrying a plastic tub, they were quickly put in the boot, he kissed Sally as he climbed in beside her. “How did it go at work today?” “It was strange, everyone was normal, yet they weren’t, nobody asked me about the bruise on my face, it was as if they had been warned not to say anything. How did you get on?” “You saw the results, five tubs of paperwork, I will skim through it, if I don’t see anything, I will take it with me to the MOD, have some of the girls there put it into a database. I’m knackered, shall we eat the pizza we took out last night, I want to check the emails, see what has come in, I think we will be deluged with paperwork to begin with.” They were home, the tubs were put in the garage and covered with a tarpaulin, there was a smell of pizza when he walked in. Sally had put in oven chips and made a salad from the leftovers in the fridge. Later in the office, they each opened a laptop, Sally checked the email address he had given to Jane, there were two from her, Dave heard the printer start, the information was stapled together, Sally looked through it before leaving it on the desk, “what’s wrong, you haven’t logged in?” “I’m thinking, as soon as I log in, I’m committed to seeing this through, I think it will cause a lot of trouble, there may be some big names involved.” She asked who, “Graeme Rogers for one, I don’t know how he is involved, but he is, I have tried to put my dislike for him to one side and be objective, there is something, I will find it.” “Don’t do anything tonight, Uber for a while tomorrow, we will start in the afternoon.” He lay on the bed fully clothed, Sally spent some time downstairs, she had written out a shopping list for the following day. Dave was asleep when she came upstairs, she helped him undress, in bed he slept, Sally kissed him, her hand rested on his face, she watched his chest rise and fall.
Day Twelve
He sat in the greasy spoon, drivers came and went, he had switched on the app and put the magnetic signs on the side of his car, he let others pick up the jobs, the girl behind the counter asked him how he made any money, “you are always in here.” “My wife earns a lot more than I do, I don’t need to work.” At 13:00 he picked up a job, from the town out to one of the villages, he drove slowly back hoping for another one. Instead, he logged off, went to Tesco’s with the list he had been given, he hated food shopping but got it done. He arrived home just after Sally, she was in the shower, the shopping was dumped on the kitchen table, he made coffees for them both, most of the shopping had been put away, left on the table were the things he didn’t know where to put. “Dave, somebody at work has said something,” he put down his drink and looked at her, “I was having my break, one of the other girls, Helen, asked me if I was a spy, she wanted to know if that was why I kept having time off and nobody said anything. Do I look like a spy, I asked her? I said I had been a researcher before I moved here, sometimes they need me to go over old files I had worked on, I think she believed me.” “There’s nothing we can do about it, hopefully it will be forgotten, are you ready to start?” Dave felt more positive today, “first job, the information from Jane put into a spreadsheet or maybe a database, hopefully it will grow as we go on, I’m going after Graeme Rogers. Using the neighbours wi-fi and a VPN he logged into the MI6 site using one of his hacking tools, his record wasn’t there, he logged out and tried the cabinet office, this time he found it, he downloaded the file and printed it for Sally to create another entry. He next went to the CIA site, the new versions of the software he had bought was quick, he looked and found the file for the head of MI6, the printer churned out the file, while he was there, he looked at the file they held on him, the last entry said he was suspended from MI5. Sally’s had the same, he called her to see, “how do they know all that, it has information about my marriage,” Dave said it’s what they do.
They stopped at 21:00, all of the information was now entered, Sally had created a file for each person, it was easier than creating a spreadsheet. Dave cooked, Sally sat at the kitchen table drinking a lager, “Michael told me everyone had paid, he said you had a way with words.” “Did Olivia say any more about the kiss?” “No, it won’t be mentioned again, I’m more bothered about you and Jane, twice now you’ve had a feel of her bum.” “I’m hoping she has a short skirt on one day, I might see how far I can get.” “I think you would have three people thumping you, Jane, Ruth and me,” They were both laughing. After dinner, they sat on the sofa snuggled up together.
Day Thirteen
They would both be in the office today, Sally was given the software to allow her to hack into the back end of the banks, Dave said for her to go through each person, download five years of bank statements, “don’t look at anything, we are only gathering information, I am going to compare the list of republican members with those on the island, see how many are the same, I will check MI5, MI6 and the CIA for their files, you can add them in later.” By 18:00, with a short stop for lunch they had finished, Dave looked out the window, it was raining, “I’m going for a run, I will be about an hour, do you want to eat in or go out?” “If it’s not raining too heavily we could walk to the carvery, I want some fresh air.” He was back just after 19:00, he showered and dressed, Dave used a large golf umbrella to keep them both dry, when they left, the rain had stopped, they were arm in arm, he stopped a couple of times, he turned and kissed Sally, at the same time he looked back down the road they had just walked along. “I’m just checking,” he had anticipated her question, “I’ve got a feeling.”
