Chapter One

Tuesday 27th April 2010

0:00

In hindsight the people involved in the events of the next few days should almost be able to hear the click that happens as Monday 26th April changes to Tuesday 27th April. Suddenly the events leading up to that point have gone from being the past and the events that are to follow are in a league of their own.

When midnight strikes, there is an entire building in the dark with the exception of one solitary light, which threatens to burn into the night, rivalling the brightness of the moon. Regular passers by at this time of night would have spotted that this light never seems to be off, well at least as long as the darkness rules the sky. The light in question comes from the office of a Mr. David Oswald, the CEO of the modestly sized Progression Software.

  The light is on six storeys up and he owns the entire floor in this large building. There are many companies in here and it is safe to say that his company is generating more money than any other housed there combined. And he has not made a single illegal transaction through the company.

Anyway, before I start to sound like his accountant, I should move on. The floor is not even being used to optimum capacity. There are a lot of empty rooms filled with rubbish that David will probably never get round to clearing.

The reception area is used but is never really manned. But it’s the welcoming area to anyone who cares to visit. There is a main office and, off that, the office that is currently spewing light into the darkness. This is David’s office in case you had not already guessed. There’s also the standard Kitchen area and Male and Female toilets.

David’s employees consist of five of the brightest programmers in the country. There is also talk of David finally getting a receptionist but it will probably never happen. The phone service is permanently on night service, to be picked up by whoever grabs their phone first. He has given serious consideration to a receptionist just as a first contact for clients if nothing else. He gets easily distracted from such things though. It is hardly top of his priorities at the moment.

The main office consists of six desks – one for each employee and an extra one for David when he wants to have one of his informal chats with them.

There’s a water cooler in the corner - this is very thirsty work after all – beside the window on the left hand side of the office. The view is not very good for morale. There is an identical looking building facing them across the street.

The desks have a Spartan feel – only their computers are at each station. Nothing else. Two of the people who work here have partners. One other had a fiancé who is… not around any more. But there are no pictures of them on display.

The toilets are luxurious by office standards. They have more charm than the entire main office. They manage to combine an old elegance with an almost futuristic feel.

David Oswald had never hired a cleaner. Of course he has thought about it. That is another employee on his list. He has enough money to afford a receptionist and a cleaner. However, the toilets still manage to be spotlessly clean whenever the employees come in the next day. Everyone assumes that David is doing the cleaning but nobody has ever caught him in the act.

The Kitchen area has all the mod cons. A cooker and a microwave sit on a beautiful and expensive looking worktop, along with a kettle and a cupboard.

Inside, the cupboard contains forty-two identical looking mugs. The drawer underneath has forty-two tablespoons, forty-two knives, forty-two forks and forty-two teaspoons. Thirty-six of them lay unused – each member of staff only ever using one each and leaving them on a lower shelf in the cupboard.

There is also enough room for six people to sit comfortably and eat together in the kitchen. But these chairs are never filled.

  David’s office is beautifully elaborate. He has a large black leather chair, which would look incredibly tacky was it not for the fact that it goes so well with the large oak table. He has a set of three trays on his desk; one each for “In”, “Out”, and, as someone has jokingly written (he’s not sure who but he has his suspicions), “Shake it all about”.

A picture of a man in a Black Suit, his clothes identical in every way except for the colour to the charcoal grey one that David always wears, sits hung up on the right hand side of the office. To the left he has a slightly nicer looking window to the one we saw earlier in the main office just outside his door, but with an equally dismal view.

David is sitting at his desk, reading a report on something that is in no way related to his official business. He doesn’t look tired in the slightest even though he has not set foot out of the office all day. The only thing that distracts him from his reading is the sudden crash from the main office. His head shoots up and he is heading to the door before he is even aware of what he is doing.

The door flies open and he is greeted by nothing on the other side. Even in the darkness he spots the source of the noise right away. A plastic bin has tipped over and there is an old used inkjet cartridge inside, which has fallen noisily against the non-carpeted flooring. He walks over and picks up the fallen item and places it in a larger bin. He walks back to his office and says, “I suppose you’d better come in!”

Kevin is surprised when he hears David tell him to come into his office. He has not expected him to see him. He curses lightly under his breath – not even a swear word but still quite a big deal as far as he is concerned. The element of surprise he anticipated has now been lost.

David leaves the door open for him and Kevin follows him through into the beautifully decorated room. David sits down and, without a word, motions for Kevin to sit down in the seat across from him.

