Blackout - John Milton #10 (John Milton Thrillers) Read online

  That was good. It was what he had wanted. He had been battered yet again, but he hoped that it would be more difficult for de Lacey to reach him here.

  He tried to work out what time it was, but that was impossible. He usually had an instinctive feel for day or night, but not now. He would make it a priority to find out the time. He had been kept in solitary before, and having a rough idea of the time was a crucial part of hanging onto sanity. The passing of hours and days was a constant around which he could balance out the loss of his liberty.

  He heard the sound of footsteps. He gingerly rolled over and tried to sit. His muscles had locked up, and the effort of raising himself up was excruciating. He pushed himself to a sitting position as the slot in the door scraped open.

  “You are awake,” a man’s voice said.

  “What time is it?”

  “That is unimportant. You will stay here now.”

  “Where am I?”

  The man didn’t answer. “You killed another inmate. Killed one and badly hurt two others. You will be kept here for your own safety until you can be tried. After that…” The man let the words peter out. “Well,” he began again, “after that, you will return to the main prison and I doubt you will last very long. But we must keep you safe until your sentence is passed.”

  “Water,” Milton said. “I need a drink.”

  “Later.”

  The slide scraped back again and Milton heard the footsteps retreating.

  It was progress, he told himself. It was what he had wanted.

  So why didn’t he feel any more optimistic?

  Part III

  51

  HICKS PUSHED up the blind and looked out of the porthole window. The 747 was on its final approach and he could see the lush green canopy of trees as they descended over a forest and then the sprawl of metropolitan Manila ahead.

  He had purchased a ticket to the Philippines last night. He knew that Rachel was not pleased to see him go, but he explained that he couldn’t ignore Milton and she had told him that she understood. He had been a soldier for many years, and during that time there had been months that he had been forced to spend away from his family. They had hoped that those days were behind them, but this was something that could not be ignored.

  Hicks told her that he expected that this would be only a brief absence. She told him to hurry home.

  He had driven to Heathrow and caught the overnight Philippine Airlines flight. It was scheduled to take just under fourteen hours, and he had watched a film with his dinner and then slept.

  He watched through the window as the jet descended. There was a seemingly long moment as the jumbo slowly navigated the final few feet to the ground, the hangars rushing by in a blur, and then the wheels bumped and the rubber squealed and the plane slowed.

  Hicks looked out at the terminal bathed in a brilliant bright afternoon sunlight that promised a hot day and found himself wondering what his stay would bring.

  * * *

  HICKS MADE his way through immigration into the arrivals hall. He had arranged to meet the woman here, but, as he looked into the sea of expectant faces, he realised that he had no idea what she looked like. He had her cellphone number and was about to call it when he noticed a young woman working her way to the barrier. She was holding a piece of paper with his name scrawled across it.

  He raised his hand and, as she acknowledged him, they both set off to meet at the end of the barrier.

  “Mr. Hicks?” the woman said.

  She was wearing a police uniform: a dark blue skirt with a lighter blue shirt. The shirt was decorated with the badge of the Manila Metropolitan Police, there was rank insignia on the shoulder, a ribbon above her right breast that noted her citations and a nameplate that identified her as Officer Hernandez. She wore a pistol belt with a holstered Glock.

  “That’s me,” he said.

  “I’m Hernandez,” she said.

  “Nice to meet you.”

  “How was your flight?”

  “Long.”

  She led the way out of the terminal building. The early afternoon heat washed over him.

  “Hot, yes?”

  “You could say that.”

  “It’ll get hotter. I’m afraid the air conditioning in my car doesn’t work very well, either. And we have a long drive ahead of us.”

  She led the way across the road to a multi-storey parking lot.

  “Where are we going?” Hicks asked her.

  “To prison,” she said. “We need to see your friend.”

  52

  HERNANDEZ DROVE them to the south. Her car was a bit of a wreck; the transmission sounded as if it was on its last legs and the air conditioning was shot. The foot well was littered with trash: empty cans and paper coffee cups, newspapers, empty sandwich wrappers and fast-food packaging, a plastic carrier bag. Hicks swept it aside with his foot.

  “Sorry about that,” she said, nodding down at the detritus.

  “How long have you been in the police?” he asked.

  “Long enough.”

  “How is it?”

  She shrugged. “It was better before.”

  “Before what?”

  “The president. There’s a lot of violence now that wasn’t here before. A lot of mess for us to clear up.”

  They had spoken on the telephone for fifteen minutes yesterday, but now she took the opportunity to take him through everything that had happened to Milton since he had arrived in Manila. She explained what she had found at the hotel room on the morning before Independence Day, and the process by which she had peeled away the layers of lies and deceit until she was convinced that Milton had been framed.

  “You didn’t say why he agreed to come out here,” Hicks said.

  “The woman said that he was the father of her son.”

  Hicks had never heard Milton speak of children before. “And is he?”

  “I don’t know.”

  They cleared the city and she was able to pick up speed.

  “How do you know him?” she asked.

  “What has he told you?”

