Meyer-Hofmann AG

34

After returning home from the office, Lisa was desperate to know more about Phoenix IT. Throwing her bag on the lobby table, she turned on a few lights and went into the hobby room, which she had converted into a temporary office. Her company laptop sat on a small desk in front of the bay windows. Drawing the curtains, she made a mental note to get them changed. This was the only room in the house where Britt Petersen had obviously had no say on the interior decoration. Its walls were whitewashed, and the floor was covered in a cheap pine-coloured laminate. There were strange pieces of art on the walls, including an African mask. Framed, dried flowers and a massive collage of coloured glass chips interspersed with diamante crystals that portrayed a rough approximation of the garden beyond the bay doors added to the room. It was obviously an amateur piece, making Lisa wonder which member of the couple was responsible for the monstrosity. Firing up the laptop, she logged into the company server, knowing it was not the safest strategy, but time was not on their side. Michael could lose control at any time, so the sooner they could go to the authorities, the better.

Certain that Steve Walker was responsible for Phoenix IT, she started the search for proof. PricewaterhouseCoopers filing was very efficient, and it was not long before she found copies of the company’s registration. The company was Austrian and would have paid its taxes to the Austrian government had it not been writing off its main investment, a large office building in Ellmau. A few taps on the keyboard had shown development to have cost far in excess of fifty million euros. The company’s staffing bills were also astronomical, with over 200 employees, all of whom seemed to be on six-figure salaries.

This could be it. These were large sums of money, maybe to support a criminal network? Lisa was unsure if this was enough evidence to spark an investigation.

So intense was her concentration, she became oblivious to everything apart from the intricate web of companies built around Phoenix IT. All the companies were co-dependent, and all serviced the giants in the portfolio. It seemed that whenever Meyer-Hofmann were not able to find a suitable company for purchase, Steve would simply start a new one and make one of the Meyer-Hofmann board members its CEO. The variety was mind-blowing. It was accounting genius. Obscure companies all over Europe and North America completed a web of financial possibilities. One particular company stood out from the others: Mills Medical. They were a customer of Phoenix IT, paying enormous fees for a ‘complete business solution’. Including a small server farm, at a cost of six hundred thousand dollars. Mills Medical’s business was stem cell research, with laboratories in England and the United States. Its largest customer was another Meyer-Hofmann company called Brunwick Security Limited, who provided security for governments and large companies operating in the world’s hot spots. Like many of their American competitors, they were hiring ex-military personnel from all over the world and using them as security guards for plant, equipment, and personnel. The security firm was paying Mills Medical for stem cell enhancement, repair, and regeneration treatments. The circle was completed by an invoice addressed to Phoenix IT from Brunswick Security. The paper trail did loops, hoops, and pirouettes, all of which led back to Meyer-Hofmann and a massive money-laundering operation.

Lisa sat back in her chair and blew out a deep breath.

“This is amazing!” she said out loud. “And if any of these invoices are for actual services, these guys have put together a considerable mercenary force, which Steve is setting off against tax.”

Back in Munich, Steve Walker was just leaving the office when his mobile phone rang. The orchestral ringtone of the Star Wars theme escaped his pocket.

“Yes?” he said, without checking the caller ID.

“Can’t you sort that out by yourself? No, no, okay, I will get back to you.”

Turning around, he headed back into the building, tired and frustrated that his American colleague was not able to take care of the problem himself. Entering his dark office, he flicked on the lights and moved around his desk, pressing the spacebar on the keyboard to wake up the computer. Throwing his leather jacket over the back of his chair, he sat and rolled up his shirt sleeves. Logging on to the intranet, he hammered at the keys, becoming more and more infuriated by his colleague’s incompetence the more he thought about it. It was only as he was about to log out that he noticed the small computer icon in the corner of the screen. The intranet allowed a user to log in on multiple devices so that they could easily transfer information. By clicking the icon, you could immediately continue work remotely on another device anywhere in the world. Puzzled, he clicked on the little square, thinking maybe he had left his laptop on that morning. Staring at the screen, it was not long before he understood what was happening.