In the light of the office, Kevin and David face each other for the first time. They wear identical looking suits; the only difference being that Kevin’s is lighter than David’s. These gentlemen obviously know the same tailor. For a few moments nothing is said and it is Kevin who finally breaks the silence.

“I suppose you’re wondering why I called by tonight?”

“Not at all!” David replies. “I have a good memory for dates.”

Kevin nods. Today is an anniversary that affects both of them.

David, who had been sitting up straight, slouches forward in his chair and clasps his hands together. “Kevin, you know that the answer is still no don’t you? I mean you’re not coming here to me tonight thinking that I would have some sudden change of heart because of the date?”

Kevin flashes a dangerous smile at David. “I don’t know why you’re fighting this. You’ve read the same books that I have. You know where you belong.”

“Let’s just say I’m not a hundred percent sure of that yet.”

Kevin looks completely humourless now. “You must know I am getting pretty desperate now. People are beginning to question my decision.”

“You can leave!”

Kevin laughs at this but there is not a trace of humour in it. “And where would I go? You seem to be the only person who can survive in the middle.”

“You wouldn’t be alone. I could help.”

“That’s a backward step David. You should be coming to me, not me to you. We both know that.”

“Kevin I can’t help you. Not right now, anyway”

“It’s reaching the stage where I am going to have to take more desperate measures.” Kevin waits for the answer with baited breath.

David sits straight again. His smile is even more dangerous than the one Kevin has displayed moments before. “Was that a threat?”

Kevin stands up. “You can take it whatever way you want.”

“Sit down!” David orders.

Before he even knows what he is doing, Kevin is back on the seat.

“Let’s get one thing straight. You do anything that compromises me or my employees and not only will I not join you, but I will destroy you…”

Kevin looks angry. “Is that any way to talk to a friend?”

“You ceased to be my friend the moment the thought to ‘Take more desperate measures’ crossed your mind.”

Kevin’s mouth dries up. David is not joking. He has fucked this meeting up.

“Now leave. I don’t want to see you here again. The next time we meet will be on my terms.”

Kevin stands up again and walks out of the office. He doesn’t look back but gets out as quickly as he can, simply out of the fear that his legs are going to give way underneath him.

2.

Tuesday 27th April 2010

0:04

Gary Ingalls, one of the employees of David Oswald has just stepped through the door of his house, expecting to have to apologise to his girlfriend for coming in so late from work. He is surprised when he discovers that he has managed to get back to the flat before her.

He had been the last person to leave the office having got into a conversation with David before leaving for the night. David has a habit of keeping people hanging onto his every word and making them lose track of time.

Maybe that is one of the reasons that Gary stays working for the man despite all the personal risk.

Gary is a computer programmer. He was not long out of University and had landed on his feet with the highly paid job at Progression. He found out quickly just why the job was paying so well.

It had taken just under a week. There were three employees then instead of the five David had now – Gary and two women called Alice and Belinda. He liked them both from the start but he sometimes worried about Alice. She could be a little volatile. Belinda was very funny and more his type of girl. He sometimes wondered if Isabelle had not been on the scene if he would have ever got together with her.

David took Gary into his office and had told him that there was actually a little more to the company than he had initially led him to believe in the interview. He told him that there had been a few carefully structured questions in the interview, the answers to which had secured his position in the company. Gary did not have a clue what he was talking then.

“I was kind of hoping that we could push you into this a little more slowly but it seems that you’re going to have a baptism of fire…”

  “When?”

  “Tonight.”

And so Gary had been forced to call his girlfriend and tell her that he was working late that night. It was not a lie. But that was just the beginning of the life of deception that he had found it was easier to live than to tell her the truth. She couldn’t handle the truth.

He was very concerned when he got off the phone and saw how serious Alice and Belinda were. He understood then there was a good chance that the job paid so well because they were going to do something illegal that night. There was no way that he could ever have been ready for what was actually going to happen

In hindsight he wondered what the carefully structured questions that David had talked about that made him a “suitable candidate” for this line of work were. He tried to remember the interview and could not think which answers would have led him to believe this.

`But the first thing he learned about David Oswald was that he was never wrong or it was so rare an occurrence that Gary didn’t even notice.

They had gone in David’s car and Gary had been allowed to sit in the front even though Belinda called shotgun. He soon saw why David had wanted him in the front. Alice appeared to be doing a weapons check in the back. At that point he could have happily told David that he was no longer interested in working for the company.

