Terminal Download

By Mike Crowson

Lieutenant Luis Hortez of the Guardia Civil at Vejer de la Frontera in southern Spain is confronted by a car with three dead Brits – Anthony Culshaw, his sister and his mother - each shot in the head, execution-style, along with a local motor cyclist, perhaps an unlucky witness. Another Brit – seemingly Culshaw's partner or girlfriend, Laura Field - is missing from the car.

Investigation in the UK pinpoints Anthony Culshaw as an IT security specialist who also has convictions for violence at G8 and G20 protests and those against global capitalism, and uncovers a computer linked to program with a series of very high security firewalls. Laura Field turns out to be a security specialist with a stock trading company. It seems the missing woman was using her identity ... but who is she and what is she up to?

Something is going to happen soon, but WHAT is going to happen and WHEN? The investigation leads to Witchmoor Edge in Yorkshire and back to Spain and a deadline nears as a teenage hacker from the local college in Vejer and a Superintendent from the UK's Serious Fraud Office try to break through the firewall. It all ends as it began – in a violent shoot out.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mike Crowson
• Release date: Nov 20, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301703753

Mike Crowson

Former teacher, former national secretary of what became the UK Green Party and for 40 years a student of things esoteric and occult. Now an occult and esoteric consultant offering free and unconditional help to those in serious and genuine psychic or occult trouble

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TERMINAL DOWNLOAD

Mike Crowson

© 2012 Mike Crowson

Smashwords Edition

This story is fiction and the characters imaginary

Terminal Download

Prologue - May 2012

Superintendent Peterson banged a spoon on the table and the chatter died down. He cleared his throat and began.

The main point of this gathering is to give DCI Hampshire and DS Newman a suitable send off, he said, But I thought it would also be an opportune moment to make some announcements about the future shape of the Witchmoor Edge Division CID as well.

Of course, he continued, Everybody is well aware that DS Barry Newman has reached retiring age, but he will be going to work for Witchmoor Security, so we will no doubt see and hear him around town.

The large, almost archetypal policeman smiled and nodded. Right enough, he agreed in a noticeable local accent.

I know it's only three or four years since you transferred here from the Bradford Division, but it really does feel as if you've been here a lifetime. We will miss you.

Aye, it seems a lifetime to me too, he said, But there's some good folk here.

Well, the Superintendent, The good folk here would like me to present you with this inscribed flagon. He held it out to Barry Newman.

If you come over to the George and the Dragon afterwards I'll have them fill it with real ale for you, Lucy told him, and there was general laugher.

Now Millicent. You came here from the British Army bomb squad and you have acquired a considerable reputation, first as an Inspector and later as a Chief Inspector. You have led your team in some quite remarkable enquiries and between you solved some particularly difficult crimes. However, I know, as most of the senior members of the department know, that you are the widow of a Spanish policeman killed in a car bomb attack, and that you have a daughter in Spain. Now more or less everybody here knows that you are retiring to Spain to marry Lieutenant Alfonso Diaz of the Guardia Civil, and most of them are aware that he was injured as a cadet by the bomb which killed your husband.

I'm hoping, Millicent said, That both my demons and his are finally laid to rest.

Yes. Well, as a wedding present and farewell gift, Your team and I would like to present you with this antique clock.

There was polite applause, as Peterson held up a clock of the 'grandmother's clock' variety: intended to be wall hung, with a pendulum and a well-polished wooden case. Around the top of the case was carved a shepherd and sheep dog and some sheep. Altogether very 'Yorkshire' and rather nice.

As Millicent took the clock, the Superintendent went on to say, Time for you and Barry to say a few words in a moment, First some announcements. I'm pleased to say the County Police Board has approved DI Turner as your successor, Millicent. Chief Inspector Turner, I hope you can live up to the standards set by your formidable predecessor. DS Tommy Hammond steps up to Inspector and Constables Patel and Bright become acting Detective Sergeants, subject to confirmation by the County Board after the usual formalities.

In addition, he continued looking around, "I want to formally welcome two new additions to the CID branch in the Witchmoor Division. PCs Alan Lee and Brenda Carver: you've worked with the CID on occasion in the past so I'd like to introduce you to all your new colleagues - DC Alan Lee. Your appointment keeps the departmental tradition of representing as many as possible of the ethnic groups within Witchmoor as possible DC Brenda Carver – your appointment helps to maintain our gender balance.

