Punish the System - 1

“... and I’m halfway through peeling off her onesie, right, when she looks me dead in the eye and says, ‘Do you want to see my collection?’ No context. That’s all there was. Like she was casting a spell or something.”

The massively oversized man in the Hawaiian shirt paused as his story elicited whoops and cackles from the small crowd lounging around him.

“So I go, ‘What do you mean a ‘collection’, my love?’ And she just points behind me, real solemn like. And I look over at her shelves and—mate!—they’re absolutely loaded with all these little plastic figures. But not just that! I swear on my nan’s ashes, there’s all sorts of medieval weaponry hanging from the walls. Axes. Swords. Knives. Like she’s a full-on Comic-Con security risk. You get me?”

A few of his retinue cheered, which clearly encouraged the man even further. Some of the crew even toasted him with half-empty beer cans.

“Now, you know me, I’m a man of the world and it takes a lot to throw me off my stroke. There was that girl who wouldn’t go down unless The Archers was on. And then those twins with the ferret. But this one? Maaaate! She took the biscuit, snogged it, and then explained there was absolutely no safe word.

His voice was drowned out for a moment by a tannoy announcement and a couple of his hangers-on made their excuses and ran for their train.

“Anyway, things are getting hot and heavy, I've got one sock on, she’s got intentions, and then suddenly the lights go on.”

Connor tuned out the rest, unable to bear listening any longer. He’d actually been trying to filter out this monologue for much of the last ten minutes. However ‘Big Dave’ as the man kept referring to himself in the third person, had a voice like a fog horn and the shameless energy of a stag-do veteran four pints in. 

Worse than that, though, matey boy had gone and got himself a real lively audience. It was hard to say whether the little group gathered around on the waiting room’s plastic seats were drunk, bored, or just traumatised enough to mistake horror for humour. But there was no doubt they were hanging on to his every sleazy word. Their raucous approval was egging the fat man on to greater narrative excesses like a horny performing walrus.

Connor had debated moving to a different position, but had resigned himself to his current vantage point being, sadly, perfect. From here, he had a clean line of sight of the platform concourse, a full view of anyone that came through the metal ticket barriers, and was just close enough to react if everything went sideways. 

All of that just about outweighed the spiritual toll of the uncensored director’s cut of Big Dave’s Greatest Hits: Volume Sex.

Careful not to draw any unwanted attention, Connor took a quick glance over his shoulder. Still no sign of his target. 

The 8:58 a.m. from London Euston had been due to arrive twenty minutes ago, but British Rail was going to British Rail and there was nothing he could do about that. What was it Dad had drilled into him? When out on an op, you hope for the best, plan for the worst, and assume the universe is forever looking for an opportunity to bend you over and go to town.

“Solid words to live by,” he muttered and took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. It was advice that’d never failed him yet.

‘Planning for the worst,’ though, was why Connor had been standing around for an hour disguised as a business man very invested in his morning coffee. If anyone had thought it was suspicious for a tall, athletic man in a long woollen coat - one with a number of hidden pockets with all sorts of goodies hid in them - to be loitering near a flickering vending machine with the detritus of a city’s worth of discarded kebabs around his feet, they didn’t mention it.

That was if anyone had actually noticed him at all. Which, considering how good the young man was at being inconspicuous, was actually pretty unlikely.

A sad byproduct of all his punctuality, though, was that he’d ended up learning far more about Big Dave’s bedroom escapades than any sentient being deserved to experience. For a moment he even considered needing a therapy session, but then chuckled to himself and shook his head. He wasn’t going to let the universe bend him over just yet.

Connor quickly checked the flow of bodies coming his way again. 

His target’s train was twenty-five minutes late, and the station was starting to fill up. Oddly, the very particular train he was interested in, as well as the 9:00 a.m. from Hereford and the 9:05 a.m. to Lichfield Trent Valley were all showing as converging, at the same time, on Platform 8. 

Presumably, Connor thought, this would prove to be some sort of error? If not, well, him not successfully picking up his target would hardly be the most newsworthy event to take place in Grand Central Station this fine morning.

There was a sudden surge of passengers, and more and more people started clambering through the ticket barriers and coming his way. Connor’s eyes darted between them, instantly dismissing each as his potential targets. 

At this sort of range, height collapsed and everyone looked roughly six foot-tall. Individual postures smoothed out into one homogeneous stance and anyone with an unusual gait simply blended into the crowd. 

