UG2:Spying By Numbers Part 6 Conspiracy

First posted here in 2014/5, this story had only been available on Kindle since 2017. The third & fourth books are also now out.
 

"How did the test go?"

"Okay, I suppose."

"Come on Heather, did you pass?"

"Yes, Sophie, I passed!"

"Great, now you can chauffeur me around so I can have a drink!"

"That reminds me, what do we do about lunch?"

"We'll have a coffee and something on the catamaran on our way back to the mainland. Let's get moving so we're back indoors before it's dark."

They headed back to the car hire compound at the ferry terminal to hand the car back, then dragged their cases into the terminal building. A few minutes later they were boarding for the short ride across The Solent.

The train from Portsmouth Harbour seemed to take forever, stopping almost everywhere along the line, after an hour and a half then finally arrived at their destination. Fortunately Sophie had remembered to give Helen a phone call asking to meet them when the train arrived. They were currently at Redhill station loading the bags into Helen's car.

"Well done Heather."

"Thanks Helen, but it's really many thanks for arranging it."

"I figured that you should do it, but also needed to get away from all the hassle for a few days."

"Quite. Have you heard any more about how it's going?"

"No, but that's not unusual."

"How's it been here?"

"Fine and quiet, I've been able to catch up with some reports, don't forget I'll need one from you."

"Yes, boss."

Come on, let's get back to the house, I have prepared a meal for you, plus there's a present."

"A pressie?"

***

"Could someone please explain why I've been called to this security panel?"

"Miss Young, there have been several allegations concerning you."

"Like what?"

"We'll get to them?"

"When?"

"In good time. Now, I'd like to go back to Sunday 27th July."

"When?"

"That was the day you travelled to Clacton on Sea dressed as a female."

"What about it?"

"That you murdered David Jones and took his place, weaving this tale to suit your own needs."

"No! I really was David Jones, or Gail Jones, or ......"

Heather woke suddenly as her mobile was ringing on the bedside table. She answered it without putting on her glasses so had no idea who it was, nor what time it was.

"Miss Young?"

"Yes, who is this?"

"John Smith at Thames House. A security panel has been arranged, you're needed at ten o'clock."

Heather tried to ask a question but the call had already ended, Sophie must have already been awake as she put her head into Heather's room.

"What's up?"

"A call from the security manager at Thames House telling me I'm needed there at ten for a security panel. I have no idea what the time is right now and to be honest this scares me."

"It's half past seven, but what's the problem? Helen said there would be an investigation."

"It's just too.......I had a bad dream."

"Come on, get into the shower and I'll work out a travel plan."

On the floor was Heather's new personal laptop, supplied by Helen. Heather had spent several hours going through Amazon making purchases, after creating a personal gmail address. It had been well after midnight when she'd fallen asleep.

***

Sophie did not have a security pass for MI5's headquarters so that had to be arranged, plainly John Smith hadn't considered Heather's close protection officer. Whilst all the arrangements, including the lodging of two weapons, were being made Emily Keane arrived with Commander Bond.

"Good morning Heather."

"Hi Emily, Ken."

"Miss Young."

Heather looked around for Helen, but didn't see her. The assumption was that she'd already arrived and was elsewhere in the building.

Sophie now returned to the group with a visitor pass around her neck, it specified that she had to be accompanied at all times, even to the loo it seemed. It wasn't long before they were asked to go through the scanners so they could be shown the way to one of the meeting rooms. The doors of the room closed so that the room was soundproofed.

"Good morning, could I remind you that this meeting is marked Secret and is also a current police and terrorism investigation with court restrictions on the release of information. Now, for those who don't know me, I'm John Smith of the Security Service Security Department and I'm chairing this investigation. Could I ask you each to introduce yourselves."

Heather had met most of the assembled group before, even if she hadn't remembered their name from an earlier encounter. Although, where was Helen? Contrary to her fears the investigation took the form of pulling apart who knew what, how did they know and when did they know. This being spook central, the fourth question was whether they needed to know in the first place.

The time frame was from when Jeremy Davis had joined Dave Brown's team, or rather when he first applied to join. It seemed that he'd applied some five weeks earlier, at a time when Anna was still with Heather. He had passed his accountancy exams two years earlier but hadn't attempted to use these skills until, it would seem, he was prodded by Anna.

