Chapter 1

To look at me you wouldn't think much, ordinary guy in my late 20's yet I have been places and done things the average guy will never do or see, occasionally things I'm not too proud of either.

I'm a (very) junior partner in a private security company. We take on jobs that ordinary police can't or won't tackle; we also take on government contracts when the government want deniability. Most of the time it's communication intercepts; we sneak in to various places and put in a keylogger as it's just plain easier to get someone's password that way rather than trying to break 128-bit encryption. Still, you'd probably be amazed that some people still use their first name as their username and their surname as the password. A lot simply use 'password' as the password too, but they don't tend to be the people we target. We tend to deal with money transfers from some very naughty people, think Middle East and flying planes into buildings type of people. Yes, we co-operate with the security services in a lot of places, but often enough, we can break the law where they can't. We're also expendable too.

I'm pretty fit, anyone who works in the field for the company has to pass four weekly fitness courses scattered throughout the year. As the examiner and tutor is an ex-SAS sergeant, guess how easy it is? No, I'm not saying I'm up to SAS standards, not even close, but I can if necessary run away further and faster than you'd believe if or when things go wrong. I'm also a qualified marksman too in various types and calibre of firearms, though again if we're ever in a situation where I'd have to draw a weapon, it's pretty certain that we'd be about to die. It's not my job to guard my team, it's their job to guard me, whilst I do my job. Essentially I'm a geek. I have a genuine talent for cracking electronic security systems, unnoticed and untraceable by those using them. Where you see a printed circuit board, I see the flow of electrons around it and how to circumvent or bypass the alarms built in. Oh, I'm a pretty good hacker too along with being a natural polymath in the cyber arts.

I was until a year ago, the happiest man on Earth...

I got the call after we'd just sneaked in and out of the Syrian Embassy in Paris and placed a few monitoring devices in their server room, all passive, nothing active. We'd retrieve the things the following night and hand them over to a friendly government. Well, I assume friendly, bit above my pay grade as to who requested the job.

"Geek," Bill Wilson the team leader called to me, "You need to speak to Earl." He handed me a mobile phone.

"David," Earl said, "David, I'm so sorry son. You need to return to London as soon as possible. There's been an accident, it's Julia. She's not dead, but it's pretty bad."

"What happened?" I replied.

"Car accident hit and run," Earl told me.

I felt my legs giving out from under me; Julia was the light of my life and my one abiding love. She'd been Earl's P.A. and we'd hit it off immediately despite her being practically aristocracy (her Dad got a life peerage for undermining the government from within or so I always joked). Whereas I was a working class guy made good, problem being we weren't allowed to tell her family just what it is I did, so I was announced as a security consultant which her Mum shortened to security guard and promptly along with her three sisters disowned Julia. She had the power to make it stick with the rest of the family, such was her hold over them. Still, despite the opposition and hostility from her family we were happy. Julia did hope that the announcement that she was pregnant might just thaw her Mum's heart. I wasn't so sure, but was going to do my best to support her aims.

Bill reached out to support me. He looked very concerned. He calls me Geek as it's my call sign, not as an insult. He doesn't really do insults, he mostly does violence to others he doesn't like. He's also the ex-SAS sergeant who tortures me when I have to do the fitness test and I'd call him a friend, save only he'd probably break my fingers if I ever did. The others clustered around too, we're a close team and a blow to one was a blow to all, besides they all knew Julia and considered me the luckiest bastard alive for snaring her.

Within an hour I was on a private charter air flight from Paris to London Docklands Airport and from there to the Royal London Hospital.

I was met by Earl Hollings, my immediate boss, at the entrance to the ICU. The look on his face told me far more than I wanted to know.

"She's alive, David," he sobbed, "But the baby..."

Earl loved Julia too. He'd been the one to give her away at our wedding when her family refused to attend. Julia called him Dad Too in a play on words, but she meant it. He and his wife had offered to stand as Godparents for us and we'd gladly accepted.

All I could see of Julia was a mass of wires and tubes. A machine was used to help her breathe, but her heart was strong, though the worrying lack of a lot of wiggles on the brainwave monitor was worrying. As all I could do was stare in horror. I was approached by a doctor, who asked for a word.

"She's got multiple fractures and lacerations," he said. "All those we can fix. There will hardly be any scarring either. Sadly she also lost the child she was carrying and it seems unlikely that she could ever conceive again. Also she suffered some severe subdural haematomas. We've relieved the pressure on her brain and we expect activity to pick up, but there's a strong possibility of long term effects on memory and control."

