Chapter 3

Mark MacGhee sat in the Prince of Wales pub, sipping a pint of lager. At twenty-nine, he considered himself young, free and single and worked hard to keep life that way. His 5'11" frame was lean and well muscled from the full-on workouts at the gym and daily running. Mark had the kind of shortish, fine sandy hair that never seemed to be totally under control - a bit like Robert Redford's. He also had brown eyes, the kind of eyes that seemed to melt women's hearts and he used all of his charms to ensure his bed was rarely empty or cold.

Today wasn't a day for flirting and trying to pick up a new bedmate however, today Mark was working. He was an investigative journalist and worked freelance - refusing to be tied down to one company or to be the subject of editorial control. He had broken enough major stories to build a sound reputation and that allowed him to pick and choose what he worked on.

Mark was waiting for one of his better sources of information. He had received a phone call telling him to be at the Prince of Wales at 3pm and he made a point of always responding to this particular caller. His head lifted as the pub's door opened and he recognised the man walking in. He got to his feet and walked over to the bar.

"Two pints of lager please?" he ordered.

"How are you, Mark?" asked the newcomer.

"I'm doing away fine, Drew, doing away fine. How's life with Strathclyde's finest?" Mark asked in return.

"You know how it is, never a dull moment in Glasgow for a copper."

They picked up the pints and headed for the table Mark had already bagged. Mark smiled as he watched his source carefully scrutinise every person in the bar until he was satisfied there were no problems.

Detective Inspector Drew MacIntosh relaxed into his seat and took a long pull on his pint.

"So, Drew, to what do I owe the honour?" Mark asked.

"I thought about this one long and hard," said Drew, "you didn't get me anything on the vigilante so I wasn't sure about giving you this, but you have done good work in the past."

Mark grimaced. Drew had fed him information about a dangerous Glasgow vigilante in the hope that, as a journalist, he would be able to find some new leads to the man's identity. Instead, Mark found himself banging his head against a brick wall for six months, turning up precisely nothing. It still rankled that he had worked so hard to find a break and had ended up with no story and therefore had gone six months without earning a penny.

"Well, that one kind of dropped into your lap, didn't it?" he replied now.

Mark's comment referred to the fact that the vigilante had been killed in a shoot out with the head of one of Glasgow's gangs, Rab 'the tram' Cullen. In death, the vigilante had been revealed as another of the gang leaders - Sean O'Reilly. By killing each other, these two gang leaders had helped Drew tie up multiple murder cases - much to the pleasure of his Chief Police officer.

"Aye, I guess it did at that," said Drew.

"Anyway, enough about history. What have you got for me?" Mark asked.

"They're connected in a way. With Cullen and O'Reilly both gone there's been something of a vacuum in terms of leadership across large patches of Glasgow. A little bird has been telling me that there are some very bright up and coming youngsters who are trying to muscle in and pick up the remnants of the gangs," Drew told him.

"Where's the news in that?" Mark asked.

"Don't write this off too quickly. From what my sources are telling me, these are no ordinary hoodlums we're talking about. Some of them are from out of town for one thing and they're all very young for another," Drew now added.

"Yeh, but a thug is a thug. There's no angle for me in that," Mark dismissed.

"Look, my sources are telling me that these guys are much smarter than your average villain. The reason I'm coming to you is that my normal approaches aren't giving me much to go on. They seem to have ghosted in and taken over without any trouble. That smacks of either overwhelming force or unusually effective thinking - maybe both. The fact that there's not a lot of information about them suggests that they are something out of the ordinary," Drew emphasised.

"You mean they haven't had to break any legs and they're not going about boasting about how tough they are?" Mark asked.

"Exactly! In all my time on the force I've never come across anything like this before. Everything has been done quietly, yet I know the Cullen and O'Reilly operations are already back in full swing - drugs, racketeering, prostitution you name it."

Mark felt his interest quicken. If what MacIntosh was telling him was true then this really was unusual and there might be a story in it after all. Glasgow's gangs were notoriously big-mouthed, full of bravado and macho boasting about their exploits. It was unheard of for villains to go about their business so quietly.

"Okay, what can you tell me?" Mark asked, leaning forward now in anticipation.

"That's all I've got," Drew replied.

Mark sat back, stunned. If MacIntosh was telling the truth, if he really didn't have any other information, then this new crew really were something different.

"Nothing? Come off it, you must have something I can go on!" Mark demanded.

