The Lucifer Network (17 page)

When the report concluded, Sam switched off. The bedside radio had an alarm clock. He set it for 7 p.m. and lay back.

London

In his East End flat, Rob Petrie had also been watching Sky News. He'd turned the channel on the moment he was sure Sandra had fallen asleep after her night shift. From tomorrow she would be off duty for a couple of days, which would force him to be more circumspect.

When he'd first seen the TV images of what he'd done in Southall, the sight of the blood had shocked him, but only in the way that any mortal would be affected. Not because it had anything to do with him. Two Sikhs dead – they were just numbers. Statistics on the TV. Not
people.
He felt nothing for them. The link between his execution of the attack and its consequences was missing. It hadn't surprised him not to feel anything for his victims. After all, what he'd done was a clinically planned act of war. He'd read enough about the military in World War II and the Gulf to know how easy it was for men to kill without guilt.

Two days had passed since the attack. With the investigators showing every sign of cluelessness, his natural fear of being discovered had started to evaporate. He felt a deep satisfaction at what he'd done, and pride. He'd put himself up there. Voted for what he believed in. Stuck a finger up the bum of multi-ethnicity, and shown the whole wide world there were people out here who wouldn't stand for the multiracism being forced on the European population by its compliant, Zionist-backed politicians. He'd even got his erections back.

The Sky News report on the Albanian Kosovars poised to flood into Europe had done much to reinforce his belief in the need for urgent action. Already the streets of Europe's capitals were dogged by dark-skinned, shaven-headed beggars with baggy trousers and beads of eyes that
could spot a wallet through several layers of clothing. The politicians wouldn't stop that tide of gypsies becoming a flood. None of them had the guts to say that European culture must be preserved for the Europeans, a people whose blood had been mongrelised quite enough over the centuries and mustn't be mongrelised any more. So it was down to the likes of him, individuals prepared to use cunning and courage to achieve their ends.

He could never have acted on his own. He had neither the fighting materials nor the vision. It had taken a man with the power to reach out and influence the far corners of Europe to stir him into action. A leader who appeared well practised in the skills of subterfuge and non-conventional warfare. A man whose identity would remain a secret, even from his closest lieutenants.

It didn't matter to Petrie not knowing who his leader was. He knew him by his ideals, by his impressive organisation and by his words. The World Wide Web had brought them together, an article posted on one of the American white-power sites. On a guest page six months ago they'd published a treatise on the future of Europe, written by a man with the pseudonym of ‘Freeman'. His words had made perfect sense to Petrie, a clarion call declaration that encompassed his own beliefs. Caucasian Europeans needed to unite against the enemies from outside. Against the dark races and the Muslims. But Europeans were not all one people. Germans were German, French were French and the English English. The homogenisation of Europe being engineered by Brussels needed resisting too. There were two enemies to be faced. The greater, polluting one from beyond Europe's outer boundaries, and the enemy within, the woolly liberals and leftie idealists determined to make Europeans all the same.

There'd been an e-mail address for ‘Freeman', to which Petrie had written, saying how much he agreed with his policies. A correspondence had ensued using PGP encryption and involving frequent changes of e-mail postboxes. Freeman's responses had contained questions, probing Petrie's own philosophy and his commitment. Eventually, three months ago, a request had come for some token demonstration of his readiness to act. A simple task, the daubing on a wall of two words – Lucifer Network – at a time and a place prescribed for him. Done in the middle of the night in an area where graffiti was part of the normal landscape, it had gone unnoticed by the local populace. But during the act itself, Petrie had sensed he was being watched, checked over by the man who had now become his general.

Then, a month ago, he'd been alerted to the imminence of the first Europe-wide action by the Network. A blow for racial purity by volunteers like himself, men without police records who'd never been involved in the infiltrated right wing. He'd been asked to choose three targets for nail bombs which the Lucifer Network would supply. He'd acknowledged himself ready, then been given a time and place to collect the explosives. He never saw who it was who'd left the package behind the garden wall of a terraced house ten minutes' walk from his flat.

Petrie left the TV on but turned down the sound. He got up from the two-seater, brown leather sofa – one of the few quality possessions he'd retained from his former life – and stepped into the narrow hall, listening for sounds from the bedroom. Nothing. Just shouting from next door – a single mother who'd got too fond of the bottle, arguing with her troublesome teenage son. Sandra always slept through it. Once she
started putting up zeds it would take an earthquake to wake her.

Petrie returned to the lounge. One thing
was
troubling him. He hadn't had an e-mail from his leader yet. ‘Peter' – ‘Freeman' had changed his code name when they went onto a war footing – had warned him not to expect any instant reaction to the first of his three missions, but he'd hoped for something by now. Three times a day he'd been logging on to check his e-mail. Four hours ago was the last connection.

The computer was on a wheeled unit in the corner of the living room farthest from the window. A slide-out tray beneath the monitor held the keyboard. Shelves below were for the printer and the PC case. Above it, fixed to the wall, was a cupboard made of MDF and painted black, its double doors secured with a Yale lock. Hovering by the door for a moment to ensure there was no sound of Sandra stirring, he took the bunch of keys from the clip on his belt and opened this holy of holies. The doors swung back. Neo-Nazi books and magazines were stacked neatly on each side. From a pile of CDs at the back he selected a Skrewdriver album, slipped the disc into the drive on the PC, then carefully closed and relocked his trophy box. Sandra had never seen inside it.

He sat in front of the screen and clamped on a fat pair of earphones. He got the player going, then with his squat head moving to the beat he dialled his ISP. His login was ‘Anthony Harden', using the initials of the only man in recent history to attempt to rid Europe of its racial interlopers. He had mail. He smiled. The message was from ‘Peter Stone'. A different surname every time, but a common theme. Stone, Steel, Fist, Blood.