I nodded to him, too mentally drained to even speak. I wasn't even sure what to do, all I did for the next few days was sit and hold her hand. Eventually though they moved her out of the ICU and into a private ward that Earl was paying for. Her wounds healed and eventually she opened her eyes.

"Julia?" I spoke softly to her. There was no response, nor was there really to a battery of tests the doctors gave her. Her eyes tracked, she responded to sound, she could even get up and be lead, but nothing else, no recognition, no speech, and if left she'd just stay, not moving at all.

Not once did her family visit.

She ended up after being discharged in a residential care home paid for by the company. her needs were met 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, but my Julia had gone, retreated to who knows where and left me alone.

I returned to work, it was all I had left, save only my family, though they lived 300 miles to the North in Newcastle upon Tyne, so we rarely met. Though I know they keenly felt my loss as Julia had charmed them too.

A year later.

The team were going through a debriefing on our last job. It had, as usual, been a success, but you don't keep on being successful by getting sloppy. Bill took us through every stage and asked pointed questions as to whether or not we could have improved things.

Bill was the team leader and also the tactical weapons and mission planner; though mostly this was a joint effort on all our parts. At the end of the day it was Bill who had the final say, always.

John Eddings (Ex-Royal Engineers) was also tactical weapons and our engineer. Where I did electronics, he did buildings, breaking and entry, though preferably without the breaking. If there was a way in without tripping an alarm or simply avoiding them, he could find it from the plans and often enough from just walking around the place. He also did demolitions too.

Brian Barnes (Jobbing actor) was our disguise specialist, the most unobtrusive unnoticeable guy your eyes ever slid over, average height, average build, completely Mr Average and multilingual, fluent to native standards in over 18 languages and a pretty talented sleight of hand magician too.

Emma Watkins (Ex-Military Police), our driver, can handle practically anything. She once took our pursued getaway vehicle at 60mph down a narrow alley with only something like 5mm to spare either side of the car, amazing spatial awareness, also the best shot on the team bar none and able to do all this wearing 6 inch high heels too.

Very pretty and very smart, oh yes, she's also a lesbian, but apparently doesn't hold the banter about it from the guys on the team against them. Anyone else though? Well, let's just say a 6-inch heel can do a lot of damage if you don't take no for an answer.

It was Bill who took the call, he looked up puzzled to me and said "Geek, there's some woman in reception wants to see you, apparently she claims to be your sister-in-law..."

To say I was puzzled was an understatement. I have four sisters-in-law. Sharon was married to my brother, I doubt it was her, she had my phone number and we occasionally chatted when I phoned my brother. The others though...

Laura, 36, eldest of the three, married to Chris who was something in the City, that something being a corporate drone kept in place by an old boy's network that allowed him to make millions shifting money about without anything approaching original thought or intelligence. Laura's tall 5' 10" slim and can chill a room in seconds with a haughty glance. She takes very much after her mother, a queen bitch in the making. Two kids Alex, 10, and Adele, 9.

Jennifer, 34, middle of the three, married to Tris who's a government minister's 'Special Advisor' or SpAd as they are generally known. I'm not sure what advice he gives as he's never had a proper job in the real world in his life. He essentially lives in the Westminster bubble of the political classes and will probably be the worst Prime Minister the country's ever had one day. Jennifer is 5' 9", slim but generally cheerful except when under her mother's influence. Generally she does as she's told. Three kids, Justin and Thomas, 9, (twins) and Alice, 7.

Deborah or Debby as she prefers to be known is 31. She's the youngest of the three, but still older than my Julia. Married to Kenneth who is a director of one of the water utility companies, the one who keeps putting its prices up yearly, makes massive profits, but never fixes the leaks, yes that one. Slim but short too, only 5' 4", the quiet one of the family. I've always assumed she's under her mother's thumb, but it might be that she's just shy. Two kids, Sandra, 10, and Janet, 7.

None of them have ever worked; all are, to my knowledge, kept women a bit like that TV program, 'Desperate Housewives', only without the affairs and occasional murder attempt.

"We've gone over your bits, Geek" said Bill. "Best go down and see what it's all about whilst we talk about you behind your back."

"Nothing new there," I said with a grin.

It was Laura in reception, which was surprising, as far as I knew she didn't know where I worked, or cared too for that matter.

She glanced towards me as I entered the reception foyer, not the usual 'can chill hydrogen into a liquid state at 60 metres' stare either. She looked desperate and at the end of her tether.

"Laura," I said by way of greeting.

David," she replied, "I ... I need your help, please. It's Adele. She's been kidnapped and I've been warned not to go to the police."

