15th June 2005

OK…who had the insane idea of putting me in my old Milton Hill uniform and heading
down the School Disco for my 25th? OK…so apart from Steve everyone would have been
freaking out as to where I’ve been for the past year or so. The honest answer to that enquiry
was…same place I was in the early months of ’02, the last time I went incommunicado.
And as far as the guys are concerned…that was NORAD. Starting the true story from
scratch now would cause too big a mess.

Anyway…I was chilling… getting a suitable amount of free beer from my crew…listening
to the Bee Gees! Well…it did look like there was a suitable amount of the grey haired
brigade hanging around which might have explained things, heck there was even older stuff
getting played when we came in!

Then I heard a sound that made me glad to be there:

Nah…nanana nah…nanana nah nana nah nana nah
nanana nah...

I hadn’t heard it for ages!

Nah…nanana nah…nanana nah nana nah nana nah
nanana nah...

‘Might be worth getting on the dancefloor’ I thought

Here comes the Hotstepper(Murderer!)
I, the lyrical gangster(Murderer!)

The oldies had now buggered off and a few of the younger attendees were taking their
place – females were a mixed bag but there were a few hot ones around. As I was scouting
the crowd, a feminine hand grabbed my wrist. The first thing I noticed about the hand’s
owner was that she was, like me in Milton Hill uniform. I looked up to see who it was.

“Rick?” she asked when we were at eye level.

…and go Uh oh!

9th December 1995

“I am invincible!” I laughed. Steve and I were in the final year of Milton Hill school, class
11AX to be precise – we’d be taking our GCSE’s in May. We’d caught the new Bond film
Goldeneye that Saturday. Steve was rolling his eyes because I was using that line so much.

Right now, we were bowling it through the school’s automatic doors on Monday morning
with Dready bags on our backs.

“Come on” Steve started “…you don’t honestly think you’ll get Aaliah Khan to go out with
you?”

“How come?”

“I dunno…she doesn’t seem to be the type to be interested in drooling admirers” my mate joked.

“So?” I replied “I won’t drool when I ask her”

“Seriously though mate – she doesn’t seem to be interested in anything romantic at the
moment”

“No harm in trying though is there?”

“Good luck!”

It took until lunchbreak that day for me to track Aaliah down. Her parents had moved over
from Pakistan in the 70s but she’d been born over here. She always carried herself like a
queen. Her face was pretty much exquisite, dark eyes, cute little smile She was the hottest,
most exotic looking girl I’d ever known.

And she was going to be mine – at least that was the theory.

So I walked up to her, ready to make my move “Aaliah” I greeted her

“Hi” she replied

“I don’t have anything happening on Friday, fancy heading to the cinema with me?”

She looked at me and laughed “Oh…I heard that you fancied me…thing is, I’m not interested!”

‘Not interested? What was that supposed to mean?’ She smoothly walked away from me
before I could ask that question out loud though.

June 15th 2005

“Aaliah?” I started in surprise. I hadn’t seen her since we finished our A Levels in ’98.
She was the first girl I’d really gotten interested in, and after she turned me down I had
problems getting emotionally close to another female – I’d consciously raised my shields
even higher since I wound up starting the recent freelance stuff – I just didn’t think a solid
girlfriend would be able to handle this sort of stuff. OK, so there’s Marshandra, but she’s
not exactly solid.

“Yeah” she laughed in response to my question, starting to dance with me “How have you
been?”

“Well…” I started “I reckoned I had enough qualifications after I did my A Levels and
decided to go into the IT job market. What do you know, not a single company out there
wanted someone without Uni experience. So I dossed for a few months and got myself a
place on a Computing degree at South Bank for the following year”

I then completed the rough guide to my life since ’98, being particularly vague about time
spent in the US and not mentioning the undercover stuff on this planet.

When I asked for a response from her she got nervous though. “Well…you know how it is”
She did not meet my eyes like she usually does. For the second time in my life, this woman
had me baffled. Something had happened to her over the past seven years.

I remained cool and invited her over to meet the other guys – whose eyeballs flew out of
their sockets after I reintroduced Aaliah to them. She still seemed bloody nervy though, I
thought about digging deeper but, right then, the guys hit the floor to do some headbanging
to Nirvana – Those thoughts retreated to the back of my mind as I moved to join them, but
her hand on my arm held me back.

“OK” I said coolly, looking into her eyes that were as hypnotic as ever “Are you now going
to tell me what’s wrong?”

Her answer was straightforward and sotto voice under the noise of the club. “I need the
Fireshadow”

‘OK…’ I thought. No prizes for guessing who the Fireshadow was – and who she knew it
was. “Aren’t you talking about the Shadowfan?” I tried to have a laugh about her plea.

Joking aside, I really needed this like a hole in the head. My game plan on Earth was to
take care of business, contact the girls, chill out for a bit and move on back to the Thunk.
Running a ‘Fireshadow’ op as I now seemed to be called was NOT something I’d planned
on - even if it was for Aaliah Khan. But it couldn’t hurt to check what her situation was, I
rationalized to myself.

“Please…” she begged.

“OK…whassup?” Whatever it was probably explained her nervousness tonight.

“OK” she started, calming herself down “my parents got into trouble with some people
back in Pakistan recently. I don’t know the details, they haven’t told me. But they’re
claiming that to get them out of trouble, they need to marry me off to this psycho back
there.”

Straightforward enough “And the coppers?”

“They don’t want to know” she replied with a heavy hint of worry in her voice.

Well that didn’t fit – last time I checked, the coppers took this sort of stuff pretty
seriously. “Are you serious?” One look in her eyes suggested that that was a stupid
question. “OK…” I thought quickly. Abdul was the only guy who I thought might have a
clue what was going down, furthermore the Muslim scene was his turf anyway “…I’m not
sure what I’ll be able to do, but there’s a guy…a Muslim guy in Bristol that I know. You
give me your number, and I’ll see if we can head over there on the weekend, deal?”

I gave her a quick squeeze. “Deal, thanks” she replied before kissing me “and Happy
Birthday”

OK…she was still as cautious as ever in that department!

19th June 2005

Our train arrived at Temple Meades at 11:40am. Abdul was there to meet us. We shook
hands, I introduced Aaliah, we headed to Clifton and his little ‘Batcave’ in the basement. I
had on me the tazer I’d nicked from Jack Branch the previous year outside Dallas airport.
When I’d arrived in Paris the French customs people didn’t give a fuck and the guys at
Waterloo didn’t look too close either.

“So, Rick, what’s the deal with her?” Abdul started, sitting behind a desk. Aaliah was with
me, Daco was nowhere to be seen – not that I was too bothered. This only needed the three
of us.

“Some psycho out of Pakistan wants to force Aaliah to go out there and marry him. Her
parents have white flagged, apparently they pissed him off for some reason – don’t care
why, but I need you to take care of business for me, I’m hoping you could watch out for
her.”

“No problem” was the response.

For some reason that felt way too smooth. I gave Abdul a look, there was something behind
his eyes that I couldn’t quite place. “You’re either bored, or I’m missing something!” I
stated coolly.

A couple of heavies entered the basement. “Er…Abdul?” I asked. I kept my hand on
Aaliah’s shoulder – she looked like she was going to freak out – not that I could blame her!

“Just leave her with me” Abdul stated, fake grin on his face.

“If you tell me what the bouncers are doing in here…maybe” The heavies now numbered
five.

“Give her up Rick…this has nothing to do with you” I wasn’t budging an inch. “OK…you
are missing something…perspective!” He threw a photo on the desk. A younger version of
him with an older guy who I took a few mins to recognise from the only time I’d caught a
glimpse of him ten years ago. Aaliah recognised him immediately though.

Bottom line, Abdul had history with Aaliah’s dad. Great! Then came another photo.
Younger Pakistani guy. “Amir Shakan” Abdul commented coldly. “Meanest motherfucker
in Islamabad. A few months ago an old University lecturer contacted me in a panic. He’d
reported a mugging to the police…but the duty officer, was on Shakan’s payroll. Long
story short…” Abdul sighed “the lecturer and his wife were soon begging…for their lives.”

