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

  “There you go.”

  “So you’re going to get him out?” she said again.

  He didn’t reply.

  “You know you’re going to need help, don’t you? I don’t care who you are or what you and he used to do. You’re out of your depth here.”

  “You don’t know that,” he said.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “I do. And you are. You need help.”

  “You’ve done enough. Milton wanted me to say thanks. He’s grateful. But that’s it. He doesn’t want you to get involved.”

  “I haven’t got a choice,” she said, laying her hands against the wheel. “I am involved. Do you have any children, Mr. Hicks?”

  “I do. I have two.”

  “So you’ll understand. I have a little boy. Someone pushed a picture of him outside his school under the door to my mother’s apartment. There was a bullet with the picture.”

  “Milton told me. And that’s more than enough reason to get as far away from us as you can.”

  “And go where? And do what? If you try to get him out, what do you think is going to happen to me and my boy? They’ll find us.” She shook her head. “My boss is involved. I don’t know how, just that he is. If I help you get Milton out, you can help me. Right?”

  “Help?”

  “Help me find answers. And make it how it was before.”

  Hicks looked at her. Her face was set hard, but he could see the twitch of a muscle in her cheek. She was trying to play it tough, but she was frightened. That wasn’t unreasonable. Hicks knew what the climate was like in Manila these days. Murder was common currency. The police acted with impunity. Milton had already been caught up in the maelstrom of corruption and violence that had been unleashed here. Josie and her son were on the edge of the vortex, trying to strike away from it, but she was compromised and the pull of the current was relentless.

  Hicks would have been frightened, too.

  “Okay,” he said.

  54

  HICKS WAS at the airport at midday. He found a space by the rail in the arrivals hall and held up a piece of blank paper upon which he had written the name ANDY ROURKE.

  Both his time of arrival and the name of the passenger he was ostensibly there to meet had been agreed upon over the course of a series of emails that had taken place the previous evening. He had visited the UseNet forum that Milton had identified and had left the message as he had been instructed.

  What happened next was still a matter of some confusion for him: a forum reply had appeared beneath his comment that comprised just a single, nonsensical hyperlink. He had clicked the link and a chat box had appeared. The conversation had been very one-sided, with his interlocutor—Hicks had presumed that it was Ziggy Penn—firing off a series of curt questions.

  Hicks had initially been reluctant to reply freely and had said as much; the reply was instant and indignant. The chat was secure, Ziggy said, and protected with military-class encryption. And unless Hicks answered each of the questions to Ziggy’s satisfaction, the conversation would be terminated and there would be no second chances.

  Hicks had little choice but to trust that Ziggy was as Milton had described him, so he had answered the questions thoroughly. Hicks explained that Milton was in trouble and that he had requested that he contact Ziggy so that he might come and help.

  That had been twelve hours ago.

  And now Hicks was here to wait for him.

  He looked up as the next group of new arrivals emerged into the hall. There was the usual mixture of men and women on business, backpackers, tourists and locals returning home. One of the passengers stood out: he was of middling height, a little overweight, wearing a New York Jets ball cap and a pair of dark glasses. He was carrying a laptop bag over his shoulder and he walked with a pronounced limp.

  He glanced at the signs that were being held up by the waiting taxi drivers and paused as he saw the one that Hicks was holding up.

  “Mr. Hicks,” he said.

  “That’s right. Ziggy Penn?”

  He didn’t answer the question. “I recognise you,” he said instead.

  “I doubt it. You’ve never seen my—”

  “Of course I have,” the man said peremptorily. “Your Facebook profile took ten seconds to find. You’re not very good at keeping out of the limelight.” Hicks started to protest, but Ziggy cut him off. “Don’t worry, neither is Milton. He thinks he’s off grid, but he doesn’t know what that means these days. Not really. Right, then—where’s your car?”

  “Outside,” Hicks said, pointing in the direction of the short-stay parking lot.

  “Let’s get going.”

  * * *

  HICKS OFFERED to put the bag in the trunk, but Ziggy declined, clutching it tightly to his chest like a toddler with a cherished toy. Hicks went around to the driver’s side of the car, opened the door, and got in.

  “Where are we going?” Ziggy asked.

  “We’re going to meet someone who might be able to help us.”

  Hicks turned out of the parking lot and headed east. The rental had an integral satnav unit and Hicks had entered the address in Taguig that Josie Hernandez had given him. It was a short drive to the east on Andrews Avenue. The satnav suggested that they would be there in thirty minutes.

  He glanced over at Ziggy. He had taken out a large cellphone and was flicking his finger down the screen, scrolling through pages of text that Hicks did not immediately recognise.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Nothing that you need worry about.”

  He killed the screen and put the phone back into his backpack.

  Hicks turned left at the Colonel Jesús Villamor Air Base and merged onto the southbound Metro Manila Skyway.

  “I know plenty about you already,” Ziggy said, apropos of nothing.

  “Really?”

  “There’s not much I don’t know. Alex Hicks. Two kids, wife, you live near Cambridge, you’re ex-military.”

