Dark Market

Chapter Thirty One

Chapter Thirty One

Jones was in a meeting. The talk was all objectives, strategies and the bigger picture. The dicks around the table swung with impunity, the game players, the politicians, made noises about productivity, results, and the tax payer. Each one only interested in their own futures, their own bank balances, their own careers.

Jones had joined MI5 to make a difference, but the longer he stayed in the organisation working the corporate beat the more he realised that his own office had the same problems as the big firms.

And if corporate crime went virtually unpunished at every level, at times it was even worse in government circles. After all who would guard the guards themselves?

No one, he thought. Beat coppers always said they spent so much time around criminals that they were nearly one and the same. He couldn't see any difference with the men and women around him who worked on terror cells, traffickers and corruption.

He knew corporate crime affected him, he'd even said 'moving forward' in conversation the other day when he'd meant to say 'next.'

The dicks all swung in his direction when his phone began to vibrate on the conference table.

'Sorry,' he picked up the phone and recognised a number from the Maclays office. Not the usual extension.

All eyes focused on him. His boss, big man Cavendish said, 'Get rid of it.'

Jones muted the ring but it still buzzed quietly.

'It's about time you told us how you're getting on with your investigation at Maclays,' Cavendish said.

'I'd better take this then sir. It's a Maclays call.' A begrudging nod from the boss and he stepped out of the room.

'Jones,' he answered.

The woman at the other end gabbled at him, he held the phone away from his ear. He listened in as the voice continued, as she laid out the answer to what he'd been searching for all these months.

He recognised the voice of Trevor Thomson in the background. The woman continued talking over the top of Thomson to finish her story, then stopped.

Jones's head span. She asked a question. Then again.

'What are you going to do?' she said.

He looked out over the office, troubled men and women working hard on case loads that mostly went nowhere. They didn't even call them cases here, but that's what they were. And he'd always liked to close.

'Put Thomson on.' A moment's shuffling, then Thomson's voice.

'Who is this?'

Operational Intelligence Officer Jones, MI5,' he said. 'Can you verify what Miss Wilson is saying?'

'I'll have to verify who you are before I can answer that,' Thomson said.

Damn him. 'Of course, look our HQ number up on the website, I'll be on extension...' he kicked one of the junior officers in front of him out his seat. 'What number is this?'

'216,' the rookie said.

'216,' he repeated into his mobile. 'Got that?'

'Yes,' Jones hung up. Don't give them any choices.

Then he waited. The rookie looked petulant.

'Sir?' he said, shifting weight from foot to foot.

The conference room door opened.

'Jones?' Most jumped at Cavendish’s rumbling baritone. Jones had dealt with worse. 'It's time, come and tell us how badly you're doing.'

He pointed at the phone. 'Actually, sir,' he said, making the word sir sound like dickhead. 'I think I've got something. Waiting for call back.'