E-Book, Englisch, 297 Seiten
Mckenna The Back Rose Conspiracy
1. Auflage 2022
ISBN: 978-3-98756-725-4
Verlag: Lone Cloud
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
E-Book, Englisch, 297 Seiten
ISBN: 978-3-98756-725-4
Verlag: Lone Cloud
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
I was born while enemy aircraft bombed London, spent some of my childhood amidst the wretchedness of post-war Austria, then with siblings and mother, followed my military father across the world. At the age of 15 I joined the British Army and attended the apprenticeship college at Harrogate, then the Royal School of Military Engineering. At 17 I passed selection for the Paras serving in the Gulf and Europe. Afterwards, running my own electronic and physical protection company came easily and gave insider knowledge for my crime thrillers The Unseen, The Uncounted and The Unwanted. Now a father and grandfather, in parallel to these crime thrillers, I have ventured into the action/fantasy world of the young reader aged 12+16. The Mind Traveller is a series of three books where Rosie adventures deep into the unchartered universe of Mind Space. Second and third is The Witch's Shadow and Warrior Of The Light. As a fulltime writer I live between the UK, Portugal and Ireland.
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CHAPTER 4
Detective Chief Inspector Sean Fagan edged his second-hand Ford car through London's rain and traffic as he headed for the offices of the Organised Crime Agency in Pimlico. Cobbart had given the meeting Priority One, that gave Sean hope of finally getting a job. Six months of writing reports on national crime statistics was not his idea of active policing. The statistics had shown a huge surge in criminal activity and a spiralling drop in criminal prosecution. It coincided with an early release policy to ease overcrowding in prisons. The public were losing patience. So was Sean.
He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel while listening to the second movement of Beethoven's Fifth Piano Concerto on the car radio. Outside, gusts of wind shaped clothes around the bodies of people, creating a vision of figures hewn from rock while blusters of shrapnel rain blistered the windscreen between the monotonous thump of the wipers. Winter had passed, so had spring and unseasonal storms at the start of summer reflected his mood. At forty years of age he knew his disenchantment with professional life had arrived too early. He had left the police to join CAT, the Combined Agency Task Force so he might fight crime without the rule books. So far that fight had not materialised. Classical music, good wine and good food gave support to the solitary existence of his private life. He knew a good woman would help but since his split with Victoria, no other had chanced his way and his wife Camilla seemed long ago. He did not consider himself a handsome man. Tall and solidly built with a nose large enough to give character, he channelled his intellect into understanding his job and environment. In this way he saw women as pleasing entities who passed him by. Yet he knew a chance for him remained because he also watched their eyes and caught their smiles.
Beethoven faded into annoying adverts then a reader came on with a news summary. A child molester had been released from prison due to a technical fault at his trial. Two young girls had been raped in Epping Forest. A pensioner had been jailed for attacking a burglar who stole his military medals. Judith Holmes, window of John Holmes the MP who had been brutally murdered by an intruder at their home six months previously, had won the by-election for her husband's vacant seat. On a pledge for law, order and female equality, she had increased the number of seats held by the Democratic Justice Party to six. The fastest growing political party in England, the next election would see the DJP outpace the Liberals, their demands for radical reform of the justice system, police and female rights, gave them popular support and tabloid backing.
"Just get rid of the wankers and the paperwork," Sean said to no one. "Get rid of the politically correct who bog the system with administration. Let the police go to work."
Twenty minutes later Sean entered the office of Chief Superintendent John Cobbart and greeted him with a wave, surprised to see his own boss, Colonel Fox of the Combined Agency Taskforce also sitting at the table. Fox nodded in greeting.
Cobbart sat amidst his usual pile of chaos. Every chair, every working surface covered with files, papers and books. A greeting came with the devious troll-like smile, after which he was nicknamed. He waved Sean to a chair.
Sean moved two sets of box files to create room before sitting. His summons to HQ had come out of the blue. With these two present it had to be a decent job. Six months after being seconded to the Combined Agency Taskforce, he had no assignment or team. Time was hanging and filled with frustration.
The troll sat in his familiar pinstriped suit, dandruff on his collar, grey hair in need of a cut, half-rimmed glasses on the end of his nose. His appeared more academic than a serious policeman but Sean knew him as a hard-edged taskmaster; someone with little time for the new breed of political administrators. One of the old boys, Cobbart backed his men and stood his ground. He moved papers on his desk, tapping a finger. Not a good sign.