The question now turned to the Fourani accounts, which Jeremy had been handed while Heather and Sophie were in Cornwall. Why wasn't this queried? It appeared that Dave Brown would accept the blame for this and told the meeting that his retirement request had been accepted.

Now they looked at the elaborate plan to lure Heather to the Elephant & Castle the previous week. As Heather already knew, the documents were counterfeit, but a further set of prints had been found, identified as Mustafa Krappe of the Pronto Print outlet in Stoke Newington. Emily recognised this as the same print shop Helen had used for Heather's last-minute business cards. The proprietor had spent several days trying to generate a believable explanation.

Slowly the background to Jeremy's deceit and treachery was being laid out, but what of Anna? One thing was clear, the key to this was probably in the Fourani accounts. What had materialised was that the copy of the accounts Jeremy had accessed had been partly corrupted. Heather still had her original files in her own archive, John Smiths request, or more correctly a barely polite instruction, was for Heather to get back into those accounts and dig.

The meeting broke up just after midday, Heather was about to follow Sophie and Emily out of the room when John Smith asked to talk to her privately.

"Heather, we're taking Helen Bell off as your case officer."

"Why?"

"She's being moved onto another case where she will have to devote herself, without distractions."

"I've enjoyed working with her."

"I don't doubt it. From now on, you'll work with the new head of the finance team, Jennifer Osborne."

"I don't think I've met her?"

"Come back here on Friday at eleven, by then we'll have the new arrangements in place."

"Okay."

"Could you conduct a review of the Fourani accounts and bring that in on Friday as well please."

"Sure."

"That's great, bye."

"Bye."

Heather ran out of the room to catch up with the others.

"What's up, Heather?"

"Can't say, not here not now."

A few minutes later they were all outside on the steps, Emily and Commander Bond were heading back to New Scotland Yard, whereas Heather and Sophie wanted Pimlico tube station.

"Lunch anyone? On me?"

All eyes turned to Commander Bond, a quick assessment was made of where to go plus three pairs of female eyes scanned his ring finger, there was a white mark. The verdicts followed, they would eat at The Tate (it was across the road) and he was recently divorced.

Ken Bond was further interrogated but he would only admit to the classic failed police relationship, he couldn't guarantee his hours or attendance at family social gatherings as his work took precedence.

Back in Redhill several hours later, Heather fired up the secure phone and called Helen. The automated message said that the line was no longer in use. It had only been the previous day that Helen had met her and Sophie at the station after house-sitting for 5 days. What was going on? A call to Emily yielded no further information, Helen's landline and secure mobile were both disconnected.

Heather did not have the enthusiasm to start work, again, on the dreaded accounts but did have another set of expenses claims to complete, as well as a need to write up the past week. She completed them then found the email address of Jennifer Osborne, so sent the relevant files. The reply was swift:

From: Jennifer Osborne
To: Heather Young
Subject: Re: Expenses

Thanks for these Heather, looking forward to seeing you on Friday, plus meeting Sophie again.

Jennifer

So Jennifer knew Sophie? Curious. Heather couldn't ask Sophie as she was out on a run as well as checking out some health clubs near to the house. By the time Sophie returned, Heather was cooking dinner and the issue had slipped her mind.

***

On Wednesday morning the pair were in the kitchen having a leisurely breakfast when the security system warned them of activity out front. A minibus had parked and several people were now walking towards the front door. Unfortunately the system was having trouble identifying the number plate of the minibus as it appeared to be a rental vehicle. The doorbell sounded.

Sophie did not like this one little bit.

A face appeared on the security monitor in the kitchen, followed by an ID card. It was now that Heather recognised the man as Jimmy Ruddle, a member of the security team she'd last seen at the flat in Amersham.

"Sophie, it's okay, they're the sweep team."

Sophie holstered her weapon and took a closer look at the monitor, pushing an intercom button.

"Hello, identify yourselves?"

"Miss Young? Miss Grieve? We're the Thames House sweeps. We've been asked to conduct a full security audit."

Heather started for the door but Sophie pushed past and opened it on the chain to get a closer look at the ID card and it's owner. Finally she was satisfied and allowed everyone to enter.

"Hello again Miss Young, Miss Grieve."

"Hello Jimmy, it's Heather and Sophie. Now, what's this all about?"

