CHAPTER TWELVE
Aaron
The ‘Big Day’ came and went at Élan. 200 people, Craig included, were escorted from the building, and for most of the day there was a steady trail of stunned men and women wandering down George Street holding cardboard boxes containing photos, pot plants and the odd purloined stapler, heading for train stations and bus stops. The press release was sent out at 3pm from the CEO which “regretted the necessity brought about by the recent economic downturn” and congratulated the management team on their sterling work that “had ensured that only 200 people’s jobs had to be cut” as well as “reassuring our shareholders that the company was well positioned to deliver long term stability and growth”, which was code for “don’t cut our bonuses this year, please.”
Persephone and Isaac settled in for a bit of a wait. This was now an exercise in who had more patience, Craig or Persephone. For six weeks there was no suspicious movement by Craig, who had packed up as promised and moved to Surfers Paradise. He had rented a modest apartment and appeared to be spending his days surfing and nights partying. The ‘targets’ were also going about their daily lives in complete ignorance of their perilous position. Persephone even wondered if she had over-reacted and that Craig hadn’t felt there was sufficient risk to his retirement to tidy up his ‘loose ends’. This didn’t mean she could switch off, as her determination to eliminate Craig was still solid. She had decided that she would wait either until Craig attempted to eliminate one of the targets or six months from the redundancy, whichever came first, and she would then execute her plan with the Tetrodotoxin.
After three uneventful months, Craig’s GPS trackers showed him visiting Melbourne. This was a bit unusual, as although his phone went to Melbourne, his surfboards stayed in Surfers Paradise. All Craig’s trips so far had involved surfing so this was different behaviour for him. After the initial concern, Isaac and Persephone reckoned he was just visiting friends, as none of the top three targets lived in Melbourne and whilst they kept a bit of an eye on Craig, he didn’t appear to get up to much, hanging out in city bars and after three days, he flew back to Queensland. Four days later Persephone was half-watching an item on the television news about government initiatives to combat alcohol and drug problems in inner-city clubs and she suddenly sat up and started to pay close attention as she heard a name that she recognised mentioned by the reporter. She was talking about some of the recent fatalities that had occurred across the country in night-club hot-spots and was shaking her head sadly at the terrible consequences for the victims and their families. The story cut to a sobbing middle-aged woman.
“We had no idea Aaron was taking drugs. The police said that he just took some drugs that were too pure and his brain just exploded.”
The screen went back to the reporter, who was standing outside a seedy looking girly bar in Sydney’s Kings Cross, a favourite spot for TV reporters to showcase all these stories, despite most of these drug problems being suffered elsewhere, including Aaron’s sobbing mother who had been filmed outside her home in suburban Melbourne.
“Sadly, Aaron’s story is only one of many, with Australia averaging over two deaths from drug overdoses per day. This number is increasing despite all our governments are doing to try to stop the dreadful march of this plague that is affecting our youth.”
Persephone sprang up from the sofa and ran headlong into her study. Tearing apart the neatly piled documents that she had kept from her planning sessions, and muttering to herself in ever-increasing dread, “Noooooooo! Please let this not be true!”
As she was thrashing around looking for the list of ten policyholders, her phone rang. She picked it up and Isaac’s face was displayed on the screen. With her heart in her mouth, she answered.
“How on earth did we miss this guy?” Isaac sounded outwardly calm, but Persephone could hear the inner tension. “I’ve just checked our stuff and he didn’t even make it into the top five. I mean, on the face of it, he looked like he could be a problem – he had a known drug addiction that he had declared on the insurance application, but he had been through rehab, had got his life back under control after his divorce and was basically stable and on the slow way back. He was temporarily staying with his parents in Melbourne and had no dependants.”
Persephone was beside herself. “Stop talking. I’m coming round.” She ran outside, grabbed a cab and headed over to Isaac’s place. Once she got there, Isaac pulled up the information on Aaron. They had both been hoping that maybe, just maybe, it was not the person they had on their list. They were disappointed. More than that, they were horrified. It was now clear to both of them that they were not the infallible planners that they had believed, and that an innocent man had suffered the consequences of their failure.