Desperate indeed, I thought, only something threatening her immediate family could break her out of her icy shell to seek my help. I led her to one of our meeting rooms in the public area of the building. I also paged Bill and the team to listen in.

"OK," I said, "tell me about it."

"I got a phone call from her school, asking me why she hadn't turned up for the new term," she said, almost in tears. "I then got a phone call from a man claiming to have her. He wanted the username and password to Chris' laptop. I presumed to log into his company's server and steal millions. I said I didn't know it. He told me I'd better get it or I'd be seeing Adele one bit at a time. He's going to ring back later today and I'm supposed to have it for him then, but I don't know it and Chris wouldn't even if I begged him."

"Do you have your phone?" I asked.

"Yes, here it is, but the voice was disguised, almost electronic, and there's no sender number," she replied.

"We'll see," I said. "Give me a moment."

I wandered out and into the next room where the team had assembled.

"Going to help?" asked John.

"Yes," I replied. "But I'll need help." I threw this at Bill.

"If it was just her I'd say fuck her," said Bill. "A kid makes it different though."

I nodded, then opened one of our secure laptops and inserted Laura's sim card. It didn't take long to trace the call back through the network's system of masts until I had the phone, a fairly anonymous pay as you go model, triangulated to somewhere in the Neasden area.

"If I can get to within 100 metres of the phone in the intercept van we'll be able to pinpoint whoever this is," I said to Bill. "Do you have to cover this with Earl or higher?"

"I'll let Earl know what's happening. I doubt it will be refused though," he replied.

We all wandered back into the meeting room. I didn't introduce anyone, they all had a pretty low opinion of Laura and her family anyway and it would have just caused more tension.

"We know roughly where they are," I said. "What we do need you to do is ask to speak to Adele, no contact, no deal. We need to know if she's with him or her. Then give them this username with this password, it links to a remote unit here where they'll end up in a Mobius loop of never ending requests.

"Can I come with you, please?" Laura begged.

I glanced at Bill who nodded. "She'll have to stay in the van though," was his only comment.

We all set off in a fairly non-descript white van as used by delivery drivers and contractors the UK over. Emma was driving and wearing some form of off the shelf corporate wear, Bill was sitting next to her and the rest of us were in the back watching as I fiddled with the commo gear. I was also very aware of Laura's presence too; her eyes had bugged out at all the hardware including the firearms in the back. I kept catching a faint whiff of her perfume and it was driving me nuts. I hadn't had a woman in over a year now, hadn't wanted one, so why was this arch bitch having such an effect on me?

Once in Neasden we drove to the area that the masts said the phone was operating in. The user had apparently not shut it down, which was damned sloppy of them and very convenient for us.

"Target 30 metres at our 3 o clock," I said, "moving east."

"Got him," came Bill's reply. "It is a he, probably a Muslim from the Indian sub-continent from the way he's dressed, blue van marked Medina Dairy."

"On him," Emma's reply.

We followed cautiously, though it was fairly obvious that our target wasn't practicing any evasion techniques. Finally he drove into a dairy yard, left his van and went into a building.

Parking up, the team piled into the rear of the van and John pulled up the buildings plans onto a screen whilst I superimposed our targets phone signal onto them. The signal was getting fairly flakey, but still detectable.

"Basement," I muttered. John nodded and brought up what he could get of the lower floors.

Just then the target's signal flared on the screen and Laura's phone rang.

"Remember what I said," I told her.

She nodded and put the phone to her ear as the rest of us went silent.

"Hello," she said.

(A distorted voice vaguely heard)

"I have it yes."

(More noises)

"Not unless I can speak to my daughter!"

(Angry sounds)

"No details unless I have proof she's OK!"

(Silence, then muffled sounds)

"Mum?" came the sound of a young girl's voice.

"Adele!" sobbed Laura as the team poured out of the van heading towards the source of the signal.

"Yes Mum," came the sound of a very frightened young girl.

(The voice again)

Laura gave out the username and password. "When will you give her back?"

With an audible click and no reply the target hung up.

I watched the team via their head cams with a sense of pride, they had moved stealthily into position without attracting any undue attention from the dairy, they were just about to force an entry when the door opened on them and things got very tense very fast.

Bill reacted first, using a Taser he immobilised the man exiting the building whilst Emma with incredible skill used her Taser to fire over the man's collapsing body into the person behind him. Whilst this was happening, John had wrenched the door open and was already moving past the two targets, heading towards what was on the plans a stairway.

"Clear," John said via the comms. "Moving down". He was followed by Brian. At the bottom, "Locked door, padlock. Any of the Muz got a key?"