Harper George, a crisis negotiator for the Metropolitan Police Service, is having a bad day. A hostage has died, the MPS has given her the boot, and she has to handle a heist negotiation drunk. It doesn’t end well.
It’s about to get worse.
A criminal organisation wants Harper to work for them. When she refuses, people start dying. The seemingly random deaths turn out to have a common nominator: Harper, and a negotiation she has failed. Someone wants revenge, but who and why?
Harper is determined to solve the mystery before more people die – and before she has to give in to the criminals’ demands. But then it’s too late. Harper has to face the toughest negotiation of her career: that for her own life.
Chapter One
“Here’s to Johnny.” Harper saluted with her glass to an audience of
zero, and then drained the contents. It wasn’t a proper way to show
appreciation for
the expensive whisky, but the memory she was trying to erase
couldn’t be wiped away with anything less than eighteen-year-old single
malt.
She waved the empty glass towards the barman at the other end of the
curving bar, who was chatting with the only other customer in the pub, a
sales rep
type of man having lunch. “Hit me again.”
The barman frowned – and was it just her or were barmen getting
younger by the day? He couldn’t possibly be old enough to drink legally,
let alone to serve
alcoholic beverages that were. “I think you’ve had enough.”
“And what, pray, is considered enough these days?” She wasn’t even
slurring yet, and her sarcasm came through clear enough. He lifted his
hands in defence.
“Hey, no offence. Just an observation.”
“If I were a bloke you’d pour me another.”
He shrugged. “Could be. But you’re not. And women your size can’t really take as much as a man.”
Harper sat up straighter on the barstool, a reaction of hers
whenever her short size was mentioned. All her psychological training
hadn’t cured her of the
habit. “Ah, but you’re not taking age and practise into
consideration. And those say I’m good for at least one more drink.”
“Fine, but this is the absolute last one.” He poured her a generous
portion of whisky and she paid for it. “The next one is coffee.”
“Yes, Mom.” There were other pubs in London.
“Let me guess. Broken heart, am I right?” the sales rep type asked.
She gave him a slow look. “Because a woman couldn’t possibly have any other reason for drinking than a man.”
He flustered slightly. “Clearly something’s brothering you.”
“You mean I can’t get plastered at…” She glanced at the clock on the
wall behind the bar. She had to squeeze her eyes a little for the
numbers to come in
focus. “Two-thirty on a Monday afternoon just for the heck of it?”
“Well, it does seem peculiar. Is it work related?”
The question made her want to empty her glass. “Yep.”
The man wouldn’t give up. He wasn’t actually bad looking, which
probably meant that she had, in fact, had enough to drink. “A deal gone
bad? Did you lose a
lot of money?”
“Money? Who drinks because of money?”
“We are practically in the City, and the way you’re dressed, I assumed you’d be working there.”
Harper glanced at her red skirt suit, custom made like most of her
clothes had to be. At five foot four she was slightly too short for her
weight, the
excess of which concentrated mostly on her backside and front top,
making it nearly impossible for her to find readymade clothes that fit.
Shoes were black
pumps with higher heels than were regulation, but she needed every
extra inch they gave her.
“Well, you got that wrong.” She doubted any City executive would
deign to show up in this dump of a pub in Whitechapel anyway. She had
only chosen it
because it was close enough to work that she hadn’t had to go far,
yet was devoid of any co-workers.
“What is it that you do then? A doctor? Did you lose a patient?”
She was a doctor, actually, but not of medicine. Psychology. “If
doctors got blasted every time someone died, they’d be permanently
incapacitated.” She
wasn’t looking for a conversation, but he looked so expectant that
she sighed and gave in. “I’m a crisis negotiator.”
“Oh. What’s that then?”
She stared at her drink. “I mediate in crisis situations so they can be resolved without violence or loss of lives.”
If she was successful.
“Who for?”
“The police.”
“Bank heists and such, where people are taken hostage?”
She shook her head. “There hasn’t been a single bank heist that
needed a negotiator during my almost decade with the Metropolitan Police
Service.”
“So what do you do?”
She sighed, not really wanting to explain. “It’s ninety per cent
domestic situations that the police can’t defuse by themselves, and
attempted suicides.”
“So no hostage situations at all?”
“Yes, but they’re usually domestic too. Custody battles where one
parent takes the children. Or a guy threatens to blow himself or his
family up if his
wife doesn’t return home, or he doesn’t get his job back.” Maybe I should try that one. “The rest is counselling after traumatic incidents.”
“Did something bad happen to get you drinking? Did someone blow
something up after all?” He gestured for the bartender to turn on the
TV.
She braced herself for the news that would definitely bring up the
cause for her drinking. But she had a more mundane reason for it, too.
“No. I was fired.
Budget cuts. Nothing ever blows up, so the powers that be decided
we’re not actually needed.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. That’s a hell of a way to start the week.”
“You have no idea.” She squeezed her eyes tightly to forget the
video she had seen that morning, but the images were clear in her mind.
The drinks weren’t
working. A barrel of whisky couldn’t erase the memory.
The news was rolling on the BBC 24. There was a police operation
underway in London, a large one by the look of it. Blokes from the
Specialist Firearms
Command were on the scene too, geared up, ready to offer the unarmed
personnel armed support if needed – or defuse a bomb. They all operated
from the Leman
Street station, as did the crisis negotiators, so she knew most of
them. She tried to detect familiar faces, but her gaze was too blurred
to see the screen
clearly.