“Don’t tell me…they sold out their daughter to an Islamabad gangster” I interrupted.

“I’m sorry Rick…but if this bastard comes to the UK, he’ll need to leave in a good mood”

“Or get chucked into a prison cell”

“If he was that easy to take care of, the Pakistani’s would have dealt with him long
ago…his crew will then come over and break him out and do Allah knows what over here”
He was looking at me like I was a kid, but it was him that was scared of the bogeyman!

“Oh, come on Abdul…this guy’s only human”

“And she’s only an old school crush” The guy had completely lost it. I could sense the
heavies on my back. There was only going to be one way out of here.

One last look in Abdul’s eyes “Bastard” I mouthed…before getting out the taser and
blasting him with it! He yelled, Aaliah screamed, the heavies panicked.

I swung round and dragged Aaliah through a gap in the heavies before they got their act
together, managing to elbow two of them in the chin before they could grab us. Then we
made a break for the staircase. Halfway up, my legs were grabbed from under me, causing
me to drag Aaliah down with me. Ten seconds later my heel slammed into some guy's jaw
after I felt his breath on my body - I heard shouts behind me which suggested he must have
overbalanced and crashed into his mates.

That did me nicely, Aaliah and I scrabbled to our feet and managed to get a good pace
coming out of the house.

"Are you alright?" she asked worriedly - I had admittedly banged my head pretty hard on
the stairs and was going to need a paracetamol at some point.

"I've survived worse" I replied off-hand. I spotted two heavies, one Asian, one white
in the corner of my eye. Headed our way "Let's get moving" I said "I don't suppose you know
Bristol that well?"

Aaliah shook her head - our luck wasn't going to turn just yet.

So we dodged our way through the Clifton streets for a while, my general plan being to find
a way out of the city without getting intercepted by Abdul's guys – who turned out to be
annoyingly good at their shadow work. For the time being though, I just wanted to buy us
some breathing space - everything had just gone completely to shit and we'd need a fresh
sheet of paper if Aaliah wasn't going to wind up on a one-way flight to Islamabad

After at least 15 minutes we caught sight of the Clifton suspension bridge and headed in
that direction and upwards - eventually blending into the mill of people outside a pub. Once
inside, I didn't expect us to have that long - if there was a back way out then we'd be sorted
though.

I headed into the main area of the pub - hoping to blag the back way out from the bar staff.

Then I caught a glimpse of a guy drinking at the bar. For the second time in a week I saw a
ghost from the past. More recent than Aaliah but I still hadn't seen the guy for three years.

Thing was, three years was a long time – last time I checked though, he was still with the
Stargate program. OK, so he could easily have quit, or pissed off Hammond

However, even if he’d gotten booted out of the RAF, I couldn't see a guy like him working
for Abdul – unless he'd recently converted to Islam. And he had the sort of skills that might
turn this shitstorm around. If my memory served me correctly, Bristol was his home town
as well.

Aaliah jerked me out of my thoughts. "Is something wrong?"

"No" I replied "Fingers crossed, we might be back in business" before raising my voice to
call out "Hey James"

The guy I was calling out to looked like he was in a crappy mood with a barely touched
pint in front of him. James Merryweather would be in his early 30s by now, thick dark hair
with an edge of stubble darkening his jaw.

I knew that he’d started out as a raw engineering officer in the RAF, moved on to be
involved in several joint development programs with the Yanks before winding up at Area 51,
where he analysed alien technology brought back from the Stargate program.

He’d had a laugh when I told him about the op that Hammond had set me up on inside that
facility – it wasn’t long after that that he’d gotten transferred to Stargate Command – I
could easily have bumped into him while undercover!

Anyway, it had been good to have another Brit inside that mountain and we’d gotten on
pretty well for the rest of my time there – well enough to be one of the few people who
knew about his feelings for Sydney Becker.

Sydney was a civilian, an FBI forensics expert who’d gotten assigned to his team as a medic
and had a history that was pretty rough. Though James never admitted it, the pair
had instantaneous sparkage. The military is not an ideal place for romance though. Last I’d
checked, he was XO of SG10.

His crappy looking mood suggested that he’d gone on to take that gamble with Sydney, got
found out by the brass and got taken to the cleaners – he certainly had fresh regrets of some
kind. When he looked up, he was as surprised to see me as I was him!

“Rick” James rose from his seat and approached me “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I could ask you what the bloody hell you’re doing back in the UK” I replied in a lower
voice as I shook his hand “but…”

At that point James noticed Abdul’s heavies, one of them now talking on a mobile
– probably updating Abdul, and lowered his voice “This isn’t a social call is it?”

“No” I replied “I’d love to chat but right now I need a back way out of here”

“Rick, who is this guy?” Aaliah asked

James introduced himself to her “James Merryweather, ex-RAF, Ex…” he glanced briefly
at me “…a few other things that I can’t talk about” Turning his attention back my way he
replied to my question. “I think I might be able to help you out, follow me” Leaving his
pint on the bar and picking up a rucksack, heavily laden with caribiners and other climbing
paraphanalia, from beside his stool, he lead us through the pub and out onto a terrace that
gave a spectacular view of the suspension bridge and the nearby gorge.

Glancing back, I noticed that one of the goons was still by the door, talking into his mobile
while the other was pushing through the crowd to keep us in sight.

James was fishing in his rucksack as he led the way to the railings surrounding the area.
“Most of this terrace hangs out over the gorge, but just in this corner, it hangs over the
entrance to the underground garage” he informed us.

Pulling a rope from his bag he swiftly looped it around the railing, dropping the two trailing
ends down over the edge. “It’s only about 20 feet down, I suggest you get moving while we
have the chance” He told us as he watched our pursuer heading in our direction.

“Can you do this?” I asked Aaliah. It was one thing that I’d forgotten – working with James
Merryweather meant working with his own personal brand of insanity! I myself hadn’t
done this sort of stuff since an abseiling lesson at a Milton Hill residential in Devon when I
was in Year 9.

“I think so” She replied bravely “I did a sponsored abseil for a children’s charity a year or
so ago, I think I remember the technique” She smiled at me “Besides, I don’t think we
have many other options”

‘Too right we don’t’ I thought as she took hold of the rope and climbed over the railing,
beginning to lower herself..

The heavy that was following us paused as he saw this, hesitating for a moment he turned
back to rejoin his partner, probably intending to intercept us outside. I followed Aaliah over
the railing and down the rope with James bringing up the rear.

“What now” I asked as James reached the ground, and pulled the rope down after us.

“This way” James replied with a smile as he led us into the garage and towards a blue and
yellow vehicle that looked like a weird cross between a Land-Rover and a Formula One car.
Pulling a set of keys from his pocket he pressed a button on the keyfob and the vehicle’s
indicators blinked twice as the alarm system deactivated.

“It’s a Bowler Wildcat” James called out cheerfully as he took in the look of puzzlement on
my face and climbed into the driver’s door. None the wiser, I opened the passenger door to
discover two bucket seats with 6 point harnesses. James was already in the driver’s seat and
that left just one for me and Aaliah to share until I noticed the cramped space behind them.
Climbing into the back of the vehicle, I helped her to strap in.

James turned the key in the ignition and the 5 litre V8 roared into life, not farting about, he
put the vehicle in gear and headed for the exit ramp. The two men that had been in the bar
appeared at the top of the ramp only to dive out of the way as James hit the gas. I allowed
myself a small chuckle as it was their turn for their plans to go to shit!

Looking behind me, I saw a car pull up sharply and our two trackers rushed towards it and
jumped in. “Damn, they’re well organised” James grumbled as he caught sight of them
himself in the rear view mirror “Rick, Any chance you could tell me what we’re up against
here?”

I gave him the basics on the situation as we sped through the streets of Clifton, seemingly
heading down towards the docks. This thing had certainly not been made for a smooth ride
though – good thing I’ve never been travel sick.