  Hicks got the sense that the man was showing off and that he wanted Hicks to be curious to know how he had found that out about him. He was tempted not to indulge him, but he couldn’t resist. “Okay,” he said. “How did you get all that?”

  “You logged into the forum through your Google account, which is stupid, by the way. And your password was embarrassingly easy to crack. Your wife’s name and your birthday. Really? It took me ten minutes while I was waiting at the airport. I did it on my phone—that’s how easy it was.”

  Ziggy spoke quickly, punctuating his words with little jabs with his fingers. He was animated, too, as if Hicks’s failure to secure his data, or the question of how Ziggy might have discovered so much about him, was a personal affront. He was not a physically impressive man, but the routine way with which he dissected Hicks’s life was unsettling.

  “You bank at Santander. You have six thousand pounds in a savings account and a little under two thousand in your current account. Your mortgage is with Lloyds. You bought your house five years ago, and the repayments stretch you a little.”

  “So you hacked me,” Hicks said with a tight little smile. “Well done.”

  “I wouldn’t be so grand as that. It wasn’t difficult enough to call it a hack.”

  Hicks had always believed that he was an easy man to get along with. He was relaxed and laid-back, and it took a lot to rile him up. He could see, though, that Ziggy Penn was going to challenge his patience.

  The satnav indicated that he would need to come off the Skyway at the next junction. He indicated and turned off when he saw the signs for Taguig.

  “How do you know Milton?” Ziggy asked.

  “So you couldn’t find everything out?”

  “Not everything.”

  “We’ve worked together.”

  “But not in the Group? I would’ve known that.”

  “No. Milton was Number One when I was put forward. He turned me down.”

  “That’s awkward,” he said.

  “Not reall
y. I wasn’t cut out for it. He could see that. I wouldn’t have been very good at what he did. He did me a favour.”

  “So?”

  “Our paths crossed again a few months ago. I was in a sticky situation and he helped me get out of it. And then he helped my family.”

  “Your wife?”

  Hicks realised that Penn was referring to the cancer. The same glib way he dispensed that most personal piece of information was very irritating. “We won’t be talking about that,” he warned.

  Penn frowned, as if struggling to understand the sudden flare of anger, before he gave a little shake of his head and said, “I’m sorry. That’s personal. I don’t mean to pry. Force of habit. I’m a careful person. I don’t fly halfway around the world to meet someone I don’t know without doing my research. But I don’t mean to cause offence.”

  “Forget it,” Hicks said. “He did help with her illness. He helped us find the money for the treatment that she needed.”

  Hicks decided not to go into too much more detail about that. The money that they had used to save his wife’s life had come from the illicit deals arranged by an ex-Regiment man with whom Hicks had been working. Hicks had been desperate and had made a terrible decision; Milton had intervened and had extricated him, most likely saving his own life as well as Rachel’s.

  “That’s one thing we have in common,” Hicks said.

  “What?”

  “We both owe Milton.”

  Ziggy shuffled a little uncomfortably. “He told you about me?”

  “He told me you worked together when he was in the Group. There was a time in New Orleans, during Katrina?”

  “I was badly hurt,” he said. “Hence the limp. Milton got me out.”

  “And then you got into a mess in Tokyo?”

  Ziggy waved a hand in the air. “I’ve made a few mistakes.”

  Hicks could see that the conversation was causing a little discomfort and, much as he found that he enjoyed putting the shoe on the other foot, he decided to relent. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I only know a little. Much less than you know about me.”

  Finally, Ziggy smiled. “You don’t know the half of it.”

  * * *

  THE ADDRESS that Josie had given Hicks was on Labao Street. It was a budget B&B with a sign outside that declared it as the Napindan Castle. It was painted a garish orange, and the crude crenelations atop the wall were a clumsy stab at giving the building a feature to befit its name. Hicks pulled up on the street outside and, as they had arranged, he took out his phone and called Josie’s number.

  She came out of the hotel and checked the street left and right. Hicks flashed the lights and watched as Josie hurried across to the car. She opened the rear door and lowered herself onto the seat.

  “Is everything okay?” Hicks said as he put the car into drive and set off.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I didn’t go to work again today. I said my son was still ill.”

  “Your boss?”

  “I didn’t speak to him. But he must know something is wrong now.”

  “This is the man I told you about,” he said, inclining his head at the front-seat passenger.

  Hicks watched in the mirror as Josie looked forward at Ziggy.

  “What’s your name?

  “Ziggy.”

  “I’m Josie Hernandez.”

  Hicks had hoped that Ziggy would show a little less attitude, and was pleased when he turned to look back at her to return her greeting.

  “Are you going to help?” she asked.

  “That’s the plan. Can we go to the prison now? Hicks says we need to hurry.”

  “I won’t be able to get you inside,” she said.

  “I don’t need to go inside.”

  Hicks saw Josie give a little shrug. “It’s fine.” She looked at her watch. “If the traffic is okay, we can be there in an hour and a half.”