But how does one walk away from an armed criminal organisation and stay alive? Gary chose to stay where he was and see what happened. He was sure that he would regret that more than actually leaving and being shot down like a dog.

Of course, by the end of the evening he felt that it might have been better if he was working for a criminal organisation. The risks were probably lower.

The car stopped in the hills outside the city and Alice stepped outside, armed with a gun that someone with her frame should have had trouble carrying. But she managed somehow. David could see the look on Gary’s face.

“Don’t worry. I don’t envisage any real problems.”

That was comforting.

Gary managed to get out of the car because it was obvious that David and Belinda were not going to get out before him. He looked very nervous seeing Alice armed. She could tell.

“David, are you sure that he was the right guy?”

David got out of the car and was followed by Belinda.

“You said the same thing about Belinda!”

There was an awkward silence. Belinda looked at Alice. “Did you?”

Alice said nothing and smiled slightly.

“Bitch!” was all Belinda said, but they both laughed.

“What the hell’s going on?” Gary asked.

Belinda handed him a gun. He didn’t take it

“Somebody tell me what’s going on?”

“See, an inquisitive mind. That’s exactly the type of person we’re looking for.”

Gary spun round to look at David. “I have an inquisitive mind, do I? You’d have to be a fucking vegetable to not be a little inquisitive about what’s going on here.”

David seemed a little taken aback by this.

“David doesn’t really like swearing”, Belinda told Gary, as if that managed to explain the whole thing.

Belinda offered him the gun again and he shook his head.

“Gary, I’m afraid that if you don’t take that gun you can’t come with us. I don’t think I made a mistake with you. I’m pretty sure you want to know what this is all about, and that you will want to be a part of it when you find out. If you don’t want the gun, you can stay at the car and we will speak no more about it. You will have to appreciate that if this is the case then I will not be able to keep you on my staff.”

“Of course I want to know what this is all about. I’d just rather know instead of being handed a gun and being told to follow you into… whatever this is.”

“Trust me”, Alice said. “You’d rather not know. If you did know you wouldn’t come. But once you’re there you’ll understand that you had to come.”

Belinda handed him the gun and this time, Gary took it.

He could still see David’s smile as he led the way from the car, unarmed.

Gary learned a lot that night and had no idea why David lived this life but knew there was also programming to be done too. He wondered if there was a link somewhere. If there was then he could not find it.

Gary, bless his heart, decided recently that he should tell his girlfriend about his new life before she starts to wonder why he sometimes doesn’t come home until the early hours of the morning. God forbid she would start thinking that he was having an affair.

He wonders what she will think? Would she believe him? Would she ask him to quit?

Gary hopes not because, for the first time since he was a kid, he is having fun. Of course everything has its bad points. Since Gary had started this job he had seen more death than he cared to mention. Luckily it has not been anyone that Gary knew. Not yet, at any rate.

He does not know at what point exactly he starts to worry about the fact that she hasn’t come home. But it comes. They have a mutual agreement that if they were tired they would not wait up for each other. Gary can feel his eyes going together but he is never able to go to bed without her – not unless he knows that she is going to be away all night. He has always made an excuse when she comes in and sees that he is still up; he had just got up for a glass of water or something. He knows that she never believes him.

It is not even that late when he begins to worry. It’s just because of the line of work he is in now that he is thinking this way. He knows what can sometimes be lurking out in the dark. He has wanted to tell her all about the things he has seen. If she were to walk in the door right now then he would break down and tell her everything.

But she doesn’t.

3.

Tuesday 27th April 2010

00:07

Robert Alloway is David Oswald’s newest recruit and he is also trying his hardest to be noticed more by him and considered part of, if not the defining member, of the team. He knows in his heart of hearts this will never happen – at least not while Alice and Belinda are there. Or Robert and Edward for that matter.

One of the problems he is currently having – a problem that all of the members had to face with the exception of one – is that he cannot come to terms with his normal everyday life outside of his new line of work.

He used to try and go out with his friends every night (money willing) just because he didn’t want to lose touch with the people that he grew up with. He had managed to do this all the way through University (which had been tougher than he thought) and had realised that it would probably be easier to do it in a work situation too.

He has been very wrong on that count.

A lot of people stop seeing friends so much when they start working because they are simply too tired. Friendships simply cease because the people change, getting used to going to bed that bit earlier because of the stress they had to induce during that day of work. They still acknowledge each other in the street and say, “We really have to meet up soon”, but it just doesn’t happen.