"I'm telling you, these guys are smart. I've had to work really hard to get what I've just told you. Everything's been kept really tight, that's why I need your help on this. You can do things and go places I can't. Get out there and find me some leads and I promise that you'll have exclusive access so you can write the story."

This was the same deal that the pair had agreed on past cases and Mark knew it was the best he was going to get. Sure he could do the investigation and probably come up with a story, but having the inside track on any police work was the icing on the cake - it always made the final story that much juicier.

"Okay, I'm on it. Give me a couple of weeks to see what I can dig up," said Mark.

He took one final swig from his pint and then stood and left the pub.

Kenny searched online for details of what he would have to do to found and incorporate the Church of Cyberscience. The range of advice, rules and regulations was confusing and he almost dropped the idea altogether. Then he realised he didn't need to do the work himself. He already had former students who were qualified as lawyers and accountants so it was a simple matter to e-mail several of them to research what was required and he quickly had things underway. The advice he got back also suggested that he apply for charitable status for the Church so it would be exempt from taxation.

The registered address for the new Church was actually a post office box number, but Kenny had plans to change that as quickly as possible. Once he had money flowing in from his 'congregation' he would be able to purchase a real base of operations.

Kenny had also made a start at raising his first donations. He had created a database of all of those former students who were now contacting him each year. The database included names, contact addresses and details of the individual's occupation. It was a simple matter to send an e-mail containing the trigger phrase to each person, instructing them to make a payment to the bank account number that Kenny supplied.

The database already had over seven hundred names in it, one hundred and fifty of them people who were now in employment. Kenny's demands on them were relatively light, no more than a normal person would donate to a charity of their choice every month. He instructed each individual to begin to pay twenty pounds from each paycheck to the Church and already he was receiving more than three thousand pounds every month!

Using the students to help set up the Church gave Kenny the idea of looking more closely at the occupations of those on his database. Besides lawyers and accountants, he realised he had access to a broad base of experts that would undoubtedly prove useful in the future.

Establishing the database had brought one issue into sharp relief that Kenny had missed up until that point. He saw a pattern emerging with a group of his former students. A small number of them were indicating they were involved in criminal activities - some in quite a major way from what they had put down in their e-mails. He was at a loss as to how this could have happened until the reality hit him.

"Of course! All those troublemakers that I targeted with the programme so they would stop disrupting my classes! Some of them obviously behaved in my classroom but carried on making trouble elsewhere. I guess the brain defragmenter will also have improved their thinking - maybe I've created a new class of super criminal!" he laughed to himself.

The more he thought about it however, the more sense it made. If some of his former students had entered a life of crime, they were most certainly going to be far smarter than the average criminal. It was entirely feasible that their improved intelligence would help them avoid arrest and possibly even come up with new ways of making money illegally. It was another sign of just how low Kenny had sunk that his next thoughts weren't about the problems he could have created for society, but rather how much money he could hope to get from these former students.

From their messages, it was clear that a number of his people were now running large criminal operations, perhaps generating a lot of money. Kenny dwelt on how much money he could hope to gain.

Mark had to work with the little information that MacIntosh had given him. He knew enough about the Glasgow gangs to be able to pinpoint the turf that had previously been controlled by Cullen and O'Reilly and that was where he began.

He started on the South side of the River Clyde, Cullen's old stomping grounds. His reasoning for choosing that area first was that he remembered Cullen's moneyman, Fraser Gilchrist had also been killed. A gang without a leader and a moneyman might well be ripe for a take-over.

Mark staked out a number of known Cullen clan bases and recognised many of the faces that were coming and going. He enlisted the help of one of his off and on girlfriends, Felicity Cartwright, or Flick, who had worked with him before as a photographer. Together, Mark and Flick mounted various stake outs over the next three months, constantly taking pictures and nosing around for any information on the newcomers that MacIntosh believed had taken over the turf.

"You know, I just don't understand how someone can lead the kind of life that puts them in a position to become the leader of a criminal gang and yet they themselves have got no criminal record," said Flick.

She was referring to the fact that DI MacIntosh had been unable to put names to any of the strangers they had captured on camera. Mark and Flick assumed that these were the faces of the people who had assumed control of the Cullen clan and the O'Reilly gang, but they were no further forward in identifying who they were.

"MacIntosh believes these guys are a lot smarter than your average gang member. I guess they would have to be real smart to have avoided getting into trouble before now," Mark answered her.

"But how can you build up a big enough reputation to have any credibility or status with the kind of hard men that make up these gangs? What could you do to earn the kind of respect that would allow you to take over as their leader, but wouldn't bring you to the attention of the police?" she asked.