“If I’d known I was going to get involved in a car chase today, I’d have brought Sydney’s
Viper instead of the this thing” James grumbled as he swung the wheel wildly and headed
for the ramp that led to the Cumberland Basin flyover, but there was a slight grin on his
face as he said it. “Damn” James exclaimed as he took another quick look in the rear view
mirror, I glanced back myself and seconded the emotion as I could see another Mercedes
saloon join in the chase..

“We need to lose these guys and fast” James told us “And I think I know just the way to do
it” Slamming the brakes on, James cut hard to the left and took the junction amid a blare of
angry horns. Following the road down and under the dual carriageway he appeared to be
taking us towards Ashton Court Estate.

“Uh, James, don’t we want to stay where there are witnesses” I asked as the Wildcat
rumbled over a cattle grid into the parkland estate. Checking out the rear, I could see that
the cars chasing us hadn’t been fooled by his mad driving.

James took the first couple of speedbumps at pace, the Bowler’s suspension took it in it’s
stride. After a bit, the vehicle started slowing down – knowing James, it had the feel of an
imminent stunt. One of the following cars took the opportunity to take to the grass and
overtake us, pulling up right across the road.

James slammed on the brakes bringing the Bowler to a complete stop and watched as two
of Abdul’s big guys climbed from each vehicle and approached on foot.

“Why are you stopping, we need to get away from them” Aaliah shouted from the
passenger seat.

“Call it a flair for the dramatic” James replied. I turned to Aaliah and crossed my fingers,
hoping the stunt would work “I think we could do with a little music as well” he leant down
to the vehicle’s stereo and hunted through the CD-Multichanger’s tracks. “Ah, here we go”
he said, pressing the play button and Joey Ramone’s Brooklyn accented voice issued from
the speakers.

Hey-ho, Let’s go
Hey-Ho, Let’s go

As this half-decent golden oldie echoed around the truck’s cabin, I heard a clunk as James
reached down to shift the transfer box into 4-wheel drive. “Say goodbye now” he said as he
spun the wheel and aimed the beast directly at the approaching thugs.

Said thugs soon looked like they were cacking their pants before they dived out of the way
as James aimed the truck up the steep slope to their right.

Looking back I could see Abdul’s men, who were starting to resemble headless chickens as
they scrambled to get back to their vehicles to follow us. Looking forward, all I could see
was a grass slope that seemed to be coming at us like a green wall!

The Wildcat hit the top of the slope and we went airborne as we crossed the road that
looped back up following the contours of the hill. What had to be a rally-designed
suspension smoothly handled the impact as we hit the ground again. But I picked up a few
more bruises while being bounced around.

A dense wood loomed at the top of this gradient and I nervously shut my eyes as James
weaved the Bowler along what felt like a footpath, at best, through the forest. At every turn
I reckoned we were going to hit a tree or something but James seemed to know what he
was doing, with a quick turn of the wheel or jab at the brakes he managed to dodge the
large stuff.

With no evident sign of pursuit, James exited the forest a few moments later and pulled the
Bowler up to a gate in the walled perimeter of the estate “Rick, There should be a set of
boltcutters back there, Pass them up to me”

I looked around the sheer chaos that the insane drive had made of the cargo area and
spotted the tool sticking out from the debris. Passing them to James I turned to keep a
watch out of the back window just in case any more of Abdul’s goons were in a position to
take us on.

James climbed down from the driver’s seat and used the heavy steel tool to sever the chain
that held the gates closed. Pulling them open he returned to the vehicle and climbed back in.
“We’ve lost our immediate pursuit” he told me as he passed the boltcutter back “But if I
was this guy Abdul, I think my next move would be to call the police and tell them that you
kidnapped the girl”

From Abdul’s point of view, it would certainly be worth a try “If he’s done that then he’ll
probably have given them a description of this vehicle as well” I reminded him, while
reaching forward to give Aaliah’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze. She was looking pretty
stunned at the recent turn of events – not that I could blame her.

“I agree, I do have a way to get us out of the city, but there’s a slight problem” James told
me as he reached into his jacket and pulled out a palmtop computer. He slid it into a cradle
on the dashboard and activated it. “We’re on the wrong side of the river. We have 3
realistic ways of getting back across” Studying the map display that appeared on the small
computer for a moment he continued. “Both the suspension bridge and the Cumberland
basin routes will take us right back to Abdul’s home turf. The other option is the M5 bridge
at Avonmouth. I can get us there by the backroads but we’ll be exposed on the motorway
for a while. Even so I think it’s our best bet.”

“This is your home town mate” I answered him “I’m in your hands, your call”

James pulled the Bowler out onto the empty road on the other side of the gate and almost
immediately headed offroad again down a farm track that opened up on the right. A
blinking dot in the middle of the computer’s display indicated our position as he hurled the
vehicle along the muddy track.

We had to employ the boltcutters a couple more times on locked farm gates but a short
while later, James drove around the edge of a ploughed field and stopped the vehicle
before a gate that gave access to the main road, less than 100m from the motorway junction.

“Here we go, for better or worse” James said as he aimed the Wildcat towards the slip road.
Once on the motorway, he manoeuvred the vehicle into the outside lane and put his foot
down. Glancing at the speedometer over his shoulder I could see that he was pushing
100mph.

Two junctions passed without any sign of pursuit and James slowed and moved to the
inside lane to take the exit, slowing to keep to the speed limit, presumably in the interest of
avoiding too much attention. I tried not to hold my breath as he seemed to drive at a snail's
pace through a dumb looking one-way system surrounding a complex that the roadsigns
said was the ‘Cribbs Causeway Mall’.

Finally passing around the back of a Mulitplex Cinema we found a rusted gate that gave
access to Filton Airfield. Producing a key, James unlocked the padlock that secured them
and, after rolling the Bowler through the opening he quickly got out to secure the gates
again. On returning to the vehicle, he put it back in gear and drove carefully along the
taxiways – where we eventually approached a hangar that bore a sign proclaiming “FM Air
Services. Flight Tuition and Charter”.

Driving the Wildcat into the back of the hangar and past three planes that were stationed
there, James pulled to a stop in the darkest corner “All change” he said, pulling the palmtop
from it’s cradle and exiting the vehicle as Aaliah struggled with the harness. Climbing
through into the front I followed James as she finally released herself and opened her door.

“Give me a hand with this Rick” James called from where he was wrestling with a tarpaulin,
between the two of us we dragged it over the Bowler. When we were done, James turned to
me “Wait here for a moment, I’ll be right back” he said before turning to head for a
portakabin set just inside the hangar entrance.

Trying to look casual, I tried to get close enough to overhear what was going on in there.
Under the pretence of looking over the nearest plane and straining my ears, I was able to
hear some of the conversation inside the office. Bottom line, James was trying to blag us
a plane off some other guy. Although I couldn’t make out the whole conversation, it seemed
like the other guy was reluctant – I had a hunch that it was a pretty classy plane but that
James was winning the argument.

From what I’d heard it seemed that James was doing his best for us so I headed back to
Aaliah, leaving him to seal the deal. After a few minutes I saw James exit the cabin with a
final word to whoever was stationed inside:

“I’ll look after her, Frank, and thanks, I owe you”

‘Sorted’ I thought. We had ourselves a plane

“You sure do, and this time I’ve got it on paper” The other guy’s voice followed him as he
exited the office.

James gestured for us to follow him as he made his way to the newest and sleekest of the
three planes and helped us aboard. This looked like some very good blagging on James’
part.

For a small craft used by a flying school, the Piper Mirage, as he told us this baby was
called, was a very classy plane – with leather seats, entertainment centers, the works!

Firing up the engine James wasted no time in taxiing us out to the end of the runway and
contacting the tower.

From what I could overhear, he told them that he was engaging on a low level aerial photo
shoot and that he might be under the radar for a significant portion of the flight. I could
hear someone moaning about it over the radio but James’ responses appeared to shut them
up and he opened the throttle to send the aircraft off down the runway.