"I wasn't given the reason but I received an instruction yesterday afternoon to be here this morning, weren't you told?"

"No."

"Well, if you don't mind we need to get started, that way we can perhaps be out of here by lunchtime."

"We need to go shopping, will you be okay?"

"Don't worry, so long as there's enough milk for the tea and coffee, you do have some biscuits as well, don't you?"

"I'm sure you'll find everything you need, come on Sophie, let's get out of here."

Sophie now recognised several more faces from the one time she went to the flat in Amersham so relaxed, remaining in the house to supervise wasn't strictly necessary and she couldn't cover everyone. As they were currently without transport the pair walked into town, first visiting a health club that Sophie had identified the previous afternoon.

"Hello ladies, how can I help?"

"I'm looking for a club I can use when I'm free."

"Okay, apart from the fully equipped gym we offer Zumba, pilates, dance, and many other structured classes. There is a timetable but most classes are available every day and at varying times. You can pay monthly or on a pay-as-you-go basis."

"Do you think we could have a look around?"

"I'm afraid no-one is available at the moment."

"Oh, do you have a pool?"

"I'm afraid not. Are you new to the area?"

"Yes." Heather look hesitantly at Sophie as she said this, unsure if it was wise. The receptionist's smile started to evaporate.

"The nearest pool is a mile from here. Why don't you take this leaflet and check our website for further information? We're not the only club."

The girls walked out of the club reception and back into the humdrum of the Belfry shopping centre.

"I get the feeling she wasn't keen on me, Sophie?"

"Likewise, it might be that she thought we were an item because of that look you gave me."

"So you're suggesting she didn't approve of something that wasn't even there?"

"Something like that."

"We'll search for that pool when we arrive home, maybe it has a gym as well?"

"Fair enough, I'm not happy feeling exposed like this."

"Then you should have put trousers on!"

The expedition continued, up and down the High Street, in and out of the two shopping centres. Eventually they did reach the large supermarket and set about restocking the fridge and freezer, that day's lunch being one concern.

Weighed down with far too many bags Sophie insisted they took a cab back to the house. The driver noticed the minibus when he pulled up at the end of Caxton Rise.

"If there's a party, am I invited?"

Sophie answered, "'fraid not, they're building our summer house."

"It's September."

"For next spring."

"Oh. That'll be six quid please."

Heather wasn't impressed by the fare, it shouldn't have been more than five pounds considering the distance. The driver did, however, help carry the bags to the door, possibly expecting a tip. Heather tried her key, it wouldn't turn, Sophie took her own keys out but suffered the same embarrassment. Suddenly the door swung open.

"Hello ladies, you'd best come in."

"I hope so since we live here!"

Once inside, it was clear that Sophie was wound up. "We were exposed out there! What have you been doing?"

"All the locks have been changed, and a few other things. You'd best see Jimmy, he's through there."

He pointed at the kitchen, which was exactly where Heather and Sophie wanted to go. Jimmy was sat at the kitchen table with sheets of paper in front of him. The girls, timing their approach accurately, put all the bags on the table with a single thump.

"Hey! What did you do that for?"

"We couldn't get back into the house, why did that happen, what if you had left?"

"I would have called you, but you didn't leave your number."

"The security department have it."

"Fair enough, anyway if you can clear the table I'll explain what we've done."

Jimmy certainly explained what his team had done, but not necessarily why. As they now knew, or could guess, all the locks had been changed. This included window locks as well as the two exterior doors, a lock and alarm had been fitted to the shed as well. All of the alarm codes had been changed, as well as the safe combination and her work laptop's password, apparently someone was still working on it.

"What about my new, personal, laptop?"

"We have to take it with us, you can collect it later in the week."

"It's already Wednesday, I'm in London on Friday morning, maybe then?"

"We should be done by then."

"So, what's this all about?"

"I'm sorry but I was just given this as a job that needed doing. I do have one other thing for you, a replacement SIM card."

"For my secure mobile?"

"No, it's for your other mobile. You haven't allowed anyone access to your official phone, have you?"

"No, I did leave it here when we had that security alert last week, but there were no alarm activations here in the meantime."

"Even so, I'd best take it. Collect it on Friday."

"Great, what about my secure landline in the office?"

"There's a replacement key in your safe, but we've had to remove most of the contents for checking."