Welcome to the department, Lucy Turner said.You don't actually need to be bonkers to work here, but it helps.

Now, Peterson said, I call on DS Barry Newman to say a few words.

Thanks for this, he said, holding up the tankard, And thanks for some good times and good company. And I'll take DCI Turner up on her offer to fill it.

The meeting, in the conference room at the top of Witchmoor Edge police headquarters broke down in good humoured laughter.

The Superintendent banged the table again and the laughter subsided.

Millicent looked around. She said, "I've driven you all hard, but I hope I've driven myself hardest of all. I've been trying to keep myself too busy to reflect on the past. So busy, in fact, that the important bits of my life have slipped away. I missed my daughter growing up but she's expecting her first child towards the end of the year, so I'm determined not to miss my grandchild growing up. Belatedly, perhaps, I'm going back to Spain and if anyone fancies a holiday in the beautiful National Park at Grazelema, both Alfonso and I will be glad to see you. DI Turner knows where to find me. And I leave you all with this thought. The casualties caused by terrorism go on rippling out, like ripples on a pond, sometimes for generations.

And, Newman added, We're much more vulnerable to terrorism - as a society, that is, than ever.

What do you mean Peterson asked.

Cyber terrorism.

It doesn't even need to be as sophisticated as that, Lucy remarked. Just blow up the local electricity substation so there's a power cut and bang goes your cuppa.

Not to mention that you can't get your own cash out of the bank cash till, Millicent pointed out. Not that I think it's likely to happen.

Bankers aren't flavour of the month, Lucy said.

We're not here to discuss work, Peterson said, Or international economics, so fill up your glasses and get stuck into the food.

PART 1 – The Killing

Chapter 1

Monday October 3rd – Mid-afternoon - Vejer de la Frontera

Lieutenant Luis Hortez of the Guardia Civil looked in a dispassionate silence at the scene of carnage. He was shocked, but he tried not to be, because feelings and facts - emotions and solutions - are not a good mix. He shut out of his mind the members of the patrol that had arrived first on the scene and were now just standing around, and he closed his mind to his own assisting officer too, and concentrated on trying to picture what had happened. The ability to do this sort of thing had contributed to his reputation as a good detective - and to his rapid promotion.

This kind of explosive violence was out of the usual run of drug smuggling or the crimes to support a drug habit that tended to dominate the coastal strip. One would not have expected drugs to figure so largely as they do in the activities of rural southern Spain anyway, but Andalusia faces Morocco across the straits of Gibraltar, unemployment is very high in the whole province, wages are generally very low and apart from hard physical work in agriculture or fishing and vacation work in the tourist industry there is in any case not much else to do. This is a heady combination, with competition for jobs in the drug smuggling industry! Luis wondered whether the present violence could be a drug related shooting. Such things were rare: usually turf wars were urban, but the fact that the car was British didn't rule it out or make it that much less likely – a British connection was always possible.

And the location? The Lieutenant of Detectives at Vejer de la Frontera was puzzled by the location. It wasn't a much used road but it led from the main Cadiz road at Vejer about 3 or 4 kilometres to a campsite, passing the little village of Santa Lucia. The car was heading towards the main road, so it must have come from the campsite, unless it had turned round somewhere here. A chat to the campsite employee who found the victims, or a visit to the campsite itself later, would clear that up.

The village was no more than a half kilometre away, probably less, so one would have expected a response from that direction to a shooting on this scale, but the alarm had been raised by a campsite employee, passing on her way home for the siesta. He would talk to her shortly

The lane, though paved, was narrow and not all that good, and this vehicle – a British registered Lexus duel fuel estate – was partly off the roadway anyway. According to the patrol, who had taken a look then backed off because they realised it would become a major crime scene, there appeared to be 3 dead in the car and a dead motorcyclist nearby, plus the car had two flat tyres, probably shot. There had, therefore, very likely been a minimum of six shots, and probably more than that. Someone must have heard. Maripaz Vega would be down shortly to start a house to house with the patrol and a couple of other officers.