"Colonel Fox is here by my invitation," Cobbart said. "Because he knows more about what we will discuss than I wish to know. The police do not want to become involved in any part of CAT activities. You will also be pleased to know you've finally been allocated an assignment."
Sean sighed relief. "About time. I've been hanging out for six months."
The troll shifted more papers. "Well this might not be quite the job you had expected but I assure you it is vital to future national security."
"John, please, no more nondescript admin. I went from detective inspector to chief inspector. I volunteered for the Combined Agency Taskforce to combat terrorism and global crime. All unofficial and off record, so off record, that CAT does not officially exist."
"That's because the rules we work by are totally unorthodox," Fox said. "But we still need the right operative for the right job. What I will offer you is an assignment needing, skill, diplomacy and most of all, secrecy."
Sean gave them his nice guy smile. It was wasted. "So, what is this assignment?"
"Operation Black Rose. Murder, corruption, sex and politics. An everyday story of parliamentary folk." Cobbart pushed a folder across the desk. "The Democratic Justice Party now have six members. Analysts predict at the next election the House will be hung and because of poplar support the DJP will increase their seats to possibly one hundred plus. In other words, they will have access to serious power."
"That's democracy."
"But is it?" Cobbart sat back and laced fingers. "In the last two years the DJP has become the peoples' answer to widespread disenchantment with Government failures. It promises popular solutions. Rigorous control of crime, rigorous control of discrimination against women, the return of education to the teachers, the return of medical health to our doctors, civilised behaviour on our streets and removal from administrations of a politically correct bureaucracy that places criminal rights above the peoples' rights. All funded by serious money."
"Peoples' power and peoples' bullshit. Anyone serious knows they won't deliver."
"There lies one of the dangers. In a democracy a lot of non-serious people have the vote. They do not vote as a consequence of weighty, intellectual judgement; they vote for whomever the tabloids dictate. They vote through emotion or anger. So, they nearly always vote for the wrong people."
Sean raised his hands and spread them in question. "That's democracy. Voting is a precarious gamble."
"Granted, but you will agree, most votes are cast on emotional assumptions."
"That's people power."
"Like the communist revolution?" Cobbart parted his hands and raised one finger. "All the DJP members of parliament are women. It is basically an all-female party and consequently draws support from female voters across a wide political spectrum, including, I might add, my own wife." Cobbart sat back and shook his head. "She used to be a diehard Conservative."
Sean grinned. "Women can be fickle. But it's their prerogative. That's not a crime, John. What the hell is this to do with CAT?"
"Everything," Fox said. "Elected members of DJP have called for the electronic implanting of tags into all criminals for five years after serving their sentences."
"That would make our job easier," Sean said.
"Other leading voices in the party have called for the surgical removal of hands from habitual burglars, the castration of repeat rapists, forced re-education of problem families, life sentences for drug dealers and many other crimes."
"That's to catch the vote. It will never happen."
"It already has. At 2am this morning a burglar on early release who had forty previous convictions was dumped outside Nottingham City Hospital with both his hands hacked off. Nottingham is where Judith Holmes, DJP won her parliamentary seat. In Leeds a mother and two daughters have been arrested for cutting off the genitalia of a freed rapist. He had sexually assaulted the youngest girl. Leeds is where Margo Portland, DJP won her seat."
Sean shrugged. "Peoples' justice. It had to come but who really cares other than the politically correct, and only then if the victims are of ethnic race? In reality, gentlemen, most of the country will be cheering. But one thing's for sure, those bastards won't steal or rape again. Likewise, a bullet in the brain or bollocks solves a lot of problems."
Cobbart's troll smile appeared. "Off the record, my sentiments exactly and that's one of the worries over DJP. The more popular they become, the more atrocities will occur. The grannies of this country, the mothers and the women who are constrained by real fear, are giving vent to their anger. They see justice and safety forsaken for the benefit of criminal welfare. That anger is boiling and, I fear, it will throw a lot of mutilated criminals to the surface."
Sean shrugged again. "So call out the granny police. It's social unrest, not organised crime."
Cobbart shook his head. During the following silence the muted noise of London's traffic became audible. He rasped a hand over the stubble on his chin.
"Fear can make people irrational and there is nothing the tabloids like more than using irrational fear to create mass hysteria to gain public support. Our problem is, that covertly riding on the tail of this hysteria is a coalition of ultra-right-wing politics and organised crime. What on the surface may appear to be a group of grannies rallying their sisters in support of law and...