Robert has a different problem. Work is just so cool. He has seen so much in the short time that he has been in David Oswald’s employ. The people he works with are cool, especially David Oswald, who seems like he can do anything. He also really likes Gary Ingalls, who is simply a frame of reference. He can’t be like David Oswald – why not try to be like Gary?

He still remembers the exhilaration when Gary handed him a gun. Everyone looked so comfortable holding one with the exception of Edward. David never seems to carry one but Robert was sure on that first night that he was packing one. There was no way that you could walk into the situations they did and not have more backup than your bare fists.

But, boy, he has seen David improvise.

They had gone to a warehouse that first night. Apparently there was a lot of activity in a collection of abandoned buildings around this way. Robert had first thought that they were a secret crime-fighting organisation. He wasn’t really that far wrong when it came down to it.

He found out later on that he had taken the gun with a lot less fuss than Gary and Edward had. He had been proud of this fact for a little while until he thought more about it. Surely that made Gary and Edward better people than he was. He would have to work on that

He doesn’t like thinking about things like that for too long and puts it to the back of his mind. This is not the type of work that let you get away with self-doubt.

They had gone into the warehouse. Things seemed to be very quiet. Robert was not a great fan of clichés but things did seem to be too quiet.

That was when the trouble started. A group of cloaked figures came in wielding knives. Their stances seemed to denote that they were guarding something and were willing to die for it.

Fair enough.

Robert raised his gun. Nobody else did.

David looked at him and coldly said, “Put it down.”

Gary helpfully told him “they might be human.”

Of course they were human, what else could they be?

David ran forward and started to fight with them. There were too many for him and the other joined the fray. Robert did not like the idea of fighting armed people with his fists when he had access to a gun.

David seemed to be doing the best. He managed to disarm a few of them and knock them into unconsciousness. Alice and Belinda also seemed to be quite skilled in this. Robert, to his disgrace, did not manage to subdue any of the cloaked figures. He looked a little ashamed.

Once the fight was over, David made sure that none of them were going to wake up any time soon. He removed their knives from them and put them in a bag that Alice was carrying.

“Why didn’t we threaten to shoot them?” Robert asked confused as to what was happening.

“It’s an empty threat!” Edward answered for him.

“They don’t respond to it. They’re willing to die for what they are protecting.”

“And what are they protecting?”

Nobody answered. They were obviously not willing to spoil the surprised for Robert. Why should they? Nobody had spoiled it for them.

“So can somebody clear something up for me?”

“What?” Belinda asked.

“Just why do we carry guns then?”

She smiled but didn’t answer.

Robert found out what the guns were for a short time later.

Going out with your friends after you have done some of the things that he has been a part of recently seems really boring. If anything, Robert has even more energy since he started. But he simply cannot be bothered with the hassle of pretending to be interested in his friends’ lives any more.

He thought this way for a little while but, of course, he eventually noticed that working for Progression Software had turned him into nothing more than an arrogant fool. It was good that he was able to notice such things and it was better that he noticed now instead of when it was too late to change what he had become.

This was what made him decide that tonight was the night to organise a night out with his friends while he still had some. Luckily it had not reached that awkward stage and all of them came with the exception of a friend who had arranged to go on Holiday.

He was very surprised that he managed to really enjoy himself in the bar; despite the raw adrenaline he felt fighting alongside David and the others. He has had quite a bit to drink but it is allowed – he cannot remember the last time he has done this.

It is just so good to chill a little sometimes and he is pretty sure that he needs it. Already the relaxation has been enough to make his body realise he is really tired and the aching has begun. He welcomes this, knowing that it is a sign that he has taken things too far of late and has simply blocked out the pain he has been feeling because there simply wasn’t enough time to feel it.

He vows to do this more often. But, like the “I’ll never drink again after that”, hangover vow, he doesn’t manage to keep to it. Of course, there is a story to why he doesn’t but this will come later.

4.

Tuesday 27th April 2010

00:10

Gary cannot, at the moment, comprehend how much trouble Isabelle is actually in. He is still expecting her to come through the door at any moment. This is not likely.

Six minutes after Gary got into the house, she was still where she had been for a couple of hours. By the time Gary starts to really worry about her she is still there. She is currently tied up in the basement of a disused building, struggling in vain to get free with only a vague recollection of events leading up to this moment.