As the description of his target was hardly unique - white male, brown hair, leather jacket, blue jeans - at least two thirds of the station coming Connor’s way were walking photocopies.

9:25 a.m.

He needed to be on his best game. Unfortunately, even for a pro, the quality of a description degraded fast in real-world conditions. Poor lighting and crowd movement made it painfully difficult to pluck out a mark amongst people who weren’t standing still long enough to be neatly profiled. Right now, his pool of possibles was just about everyone.

This was the job, though. Pattern recognition at speed. The capacity to build a mental composite in motion and to filter for contradictions, not confirmations. Connor had been placed there precisely because the Dane knew he did this sort of thing better than any computer system their taskforce had to throw at the problem. 

Especially a problem that might actually turn out not to be a problem at all.

“And all of it on a shitty cup of coffee,” he said to no one in particular.

Because, for all the suggestive chatter they’d picked up on, there might actually not be a six foot bloke in a leather jacket and a black rucksack on his way from London to Birmingham. And, even if there was said individual on this train, there might not actually be anything remotely suspicious about the contents of his bag. 

And even if there were…

“I see him,” Connor said into his collar.

“About time,” a voice crackled in his ear. It was that of Joyful, so called because he never, ever smiled. “My IQ has dropped thirty points listening to that bloke rabbit. And the poor lass beside me transcribing it all is going to need counselling before she ever goes near Tinder again.”

“A man of your age and marital status shouldn’t even know what Tinder is, Joyful,” Connor said, dropping a coin into the vending machine and using the reflection in the glass to track his approaching target. “Shame on you.”

“Well, we can’t all be young, rugged, and footloose-and-fancy-free, Connor. And I can’t help hearing things. I don’t understand most of what I hear, but the dreams. Oh, the dreams. Right, here’s the play. You’re to follow, but not to engage. Not yet. We’re to give him plenty of room, if you get me? No need to spook him.”

“On it.”

Connor gave it a moment, and then turned to fall in behind the man in the leather jacket. Truth be told, he harboured more than a few worries about this part of the operation. There were simply too many people about at this time in the morning, too many exits from the station, and nowhere near enough available bodies to contain things if it all went down the shitter. 

But the time to have worried about that, though, was when the Dane had been petitioning the powers-that-be for extra resources. That their boss had lost that little bureaucratic battle was no reason for Connor to lose his focus right now.

“He’s moving towards the escalator.”

“Copy,” Joyful said. “All units, the target looks like he will be exiting out through the Bullring. I repeat, all units prepare to intercept at Exit Point B.”

There was a long queue waiting to use the escalator to the first floor of the shopping centre and Connor joined it a few places back from his target. The man didn’t appear to be engaged in any sort of counter-surveillance which either made him terrible at what he was doing, or so good Connor was completely missing it. 

Hope for the best, plan for the worst, and all that. Just don’t get bent over.

Connor took the chance to properly look at his target now. Other than his height, he was almost the definition of ‘nondescript.’ Average build, plain clothes, dark hair over a blank face. Nothing that caught the eye or would stick in the memory. Was this man really that chill when, if proven correctly, he was carrying about six kilos of heroin in that backpack? With an awesome brief, that would still be ten to fifteen. Conservatively. And this was a guy with, as far as they could tell, no criminal history and no record of involvement in anything more serious than a parking fine. 

How was Johnny Normal carrying that sort of consequence on his back without showing a flicker of stress?

Watching the guy patiently waiting his turn for the escalator, Connor could see why the Dane had found it so hard to convince anyone there was something nefarious actually going down this morning. Was their intel completely trash on this one?

“We’ve got Transport Police moving in to wait on the first floor,” Joyful said. “Do you want them to pick him up when he reaches the top? They could probably do it all casual-like?”

Connor glanced up and shook his head. With the best will in the world, the two hi-vis walking cheeseburgers he saw lurking up there didn’t exactly fill him with confidence. One was checking his phone and the other looked like he'd been bulk-ordered from Budget Enforcement R Us. If the target cut up rough, he didn’t fancy either of them having the nous to contain him.

“Nah, that’s a negative,” Connor said. “Let’s focus on keeping a tight lockdown on the exits from the first floor. Better to grab him when he’s outside. Find ourselves somewhere a little less target-rich of potential collateral.”