  “That he worked in intelligence. And that he was a soldier before then. And that you have a similar background.”

  To a point, Hicks thought. Milton was the reason that he had not gone into intelligence; he had refused his transfer to Group Fifteen because he saw something that he believed made him unsuitable for the role. It turned out that Milton had been right about that.

  “Well?” she asked.

  “I was a soldier,” Hicks said. “For a long time. I got out and I found myself in trouble. Milton helped me.”

  “That’s why you came? You owe him?”

  “Yes,” Hicks said. “I do.”

  * * *

  IT TOOK two hours to drive to Bilibid. Hicks looked through the windshield at the building ahead of them. It was oddly ostentatious for a prison, with a facade that looked like a castle with two towers and crenelations across the top of the structure that looked like battlements. A tall flagpole, easily a hundred feet high, held aloft a Filipino flag that draped limply in the feeble breeze. A sprinkler chugged rhythmically back and forth across the wide patch of lawn between the parking lot and the entrance.

  “That’s a strange building,” he said.

  “That part is old. The prison is behind it. It’s new. They built it a few years ago.”

  “It’s secure?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “So what do we do now? How are you going to get me inside?”

  “I’ll come in with you. I’ll say you’re from the British embassy and that you need to speak to him.”

  “Why would I come to the local police to do that? Wouldn’t I just come down on my own?”

  “They won’t ask questions. The guards are lazy.”

  Iron gates rolled shut behind them, restricting their access to the road by which they had arrived.

  “If they do?” Hicks asked.

  “They won’t. Trust me.”

/>   * * *

  HICKS GOT out of the car.

  Josie followed him. “I’ll go first,” she said. “And let me do the talking.”

  “Understood.”

  They crossed the lawn and followed a neat path that led to the main entrance. There were two guards at the open doors, leaning against the wall with cigarettes in their mouths. They glanced up at Josie and then Hicks and then resumed their conversation.

  Hicks followed Josie inside. It was cooler here, the shelter of the thick stone walls providing pleasant relief from the strength of the sun outside the door. Hicks saw an office with a Plexiglas window dividing it from the lobby. There was a short corridor ahead of them and then another lobby that was equipped with two X-ray machines and an airport-style metal-detecting archway.

  The guards might be lazy, he thought, but it wasn’t going to be easy to bring anything into the facility.

  Josie made her way to the Plexiglas window and spoke through a grille to the clerk behind it. Hicks waited a few paces behind her. He watched the comings and goings in the lobby: uniformed guards passed through on their way to or from the interior of the facility, all of them armed with pistols that they wore holstered on their belts; clerks and officials crossed the space, using the doors on either side to, Hicks guessed, make their way to their offices. He saw a blaze of bright light from the second lobby with the security equipment, a pair of double doors had been opened, and he caught a quick glimpse of the courtyard beyond.

  “This way, please,” Josie said to him.

  “Is everything all right?”

  He saw satisfaction in her eyes. “Yes, sir,” she said. “Mr. Smith is going to be brought to the visitors’ room. We’ll see him there.”

  53

  THE VISITING room was functional. It was the communal space where the inmates were brought to meet with their visitors. Hicks would have preferred somewhere private, but they would have to make do with what they had been given. He was grateful that he had been able to make it this far without his cover story being questioned. Officer Hernandez had accompanied him to the room and then taken a chair in the waiting area. Hicks said that he would collect her when he had finished with Milton and then they would leave together.

  He glanced around the room at the other inmates: they were male, tough and bore the bleakness of their situations across dead-eyed and expressionless faces. Many of them had prison ink on their exposed skin, their arms, legs, and faces decorated with crude tattoos. The inmates were distinguished by their orange shirts. Their visitors, for the most part, were dressed poorly, their tired and mismatched clothing suggesting that they, and the men that they had come to visit, originated from the poorest strata of Filipino society. Hicks remembered the gleaming new airport and the skyscrapers of upscale Manila that he had seen as he and Hernandez had driven south, and knew that a place like this would have collected the dregs.

  Hicks looked at his watch. He had been here for ten minutes. He turned to the door, wondering whether he should go and speak to Josie, when the main set of double doors on the north wall opened and a man was brought inside. He was marked out as an inmate by the same uniform as the others, and Hicks almost disregarded him. His face was bruised and marked by cuts that had been clotted with dried blood. One eye had been forced shut by a socket that was swollen and blackened. He walked with a limp, hunched over with an arm pressed to his side as if to protect damaged ribs.

  Hicks looked away, and then, as he noticed that the newcomer was coming across to his table, he looked again.

  He hadn’t recognised him. It was Milton.

  “Jesus,” he said.

  Milton nodded and lowered himself gingerly down onto the hard wooden seat. “Thanks for coming,” he said.

  “Can we speak safely?”

  “They don’t listen in,” Milton said. “We’re lucky. If this was a room to ourselves, they’d bug it. I don’t think they care here so much.” He stretched out his shoulders, exhaling painfully from the effort. “How do I look?”

  “Terrible.”