"I get the feeling that something's going on, why am I being pushed around like this?"

Sophie was joining the dots, and this was causing her worry. Unfortunately there was nowhere she and Heather could talk inside without being overheard, outside carried even greater risk. Ever the pragmatist, she suggested lunch.

"I have a couple of pizzas, how about I put some in the oven?"

"There's six of us, including two veggies."

"Not a problem."

The shopping had included some clothes, which Heather finally took up to her room. On her knees next to Heather's bed was a technician.

"Hello?"

"Oh, hi Miss Young. I've been told to fit a network access point in here, in fact there's two; this one and one by your dresser."

"What about the wifi?"

"That's been removed, you have a new router and encryptor in one package, much neater."

"But no wifi?"

"That's right. I've fitted two ports in Miss Grieve's room too, there's also a few being installed downstairs, there's a new cabinet in your office containing the sixteen port switch and the router/encryptor. The key for that is in your safe."

"So you've removed a standard wifi router and replaced with with even more kit?"

"Much more secure, and faster too, the cables are gigabit rated."

"And I'm now tied to a few locations rather than being able to connect anywhere indoors or even in the garden?"

"Sorry, instructions."

Once everyone started heading into the kitchen for lunch, Heather took the opportunity to go into her office as a technician left it and shut the door behind her. Everything was locked in the safe, but the combination had been changed. She exited the room and closed the door, then tested her code - it failed. So much for calling Jennifer or John Smith.

"Look, Heather, why don't you and Sophie go out for a few hours? We'll be here until four at this rate. I want to do a handover and test of all the new security measures in one hit, not piecemeal."

"I'm sorry Jimmy but I don't want to leave. As you can guess, I'm not happy right now."

In the end, Heather grabbed a book from her room, asked the security team if they wanted to sweep it for bugs, then walked into the garden and sat on one of the patio chairs. Sophie clearly couldn't do much better and joined her a few minutes later.

Finally, the team started gathering up their tools and began loading the minibus. That left Jimmy Ruddle with Heather and Sophie.

"Look, I was given this as a last minute job and even I was surprised how many I would need to do this today, especially as it's only been two weeks since we were last here."

"Jimmy, I accept that's all you can say but for me this is just weird."

"Sure. The best I can suggest is that you phone your manager."

"I tried but no-one has given me my safe combination, alarm codes, new keys ....."

Heather decided she wasn't in a good enough mood to make a friendly call to Jennifer, after all you don't want to fall out with your boss the first time you speak to her, do you? In amongst their shopping was a bottle of red and the ingredients for something simple. They both mucked in but neither had much of an appetite, even the wine ended up with a stopper in the bottle.

They headed for their rooms soon after eight, knackered.

Armed with the new codes, Heather went into her office on Thursday morning soon after seven. She opened the safe at second attempt and found her plastic key for the secure phone, which she inserted. She also fired up her laptop and made certain it was behaving properly. An email timed five pm on Tuesday arrived from John Smith:

From: John Smith
To: Heather Young
cc: Jennifer Osborne
Subject: Audit

Heather,

Please be advised that I have requested a security audit of your home address as a precaution.

Regards, John

Great, she'd only checked her emails once when they returned from Thames House on Tuesday and that was before 4.30, she should have checked again; Heather kicked herself. A precaution against what, exactly? None of her other emails were relevant, or even vaguely interesting.

Heather tried Dave Brown's old number but that was now diverted to an answerphone in the security department, checking Jennifer Osborne's entry in the staff directory she found a phone number, so dialled it. There was no answer before breakfast, nor after breakfast.

She decided to make sure she still had access to the Thames House servers so checked her personal files, noting that her copy of the Fourani accounts was still there. Something was bugging her, she opened the property index spreadsheet that she'd built several weeks earlier then did a Google search for the Heather Young website Helen had arranged. She next used an internet tool to lookup the domain name, this gave her Helen's office address. She finally cross-referenced the office address against her Fourani index.

There was a match.

"Sophie, I really don't know what to think or who to trust now."

"Look, it might not be anything, many people don't know who actually owns their building as much of the admin is done through agencies and third parties."

"Yes, but ..."

"Yes, but nothing. You have a single hit but no explanation for it and no verification. More worrying is the sudden need for an audit that coincides with Helen's removal from the case."