“I’m going to run us up to Brum, at low level” James told us as he lifted from the runway
and turned north to follow the course of the M5 that ran just past the end of the airfield.
“There should be a mini-bar back there somewhere, Help yourselves.”

I didn’t feel like breaking out any booze, and I didn’t reckon we’d be spending enough time
in the air to down much. Streaming past the motorway traffic at over 200mph, far too close
to the ground for my liking and with the occasional sudden climb and dive to avoid the
powerlines that criss-crossed the country, I closed my eyes and left James to do the flying

Less than half an hour later, just past what was probably the Junction with the M42, James
banked the plane off to the left and headed for an airstrip that looked like it was left over
from WW2. Setting the plane down gently on the runway, James taxied to the main hangar
and stopped just outside.

Turning to me, James spoke up “What’s your plan from here then Rick and how can I help
out” he asked

“For starters, are you sure you want to stick with this?” I replied, torn between wanting his
help and wanting to keep him out of trouble.

“You’re joking, Right?” James responded “I haven’t had this much fun since I got canned
from the program, there’s no way I’m going to just back out now”

I was silent for a while as I took stock of the situation. In the last hour or so we’d gotten
James Merryweather of all people onside, taken Abdul’s crew to the cleaners and gotten
100 odd-miles away from Bristol.

For a while Abdul would be fucked. He knew that I’d managed to get help from someone
with some mad wheels and he’d probably have worked out we’d quit Bristol by now. But
unless he’d managed to get intel on James, specifically that he had wings, then he’d be
assuming that we were on the road – probably the M4 heading to London, and for Aaliah
and I, home.

Now if he did manage to rope in the coppers one way or another, then there were a few
loose ends still hanging around. For example, if that guy who James had gotten the plane
from heard something on the local news and blabbed what he knew then we’d have had
a problem. However James seemed to trust the guy so that wasn’t a major worry.

Even if the cops took it seriously, and they hadn’t done when Aaliah had tried to get their
help, it was unlikely that there would be anything publicized before the end of the day, the
local TV news wouldn’t be on till 6-6:30. And it was now 1:15. Local radio wouldn’t pick
up the info much faster either, it would take the afternoon for the coppers to get their intel
down. Furthermore James’s photoshoot line would be of little use to anyone in terms of
working out where we were, though things could get very messy if we wound up on Crimewatch.

And if Abdul couldn’t rope in the coppers then his options were severely limited. The guy
had contacts all over the place, almost certainly including Birmingham, but if he brought
them into play, they’d be watching the roads, they wouldn’t have been watching the skies
just now. And he’d have set things up on the assumption that he had more time to play with
than he did. He probably wouldn’t take his non-Bristol guys off the roads till the end of the
day at least.

Either way, we had at least a few hours to play with.

“You don’t seem to have planned this escapade all that well” James interrupted my
thoughts in a joking tone. “Were you just hoping that an old acquaintance would show up
and save your butt?”

“Well after Abdul stabbed me in the back, my primary concern had been getting out of
Bristol - though if I hadn’t been abseiling, bounced around in a rallycar wannabe, and
flown on a small plane that was dodging power cables then maybe I’d have had a chance to
come up with a further plan by now” I replied in a similar vein.

“OK, Fair point” James replied with a grin. “We need to find somewhere to hole up and
plan our strategy”

I took one look at Aaliah and realised that what he said made sense. “So, a hotel or
something to base ourselves out of and slow down the pace a bit, for her sake” I jerked my
thumb at Alliah “before she completely loses it. I reckon we’ve bought ourselves the
afternoon if not the rest of the day.”

“Works for me” James replied.

James organised getting the plane into the hanger while I concentrated on getting the guy
who ran the club to call us a cab. We got the cabbie to take us to a Travelodge in town and
grabbed lunch there.

The chat was mainly catch up stuff. James and I gave Aaliah a ‘NORAD’ version of how
we knew each other, I came up with a wisecrack about Sydney which did not go down too
well on James’s part. That meant that his crappy mood earlier had to have been Sydney
related – the exact cause could have been a variety of things.

What I did learn was that James had been kicked off the Stargate program for reasons he
was reluctant to go into but I had the feeling that they involved Sydney in some way. Since
returning to the UK, he’d gone into business designing and patenting various products
based on his knowledge of alien technology and occasionally teaching at that flying school
we’d gotten the Piper from.

One thing was for certain – he wasn’t keen on discussing Sydney, I quickly stopped
bringing the subject up although I couldn’t help speculating. He’d mentioned that he had
access to her car but from the little hints he had let slip, she didn’t seem to be part of his life
at the moment. Had they taken their relationship further and been caught out? Was that why
he was back here in England? But then where was she? Had she left him? was she even still
alive?

I decided to let that issue lie a little bit longer while Aaliah told us a quick bit about her life.
She’d gone up to Manchester Uni to study Cosmetics and moved back down to London
after she graduated, she had been freelancing in the ‘just off-West End’ theatre scene,
money was decent, she’d been happy enough till her parents first demanded that she
married this Amir Shakan in January. She’d immediately quit her London job, and had
been trying to stay under her parent’s radar in Manchester since then. While looking for
someone who could help her online, she came across ‘The Fireshadow’. She found a
number for my Hammersmith flat but of course I was out of town. The next person she
happened to contact was Steve, who told her I was living in the US and that he didn’t have
a number for me – though he would contact her next time he saw me. That arrangement led
to the meet at the School Disco.

That led to a discussion of my ‘Fireshadow’ activities Aaliah seemed to know the basics
but James hadn’t heard about the last two ops I’d been involved in – He did, at least, know
the details about the AHA so I didn’t bother going into that. If nothing else, it would mean
that James would be relatively clued up if I needed his help again on such matters. It wasn’t
long after I’d finished that piece of commentary that Aaliah asked a seemingly innocent
question: “So, how did you get called back to NORAD?”

I shot a look at James and could see immediately from his expression that she had opened
up a big fat can of worms.

Letting James know about the Thunk wasn’t something that I had considered up to that
point and I only really considered it for one second as I knew that having James on board
could get very messy. For one thing, John’s a very secretive, slightly paranoid fucker. From
what I knew of his situation I figured that James would jump at the chance to blag his way
on to the crew but he’d be liable to hit a brick wall – heck the only reason I got on to the
ship was because I effectively saved John’s life once! And though the crew were a great
bunch of people, I wasn’t even dead cert I was going to head back offworld after I found
the girls and took care of business with them.

However James was now definitely suspicious that I was doing something off-world. I
reckoned his guess was probably that I’d joined the Tok’re again for some reason – that
was academic, the guy would certainly want to know at some point. As my brain had
started to work out a plan that had James as a crucial part – I knew that whatever happened,
I needed to keep him onside for this op at least.

We’d just about finished lunch by that point. A few minutes later and Aaliah headed for the
toilet. It was about 2:30 and the restaurant was pretty much deserted. Once I had him alone,
I couldn’t help bringing up the question

“OK. What happened to Sydney?” I asked him outright as I watched Aaliah disappear into the
restroom.

“I’d rather not talk about her if you don’t mind” James wouldn’t meet my eyes as he replied.

“I knew her too” I reminded him “Not as well as you, obviously but I think I have the right
to ask how she’s doing”.

“She’s dead, Alright! Is that want you wanted to know?” was his initial response. For a
moment I was taken aback by his outburst but, with it, he seemed to run out of resistance
and told me the story – which wasn’t as straightforward as expected.

They had taken their relationship further and while on a break between missions, they had
taken some time off together for a trip to Vegas. While there they had made a spur of the
moment decision to get married, by some Elvis impersonator – the set up sounded crazy but
James seemed to take it seriously enough. Once they realised the consequences of their
actions, the pair had been keeping their mouths shut because Hammond would certainly
have taken them to the cleaners.