  “I’ve felt better. I’ve been roughed up every day since I’ve been here. You got my message, then?”

  “She called me last night.”

  “And you came right away?”

  Hicks nodded. “I flew overnight.”

  “I bet your wife was pleased about that.”

  “We owe you, Milton. She knows.”

  “You don’t owe me anything.”

  Hicks waved that away. “We’ll have to agree to disagree on that.”

  “Well, thank you. I appreciate it.”

  “What’s happened to you?”

  “You mean how did I end up here?”

  Hicks nodded.

  “I was tricked.”

  He told Hicks his version of the story: how he had been approached in London, how he had been told that he was a father and that the mother of his child wanted to see him. He explained how he had been framed so that he could be brought here to be tortured by a man from his past with a grudge to bear.

  “They’re clever,” Milton said when he was finished. “They knew me. They knew exactly which buttons to press. I’ve been alone for a long while. And that’s fine—I don’t want sympathy; it’s my choice. But when someone says that you have kin… a son…” He paused. “I let it blind me. I should have been more careful and now, because I wasn’t…” He paused again. “She’s dead and here I am.”

  “This man—who is he?”

  “Fitzroy de Lacey. He’s an arms dealer. I was responsible for him being convicted. He was here for ten years.”

  “Was here?”

  “He got out two days ago. I don’t know how. The regime changed. Maybe it’s more friendly to him. Maybe he’s offered to work with them. But he’s had help from the police. I should be in a holding facility in Manila, not down here. Hernandez said that her boss arranged the transfer. And then she was threatened and thinks it was him. So I think we can assume that he’s involved.”

  Milton glanced meaningfully at Hicks. He waited until the guard who had approached their table from behind had continued upon his way.

  “You’re not going to be able to take many more beatings like that,” Hicks said.

  “I know,” Milton said. “But I think I’ve bought myself a little time. I put some of de Lacey’s goons in the infirmary when they came for me yesterday. They said I killed one of them. They’ve put me in solitary until they can work out what to do with me.”

  “And when they put you back in circulation again?”

  “I’m hoping you might have been able to get me out by then.”

  Hicks sucked his teeth. “That won’t be easy,” he said. “The guards aren’t anything special, but the building looks secure.”

  “I agree. You’re going to need help.”

  “You got any ideas?”

  “Actually, I do. I have someone in mind: a man I worked with when I was in the Group.”

  “One man? This isn’t a two-man job, Milton.”

  “I know, but he’s brilliant.” He hesitated. “Well, he’s eccentric, but he’s also brilliant.”

  “At what?”

  “Computers. I think this will be right up his street.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Ziggy Penn.”

  “Never heard of him,” Hicks said.

  “No reason why you would. He’s a bit of a hermit.”

  “It’s your funeral. Where do I find him?”

  “The last I heard he was in Korea, but he’ll have moved on now. He doesn’t stay in one place long. Tends to wear out his welcome. The last time we worked together I had to bail him out of trouble with Yakuza in Tokyo.”

  “So? How do I get to him?”

  “There’s a UseNet group. It goes way back, before forums. It’s run by fans of The Smiths.”

  “Right,” Hicks said. “The Smiths.”

  “The site’s legitimate, but Ziggy monitors it. He has software installed. It pings him if a cer
tain message is posted.”

  “What do I post?”

  “You’ll need to remember it: ‘The last night of the fair, by the big wheel generator.’ Make an account, open a new message, and post that.”

  Hicks screwed up his face as he tried to remember. “What is that? ‘Rusholme Ruffians’?”

  “I didn’t know you liked The Smiths, Hicks.”

  Hicks smiled and shrugged. “I lived in Manchester when I was younger. I prefer the Mondays, but I can live with Morrissey. I’ll do it as soon as I’m out. What’ll happen next?”

  “He’ll reply and tell you how to contact him off the board. He’s a bit unusual, like I said. Cut him some slack. We’re going to need him. Tell him what’s happened and that he needs to get here as soon as he can.”

  “If he says no?”

  “He won’t. He owes me a favour or two.”

  “I see a theme developing here.”

  Milton grimaced; Hicks realised it was actually a thin smile.

  “You need anything else?”

  Milton’s expression was wry once again. “A helicopter in the yard?”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  Milton reached across the table and took Hicks by the hand.

  “Hey!” a guard shouted.

  Milton squeezed Hicks’s hand. “Thanks. I won’t forget this.”

  “Hey! No touch!”

  Milton let go.

  “Try to stay in one piece,” Hicks said.

  “Get Ziggy and then work out how to get me out of here. I can look after myself until then.”

  * * *

  JOSIE LED the way out of the prison. She was silent until they got back into her beaten-up old car.

  “Well?” she said. “What are you going to do?”

  “You don’t need to worry about—”

  “You’re going to try to get him out?”

  “He shouldn’t be in there,” he said. “You know that. He’s been set up.”

  “I know he has,” she said.

  “And we can’t wait for him to go to trial.”

  “It wouldn’t matter,” she said. “It wouldn’t be fair. It’ll be fixed.”