Persephone was in tears. Sobbing and shouting at Isaac, “I killed him! I was so bloody arrogant I could predict everything Craig would do that I killed him! Why did I start this shit? How could I have been so stupid and egotistical? What makes me think I can pull this sort of stunt off? If I’d gone to the police once we had the evidence on Craig, this bloke Aaron would still be alive.”
“For goodness sake Persephone, shut up! We both screwed up, but stop feeling sorry for yourself and focus on the real problem. There are nine more people out there and he might hit any one of them at any time!” Isaac shook Persephone by the shoulders, “We have to go back to the plan, and we have to get it right this time!”
Persephone stopped like she had just been punched. She knew what she had to do and although she also knew that she would punish herself later for this, it was not the first time she had made the wrong call. It’s also not the first time someone has died as a result. The first time she accomplished that feat she was only twenty years old.
Captain Persephone Stone was sitting at her desk in London, still feeling warm and gooey from her weekend in the Cotswolds with her boyfriend Brian. The weather had been atrocious so they had spent the entire time tucked up in the magnificent four-poster bed in the converted manor house, ordering room service meals when they felt hungry. At some point on the Sunday, Persephone was lying in Brian’s arms nibbling at a chocolate covered strawberry and he had suggested that they should be looking at flats to rent in London so they could live together, as he was about to be posted there on secondment to the Metropolitan Police from his current job with the Royal Ulster Constabulary in Belfast.
Persephone had tried to hide her elation, but as she had needed Brian to slap her hard between the shoulder blades to dislodge the piece of strawberry she decided to inhale rather than swallow, it was pretty obvious that she was excited at the prospect.
As soon as she got home that night, she looked up names of estate agents and decided to make some calls on Monday lunchtime. She was beside herself with anticipation, but had a lot of work to finish before she could apply herself to finding the new love-nest.
On her desk was a report from an informant working in Northern Ireland. This was not her normal area, but her fellow-officer who managed this area was currently on leave so she was looking after urgent things for him. The report had information about an imminent bombing that he had heard was to take place in Londonderry in the next two days. Persephone reckoned that the sensible thing to do was to pass on the information to the RUC and let them run with it, as this was the normal approach for bomb threats received by her organisation. She sent off the appropriate secure signal and got back to her normal work, eager for lunchtime to come around so she could start to get the search for their new home underway.
On Wednesday, with a couple of appointments to view flats already arranged for the weekend, Persephone was summoned to her Commanding Officer’s office. A stern Brigadier Collins told her to change into her combat uniform and to go to a local sports field where a helicopter would be taking her to Londonderry to meet with the RUC Liaison Officer. Despite Persephone’s request, he refused to give her any more information and peremptorily dismissed her.
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Inside the farmhouse in the Irish countryside, Persephone was shown the bodies of a number of men. In the middle, almost unrecognisable, was Brian. She went white and threw up. The policeman who had met her when she landed was taken aback. “Did you know Detective O’Hara?”
Through sobs and gulps, Persephone told him about Brian and their plans. She hadn’t told anyone at work, which was a breach of the security protocols, but she had preferred to keep their relationship to herself, at least until it became more serious. The policeman was not appeased, but he let go of her arms, stepped back and motioned for her to leave.
“We’ll take it from here Captain Stone.”
Returning to her office Persephone requested a meeting with Brigadier Collins. By this time, he had been briefed on Persephone’s relationship with the RUC officer who had been killed by the bombers. Persephone had also realised her mistake in passing on only the information on the bomb threat and not properly liaising with the RUC so that they could have pulled out their people – Brian in particular - before the bombers realised that they had been compromised.
Persephone, dressed in full dress uniform, marched into his office, saluted and stood stiffly to attention.
“Sir, I would like to formally apologise for my negligence over the Ireland matter, and I would like to tender my resignation.” She stood immobile, waiting for the axe to fall.