Day Fourteen
They were woken by banging on the door, it was 09:00, Dave looked out, Trevor’s car was on the drive. He went downstairs to open the door, “I’ve come for my money,” Dave showed him where the kitchen was, make three coffees, I’ll be back in a few minutes, he came back dressed, “I have been here for an hour, I thought I might be too early so decided to leave you for a while, I went for a walk, there’s two Yanks in a car further down the road, are they watching you? It’s a black Ford, he passed over a piece of paper with the registration number, “are you sure they are Americans, definitely not British?” “You can tell, definitely Americans,” Dave counted out another £50.00 and handed over Trevor’s money, “they weren’t there the other day, the street was clear.” His coffee was drunk, Dave thanked him as he left, he took the other coffee up to Sally. “I was right, we are being followed, this time by the Americans.” In the office, he took out the burner phone, Cyrus Grantly answered, “it’s Dave Stretton, are the two guys sitting in the car yours, tell me, their lives may depend on it?” “Yes,” Dave’s next question was why, “Langley wants to know why you were kicked out.” “I had a disagreement, they were withholding information from me, I was given an ultimatum, Sally and I walked. Haven’t you heard the recording, if I send you a copy, will you call your guys off?” “It’s not up to me, I don’t have any say.” “OK, I will find the recording and email it to you,” he logged into Jane’s emails, found the one she sent to Graeme Rogers, copied the audio file then sent it to Cyrus. Sally had been listening to the conversation, Dave said he didn’t mind if it was the Americans, “better them than the British, I’m going out to speak to them.” He walked down the street, he spotted the car, opening the door, he sat in the back seat, “I’ve just spoken to Cyrus Grantly, my visitor earlier spotted you, we don’t have any plans to go out today, if we do, one of us will let you know where we are going and when we will be back. You can head off for breakfast if you want.” He walked back to the house, “Cyrus has phoned and there was a missed call from Jane.” “Cyrus, what news have you got for me?” “There won’t be a decision until later in the day, it’s too early.” He swapped sim cards in the phone and called Jane back, “use the number I’ve called you on from now, the Americans are following me for some reason,” “I want to know if you have made any progress yet?” “Lots of data entry, we are still building up profiles, we haven’t started to look at any of it, I will begin next week.” “Can you come down next Friday for a meeting at the MOD, a sort of progress report?” “Let me see if I have anything to report, ask me again in the middle of the week.” Sally came into the office wearing her tennis gear, “Olivia and I have a court booked from 11:30, we may come back here afterwards for lunch, make sure nothing has been left out.”
When she had gone, he took a coffee and a packet of biscuits upstairs, he switched on his laptop, referring to the printed list he started with the leader, William Finn, opening up one of his programs, he checked the file held by MI5, it described him as a terrorist, listing his membership of the IRA, his falling out with them and an incident where he lost a leg planting a bomb under a policeman’s car, he was now registered as disabled, there were images of him over the years, in most of them he was either in a wheelchair or a disability scooter, he had spent ten years of a life sentence in prison. Since his release, it said he had been active in trying to unite Ireland, his campaign had been orchestrated from his council house in Belfast. There was a list of incidents he was suspected of organising but nothing could be proved. He had been arrested several times for supplying Class A drugs, but nothing had ever been proved, the file had a ‘live’ marker on it. The CIA file had much the same information, but Dave noted ‘terrorism’ was nowhere on the file. His bank balance never moved much above £1500, the transactions were all the normal ones you would expect on an account, Dave knew the money would be elsewhere. He copied and pasted the information into a sub folder. Next was his wife Mary, there was an MI5 file but other than her maiden name and several images, it contained nothing. The CIA didn’t have a file. She had a savings account with £2300, it hadn’t been used for years. He heard the front door opening, there was laughter, two sets of footsteps came running up the stairs, he quickly closed the laptop, Sally kissed him, Olivia went into the main bathroom, he was asked how it was going, “early days,” she left him and went into their bedroom, both showers were running, he went downstairs to make lunch, Olivia was the first one to join him in the kitchen, there was a certain awkwardness, she sat on a chair as Dave was busy, Sally saw the situation when she came in, she didn’t say anything. He was relieved when he saw her, he became more chatty. Honours had been shared at the tennis, Olivia said Sally was hitting harder than she used too. Dave suggested Olivia was getting weaker. She left after lunch, Sally said the Americans were still there, in a different car this time. “I’ve started on the leader, most of the people involved have the same surname as him or his wife’s maiden name, can you create some sort of relationship plan showing the links between people.” “Like a family tree?” “No, I want William Finn at the centre, round the rest of the screen will be the others in his organisation, showing the links between each person, father linked to son who is linked to his cousin, so that anyone looking at it can see the relationships. When a person is clicked, all the information we hold, will be brought up. I’m sure I’ve seen something like it before.” Sally trawled through the internet, several times she showed and example to Dave, each time he shook his head, she eventually found one he liked, “that’s it, see if you can do something with that, make it work.” Sally carried on looking until she found the software which worked best, she went downstairs when she heard a knock at the door, she looked out the window first before opening it, there was a delivery for Dave, two separate packages, one large, the other a small box. He came down to look, “the big one is the stuff from the dead and those either captured or in hospital, the smaller one is our other ID’s” he passed the package to Sally. She came back with six jiffy bags, each one had a label with a name, “Look, we both have the same surname on one ID, does that mean we are married.” Dave smiled, he opened one and quickly flicked through the contents, he opened the passport to check, “when you have looked, put them in the wardrobe along with my other ID’s.” At 19:00 they stopped work, he could carry on longer, but wanted to pace himself, this wouldn’t be one where it all dropped into place, he was going to have to work on this one. During dinner, he said they needed someone else, “I think to begin with, we will be generating much more information than we can enter, I would like the first phase over within the next two weeks, the two of us need to pass everything over to someone who is smart enough to put whatever we find into the correct files. There are around thirty five in the organisation, some of them will also have been on the island, once I start going through the possessions and the paperwork, there will be a lot more. I will speak to the Admiral in the morning. I hope the Americans will be gone soon.” “Dave, why has there been nothing in the papers or on the news, with all those killed, surely it would be the lead story?” “It has been, the report, said the raid was carried out by special forces and there had been a loss of life, the MOD will not let anyone on the island, so there are no images or video, without them, there is no interest, people want to see pictures, it’s yesterday’s news now. Relatives will be leaned on to not cause a stir, if they do, they will be threatened with the release of information either true or made up about the part the dead person played in the operation.” They were in bed by 22:00, Sally had her clothes ready for the morning, Dave was going Ubering.
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