"Sure, but no-one's mentioned that we need to move or that I need a change of identity again? Come to think of it, you'd probably need a new identity too as you are a link to me."

"Great. Anyway, we haven't been told to evacuate. There's probably a good explanation for this."

"I hope your confidence is valid? Do we call Emily?"

"No point, this is an internal Security Service matter at the moment."

"Err, I had an email from Jennifer on Tuesday and she said she knew you."

"I don't think so."

"Come up to the office and I'll show you the email."

Sophie read the email a couple of times. "Well, that doesn't help me. I still don't know who Jennifer Osborne is."

"We have a meeting with her tomorrow."

"Yeah, I'll have loads of questions."

"Look, Sophie, I have a ton of things I need to do today, including going through these accounts again. I'm looking for a needle in a haystack and it won't be fun, how about you find that swimming pool, maybe we can go there later?"

"Sure, so long as you're not going out and don't open the door to strangers."

Sophie backed out of the office door quickly enough to miss the projectile.

There were no new important emails so Heather went back to the accountancy files she'd first created several years earlier. She decided that simply trudging through the spreadsheets again was time-wasting and unlikely to reap too many rewards. Taking a more analytical approach, she opened the folder containing the copy of the files that Jeremy had used, which included several corrupted files.

Heather now identified the corrupted files by comparing file sizes and moved those to a separate folder. The next issue was to identify what had been changed, perhaps to obscure a set of transactions, a person or a building?

Some of the changes and deletions appeared to be collateral, serving no useful purpose, but one set of payments did leap out:

01/04/09 David Jones Accountancy £1500
01/04/10 David Jones Accountancy £1550
01/04/11 David Jones Accountancy £1600
01/04/12 David Jones Accountancy £1650
01/04/13 David Jones Accountancy £1700
01/04/14 David Jones Accountancy £1750

However in the corrupted data this had become:

01/04/09 David Jones Accountancy £15000
01/04/10 David Jones Accountancy £15500
01/04/11 David Jones Accountancy £16000
01/04/12 David Jones Accountancy £16500
01/04/13 David Jones Accountancy £17000
01/04/14 David Jones Accountancy £17500

What was going on? She now searched for another simple recurring payment, choosing the annual renewal of Hamiz Fourani's business website. The sums here had also been crudely artificially inflated by a factor of ten. There had to be similar increases elsewhere but she first had a better idea.

Going off at a tangent, Heather checked the Fourani business website, it was still active as it was renewed in May of each year, so she did a little investigation of the domain. The registered address of the domain surprised her, but the hosting location was even weirder.

It was fair to assume that if some payments had been pushed up, some other payments were now much reduced or even missing from the finance team's copy of the data. That search was done using a tool and yielded some seemingly random entries, although this was likely designed to obscure the real target.

When she did find it she was startled, shocked, and had no idea what to do next.

Heather now formulated a plan. She pulled her weapon from the safe and made certain there was a full clip in it. Next she put the plastic key in her secure phone and called John Smith.

"Yes Heather?"

"I have heavy duty information and I'm not safe."

"Where's DS Grieve?"

"Out of the house at the moment but I'm not even certain I can trust her."

"How serious are you?"

"Very, I have found things in the files that frighten me, I have names."

"Right, put together an overnight bag, a car will be with you as soon as possible."

"How will I know it's a safe car?"

"You will know the driver."

"Okay. Don't forget I don't have my mobile at the moment."

"Understood."

The line went dead. Heather printed the relevant pages then shut down her computer and disconnected it, stowing it into the laptop bag. The secure phone was disabled and the safe locked up, she exited the office and made certain that was secure.

Now she put an overnight bag together, hedging her bets by packing for three nights. She remembered her pills, a small cosmetic kit and smellies and was wondering what she'd forgotten when there was a toot from outside. She took both bags downstairs and checked the monitor as a familiar face walked towards the front door.

"Jenny!"

"Come on Heather, make sure you set the alarm."

Heather was expecting to be taken to Thames House but instead the car turned south towards East Grinstead, pulling into the carpark of an industrial unit thirty minutes after they'd set off.

"Grab your bags and come in."

-----------------------------------------------------------
To be continued

Unaccounted Gains Books 3 & 4 are also available on Kindle