The motorcyclist had almost certainly been shot because he had witnessed the other killings. He had come down a track, that looked misleadingly like a very poor road for the first 100 metres or so. It led to several isolated houses and an aqueduct and petered out very quickly after that. The Lexus blocked off much of the bottom of this track.

Hortez walked over to the car and looked in without touching anything.Three people: a male driver – on the right since this was a Brit car – and two females in the rear had been shot in the head. The passenger seat was empty, The driver's side window and one of the rear windows had been shattered, presumably by another couple of bullets and there were signs that there had been more than one shot at each of the occupants. This took the probable number of shots to nine or ten at least.

There was also the question of the front passenger seat. Were the two females in the back from choice or had there been a front seat passenger? If there had been, where was he or she? One of the killers? Kidnapped by the killers – and if so, why? Lying somewhere dead or injured?

The lieutenant left the car and crossed to the motorbike. The man was not wearing a helmet but that was par for the course in the countryside around Vejer. Nobody ever seemed to wear a motorcycle helmet if they thought they could get away with not doing and, the countryside not being closely patrolled, they usually could, away from town.

In this case a helmet wouldn't have saved him. He had been shot in the side – either enough to knock him off the bike or to stop a getaway on foot. After he had been brought down there had been another shot, this time to the head, as he lay there. At least Luis assumed the head shot was second – why shoot him in the side if he was already dead? The scene had all the hallmarks of ruthless execution, and that included the unlucky witness.

Since the Guardia Civil had concentrated the area's detective facilities in Vejer de la Frontera for this part of the province, the police doctor and forensic team had only to drive six or seven kilometres from the garrison and, strictly to time, he heard them approaching. In the past he had often taken his own photographs of a crime scene. Now he usually left it to the professionals, though that meant waiting for others to do what he used to do more quickly himself. Occasionally he took his own photos as well but he didn't have a camera with him this time.

Hortez watched his forensic team start on general crime scene photographs, while the doctor examined the victims in the car. The sergeant in charge of the team strolled over.

Sergeant Joaquin Gutierrez lit himself a cigarette. Looks like this will be a big one, he said, making small talk. He was tall and bony, rather angular and, to judge from the name, possibly with Mexican connections.

Luis nodded. When the doctor's done can you get your boys and the patrol as well to do a fingertip search for cartridge cases. Make a rough plan of where you found them. I think there were at least two gunmen, maybe more and it might suggest where they were.

Only way, Sergeant Gutierrez said. There's been no rain for weeks and the ground's too hard to hope for any footprints or tyre tracks.

That was another thought that had already occurred to the Lieutenant. There would be no evidence from that quarter as to how the killer or killers had made their getaway. Logic suggested that, if they had had a car parked on the road, the dead driver might have been trying to get around it, which could be why the Lexus was half off the road. Quite possibly one of the killers had shot at the tyres just as it was partly off the road. This second – and entirely hypothetical - car could well have been facing the wrong way, but a third person driving might already have been turning it while the killing was going on. Someone must surely have seen it pass through Santa Lucia, because it had passed through twice. There was no other way of escape, assuming it existed, and how else had the killers left the scene? As a matter of fact one possible way did occur to him.

The doctor went round to the passenger side of the Lexus to look at the third victim. Luis noted that he hadn't taken long over the first two and he took even less time with the third. He came over to Luis.

Not been dead long, Doctor Lerate remarked. It's not quite two thirty now and they've been dead less than two or three hours.

Woman who found the bodies phoned just over three quarters of an hour ago, Luis remarked.

I'd be surprised if they were killed before eleven to eleven thirty and very possibly later than than that.

Luis nodded. It confirmed his own opinion.

The driver and one of the passengers had two shots in the head, the doctor said, Although I think either would have killed them. It looks like a pretty ruthless execution job.

Luis nodded again – that too had been his own impression. What about the motorcyclist? he asked.

The scene of crime people can have the bodies, by the way. It will take an autopsy and a ballistics expert to sort out the details.

The doctor strolled over to fourth victim and knelt down to study him. After a moment he got back to his feet, dusted himself off and strolled back over to Luis.

First shot didn't kill him, he remarked. There was blood over the bike and on the ground from the shot in the side. What did kill him was the head shot.

That was exactly what Hortez had concluded.

I'll bet he turns out to be an unlucky local, shot because he was a witness.

That was also what Hortez had concluded, but he just nodded.

The