  55

  THE IRON gates had been rolled across the entrance to the prison compound and Josie said that there would be no way for them to get any closer to the buildings without arousing suspicion. Hicks pulled over to the side of the road. It was a little after seven, and the light was beginning to fade.

  Ziggy pushed the sunshade up and looked out at the buildings beyond the gate. “Have you scouted it?” he said to Hicks.

  “I went inside when I saw Milton,” he said. “I couldn’t see anything that looked like a weakness, but I didn’t get to see all of it.”

  “There won’t be an easy way out,” Josie said. “The jail this one replaced was very bad. Men escaped all the time. This is more secure.”

  “What’s the technology like inside the prison?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “What about the network? Is it low tech or high tech?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Do they have Wi-Fi?”

  “I’ve never needed to find out.”

  “Well, we’ll need to know. Here.” He handed her a phone from his bag.

  She took it, looking down at it dubiously. “I already have one.”

  “Not like this,” he said. “This one is special. You need to take it into the building.”

  She handed it back to him. “Not unless you tell me what it’s going to do.”

  “The phone and my laptop are linked. I can control it from here. I need you to take it inside so that I can analyse the network. I need to know where the vulnerabilities are.”

  “Will the guards be able to tell what it’s doing?”

  “No. It’ll look and act just like a normal phone.” He offered it again and Josie took it. “What happens when you go inside?”

  “What you’d expect,” she said. “They put your stuff through an X-ray machine. You go through a metal detector and if it goes off, they pat you down.”

  “The phone? Do you have to leave it there?”

  “They have locked drawers. You put the phone in a drawer. They note down which one it’s in and give you a receipt.”

  “But you can leave them switched on?”

  “Yes.”

  “That ought to be okay. I should be able to get what I need from the network connections in the guardhouse.”

  “How long will you need?”

  “I can’t say. Not long.”

  She looked anxious. “What is it?” Hicks asked.

  “There’s no reason for me to be seeing him. I’ve already been in two times, and then I came back with you. If it gets back to Mendoza—”

  “Who’s that?” Ziggy asked.

  “My commanding officer. If it gets back to him, he’s going to be more suspicious than he already is.”

  “Is there another way?” Hicks asked.

  “Someone has to take that phone into the guardhouse,” Ziggy said. “I can’t do it. I doubt you can.”

  “You can’t,” she agreed. “It has to be me. When?”

  “I can’t do anything until I know what the network is like,” he said.

  “So we do it now.” She swallowed. “Tell me what I need to do.”

  * * *

  JOSIE WALKED to the gate and showed her credentials to the guard. The man was armed with a rifle, but he carried it with the lackadaisical air of a man who had no real idea of how to use it, nor any expectation that he would have to. He glanced at her badge, gave a surly nod, and opened the smaller gate that was reserved for pedestrians. Josie thanked him and walked through.

  She could feel the shape of the phone in her pocket. It was larger than her own, and she suddenly felt certain that it was going to give her away and betray her purpose. She reached across her body with her right hand and tapped her fingers against it. She tried to find her balance again. It was a phone. It looked just as it should. There was no reason why it should arouse suspicion.

  She crossed the lawn and entered the main building. The late hour meant that there were far fewer members of staff in the lobby than had been the case during any of her three earlier visits. There was a clerk behind the
Plexiglas screen, and she went over to stand before him.

  “Hello,” she said into the grille.

  “It’s late, Officer. What do you want?”

  She smiled through the man’s bad temper. “You have a suspect here. A man involved in a case I’m investigating.”

  The clerk was distracted by a TV that was out of sight.

  Josie knocked on the glass. “Excuse me?”

  The man scowled as he looked back at her. “What?”

  “I want to see one of the inmates.”

  “Too late for that.”

  “I’m sure an exception can be made. Do I need to speak to the governor?”

  The man cursed under his breath. “Who is it?”

  “He’s English. John Smith.”

  “Smith,” the man said, tapping at his keyboard. “What about him?”

  “He’s been moved into solitary.”

  The man looked at the screen. “That’s right. Two days ago.”

  “Why?”

  “He attacked other prisoners. Slashed them with a shank. He killed one and put two of the others into the infirmary.”

  “I wasn’t told—”

  “No reason why you would be told, Officer. Smith is our responsibility now. He isn’t under police jurisdiction.”

  “He also hasn’t been tried.”

  “You’re based in the city, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you should have called before you drove down here. You’ve wasted your time and now you’re wasting mine.”

  “I’m sorry. I need to see him.”

  “Not tonight.”

  “Tomorrow, then. First thing. Can you arrange that?”

  “What for?”

  “Police business.” She found the right amount of annoyance. “I’ve had enough with your attitude. I’m serious. I’ll speak to the governor if I have to. What’s your name?”

  The clerk made no secret of his own exasperation, rolling his eyes theatrically. “Fine. What’s your cell number?”

  The mention of her phone gave Josie a flash of alarm that she was afraid she wasn’t able to mask in time. Her heart skittered and she felt the clamminess of cold sweat on her palms. She looked up at the clerk, but, if he had noticed her reaction, it wasn’t obvious. He was scrabbling around his desk for a piece of paper.