Hunter Hunted by Jack Gatland (best value ebook reader .TXT) 📗

Trix shook her head. ‘No. It was an upload, nothing more. From what I could work out, some other outside source created it. Monroe was supposed to read it, and because of what it said, he would most likely distrust Taylor. You know, in case she came to you with any wild claims.’

‘So you have no connection with Rattlestone?’

Trix paused. ‘Why would you think that?’

‘Because we think they made the file. Care to confirm or deny?’

Trix sighed. ‘Look, I don’t work for them, but I know them. Have done for years. Pearce Associates often used them,’ she admitted. ‘Security, off the books things, things like that. And I know that they’re connected to Whitehall somehow.’

‘How?’

‘Above my pay grade.’

‘You don’t have a pay grade.’

Trix grinned. ‘Yeah, fair point.’

Declan thought back to the conversation that he’d had with Kendis the previous day. With the concerns that she had, he understood very much why someone would want her credibility questioned.

‘And the attack?’

‘Nothing to do with me, I swear,’ Trix replied. ‘I was just to upload the file and drop out. But someone, not Whitehall sanctioned, was doing another op at the same time, and whatever they did to the network to jam it, well it kinda froze my systems before it fully loaded my file, locking me into the network. I was trying to exit the bloody thing when Monroe started talking.’

‘Talking?’

Trix nodded. ’I had his laptop camera on at the start, but watching him staring at his screen meant he was effectively staring at me, so I’d disconnected the visual. He’s a scary-looking bugger.’

Declan nodded at this. Trix continued.

‘The other webcams in the office were all facing away, but the microphones were on. I heard him speak, and reconnected the visual to see what was going on, but he wasn’t at his desk anymore. His voice was faint, in the main office, away from a microphone and I had no way to record, so I held my phone to the speaker on my computer. Because of that, I only got part of it, but I got enough.’

She pressed the screen of her phone, moving to the Voice Memo app. She pressed the start button and a voice, faint and distant, could be heard.

‘If this means anything to you, it’s nothing personal.’

Declan froze. He recognised the voice that spoke through the speaker.

The voice of the man with the rimless glasses.

‘So this is how it ends, eh laddie?’ Monroe again.

‘Yeah, pretty much.’

Trix turned off the voice memo. ‘That’s all I got. There’s a lot of crashing about afterwards.’

‘I need that,’ Declan reached for the phone. ‘This proves who attacked Monroe.’

‘Does it?’ Trix pulled the phone away. ‘Think about it. All I have is dialogue, and faint at that. It could be anyone. It could be you.’

‘Me?’ Declan sat back in the chair. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘It’s why I’m here,’ Trix placed the half-drunk mug of coffee on the table. ‘There are people out there who are seriously out for you.’

‘Rattlestone.’

‘Yeah.’

Declan sat silent while he processed this. ‘And killing Monroe is part of that?’

‘That wasn’t part of what I was doing,’ Trix admitted. ‘But yeah, you’ve made a lot of enemies who’ll go that far to hurt you. They’ve been waiting for you to slip up, and now they’re taking matters into their own hands.’ She shifted on the sofa. ‘From what I could hear through the laptops, you were on the run after Derek Salmon’s death. Someone in the office told you to take the train because there was a tracker on your car.’

Declan nodded. ‘I kept off the grid until Beachampton. What of it?’

‘Billy, probably thinking that he was helping, remotely turned off your car tracker, just in case,’ Trix replied. ‘But it was a day pass of sorts. Twenty-four hours.’

Declan thought for a moment. ‘And how does this affect me?’

‘Christ, you’re dense. Let me explain it so you might understand. I only get an hour a day when I can get away without being followed by other departments,’ Trix explained. ‘They all watch each other as much as outside threats. Anyway, I came here yesterday, same time. You weren’t here.’

Slowly, Declan understood.

‘I was—‘

‘Don’t lie,’ Trix smiled. ‘You had your phone on you, and I tracked the cell towers.’

‘Christ, Trix—‘

‘I know you were in Putney,’ Trix continued. ‘But nobody else does, yet. What they know is that you were in a car that couldn’t be tracked.’

‘Billy and Anjli spoke to a wine bar,’ Declan replied slowly as he worked through the revelation. ‘They sent me an email about it. The barman said that a man in a grey Audi parked outside Temple Inn on the night. And that the gate guard didn’t question him when he entered because he thought the man was me.’

‘Bingo,’ Trix nodded. ‘There’s no proof you weren’t, unless you dob in the woman you had an affair with that night to be your alibi. Who might also be rumoured to be a terrorist, and therefore an unreliable witness.’

‘You mentioned the cell towers.’

‘That just proves your phone wasn’t there. Not you.’

Declan rose now, pacing. ‘Monroe finds a report, left on his laptop that states that Kendis is a terrorist, with a UK handler. Then a man, pretending to be me, attacks him.’

Trix rose from the sofa to face Declan, glancing down at her watch. ‘Baker wanted Kendis to be ruined, but he didn’t want her dead. That’s not his style. He also didn’t hate Monroe enough to do that. But here’s the thing. Adding what happened to Monroe to what I was doing? It was genius, but had to be done by someone who not only knew that Rattlestone had created the file, and that Baker was having me upload it. It became a moment of opportunity, to not only go for you and the Unit, but pin this on Baker.’

‘Because they can show you uploaded a file for him.’

‘Yeah. People won’t realise it’s two separate ops. They timed it to the second.’

‘And you don’t know