Mad Dog No More Heroes Ch 09

9 - Favour:

Vikram Jalal, VJ, was probably my best mate down in the bunker. He was also one of the mice. That's mice as in the spy tradecraft term for the method of recruiting and motivating an asset. Meaning: money, ideology, coercion, enforcement.

Or in other words he'd been conscripted into working for the TSG. Vikram had popped up on our radar while he was studying computing at Sheffield University. He had the bright idea of hacking into the MoD's computer network to see what we were keeping from the people about UFOs.

The answer is, of course, nothing. Or at least, nothing about space aliens. It amuses me that anyone thinks an advanced alien civilisation would be interested in an uncivilized galactic backwater like Earth.

VJ was good. The TSG were better. Only to be expected really, dealing with hackers is a big part of what we do. He was detected and tracked down to a real world address. He got got a rude awakening early one morning when the police knocked on his front door with a big red battering ram.

The management saw something in him. Raw talent I guess. They had an offer for him: join us or go to prison.

Vikram could see the benefit of of completing his degree with a well-paid work placement and the offer of a job when he graduated as opposed to a three-year stretch in one of Her Majesty's prisons. It was a no-brainer really. He signed on the dotted line and joined TSG.

He cornered me when I was making a coffee. The kitchenette has a Quooker, a third tap at the sink that produces boiling hot water on demand. I think it's just a great way to get accidentally scalded. It seems I'm not alone in coming to this conclusion, someone had stuck up a mock up advert for an ambulance chasing firm of solicitors. I read it aloud.

"Have you had an accident at work? Been scalded by an instant boiling hot water dispenser? Would you like to make a small fortune in compensation from the Ministry of Defence? Phone Mouthpiece and Shyster Attorneys at Law today."

"I made that," VJ announced proudly. He spoke with a West Midlands accent, he

sounded a bit like Ozzy Osbourne, but without the swearing and a lot more nerd culture references.

"Cool," I nodded. "It's been up for over a week, I'm amazed no one's pulled it down."

"Nah, that'd be like, you know, being proactive or doing something," he grinned.

"This is the civil service mate, nobody does anything, without being told to by someone higher up the ladder, preferably with an order in triplicate."

Everyone in the Bunker has their own personal tea mug. VJ's was all about life in the civil service and the MoD in particular. It read: "welcome to the cluster fuck!". Mine reflected my life's other passion and said: "I may look like I'm listening to you, but in my head I'm riding my motorbike."

"You know last week when Dirty Harriet gave me the chance to extend my three day weekend into a three-and-a-half day weekend."

"Three-and-a-half day weekend?" Vik sounded confused, "how the heck did that work out?"

"Well, what it was is I had to do a chore for the department down in London in the morning," I explained, "but I got the afternoon off, and Mack didn't have lectures in the afternoon, so..."

I shrugged.

"Oh, nice, spot of the old afternoon delight was it?" he grinned broadly. "What chore did you have to do then?"

I gave him the edited highlights. He looked enthusiastic when I went into detail about my fight with a perverted stockbroker in a pub toilet.

"Mate!" he beamed, "that's like proper James bond shit! You know, like in Casino Royale."

"Yeah, I s'pose it is also a bit like Mission Impossible: Fallout too," I told him. "You do have to wonder if the modern spy thriller movie genre has a toilet fetish."

"You've got a point sunshine," he grinned in response, "still, it's all good action hero stuff, eh."

"Mate," I shook my head, "There's no more heroes any more."

I reached into the pocket of my jeans and pulled out the iPhone in an evidence bag.

"I need you to do me a favour. This is the phone that scrote used to film his attack on the girl. See if you can remove the video he took of it, but don't erase it completely. Put it on a thumb drive or something. I'll contact Dankworth by email, tell him what we've done, and ask if he wants us to delete it or if he wants to do it himself."

"Yeah, yeah, sure," he nodded enthusiastically.

"And I want you to go through everything else on the phone to see if there's anything incriminating."

"Of course, if he's done this once there's a good chance he'd done it before," Vik said. "If there is anything dodgy on there we can pass it on to the fuzz.

Anonymously, of course."

"Why anonymously?"

"Well this is all spooky spy stuff, isn't it?" he asked. "It's all supposed to be secret."

"No, the fuzz are on the same side as us," I said, "anything criminal we discover, we let them know in the open. Trust me, they've signed the Official Secrets Act, just like us."

"Oh," he sounded hesitant, "but what about, you know, how you got it? I mean you basically assaulted that bloke in the loo."

"Don't let it worry you," I told him, "we're the men from the ministry of mayhem, we'll draw a veil how we came by it."

"OK," he nodded.

"Actually I was more interested in any texts or emails on it about insider trading," the fragment of conversation I'd overheard as Milton walked past me in the Arbitrager had stuck in my mind. "The way I see it city boys like to boast about their sexual exploits, and with no previous a good lawyer could probably get him off a custodial sentence. No, anything that can get the Financial Conduct Agency to investigate him might lead to him losing his job."

"Hit him where it really hurts, the wallet," VJ grinned and nodded enthusiastically.

"What if we get both?"

"Double whammy, great," I replied.

VJ grinned enthusiastically and turned to walk away.

"One last thing sunshine, anything on there that turns out to be properly spook show shit," I told him, "anything that might even slightly hint at being a threat to the defence of the realm, that's ours. OK?"

"Yeah, OK sunshine," he nodded and walked off.