The set up worked pretty smoothly for a couple of years, and not long after Hammond got
moved up to DC and replaced by a Dr Teresa Weir, James got promoted to Squadron leader
and given command of SG10. A couple of months later though, everything fell apart when
Sydney became a no-show for a mission briefing. James soon worked out that something
was up and began tracking her down – I could certainly empathise with him over that,
having raced back to London from Munich myself when I heard about the NID assassin
gunning for Steve back in ‘02.

Unlike me however, James didn’t manage to save the day. Sydney had been taken by a
psycho called Randall Evans who had a grudge against her from her FBI days. Bottom line,
James arrived too late to save her but just in time to catch Evans as he tried to make a
getaway. Having failed to save his wife James had settled for pumping Evans full of lead.

Unsurprisingly this did not go down well with the brass, be it Hammond, to a lesser extent
Jack – now running the Stargate program as a Brigadier general - or the RAF. He got
booted out of the military and was lucky to stay Stateside long enough to attend Sydney’s
funeral.

I could see why James had said this op had been the most fun he’d had since getting booted
off the Stargate program – furthermore, if I’d have been in his exact situation, I couldn’t
honestly be dead cert I wouldn’t do the exact same thing – I was just hoping I’d never lose
someone like that!

“Right, My turn to ask some questions” he glared into my eyes “I’m guessing Seng’ok is
gone. I can’t see the old snake staying quiet for this long, but Aaliah’s comment about
NORAD has me wondering”

I realised that I had to shut James down before he got my back against the wall. “Look,
you’re the one who didn’t tell anyone that he was married till he gunned his wife’s killer
down. You can’t exactly talk when it comes to keeping your cards close to your chest” That
line was either going to work or it wasn’t.

“I’ve just spilled my guts to you” he replied. “Now it’s your turn…someone’s gotten you
over a barrel about something to do with the Stargate, right?”

“No comment” was my response.

“Is it Hammond?”

I rolled my eyes “James, you’re wasting your time – for the record, the last time I had any
contact with Hammond was only a few months after I walked out of the mountain” I started
to give him a run down on the original Gegenspass op but he’d heard enough about it
through the SG rumour mill anyway. I shot him a glare that told him that I’d officially
clammed up about the matter

“So you won’t let me know the whole story? That’s OK, I’ll just take the Piper back to
Filton and leave you and Aaliah to fend for yourselves up here”

He looked serious and got up to leave, I had to think fast. If James bailed out on us at this
point then this op was going to be outright impossible, given that the plan that I’d been
developing had James in a lead role. On my call he waited up.

“OK” I responded “the deal is this: You don’t bugger off now and I’ll tell you what’s going
down after this is over”

“Do you even have a plan yet?” he enquired.

For a guy like James, the plan would be pretty straightforward, though it meant going into
the lion’s den. He was to take the Piper back to Bristol, head to Abdul’s place, and break
into his ‘Bat Cave’. There were two things I needed from there. Firstly, proof that the
whole forced wedding thing was going to go down.

The secondary target was what the Yanks would call Abdul’s ‘playbook’. He’d implied that
he’d been after Aaliah for a few months now and if I could find out about his handiwork on
this op prior to this weekend, I’d have a good idea what else needed to be done before we
were home free. Only catch to the deal was that it would have to happen at night, but apart
from that – the fine details would be James’ territory.

I borrowed a pen and paper from reception and wrote down Abdul’s address, adding a
sketch of the layout as I remembered it. “Can you pull this off subtly? Hopefully, Abdul
doesn’t know much about you but he knows me pretty well. I’d rather this happened
without him knowing a thing about it”

“Oh ye of little faith, I can do ‘covert’ when I have to” James chuckled and I heaved a sigh
of relief. Thank fuck for that – we were still in business “But I’m going to hold you to the
full story once this is done” he insisted as I added my mobile number to the bottom of the
sheet and handed it to him.

At that point, Aaliah came back from the Ladies “You alright?” I asked. She had a look
about her that was…too good to be true.

“I’ll be getting on then” James announced, reaching into a pocket and handing me a
business card with his contact details on. The inscription around the edge seemed
decorative at first but Seng’ok’s memories recognised the Goa’uld script that read ‘Any
technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced” I had to smile – James
always had been an Arthur C Clarke fan.

As James walked away towards the reception area I stood up to meet Aaliah “Oh by the
way” I told her “We’re definitely staying overnight here, and I haven’t gotten round to
fixing up any rooms yet”

“Already taken care of that” she replied, as she put her arms round me before she
whispered in my ear “How does sharing a bed with me sound?”

“Thought you weren’t interested?” I replied in kind.

Her kiss was a good enough answer to that, but she then added out loud “That was then,
this is now” with the sort of smile my teenage self would have been envious of. After
looking her up and down for 10 seconds – she still looked fit as ever, she reached out and
pinched me with a giggle at my bemusement – that felt real enough! I just grabbed her and
snogged her there and then!

********

When James arrived back at the airfield in the taxi he’d called from the hotel, he wasted no
time in getting the Piper refuelled and off the ground back towards Bristol, keeping to the
same low altitude he had on the way up. The less visible he was to air traffic control, the
better off everyone would be.

The flight back gave him some time to think about his plan of action, breaking into Abdul’s
place shouldn’t be a problem but what would that get him. It was unlikely that he would
find a carefully annotated master plan conveniently written down and left for him to find.

As he began the approach back to the airfield and dealt with air traffic control a plan began
to come together in his mind. Frank had left for the day by the time that James had topped
up the Piper’s fuel tanks and parked the plane back in the hangar. Darting a brief look at the
tarp-covered Bowler Wildcat, he decided that discretion was the better part of valour in the
current circumstances and went to the office to phone a taxi.

When the taxi dropped him off back at his place in Winterbourne, he ignored the house and
headed straight for his workshop behind the garage. Flicking on the overhead lights as he
opened the door he entered a spacious area equipped with a sophisticated array of design
and manufacturing tools. Ignoring the sleek, store bought equipment, he approached a
home built unit and began programming in his requirements.

The device was his latest attempt at a machine that could grow the kind of crystal
technology at the heart of Goa’uld and some of the more minor Ancient technologies. It
was still pretty unsophisticated but was capable of turning out the limited functionality he’d
need for this mission. Specifying the relevant structures and the metallic veins that would
connect them took little time as he used the software that he’d contracted out to a university
grad student that he’d met through the flying school.

Once the machine was set up and running, he left it to its own devices and returned to the
house. Quickly changing into a pair of black levis and a black jacket with a multitude of
pockets, he paused for a moment as he considered taking a weapon but decided against it.
Picking up his motorcycle helmet on the way out, he made his way back to the workshop.

The crystal growing device would take a while to complete its production run so James
occupied the time by gathering a selection of tools that would be of help in this escapade
and stowing them in various pockets. Finally he approached a safe set into the wall, After
he entered the combination and verified his fingerprint and retinal patterns, the door opened
and James reached inside to remove the Asgard built scanner that had been his first ever
research project at Area 51 and that he’d managed to keep in his possession ever since. He
stowed it in another pocket and closed the safe.

Waiting for the crystals to grow, he made another sweep of the workshop for anything that
might come in useful. After what seemed an age, the machine eventually announced its
completion with a chime. If he’d got the specifications right, the blue-green crystal, with
veins of gold and silver running through it, about the size of the last joint of his thumb,
would function as an audio-visual surveillance device that wouldn’t register on a metal
detector and that transmitted on a frequency that couldn’t be detected by most current earth
technology.

Pulling out his palmtop computer again, which itself had been modified with more than a
little alien technology, he attempted to link to his new creation. He was rewarded when a
view of his workshop appeared on the screen, so he pocketed both items with a grin on his
face and turned off the lights as he left the workshop.

Opening the garage, he left Sydney’s Dodge Viper where it stood and pulled on his helmet
before climbing onto his Yamaha YZ-FR1. By now it was getting on for 1am and pitch
dark, just the right time for the sort of thing James had in mind. Gunning the throttle, he
aimed the bike back towards the heart of the city.