Then Johnny’s face blasted on the screen and she was filled with the
agony of sorrow and failure. “Islamist militants have this morning
killed a British
hostage, Jonathan Hooper, a photojournalist working—” She covered
her ears, and closed her eyes not to see the rest, but too late. A
picture of Ashley
flashed on the screen with the text ‘journalist still held captive’.
Her beautiful, wilful little sister.
The thought of Ashley in the hands of people who had beheaded her
partner was too much to bear. She emptied her glass, but the alcohol had
stopped working.
Her phone rang, mercifully claiming her attention. Her boss. Ex-boss. “What?”
“Where are you?” Hugo Cobb barked in the phone.
“In hell. Why? You want to join me?”
“I need your arse down here, immediately.”
“I was fired, remember?”
“Not yet you weren’t. Now move! There’s a situation on.”
“Tough. I’m drunk.”
That made him pause. “How drunk?”
“Halfway between pissed and arse over the elbow.”
He growled. “Can’t be helped. I’m sending someone to fetch you.”
That piqued her interest. “What’s so important anyway?”
“You’ll hear it soon enough. Text me your address. And start drinking coffee.” He hung up.
“Well, fuck.”
A man walked in the pub when Harper was down to her second cup of
coffee. She gave him a onceover and approved of what she saw, fairly
sure it wasn’t the
alcohol affecting her opinion this time.
He looked around, ignoring her and the sales rep at the bar. When
the place proved empty of other people, he turned to them, frowning.
“Harper George?” The
question was military sharp.
Harper gave him a lazy salute. “Aye.”
He startled, as if he hadn’t expected her, but recovered and walked
to her. “Garret Thomson, from Thomson Security.” He offered his hand to
her. She shook
it automatically, trying not to wince when his grip turned out to be
military sharp too.
She had come across the type before — ex-soldier who had put his
training to use by starting a security business. This one was so new to
civilian life he
hadn’t let go of his training yet. He was tall and fit with lean
muscles, and alert like not even the cops were, as if constantly
prepared for getting
killed.
“Are you ready?”
“Could I see some identification first?” To his credit, he didn’t
hesitate to whip out his ID, and she tried to peer at it. Close-up
didn’t work so she pulled
it arms-length away from her face.
He snorted, amused. “I was warned that you’d be drunk. But … wow.” He shook his head.
“Yeah, well.” She finally managed to read the ID. He was thirty-four
to her thirty-six. He looked older than that, courtesy of the harsh
conditions of
military life. His skin looked like it had been sand-blown, and
there were crow’s feet around his brown eyes. His near black hair was
military short with a
hint of grey at the temples. The picture was fairly recent, or he
always wore a similar black T-shirt. His black cargos looked well-worn
too, so he
probably lived in them.
“Are you the boss himself, or is there another Thomson pulling the strings?”
“There’s only me.” His tone, a mixture of pride and annoyance intrigued her, but she was too drunk to analyse it.
“Well, aren’t I flattered. Who sent you?”
“Not trusting my word?”
“Nope.”
He nodded, approving. “Hugo Cobb, the chief crisis negotiator for the Metropolitan Police Service.”
“And why you?”
“He couldn’t spare anyone else.”
That sparked her interest. “What’s going on?” She should have paid better attention to the news after all.
“I’ll tell you on the way. Let’s go.”
Harper began to climb down from the tall barstool, an operation for
her even when sober. Her legs gave under her, and he reached to steady
her by her arm.
“Whoa. Give me a second.” The room was spinning uncomfortably and
she had to swallow to keep the contents of her stomach in.
He frowned. “We don’t have a second. Take off those stupid shoes. You’ll break your ankles.”
“Well excuse me, but not all of us are over six foot tall. I need every extra inch to make an impression.”
“You’ll make an impression all right.”
“Hey, I’m not the one dragging a drunken woman to a crime scene.”
He huffed, and before she realised what he was about, wrapped an arm
around her waist and marched her out of the pub. A large black
off-roader sporting the
name of his security firm on its side was waiting outside the door,
and he helped her onto the high back seat. “Don’t throw up in there.”
He took the front seat next to the driver, who got the car moving
before he had properly closed the door. “This is Riley Wilkins, my right
hand man.” Riley
gave off a similar military vibe as Garret, but his hair was
completely shaven and he had greater upper body bulk, which made him
appear both younger and
much larger.
“There’s coffee and bacon sandwiches in that bag,” Garret said, pointing at a Tesco bag on the seat next to her.
“Thanks,” Harper said, peeking in. The notion of eating didn’t
exactly entice her, but she had to sober up. She opened the sandwich
package and the smell
of greasy bacon hit her nose, making her gag.
She didn’t want to sober up that badly.
Fighting the nausea, she didn’t pay much attention to where they
were going. West, towards the City at first, but then Riley turned to
the ring road that
circled central London from the north.
“Where are we going?”
“Paddington.”
“What, the bear took everyone hostage at the station?” She snorted at her own witticism, but the men weren’t amused.
“No. A man has locked himself in a small branch of NatWest with hostages and explosives.”
Harper’s hand paused midway in stuffing a sandwich in her mouth.
“Really? Well, that’s convenient timing. Who’s at the scene?”
“Pretty much everyone.”
“Then why am I needed?”
“Because, Miss George, the hijacker requested you.”
***
If you liked the first chapter, you can read the second
chapter on my webpage