“You clever little bitch,” he said under his breath, whilst picking up the phone.

Lisa missed the same icon appearing in the top corner of her screen. She stood and stretched for a second, letting out a loud yawn, and set off into the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea. The Meyer-Hofmann surveillance team got a call from Von Klitzing just before a shift change, where two teams had been watching the Starnberg house around the clock. Back in the kitchen, the squeal of the kettle covered the sound of a car door closing outside the house. Pleased with herself, she took the fresh brew and went back into the office. She hit the print button, and a Brother Printer in the corner of the room purred to life. Drawing the first of sixty pieces of paper into its guts, ready to reveal her inky revelations. She had just reached down to pick up the first A4 side out of the print tray when a hand was placed on her shoulder. Spikes of static electricity shot down her arm and up the back of her neck, making her almost lose her balance. A scream of shock left her mouth at the same time as the day’s tensions found an earth and sought an escape.

“Darling, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you!” Whipping round, she saw her husband, his hands up in a gesture of fake surrender.

“Michael, you silly sod, you could have given me a heart attack!” She slapped his chest hard, it made such a hollow sound that she instantly regretted it. “It is you, isn’t it?” Fear suddenly raced back up her spine, as she considered the possibilities, if the man in front of her was not her husband after all.

“Yes, I’m sorry! Can you take a look at my heel, it’s killing me!”

Sitting down on the one chair in the room, Michael didn’t wait for her sympathy. Instead, he lifted his right leg and looked up at Lisa like a child after a fall, bracing himself for the pain to come. Kneeling, she gently removed his shoe and started on the sock, to much wincing and squirming from her patient. His sock was sodden with blood and stuck to the foot at the heel.

“I am just going to have to yank it off, darling.” She looked up into his face to see him bite down on his bottom lip and nod. With one pull, it was off.

It is amazing how much damage the drawing pin has done, she thought to herself, trying not to let Michael see how much it bothered her. The pin was buried deep into Michael’s heel, and a large black-and-blue circle had formed around its circumference, along with a crust of blood covering the drawing pin’s head. Getting her fingernails under its lip made it come out without much fuss.

“God, you can’t be doing this every day!”

“No, I know. I’ve been thinking about it on the way home. I had to make up some shit about why I was limping. I thought maybe teeth. I’ve got a doggy filling.”

“Oh no, Michael, teeth are the worst kind of pain.”

“You haven’t been wandering round with a drawing pin in your foot for twenty-four hours. Anyway, toothache is easier to explain than a shoe full of blood.”

“Do you really have to be in pain all the time?”

“Not all the time, but I don’t want to take any chances. If Hofmann gets back in control, I may never get back out!”

“No, this is crazy, Michael. We have to go to the police. I have got some evidence that points to financial irregularities. It will have to do. Did you find anything?”

“Christ, Lisa, you won’t believe it. I don’t know if the police can even handle it! What they are planning is military, it’s political—it’s enormous!”

“I know, Michael, look at this!”

The pair spent the next hour linking what Lisa had found with what Michael had seen and heard, their findings making them more and more nervous by the minute. By the time Michael sank into the soft leather of the lounge sofa, it was with a sense of doom and foreboding. Lisa had decided that tea was too weak for the job and was in the dining room preparing them both a large whisky, leaving Michael head in hands, searching his mind for inspiration.

Outside, a dark blue Ford van pulled into a parking space next to its identical twin in front of the house. The side doors of the van slid open, and two men exited, their black bodysuits making them almost invisible against the dense foliage surrounding the garden. Both jumped the garden fence with a scissor kick before crouching down in the cover of a garden shrubbery. One pulled a hand-held dish antennae from his rucksack and held it out in the direction of the house. The other pulled on a pair of earphones, giving his partner the thumbs-up. Back in the first van’s interior, a third man worked over a bank of electronic instruments that sent their signal via a small satellite mounted on the van’s roof, directly back to Gallery Street. Von Klitzing sat in the communication centre on his saddle chair, pushing himself slowly backwards and forwards between the table and the wall, wondering how this day could get any worse. A fury was building in his stomach as the voices of Lisa and Michael Jarvis filled the room.

