The Increment

NINETEEN

Matt froze. His muscles stopped moving, and he could feel the blood slowing through his veins. 'Who are you?' said the man, walking swiftly towards them.

Matt pulled himself upright, making sure Eleanor was at his side. His overalls were dirty after climbing out of the lift shaft, and there was still dust clinging to his hair.

'Ch-Ch-Ch,' he stuttered, twisting nervously, as if he was inflicted by a terrible stammer. 'Ca-Ca-Ca,' he continued louder this time.

The man looked at him closely, the styrofoam coffee cup still held in his right hand. Everyone is troubled by people with disabilities, Matt figured: they want to spend as little time with them as possible. 'Ca-Ca-Ca,' he coughed.

'Cleaners,' said the man, trying to be helpful.

Th-Th-Th,' spluttered Matt.

The man looked towards Eleanor. 'Cleaners, right?'

'Ah-Ah-Ah,' she said, twisting her face into a contortion.

'Cleaning,' shouted Matt, his face suddenly triumphant, his hands resting on the man's shoulder.

'You're filthy!' said the man, pushing Matt's hand away. He dusted off the shoulder of his shirt, as if it might have been contaminated. 'Just get on with it.'

He turned, and disappeared towards his office on the left, collected his jacket and called the lift. He was leaving for the evening.

Bastard, thought Matt.

He walked swiftly down the corridor. Eleanor was following on behind him, as they stepped into the main offices. Matt checked immediately to see if anyone was there. The desk where the drop-dead gorgeous secretaries had sat was empty: Matt could see a copy of Red magazine and a packet of Nurofen lying open on the desk. Matt took out his duster, and started wiping down the surface of the desk. 'Start cleaning,' he said. 'Make it look real.'

Behind him, he could see Eleanor starting to dust with one of the cloths they had brought with them. Matt pushed open the door that led directly into Lacrierre's office. The place was empty. Matt started looking around, checking the walls for cameras. Nothing. That can't be right, he told himself. There must be more security. Perhaps Lacrierre doesn't like to be watched while he is working?

He stepped up to the desk. A diary was placed on top of it, plus a mobile-phone charger. Next to it was a PC, a standard Dell that you might find in any office. Matt looked at it closely. The machine was switched off, and there was no sign of any cameras hidden inside the monitor. Safe enough.

He looked at the keyboard, then the mouse. No wires, he noted. There was nothing physically connecting the peripherals to the computer. That's it, thought Matt. Lots of people installed Bluetooth or one of the other wireless systems to get rid of the clutter of wires linking up to the PC. But they were also a common security device. Tiny broadcast signals allowed the different parts of the machine to talk to each other, but the transmissions could also be linked into a security network.

Anyone touches this piece of kit, it's going to trigger an alarm and a couple of dozen security guards are going to come screaming in here, shooting everything that moves.

Matt looked at the back of the PC. The Bluetooth connection was plugged into the USB port. Carefully, he unplugged it, laying it down on the side of the desk. I shouldn't be risking this, but I don't have any choice. If the goon squad are not here in ninety seconds, I'm in the clear.

Matt looked anxiously at his watch. He walked back towards the door, glancing down the corridor. At least the floors were stone, he noted, not carpet. If anyone was approaching, they would hear it a long way away.

Nothing. We're clear.

'Got the disk?' Matt whispered to Eleanor.

She nodded, walking towards the computer. Matt booted it up, waiting while it purred into life. As the Windows logo switched on, he opened up the Start menu, clicking on a series of icons. He had never tried this before, but it had been explained to him on an electronic-warfare course in the regiment, and he just had to hope it worked. On most corporate systems, if you deleted the operating system from a Windows desktop, then reloaded it, you could choose a new password. Once you had done that since, you knew what the password was, you could break into the machine.

'OK,' he whispered.

Eleanor slipped the disk into the CD-ROM drive — a standard Windows installation program — and Matt clicked Install. He could hear the hard disk kicking into life: the familiar whirring sound of data being distributed around the machine. He started to pace the room nervously, walking up and down, pushing his mop in front of him, pretending to clean. He emptied one bin, then walked on, his mind focused on the task ahead of them.

'OK,' whispered Eleanor. 'It's done.'

Matt leant over the computer. Set password, said the computer. Matt hesitated, then tapped in 'Orlena'. Confirm password, asked the machine. 'Orlena,' Matt typed. A message flashed up on the screen: 'The computer is now ready to use.'

It took an effort of will for Matt not to punch the air in triumph. He steadied himself, squeezed Eleanor's hand, then looked down at the screen. 'We're in.'

'Start looking at the files,' said Eleanor. 'Look for anything to do with XP22.'

Matt started searching. There were several hundred documents stored on the machine, and he knew it was a long shot. But it was the only shot they had. Unless he could find some hard documented evidence that Tocah had been in charge of the XP22 program, then he had nothing at all.