Arriving back in Clifton, James parked the bike up and locked both his helmet and the
bike’s back wheel with a heavy chain and set the alarm. Approaching the location of
Abdul’s hangout, he found himself a place where he could watch the door from cover.
Pulling the Asgard scanner from his pocket he aimed it at the building and adjusted the
settings. From the readings he received, it looked like the place was still occupied so he
settled down to wait.

It was almost 3am before there were signs of activity, a pair of Mercedes saloons pulled up
in front of the place and several men left the building and climbed into them, Abdul among
them. James waited until they were out of sight before checking the building again.
Satisfied with the readings, he pulled on a set of latex gloves before leaving his hiding
place in the bushes and approaching the door. He’d learnt a lot from Sydney about the types
of evidence that could be recovered from a crime scene.

Close up use of the scanner revealed a sophisticated security system, by commercial
standards, but nothing to cause too many problems as James began pulling tools from his
pockets and set about bypassing it. Once the door sensor was deactivated, the lock proved
no problem and he was soon stood in the entranceway.

The alarm system’s control box was mounted on the wall just inside the door and it took
only moments for James to bypass the security lock and anti-tamper systems. Once he had
access to the internal circuitry, cutting off the infra-red movement sensors was a breeze and
looping the video recording system took only a little longer. By the time he’d finished, the
alarm system was still fully active but unable to detect anything.

Making his way down the stairs to the underground lair, James pushed open the door to a
businesslike office with a desk in the middle containing a PC and printer, and filing
cabinets around the walls. He powered up the PC and while waiting for it to boot, began to
investigate the filing cabinets. Picking the locks was easy but most of the contents appeared
to be in an eastern script that he didn’t recognise, probably Abdul’s native language. The
PC eventually presented him with a login screen and although James would class himself
as computer literate, he was no hacker.

It looked like his original idea was still the best bet, climbing onto the desk he pushed up
one of the tiles that comprised the suspended ceiling and removed it. Pulling a out a
Leatherman multitool from its pouch on his belt, James folded out the blade and cut a
recess in the back of the tile that just penetrated through the surface enough to allow the
crystal’s receptor access to the room.

Fitting the crystal into position and replacing the tile he checked the reception on his
palmtop before relocking the filing cabinets and shutting down the PC. Making his way
back up to the entranceway, he carefully reversed what he had done to the alarm system
and door sensor before leaving the building.

A quick check up and down the street revealed no witnesses as James stepped out onto the
pavement and made his way back to his bike. Arriving back home in the very early hours of
the morning, he set his palmtop to record anything transmitted by his bug and retired to bed.

20th June 2005

James woke just after midday the following day and made his way to the kitchen to start a
pot of coffee brewing while he went to shower and shave. Returning to the kitchen,
dressed in jeans and a green cotton shirt he poured himself a mug of the brew and sat at the
kitchen table before pulling out the palmtop to check the results of last night’s break-in.

The signal was coming in strongly and at the precise moment, Abdul was conversing with
two men that James recognised from yesterday’s chase. Unfortunately he couldn’t
understand a word they were saying to each other. Hiding the real-time window he accessed the
recorded data to see if he could come up with something useful.

After a couple of hours reviewing the recordings, James was sure that they had enough
information here to incriminate Abdul if only they could translate it. Although much of the
conversation was in the man’s native tongue, Aaliah’s name and, to a lesser extent, Rick’s
came up several times and on a few occasions he had to resort to English for telephone calls.
From these snippets, it appeared that there was a flight into Heathrow from Islamabad in a
couple of weeks that he was particularly interested in.

What was needed was someone who could translate the stuff that he didn’t understand and
the only person who he knew of, immediately, that might be able to do that was Aaliah.
Picking up the phone he dialled Rick’s mobile number.

******

It hadn’t been long after James had headed for Bristol that Aaliah and I had made our way
to our shared room – and it hadn’t been long after that before our lips started to lock
and…we remained locked together for a while after that. Given that we hadn’t seen each
other for the best part of a decade, the whole thing felt like a dream – but…wow!

She’d talked quite a bit that morning, rambling really - regretting that she didn’t do
anything with me back in the 90s. She honestly had thought that she could save herself
from any romantic or sexual relationship before marriage – and had been open to her
parents arranging something but this whole thing with Amir Shakan had been completely
unexpected.

It was while she described that conversation that she’d started to break down. She’d kept in
contact with her parents regularly, like she was expected to so the phone call itself wasn’t
unexpected. The nature of the call was something that she had never imagined in her worst
nightmares. She’d always gotten on with her parents, always respected them, like she was
supposed to…she didn’t have a clue what had gone wrong.

It was like the last 25 years of being a good little girl had counted for nothing. She
wondered whether she had been too good, and been taken for granted. As far as her parents
were concerned, the fact that she’d still be alive should have been good enough. They
thought Amir Shakan would have have enough honour for that – but Aaliah wasn’t sure
whether he did or not, it was academic anyway. She hadn’t been to Pakistan for 10 years,
had no reason to go back and had never been so scared in her life! She just didn’t have a
clue what had gone wrong.

The bottom line was, she felt betrayed and in no way did she want to be her parent’s little
girl anymore. She wanted me, it wasn’t just the sex last night, she seriously wanted
something long term with me, maybe it was a psychological deal, the easiest way of
starting her life over…I dunno, us going out together, certainly wouldn’t stop her parents
from pulling another stunt like this down the line, but the idea did have some appeal though
– she was fit, cool to be with, could handle me being this ‘Fireshadow’ at least…

On the other hand, it did mean for certain that my future dealings with the Thunk would
just involve tying up the current loose ends and then staying Earthbound, with the
Fireshadow stuff probably providing a buzz every now and again! The main disadvantage
of that course of action, was that I still had knowledge of a galactic player(namely John)
who I didn’t really have much of a clue about – he seemed like one of the good guys, but
there was no way I could be sure for certain as things stood.

I was jerked out of my lunchtime reverie by my mobile ringing. It was James.

“Hey James – how did it go?” I asked

He told me what had happened over the previous night. His use of alien based tech for this
op had been risky but if he could go into business patenting the stuff then he could get
away with using it on something like this. His homemade crystals actually had my mind
forming a plan on that other issue I’d been working on before I bumped into Aaliah,
namely getting Merl and Gater out of trouble.

“Are you still there Rick?” For the time being I had to return to the matter at hand though
– furthermore my being lost with thought had probably gotten James’ cogs whirring again.

“Yeah I’m here” I responded “So what did you come up with”

“That’s the problem mate” James explained “I’ve got what’s probably enough evidence to
convict Abdul, Aaliah’s parents, give this Amir Shakan character a friendly welcome to
these shores, the works. Thing is, I’m going to need someone who knows Arabic to get it
translated. I’m hoping that Aaliah can help, I’ve got contacts who can do it but it’ll take me
some time to track them down and this seems to be pretty urgent”

Aaliah being able to translate Arabic wasn’t the most solid of assumptions. Aaliah’s
heritage was Pakistani and so she’d be more likely to speak Urdu than Arabic. Still, it was
worth a shot.

“OK…” I asked her “James has recorded a load of Abdul chatting in Arabic – is there any
chance you could translate the stuff”

“No problem” she replied “My family Quar’an was in Arabic…and when I was a little girl
I thought it would be great to go on a Hajj one day” she smiled ironically “so I had some
modern Arabic lessons with a friend of my mother’s. So yes…I could translate whatever
Abdul’s saying.”

“Great” I replied before telling James “Aaliah’s happy to translate – I’m handing you over
to her now”

“OK James, I’m here” she spoke into the mobile. James must have started the recording
right away “OK…he’s not happy…he’s just talked to father who chewed him out over how
things are going…he’s had all his guys watching the motorways, railway stations and
airports and they haven’t come up with anything…he thinks Rick’s a selfish bastard, and
that I’m a selfish whore…” we rolled our eyes in unison. Nothing solid as yet “…Father is
blaming me for not performing my duty and marrying Amir Shakan and, as a result, putting
his and mother’s lives in danger… and… wants… Abdul to do everything he can to bring
me back!”