She is not in possession of all the facts either. For instance, she has no idea what her boyfriend’s job entails and how he has become part of a group, led by David Oswald, which stops the people who currently have her imprisoned in the substandard accommodations she is currently residing in.

She also has no idea that the men who grabbed her have had their humanity almost snuffed out by forces of great darkness that she was not even aware existed.

The third and final thing that she does not have a clue about is what they want with her. This is the only thought that is conscious in her mind and, is the thought that is the most frightening to her.

So how did she get here?

She had been walking home a little late after one drink too many (maybe two) with one of her friends from work. The thought highest on her mind was whether or not she would manage to get back to the house before her workaholic boyfriend stumbled in with apologies that he had a lot on at the moment. She had almost not heard the noise that came from the alleyway she passed by.

She did not consider herself to be a very brave person so decided to continue walking on her way. Whatever was going on in there had nothing to do with her and she was sure that it was nothing really. But suddenly she heard a voice that sounded more like the way a snake would speak English, if it were able to do so, than a human voice.

It said her name.

“Isabelle!”

She spun round at the sound of her name, spoken in such a horrifying way. Her body started to cool immediately and goose bumps appeared on her arm. Not that she was even remotely aware of this. Her body had simply numbed. She was not a superstitious person but she did not think that it had sounded remotely human. She had seen enough horror movies with Gary (or not seen them, as the case may be, with her face driven into the crook of his arm, asking for him to tell her when the bad bit was away) to know that this was not a good scenario.

Just about then she spotted something that put a lump in her throat and, in a more rational setting, she would have known for a fact that it couldn’t be her heart. But there was no rationale here right now, in this place. The main street that she was on, usually bustling with life at this time of night, was completely devoid of anyone except for her. It was almost as if there was some sort of bad feeling associated with this street, something that had warned off everyone except for her.

Foolish Isabelle, she thought.

The voice came again, as horrible as before. “Isabelle!”

She is still unsure about whether the voice had rooted her to the spot because the hypnotic snake like sound had transfixed her or it had frozen her with some sort of incomprehensible fear.

Now she struggles with her bonds, fearing that her next few minutes might be her last, spent in a stinking disused basement.

The time that she was transfixed would have been enough to make an escape if she had been able to. But she had stayed too long. Suddenly dozens of pairs of arms shot out from the darkness. She could not make out much but could see that her attackers were wearing cloaks, which covered their faces.

At that point, Isabelle managed to let out a scream. She still thought of it as a loud thing, enough to summon someone to help her. But, in reality, it had been nothing more than a dull croak that even her attackers would have had trouble hearing if they had not been close enough to feel her terrified fast breathing on their covered faces.

To say that she went quietly would have been a lie. She tried as hard as she could to fight them off, but the fact of the matter was she was but one woman and there were too many attackers for her too handle. It would come as no relief to her as she did not even know the woman, but Alice Cuthbert would have lost a fight with these odds too and she was David’s best warrior.

As she tried, in vain, to fight the men off, she managed to knock on of their heads back with such force that she was convinced for a moment that she had killed him. But his head came back up from the almost impossible angle that it had been placed in, now minus the hood that he had worn moments before.

He was completely bald but Isabelle did not even notice this. The things that struck her were his eyes. Even now she would have trouble describing them to anyone, despite the fact that she had thought of not much else, but at that point so many thoughts had come into her head to describe those eyes, all of them now gone.

The unmasked man licked his lips and sneered at her horribly as he pushed a wet handkerchief into her face. For a brief moment she could concentrate on nothing more than a very strong smell, which was almost like bleach.

Her nose got used to the smell in a matter of seconds, although to her it felt like a lot longer. Her mind swiftly returned to the bald man. He’s on drugs, she thought. He has to be.

There was no other rational explanation for it.

Rational explanation.

But then the chloroform took effect and she knew no more.

And when she came back round the sight of the man and his cloaked companions was nothing but a distant memory. She has been awake for a little while now and is still in the exact same situation, tied up too tightly to ever hope to escape on her own.

But she is a very determined woman and this little factoid does not stop her from trying. There is no way that she is going to give up. Gary will be worried sick. She wonders if he has called the Police yet.

The thought of Gary is the one thing that keeps her trying to escape. But deep in her mind she is already thinking that she has seen one of her kidnappers faces. There is a very good (if good is an appropriate word to be using in such a situation) chance that she might never get out of here alive. She might never see Gary’s face again.