'Here,' said Eleanor, her finger jabbing at the screen. Within 'My Documents', there was a folder called 'Alanbrooke'. 'Just outside the Ministry of Defence building on Whitehall there's a statue of Lord Alanbrooke. I must have walked past it a hundred times.'

Matt clicked on the folder, opening up a dozen files on the screen. 'Transfer them,' he said. 'I'll watch the door.'

Eleanor had already set up a new Hotmail account for herself. Transfer all these files to it by email, and they would have their own copies of them. They could study them at leisure. And if Matt's hunch was right about what was in those documents, they could nail their man.

Matt stood by the door, glancing behind him. At the computer, he could see Eleanor's fingers working feverishly, attaching the documents to emails, then pressing Send. She repeated the same task, again and again. Up ahead, Matt could hear something. It was barely audible at first, but it was growing in strength.

A footstep.

Matt looked back towards Eleanor. 'Quick,' he hissed. 'Someone's coming.'

He could see fear in her expression as she looked back at him. 'Just three more.'

Matt stepped into the corridor, then out into the main reception area. He could see a woman approach, carrying a sheaf of papers beneath her arm. One of the drop-dead gorgeous secretaries: a Natalie or a Natasha or a Nadine.

Maybe she recognises me from the last time I was here, thought Matt, a flash of anxiety running through him. Her eyes ran up and down him, but she appeared to be more concerned by the state of his overalls than his face.

'Who are you?' she said, looking sharply towards Matt.

Matt glanced behind him. Eleanor was still at the computer. He pushed his mop along the floor, then looked back up at the woman. 'Ch-Ch-Ch,' he stuttered.

'What?' she said angrily. 'Speak properly.'

'Ch-Ch-Ch,' said Matt, leaning closer to her.

The woman backed away. 'There are no cleaners allowed into Mr Lacrierre's office,' she commanded. 'Who are you?'

'Ah-Ah-Ah,' stuttered Matt. 'I am…' He started coughing violently. 'Ah-Ah-Ah.'

'You'll have to leave immediately,' she said. 'Now.'

Matt glanced backwards: Eleanor was still at the computer, but she had her duster out, pretending to wipe the screen. The woman was walking towards the desk. Matt swung the mop up into the air, holding it above his head, then started to move swiftly across the floor. The woman turned, just in time for her to see the handle of the mop slipping over her neck. Matt held it tight between his forearms, bunching his muscles up. The wood cut into her, pressuring the windpipe, making it impossible for her to breath. 'I'm doing you a favour,' whispered Matt in her ear. 'The shortage of oxygen to your brain will make you unconscious, but it's not going to leave any bruising. I wouldn't want to mess up your face.'

Whether the woman appreciated the gesture, Matt would never know. She slipped to her knees, her skirt riding up around her thighs as she fell. Her head flopped to the side, as her body rolled away. Matt snapped the mop away, checking her pulse. Still breathing. From his pocket, he pulled out a white cloth and a roll of tape. He pushed the cloth into her mouth, then taped it over. Next, he slipped her hands behind her back, and taped them together. She'll be OK until the morning, Matt reflected.

Our luck is holding. But not for much longer,

'Out,' he hissed towards Eleanor. 'Out.'

Eleanor put a coffee and a ham sandwich down at his side. The bread was two days old — part of the supplies Ivan had left for them at the safe house in Hammersmith — but it still tasted good. When you're hungry enough, and frightened enough, any food tastes OK.

'Let's see what we've got,' said Eleanor.

'Yes, let's see…' said Ivan.

He walked out of the shadows. Matt looked up from the laptop Ivan had supplied for them.

'Just keeping an eye on you,' said Ivan with a grin.

He sat down on the floor, pouring himself some coffee. Eleanor had already downloaded all the files they had taken from Lacrierre's office. Her face was framed in concentration as she started to scroll through them, her eyes darting from left to right as she tracked the mass of information on the screen.

'It's here,' she said eventually, her voice soft yet determined. 'It's all here.'

Matt walked around her, resting his arms on her shoulders and peering down at the screen.

'Tocah was paid by the Ministry of Defence, all through the 1990s, to produce and develop a bravery drug for NATO. Called XP22.' She stopped, her fingers darting across the keyboard. 'One hundred million pounds, paid out of the defence budget every year, over a period of ten years. That makes one billion pounds.'

'The bastards,' said Matt grimly. 'The government was behind it all along.'

'British secret service,' said Ivan. 'You can't trust them.'

Eleanor pointed at the screen. 'The money wasn't paid directly into Tocah's account. Obviously, they had to keep it secret. It was paid out to a series of dummy companies, based in different locations around Europe. All of them secretly owned by Tocah, and the money was flowing back into the company so that it looked like legitimate income from selling their pharmaceuticals.'