Score one! Theoretically, that was enough for us to go to the coppers with.

Aaliah continued translating. The news was not good. Firstly, Amir Shakan was headed
over here in a couple of weeks. Therefore we were realistically against the clock. I did not
want to have to deal with Amir and crew as well as Abdul if I could possibly help it.

The second problem was what effectively forced our hands. Abdul had planted a guy inside
Milton Hill’s admin staff, called Hakeem. He’d gotten into Aaliah’s old school records
which were still on the Milton Hill database. There were no specifics as to what exactly
he’d done but it sounded similar to my strategy for the Gegenspass op – discredit the target
so that they can’t do much by way of a counter – it explained why the coppers didn’t take
Aaliah seriously originally. What made things easier for them is that last time I checked,
the Milton Hill staff had been completely overhauled since ’96 – therefore there’d be no
one there now who’d know Aaliah as anything other than a database entry. Abdul was a sly
bastard, no doubt about that.

Having said that – he didn’t know that he’d been bugged, which meant that we could
potentially finish him off if I could get inside the Milton Hill admin set up and pin down
Hakeem. Getting a job fixed up at short notice could be easier said than done and if it came
off, I’d have just a week to pull it off. Still, it was a solid plan.

Aaliah gave me back the phone. I explained my plan so far to James.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked.

“For the time being, hang out in Bristol, when I call next, I want you to get back up here
with the Piper…or whatever, and then take us down to London, but NOT any of the main
airports unless you know a way out that doesn’t involve the main terminal.”

“Got it” James replied

27th June 2005

If you had told me back in ’96 that I’d be walking back into Milton Hill School under these
circumstances, I wouldn’t have believed you! Then again, you wouldn’t have believed a lot
of the things I’d been up to over the past five years.

Anyway, I’d spent the week setting up both this op and what was going to have to be my
next one, in Munich against more familiar opposition. Not ideal but it looked like it would
be the only way to locate the girls!

First things first, I’d taken on the alias of another guy in my old tutor group called Danny
Harris. We’d been mistaken for each other enough times back in the day that on the fluke
that there were one or two admin staff who were still around from the mid 90s, they
wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. Given the shit that Danny got up to back then, I
didn’t reckon that his facing eviction at the end of the week would be unrealistic either.
The pity act luckily worked.

I called James and late Friday morning, Aaliah and I had met up with him at that old
airfield. He’d brought up a new plane, a twin engined Piper Seneca, instead of the Mirage
we’d used last time. I didn’t recognize it as one of the planes that I’d seen in the hangar and
when I asked where he’d acquired it he told me that I didn’t want to ask unless I was
willing to pay for it. Apparently, our destination was London City airport and they didn’t
allow single engine planes like the Mirage to land there. We didn’t need to fly under the
radar for this one and James had set me up a temporary cover as a businessman on an
executive charter.

The flight went smoothly enough but as we approached the docklands airport over the
surrounding skyscrapers, James sent the plane into a steep dive that had me and Aaliah grip
each other’s hands at the rate of descent towards a very solid looking runway.

“Aren’t we coming in a little fast” I asked quietly, trying not to disturb his concentration.

“That’s why I chartered the Seneca” he replied smoothly while focussing on the controls
“London City requires a steep approach at over 15 degrees”

“That’s difficult, right?” Aaliah exclaimed “Are you sure you can handle it?”

“I’ve flown Harriers” James reassured her “For me ‘Steep’ means at least 45 degrees and
I’ve done 90 degrees straight down” he shot us a grin over his shoulder “Although I
wouldn’t like to try it in this plane”

Once we’d touched down, James had insisted that the cover he’d set up was so good that
there’d be no way Abdul’s guys would have hope in hell of doing anything about us, even
if we did get recognised, without getting themselves detained. He handed us over to a
hostess at the Jet Centre Business Annex and we waited in the luxuriously appointed
lounge until another hostess approached us to announce that our transport was waiting
outside. James had obviously pulled out all the stops on this operation and we were met by
a chauffeur outside the terminal.

The guy drove us to Teddington, with me claiming that I had some deals to do at the TV
studio there. We headed past the Barbican, through Hammersmith(stopping off at my flat to
pick up my laptop), crossed the river at Barnes before heading through Richmond and
making our destination in time for lunch at the Fishermen. There was a B + B next door
that we booked ourselves in for the night, then I’d changed into some crappier clothes to
look like a down and out – Danny had an interview that afternoon!

The interview was a success, the school was more then happy to help an old boy with some
faked eviction notices and an implication that he was trying to get off drugs! Realistically, I
had to settle for a cleaner’s job for this op, which only gave me limited access to the IT
admin side of the school but overall, the op should be workable.

James had already taken the Seneca straight back home after dropping us off but had
provided the recordings he’d made, transferred on to conventional Earth media(a blank CD)
– he was gonna be surplus to requirements after that. I’d promised that I’d tell him what I’d
been doing over the past year when this was over but in all honesty, I neither had a real
window to do that nor an inclination to do so. I still could not see James lasting ten seconds
with John and I felt that the best case scenario was that we’d fade out of each other’s lives
again.

Which left Aaliah and I basing ourselves out of the B+B and now I walked into Milton Hill
school on a Monday morning for the first time in nearly a decade! The décor was one thing
that hadn’t changed, there were still works from the school’s art students hanging around,
canteen was in the same place, only other person with me was this black woman in overalls
– who turned out to be Cindy Harper, the head of the cleaning staff.

“Now, get-to-work” were the last lines this woman said to me for the rest of the day.

I wound up doing a recce of all the rooms in the staff corridor that day on cleaning
duties(which were generally a pain in the arse) and that include the main school reception
and the IT services department. The people at reception seemed decent enough but the IT
guys didn’t want to know a scummy cleaner. While you could get at the database at
reception, only the IT guys could alter it – it was a group of five and one of them may or
may not have been Hakeem, depending on how cautious Abdul felt.

I did not want to use the tazer for this op as that would attract too much attention, so I’d left
it stashed at the B+B. Furthermore, I was against the clock. However, there was one trick
that I reckoned could work – but I needed more intel before going for it.

29th June 2005

On Wednesday I’d stayed late, swinging by the school office, supposedly for a last look
round. While most of the employees had treated me pretty snobbily, there had been one
woman, called Brenda who so far kinda liked me in a Forrest Gump sort of way. This had
its uses as she seemed to be IT literate enough to possibly know how the database system
worked.

I ran her a line of bullshit about me wanting to show up the ‘posh gits’ at an IT literacy
course I was going to be doing “…once I like, have the cash!”. As a result she gave me a
quick lesson on the Uni software this morning, starting with office systems…and
eventually she, with some prodding from me, gave me some basic info on the database system.

She didn’t tell me how to alter records, but I didn’t really need to know that, I didn’t know
exactly what was on Aaliah’s original record anyway. What she did tell me was that the
school used some new software called ‘Fingerprint’ which allowed you to find out if a
database entry had been altered and if so, who by. Trouble was it was only set up to work
on the ‘current pupil’ database.

Since the early 90s, Milton Hill had operated a compulsory ‘current student’ database in
parallel with a voluntary ‘ex-pupil’ database – whose voluntary nature got it past the Data
Protection Act by the skin of its teeth. It had included various ex-Milton Hill pupils from
that class of ’92 onwards – their records were be kept on for 10 years in case they ever
needed a job at the school as staff of some kind. I hadn’t bothered with it but both Aaliah
and Danny Harris had - both their records were still on there and would be for another year
– it was that record that Hakeen would have adjusted. Abdul must have gotten the intel
on this from Aaliah’s Dad.

No one had thought about setting up Fingerprint on the ex-pupil database – no one thought
of a reason why they should.

“OK love…there’s one thing ‘ere I don’t understand” I enquired “Now I only got out of
here in ’96 with three D’s five E’s and two F’s but surely it should have been bleedin’
obvious that people could alter ex-pupil records as easily as current ones!”