He felt a somersaulting in his stomach at the thought of striking again so soon.

Always the exclamation marks! Always the sense of urgency.

Petrie liked seeing his own words and ideas in print in the messages he'd exchanged with Peter. Liked trawling through the professionally produced right-wing websites, feeling he belonged to a brotherhood growing in strength and influence. Loved the feeling he was in the vanguard of the Revolution.

Selected? Not quite. The racial group yes, the location no. The reconnaissance was yet to be done. The materials were in his garage: plastic explosive, detonators, timers and nails – and a booklet of bomb-making instructions as simple to follow as a manual from IKEA.

He clicked on the ‘new message' button and began to type.

‘Yes. All will be ready. The revolution goes on.'

Rothesay, Isle of Bute

When Sam awoke he could smell onions frying. The hotel didn't do evening meals so he assumed it was the couple who ran it preparing their own supper.

He got up and put his shoes back on, then made the call to the photographer. No reply.

‘Damn.'

Four hours almost to the minute since he'd handed over the £20 note on the putting green. He rechecked the number on the business card and rang it again. Still nothing. He grabbed hold of the map of Rothesay that he'd picked up from the tourist office and spread it on the bed to locate the street where Tom Craigie had his shop. Then he locked the room and went downstairs. As he passed through reception he noticed a familiar set of legs by the counter. The family in shorts were checking in.

Outside, the wind had dropped. A huge patch of blue dominated the sky from which the sun had recently disappeared behind hills to the west of the town. Sam found Craigie's photo ‘studio' easily. Next to the local paper office, it was little more than a booth. And it was locked.

He cursed. Failure hovered over him like a cloud of Highland midges. He cupped a hand against the window to see if there was a light on in the back, but the place was in darkness. Then he heard footsteps behind him and a gravelly clearing of the throat.

‘Och, now there you are.'

‘Mr Craigie! I thought you'd run off with my money!'

‘Och yes! So much of it, I was nearly tempted.'

Sam made way for him to get at the door with his keys. He noticed an old manila folder under the photographer's arm and his spirits lifted.

‘You've had success?'

‘Emmm . . . I don't know. I have some contact prints for you to look at but my confidence isn't high. That year's files were all out of order for some reason. And a lot of the negs were missing their index cards. It's why I came down to the shop – to see if I'd got them here for some reason. Come on inside.'

He switched on lights and led Sam through a raised flap in the counter at the back. Shelves in the tiny shop were decorated with examples of Craigie's work. The premises had the sour smell of stale chemicals.

‘You can sit in the studio.' He pointed into a minute space with black walls and a rail with three different colours of curtain. Room enough for two chairs and a tripod – and something which to Sam seemed oddly out of place. A computer and scanner on a corner table.

‘Don't tell me you're into digital photography as well as the plate camera,' Sam commented.

‘Not yet. But the Island of Bute has a website and I top it up with new pictures from time to time. The webmaster's in Glasgow, so I scan the shots into the computer and send them by e-mail.'

‘Amazing,' Sam mouthed, unable to reconcile the new technology with such a down-at-heel character.

‘Och, well you have to keep up wi' the times. Now if you'd cast your eye over the prints in the folder, I'll start going through the shelves in the darkroom.'

The snaps were 6 ×6 centimetres, some crystal sharp,
others fading. Fat people, thin people, but none that looked anything like his father.

‘Any luck?' Craigie shouted from the darkroom.

‘Unfortunately not.' The ferry ticket trail was leading him nowhere.

‘Och, I'm sorry. Looks like I'm going to be letting you down.'

‘It was always a long shot.' Foolish to have set so much store by Craigie's archive.

The phone trilled in his pocket, its sound startling him.

‘Hello?'

‘Where exactly are you?' asked Duncan Waddell.

‘Rothesay.'

‘Is that anywhere near Helensburgh?'

‘About a couple of hours. Why?'

‘An appointment's been made for you there at noon tomorrow. The man's name is Ted Salmon. Mean anything to you?'

‘No. Should it?'

‘According to the Submariners Association he was a good pal of your father's. They were on the same crew on HMS
Retribution.
Our security friends across the river came up with it, but say they haven't the time to go and talk to him. Chasing communist agents who may or may not have been active twenty-seven years ago doesn't seem high on their list of priorities.'

‘You amaze me . . . Give me the address.'

Waddell did. Then he cleared his throat and the voice dropped half an octave.

‘And I have some bad news for you.' Sam's heart sank. ‘Do they get the
Chronicle
up where you are?'

‘Unfortunately, yes.'

‘Then you'll need to wear a balaclava tomorrow. The lawyers have failed to get an injunction. The first
editions are already on their way north and you're on the front page. Little Miss Jackman's stuffed you good and proper, Sam. Stuffed you as tight as a Christmas turkey.'

SOME TIME AROUND
three in the morning a foghorn started moaning, its mournful tone making Sam think of death row. He put in the foam earplugs which he always carried when travelling and tried to sleep. At 6.30 he abandoned the attempt and got up to make tea from the tray in the room. At seven he looked outside the door for the papers. When they weren't there he took a shower.

Fifteen minutes later, when he was putting his trousers on, there came the dreaded plop from the corridor. He waited until the footsteps had receded, then stepped out.

Although he knew what to expect, it shook him to see his own face staring back at him. It was as bad as it could possibly have been. Nothing fudged about the picture, his grizzled visage on the right of the frame, a straight-on shot looking guilty as hell. To the left, the woman who'd set him up, her expression taut with the uncertainty of what she'd unleashed.