Matt shrugged. 'Makes sense. If you had a bravery drug, you wouldn't want anyone to know about it. Least of all the poor bloody soldiers you were planning to give it to.'

Eleanor scrolled further down the list. 'Here, these are the men they gave it to. A list, their names.' Her fingers ran down the glass surface of the screen. 'Fifty men, just as we were told.' She paused, taking a deep breath. 'Five of them died during the course of the treatment. But look, here are the others. Barry Legg. Simon Turnbull. Sam Mentorn. David Helton. All the names I started out investigating. All the ex-servicemen who started going crazy with no previous history of mental illness. All their names are on this list. And they've all got a capital M next to them.'

'For mort,' chipped in Ivan. 'The French for dead.'

'Ken Blackman, in Derby,' said Eleanor. 'His name has been crossed off the list as well. Dealt with.'

'The bastards,' said Matt.

Ivan took a sip on his coffee. 'If the side effects are only coming through now, a few years later, you don't want too many homicidal maniacs springing up around the country. Sooner or later someone is going to start putting the bacon and chicken and lettuce together until they've got themselves a whole club sandwich. Just the way Eleanor started to. No, if they want to keep what they've done a secret, and they have to, then the only thing to do is to eliminate the evidence.' He knelt down, his eyes squinting and his finger pointing at the screen. 'Who are these payments to, then?'

Eleanor followed the line of his finger. 'One million each year, from the money generated by the bravery drug,' she said. 'Paid out to two accounts in Luxembourg.'

'Who are they?' said Matt, finishing his sandwich.

'We don't know, just numbers, no names,' said Ivan. 'But I'd say they were the key.'

Matt stood up, walking towards the window. His muscles felt tired, and strained. He was longing for a beach, and the feel of wet sand beneath his feet. He wanted to smell the salt of the ocean, and fill his lungs with the sea air. He was tired of the city, he was tired of hiding.

'But we've got enough, haven't we?' said Matt. 'We know about XP22. We know that Lacrierre imported it to this country, and sold it to the MOD. We know it was tested on British servicemen. We know some of them have gone crazy, a direct result of the medicine they were given. We know they are killing the men it was tested on to cover up what happened. What more do we need? Everything has fallen into place. We've cracked it.'

Ivan walked across the room, standing next to him. He held out a coffee, thrusting it into Mart's face. 'Take a good sniff,' he said. 'It's time you woke up and smelt some of this.'

'Meaning?' snapped Matt, suddenly filled with anger.

'Meaning you don't seem to have figured out what you are going to do with this information. The deeper you get into this, the more trouble you are in. So what's the plan now? Go to the police? They'll arrest you. Go to the Firm? They got you into this mess.'

'A newspaper, as I said before,' interrupted Eleanor. 'They could blow this scandal wide open.'

Ivan chuckled to himself, turning away. 'In a John Grisham book, maybe. Not in the real world. One sniff of this story, a newspaper would get itself shut down. Any journalist who knew even part of the story would be quietly disposed of. They're deadly serious about this, Matt. That's why the Increment is already on to you. This stuff is toxic. Anyone who touches it is dead.'

'A foreign newspaper,' persisted Eleanor.

'No,' said Ivan, with a shake of the head. 'You'll look like a nutty conspiracy theorist. They'll think you're raving mad. You've got to tie it all down.' He paused, looking directly at Matt and Eleanor. 'You have to find out who these accounts belong to. Right now they don't mean anything. Until you get that information, you don't have any way to convince anyone of your story.'

Matt was standing by the window, looking out on to the dingy block of council flats opposite. 'It's us against the world, Matt,' said Ivan, resting his hand on Matt's shoulder. 'If they were offering odds on this one down at William Hill, my money would have to be on the world.'

Matram looked down at the corpse. She had stopped breathing some minutes ago, the last breath silent and quiet as the anaesthetic sent her into a deep sleep, and as her heart slowed to a rate at which life could no longer be supported.

He cracked the back of his fist hard against the side of her cheek, his knuckles bruising the skin. 'You stupid bitch,' he muttered, his tone harsh and rasping. 'You should have told me where he was.' He turned round, looking at Trench and Snaddon. 'I want this body moved.'

Trench looked back at him coldly. 'We could leave it here,' he said. 'The apartment is empty. It could be days, even weeks, before anyone finds it.'

'Don't you understand anything, you damned fool?' he said, his voice rising. 'I want the bloody corpse discovered. Get it out of this building, and put it down in the middle of the nearest car park. Anywhere it's going to be found immediately.'

He looked down again at Gill, closing her eyes with his fingers. 'It's like a worm,' he said. 'The angler digs the poor little animal out of the dirt, kills it, sticks it on his line and casts it out into the river. All so he can use it to catch the fish.'