“I’ll talk about it to the IT support people” she replied, acting dismissive.

30th June 2005

I was up at about 6:30 and checked my mobile for any messages, nothing, I was in the
middle of preparing breakfast when there was a knock on my door and I opened it to find a
courier with a padded envelope for me. I had to sign for it and no sooner had I shut the door
than the mobile rang, it was James

“You should have the disks by now” he opened “Gotta love courier services that have
active tracking systems installed”

James had mentioned that he’d keep an eye on the bugs so any further intel he’d gained
might have it’s uses. It turned out that he’d called in a few favours, and had Abdul’s
computer system thoroughly hacked. After all he could watch the guy type in his password
through the surveillance device. He’d also gone a step further and gotten the info translated
and collated. He also informed me that Abdul had located me and was on his way to deal
with me.

Question was…how the hell had Abdul found me? Only thing I could think of was that
Brenda had brought up the Fingerprint issue later the previous afternoon, Hakeem had still
been around and had panicked – alerting Abdul.

Checking the contents of the DVDs on my laptop, I had to admire the way James had
pulled this off. One contained enough information on Amir to get him refused entry to the
country and the other contained enough info on Abdul to have him banged up for life.

“Don’t forget, We still have to have a little talk” James reminded me before hanging up “If
you try to ‘skip town’ before then” his emphasis on those words left me in no doubt that he
meant going off-planet “You’d better not come back!”

Yet another thing to worry me, I had no way of knowing how serious his threat was but,
knowing James and having seen what he’d pulled off for me on this op, I didn’t take it
lightly. Of course, if I bumped into Abdul or Hakeem before I got as far as the coppers the
whole question would become moot…well, I’d cross that bridge when I came to it. Given
the ammo I already had, I shouldn’t be too hard to get them to white flag. Before then, I
had work to do and after James’ warning I made a point to take the taser with me.

As a cleaner, I had a skeleton key. The type that gets you into IT support rooms early in
the morning. I had remembered one of the guy’s usernames from the corner of my eye on
one occasion and ran the dictionary assault tool, which came up good. It was then a case of
installing Fingerprint on to this machine and running it on the ex-student database.

Sure enough, it found that Aaliah’s record had been altered sometime back in January. I did
a screen dump and copied it into Power Point before printing off the results and popping
them in my rucksack along with the DVDs. Next stop was the coppers – and that was the
other side of Teddington. After that, I reckoned on grabbing breakfast and prepping for the
trip to Munich – with Aaliah in my Hammersmith flat of course.

Of course…that plan was made on the assumption that I could avoid Abdul. No prizes for
guessing what I heard as I was crossing Station Road though.

“Oh…Rick!” came Abdul’s voice “I didn’t expect to find you so easily after the last week
or so”

So the fucker had gotten the first train out of Bristol that morning. I turned round and saw
him and a black guy I recognised from the Milton Hill IT department – called himself
Lennie…at least that ID’d Hakeem “Welcome to Teddington, Abdul. You’d have been
better off having a lie-in though – unless you want your confession to be added to the
evidence I’ve got here.”

“So…a lightbulb came on over your head and you remembered the database and came out
of hiding to check out a hunch?” Abdul was interested.

“No lightbulb mate” I smirked as the line on James’ business card came to mind “A little
bit of magic allowed me to get at a recording of you chatting about your grand master plan
– including Hakeem…” I glanced at ‘Lennie’ “…it’s game over as far as you’re concerned”

At that, Abdul just laughed. “Oh Rick…do you honestly think I got the 5am train from
Parkway just to surrender? Hand over whatever you’ve got, forget about Aaliah and we
walk away from each other right now – you’re not exactly squeaky clean yourself! I don’t
suppose you remember hearing about an office complex in Leeds burning down a couple of
years back…and who knows what else I might be able to find out after that – face it Rick,
what’s the difference between the two of us anyway? We believe in different things but we
both play the same game and the coppers would see us both as potential nuisances if
nothing else. Do you honestly think that, if they found out about both of us, they’d lock me
up and allow you to keep running loose?”

OK…the bastard had yet another ace up his sleeve. “Firstly, the only reason I was even up
in Leeds was to get your arse out of jail…” I snapped “…and secondly, you’re wasting
your time – Amir won’t be entering the UK any time soon – that’s already been taken care
of.”

“I don’t believe you. Anyway, you can either hand over the things or I’ll make sure you
face conspiracy-to-commit-arson charges at least!”

Mutually assured destruction. Copyrighted by late 20th century superpowers. Not a bad
trick if I was honest. Having said that, my first instinct was to do my best Clint Eastwood
impersonation and say ‘Go ahead punk, make my day!’ I could just fly off back to the
Thunk where no Earthbound copper would find me!

Slight problem with that idea though – if I went back offworld now, it would involve
leaving most of the Thunk crew behind – and given that this op had nothing to do with
them, that kinda took the piss. Not to mention the situation with James, if I ever wanted to
come back to this planet I’d have to deal with him too. As things stood, the Munich op
could get blown wide open if Abdul sent the coppers after me within a few days and I did
get tracked to Germany.

“OK then Abdul – I’ll offer you a deal. I hand over the info that incriminates you so that
you won’t get done for your part in this AND I’ll show you a copy of the data that will
prevent Amir from EVER entering the UK! In return, you leave Aaliah alone, let her
parents get whatever comes to them, and stay out of everyone’s way for a while” He wasn’t
going to get a better deal than that, dead cert!

"What's it worth for me to let my old mentor get taken to jail?" Abdul asked "How about
you tell me who your getaway driver back in Clifton was?"

“Just an old mate of mine, who knows a few tricks and has a few contacts” I replied, James
could take care of himself but that didn’t mean I had to make it easy for Abdul to find him,
he was in a bad enough mood with me as it was! “Now, I’m just going to be on my way.”

Abdul then had to work out his next move. He shot Hakeem a look, the black guy then tried
to whack me. I ducked before slamming them both with the taser and they hit the deck. I
followed up with one foot on each ankle to stop them getting away.

“New deal, guys!” I announced cheerfully pointing the taser at them “I give you as much
pain from this thing as you can handle before you do a deal.”

They soon realised that it wasn’t worth arguing about and so I helped them get up. The next
stop was my room to alter the data we had so that Abdul would be off the hook. The data
on Amir had already been sent to the foreign office. It had been quite an op.

1st July 2005

“I still can’t believe you’ve got another Fireshadow op starting tomorrow!” Aaliah
exclaimed.

Well technically this crystal hunt wasn’t a Fireshadow op, but it was close enough. I’d
taken her back to my Hammersmith flat where we’d been hanging out, fucking and
generally enjoying each other’s company. Right now, we were just finishing off a curry.

The only problem I had was that James was expecting me to meet up with him in Bristol
the next Saturday. Next weekend, I was going to be undercover in Munich and there were a
ton of reasons why that couldn’t be put off. He also said that if I didn’t turn up to the meet,
he’d track me down.

Could I get from Munich to Bristol and back over that weekend? No worries, even using
regular Earth transport. Could I afford to burn a weekend like that? As yet unknown. Was
James seriously capable of tracking me down while I was undercover in Munich? Should I
even take the risk of involving him and could his appearance blow the whole op? Maybe.
Whatever, Aaliah’s smile brought me back to the present.

After ten years, she was mine. And after I got back from Germany she’d still be mine, for
as long as she felt like it. To paraphrase Clark Kent ‘I was the luckiest man alive’. Pity the
music on the radio was crap, no offence to Aaliah but I’d never been into Pakistani music.

I soon found a track that matched my mood.

Tomorrow comes, to take me away
I wish that I, that I could stay
Girl you know I got to go

I felt Aaliah kiss me “Well, if we’ve only got tonight” she whispered invitingly

But I wish it wasn’t so

I responded by getting up and snogging her. And as the chorus started up, I didn’t need
another excuse to practically rip her clothes off once again.

Comments go here or here

Return to miscellaneous homepage

 

Return to Rick Francis homepage

Return to Matt G's place homepage