Most certainly not Heinz Hofmann, he thought

Scratching at the ugly sore below his right ear, he mulled his options. Depressing a button on the control panel, he spoke to the team in Starnberg.

“I want it all on tape, whatever they are planning.”

“Shouldn’t we go in, sir?” one of his subordinates questioned from his control panel.

“No, not yet. How much do we have?”

“She has been logged into the PricewaterhouseCoopers intranet, and we believe she has a detailed record of most of the Austrian-based business. He has been able to tell her everything he learnt from you in Ellmau, sir.”

“Scheiße. Bring them in.”

The operator turned back to his control panel and depressed one of the multifarious buttons opposite him.

“Take them.”

The reaction to the order was instantaneous. The two men in the garden left their cover, dropped their tools, and made for the house.

Inside, Michael had come to the conclusion he could not do this alone. They had no choice other than to go to the police. Shaking his head, he rose and made for the bathroom, his bladder triggered into action by his decision. He passed Lisa as she returned with the drinks, giving her a quick peck on the cheek before heading for the stairs.

“Back in a minute, darling.”

The bright lights of the lounge turned the windows into mirrors, and Lisa watched herself enter the room, her face made even paler by the reflection in the glass.

God, I could do with some sun! she thought.

Staring into the darkness of the garden, she watched as her silhouette slowly changed. Confused by her reflection’s metamorphosis, she moved closer to the window. Her face became boxy, her skin darkened, and her reflection moved, although she was standing still. As she realised she was staring into a stranger’s eyes, a scream raced to raise the alarm. In that instant, the window lost its reflectivity. A milky white wall erupted, followed by a wave of reflected light, bouncing and kicking off the polished hardwood floor. The man had her before she could move, a hand closing around her neck, stifling her cry for help. A second rushed past her into the house’s interior, in search of Michael. Her assailant had a cold, brutish face, and she wondered how she had ever confused it with her own. The oxygen deficiency in her brain turned the lights out, and she slumped to the floor at his feet.

Michael had heard the window shatter and Lisa’s muffled scream. For some reason, he knew what was happening.

They know and they are here! His only concern was for his wife.

Bursting from the upstairs bathroom, he collided with the second man, who had just reached the top of the stairs. It was one of the young Austrian guards, a member of Ecker’s second-generation clones. He was at a clear disadvantage, as his right foot had not yet reached the safety of the landing, and Michael was moving at speed. Ducking instinctively, the soldier tried to avoid the collision, but Michael’s knee came up to greet his rapidly descending chin, catapulting him backwards down the stairs. Michael kept pace with the man’s descent, taking two, then three steps at a time, the whole scene playing out for him in slow motion. He watched as the man’s head impacted with the staircase wall, the plasterboard shattering in a cloud of dust and debris. The man’s momentum pressed his head back into an impossible angle, so that his face was pressed hard into the cavity in the wall. His limp body crashed onto the L-shaped landing in the middle of the staircase like a puppet. Hurdling the body, Michael made for the lounge, only to see his way blocked by a second intruder. The first young soldiers double, his arms stretched out towards him, holding a pistol. Michael sensed the gunshot before he felt the impact.

He awoke lying flat out in the back of a van surrounded by electronic equipment. Two banks of control panels covered both sides of the vehicle. Michael lay in the aisle they formed in the middle of the van, his hands tied tightly behind his back and his feet bound together with plastic cable ties. A searing pain filled his chest cavity, making it difficult to breathe and clamping his ribs together as if they were held in a vice. The fierce pain in his lungs felt as if it may squeeze the last breath from his body, and his only consolation was that Hofmann had no chance of escape. Quickly getting his bearings, Michael looked around, some forgotten training forcing him to act, helping him to assess his situation. A man sat over him, talking into a headset.