Then he pulled his eyes back from the first floor and swore a blue streak. Leather Jacket was no longer in the escalator queue. 

"I’ve lost him!"

"You’ve whated him?!"

"I no longer have eyes on," Connor said, voice calm, but his pulse had gone through the roof.

He made no sudden movements as he turned around, giving no obvious sign he was urgently scanning the moving crowds. Instead, he let his eyes drift, unfocused, to sweep across the concourse in the lazy pattern of someone looking for a decent snackbar, not someone carrying enough heroin to ruin a postcode.

Sandwich shop. Sushi counter. Big Dave still sermonising to his congregation of the vapid.

Leather jacket. Rucksack. 

Got him. The target had strolled off to the left, heading past the WHSmith, and towards the Stephenson Street exit. 

"No drama. I have him back. But that’s a negative on an exit through the Bullring. Target is breaking east, potentially towards the tram station."

"Well, that’ll be a hard no," Joyful said. "We’ve literally just moved everyone out that way. Connor, you’re going to have to stick with him for a minute while we reorientate. You think you can manage not to lose him again until then?"

"Bite me,” he snapped and hurried his pace. “Look, I don’t think he’s clocked me. Reckon he just didn’t fancy waiting in the queue any more. In place now."

There was still nothing to indicate this guy was remotely concerned about being followed. No head-checks. No behavioural tells. The target didn’t even shift his posture much as he walked. He was either the coolest drug mule in the entire world, or their intel was horribly wrong. 

Both of those options sucked.

The two of them passed under the LED glare of the concourse, past the Pret and then the Superdrug. Connor let the crowd swallow him for cover, weaving in and out as the man pushed through the revolving doors and out into the cold morning air of Stephenson Street. 

To the left was the tram stop, but the target turned and suddenly hurried to the right instead, towards a silver Prius idling in the unofficial minicab zone. The driver didn’t look up at the man’s approach. The rear door was half-open, which was either very sloppy security… 

Or very, very smart for a quick pick-up.

“All units, the target is heading for a vehicle,” Connor said, his voice laced with urgency. “Silver minicab waiting on Stephenson Street. This is a possible pick-up and go.”

A pause crackled over the comms.

“Do I try to follow or should I take him?”

Nothing.

“Joyful. Take or follow?”

Another second passed. Then a new voice came over the net. Crisp and clear despite its broad, foreign vowels. 

“We can’t risk losing this one, Connor,” the Dane said. “Take him. You are green lit for all measures. Repeat, green lit. My authority.”

Connor didn’t need to hear anymore, he was already pushing his way through the crowd, his SIG Sauer P229 dragged loose from under his coat. 

“Armed officer! Everybody down!” he shouted. “You! Leather jacket! Put the bag on the ground! Now! Put the bag down!”

Screams erupted as civilians scattered left and right. A woman dropped her shopping and bolted directly through Connor’s line of sight. He cursed and waved her on.

The target, though, gave no sign he’d heard anything unusual at all. He just kept moving towards the minicab, rucksack swinging on his back.

“Leather jacket! Final warning!” Connor shouted. 

He roughly shoved a panicking bystander to the floor and centred his gun between the shoulder blades of his target. 

“Put the bag down and get on your knees! I will shoot!”

Which is when something happened that didn’t make any sense at all. 

Not, of course, that Connor had too long to worry about it. One moment, his target was facing away from him, reaching forward to grasp the door handle of the Prius. And then…

The man was smiling at Connor, weird-looking gun in hand and with his arm fully extended. But he hadn’t stopped, had he? Or even made to turn around. He hadn’t made any such move, so what was going on? 

It was like the whole situation had suddenly jumped five frames further ahead.

Boom. 

Boom.

More screams.

The double punch sent Connor spinning. One bullet struck him in the face, and the other took him in the chest. His own finger jerked reflexively as he was hit, sending a shot wild and high into the sky above.

Then, before he knew anything else, the ground hit him. Or, rather, he hit the ground. But that didn’t matter because he was ice-cold and everything was tunnelling inwards.

The final thing he saw before his world collapsed into nothing was Leather Jacket getting into the cab. And… was that a wink in his direction?

Then, just as everything faded to black, he thought he heard something hidden speak just behind his eyes.

WARNING!

SYSTEM ONBOARDING HAS BEEN INITIATED

PLEASE HOLD FOR THE NEXT AVAILABLE SPRITE

But then he didn't really hear much.