“Persephone, sit down.” was the quiet, almost gentle reply, “I know what happened. You made a mistake and people died. It is a terrible thing to happen to you, but the truth is that it’s our job. We take risks with other people’s lives and sometimes we make mistakes. I know how you are feeling – not just because of Detective O’Hara’s death, but also because of the other three men who died that day. I know you feel responsible, and in part you are, but this is what we do. I guarantee that if you stay in this job you will make more mistakes and more people will die. You just have to believe that the work that you do and the many lives you save, and the society that you are protecting make it all worthwhile.”
He was right, but it was a lesson that Persephone never forgot.
This cock-up with Aaron took her straight back to the house in Antrim and Brian’s distorted and bloody face. She ran into the bathroom and threw up. With that out of the way, she washed her face, cleaned her teeth using a guest toothbrush that she found in a drawer alongside a box of super-sized condoms, and walked shakily back into the living room to work out how they had gone so wrong in the planning.
Isaac was going through all the information they had on all the potential targets. He looked exasperated and was muttering to himself.
“Why, why, why would he have picked Aaron? Anything more than a cursory look shows that he is probably the lowest risk of all people that we found in the list.”
Persephone agreed and they both sat down to look at all the information they had on each of the people, realising they would have to go through the whole exercise again if they have any chance of stopping Craig. They had to get it right this time, otherwise more people would die. So that they could both look at the information more easily, Isaac had printed out all the information on paper, even though it was against his religion as a tech geek and it covered the enormous dining table with some piles nearly a foot high. It was all a bit overwhelming, and Persephone put her face in her hands. “Where are we supposed to start with all this stuff? How on earth do we get through it before Craig makes his next hit?”
It suddenly dawned on her. The reason they have so much information was because Isaac was so good at his work. Craig might be quite accomplished in getting information out of his own insurance company systems, that there was no way he was in the same league as Isaac. They made a classic error, assuming that Craig had the same information they did.
“Isaac, can you just strip out the information that Craig would have access to?”
Isaac immediately got it. “Oh no! I can’t believe we made such an elementary mistake! This is my fault. I should know better.” He thrashed around amongst all the papers, throwing huge piles onto the floor. After he had finished, the table had maybe 50 pieces of paper on it. It was pretty obvious to both of them how they had screwed this up so badly. They were both kicking themselves; after all, weren’t they supposed to be professionals? Persephone especially was completely distraught, she knew in her heart of hearts, that if she had just tracked Craig down and taken the information back to Reg, then Aaron’s mum wouldn’t have been sobbing her heart out on prime-time television.
The problem that they now faced was that they didn’t have enough information to sensibly prioritise Craig’s next target and therefore the chances of saving the next person’s life were slim to none. Persephone realised that she was now going to have to implement plan B straightaway and she wasn’t going to be able to keep her intentions from Isaac.
“Okay, we have to stop Craig” Persephone stated firmly, “and there really is only one way to do it.”
Isaac looked at her, sadness dawning on his face as he realised what Persephone was talking about. “Ok sweetheart, are you sure you want to take this there?”
Persephone looked at him sadly, “This was always about murder, Isaac. We just didn’t start it, but we’re going to have to finish it. Let’s be clear about this though, this is my problem to solve, and I don’t need your help for this bit.”
Isaac suddenly saw Persephone in a whole new light, he’d always known the sort of work she did when he met her but he had chosen to ignore it. He couldn’t any more. He felt terrible. On one hand it was partly his fault that she was going to have to kill Craig, but on the other hand he knew that this has always been her plan. Regardless of this, he realised deep down that he didn’t want anything to do with this part of the job. He knew what he was good at, and he was going to stick to that. Perhaps next time he would be better at his job and then Persephone wouldn’t have to take extreme measures. He nodded at Persephone, knelt down, and started to pick up all the paper that he had thrown across the floor. Neither of them felt they needed to say anything more. Persephone picked up her handbag, bent down and kissed Isaac on the cheek, and silently left the flat. She trusted Isaac, but she was going to make sure that he had no direct knowledge of what she had to do now.