“ETA twenty-five minutes. We have the documents the Jarvis woman printed out, as well as the computer. We left the place a mess; they will think it was a robbery. She is traveling in the lead car and should be with you in ten.”

The squawking in his headset was too quiet for Michael to hear, but it was quite obvious what was happening. They were on their way to the club, where they would be interrogated, and most likely killed. The clone who had shot him sat on a typical office chair in front of the console, the chair’s casters allowing it to move backwards and forwards with the van’s motion. Michael waited till the van took a left corner, then kicked hard at the stool’s central leg. The man hurtled towards the driver’s compartment, both man and stool parting company with the floor. Even Michael was surprised by the force he had been able to muster. The man’s headset had been securely attached to the instrument panel in front of him, and as it started to retard his head’s movement, he parted company with the chair, falling back in Michael’s direction. A second kick of the legs directed at the man’s head had a similar effect to the one the staircase wall had inflicted on his unfortunate twin, snapping his neck. The van’s brakes were now being applied, and Michael felt himself being pressed towards the front of the vehicle. Pulling his legs up under his chin, he leant back into the van’s floor, planting his feet firmly against the van’s dividing wall. He allowed the moving floor to help him press his arms and hands down and under his bottom. Pulling them up between the wall and the tips of his toes, he ignored the pain in his shoulders as they tried to escape their sockets. He was on his feet by the time he heard the van’s back doors open behind him. Gripping a handle built into the van’s ceiling, he swung his feet in the direction of the opening door, kicking hard at the last moment. The door’s impact with the driver was perfect, throwing him off balance and sitting him down hard on the road. The pistol he had been holding skipped down the road’s dividing white lines, followed by Michael, who was jumping as fast as he could after it. By the time the driver was back on his feet, it was too late. Michael had the gun pointed at his chest. He did not wait for a surrender. There would be no prisoners—there was no time. Michael fired the weapon without a thought, releasing the bullet at the man’s heart. The impact sent a cloud of crimson blood up into the young man’s shocked face before sitting him down in the road for a final time that night. Michael had expected a rubber bullet; there was no other reason that he was still alive. But this had certainly been the real thing and didn’t allow the shooter the privilege of a change of mind. Hopping to the side of the country road, Michael bit through the plastic handcuffs and quickly untied his feet, before returning to the body and pulling the driver onto the pavement. Only then did he realise the whole event had taken place in the blaze of a car’s headlights. The van had stopped at a point in the road where there were no houses, but a car sat in the middle of the road some fifty metres away. Holding his hands up so as not to alarm the driver, he stared into the lights. There was no movement, no sound. Pulling his empty hand down to shield his eyes, he called out to the driver.

“It’s okay, I won’t hurt you.”

Nothing changed. A minute passed. I can’t stay here for fuck’s sake.

“Come out, I won’t hurt you. Please!”

He had no choice. Running in the direction of the headlights, he expected the car to rev into life and either drive over him or try to reverse away, but neither happened. Within a few metres, the reason became apparent. The front windscreen was shattered, and the body of a young woman lay in the driver’s seat. Her mouth hung open, her eyes unseeing, staring into a dark eternity. Michael’s guilt evaporating he turned and went back to the van, slamming the back doors shut, and jumping into the driver’s cabin. Jamming his foot onto the accelerator, the vehicle took off, lurching into its lane and speeding off in the direction of Gallery Street.

Listening to the events in the control room from the van’s microphones, Von Klitzing didn’t need an explanation of what had happened. Hofmann and Jarvis had become a liability.

“Send a team—kill him!” he ordered.

“Yes, sir. What should we do with the woman?”

“I will deal with her. Have her taken to the interrogation room.” Von Klitzing’s face was ashen, his brow creased.

You will regret this, Jarvis. Your wife will regret this!