An Odd Revenge: The Oddball Odyssey, #4

By Graham Hamer

People are disappearing. Important people. People with momentous, far-reaching secrets to hide. And Oddball's team are tasked with getting to the bottom of it – quick, before it escalates. Meanwhile, ordinary folk are being robbed of tens of thousands of pounds in a scam of epic proportions. The team are hard pushed to find solutions to either problem. It becomes even more urgent when Yulia Volkov, Oddball's secret lover and illegitimate daughter of the Russian president, is abducted. Now, Russia is involved, and they're far from happy.

 

The group are beating their heads against a brick wall until, that is, their colleague and friend Harry Lewis makes a breakthrough. Harry – real name Harriet – is feisty, acerbic, quarrelsome, but probably the best hacker on the planet. A computer genius of unparalleled skill, Harry doesn't care about high-flying politicians or religious leaders, but if there's one thing she hates, it's somebody trampling over the little people. So when poor old Tommy Dodd has his whole identity wiped out from the system because he didn't play along with the Code Black scammers, Harry takes action. And that's when she, herself, becomes the next victim of Shadow Strategy – the terrifying scheme to kidnap people and learn their closely-guarded secrets.

 

Oddball and the team struggle to trace Harry's whereabouts, but get one small break from a petty thief who goes a step too far. In a race to find her in time they could never have prepared themselves for the ghastly situation they discover inside a foreign embassy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Graham Hamer
• Release date: Apr 14, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215709405

Book preview

PROLOGUE

John Appleby thought his hand was on his chest. A few seconds later, he realised the hand wasn’t his - it was the hand of one of his captors. Or was it? Now he wasn’t sure even of that. His respiration was slow and shallow, a breath or two above a corpse. His mind was scattered ashes. Thoughts drifting free without an anchor - at the mercy of an invisible breeze. His eyes scanned the ceiling as he waited for the disorientation to abate. But it didn’t want to go away. His brain was like a revolving bingo cage, filled with mismatched balls. His subconscious, no more than an amateur theatre production. It was like his mind was putting on a play to figure things out for him. But right now, the leading man didn’t even know the script, or what the hell the play was even about. And there was no prompt in the wings.

The last clear memories John had were of being at his home, where he’d brought back a range of paperwork in the hope he might at least make good use of his wife, Joanne, being out for the evening. It was then that he heard the noise. It took a moment to realise what he was hearing. The sound of the squeaky hinge on the back door as it opened and closed. He waited for Joanne to call out that she was back, but she’d only been gone half-an-hour. And it couldn’t be his daughter, since she was away at university. Something felt wrong. Is that you, Jo? he called.

There was no answer, but John thought he could hear somebody moving around in the kitchen. He reached for his mobile phone on the table, already preparing to dial 999 if necessary. Even so, he was too slow. The living room door burst open to reveal the figure of a man framed in the doorway.

What the bloody hell is this? John had shouted. He’d tried to sound angry but knew he simply sounded terrified. The man walked forward and grabbed him by the arm. John was on the point of pulling away when the man placed the point of a knife under his chin, the blade almost piercing his flesh. His attacker wasn’t a particularly big man. Had he been in better health, John would have had a go at tackling the guy. But his body was weak from months of chemo that hadn’t worked. When the man pushed him towards the front door, he made no effort to resist.

Outside, a car was parked in the driveway, one of its rear doors already open and the engine running. The man thrust him into the rear seat. There was a moment, as he loosened his grip and lowered the knife, when John thought he might pull himself away and make a run for it, but it was already too late. The man climbed into the seat beside him, grabbed his head and pulled him down so that he was half lying on his lap. He was hidden from anyone outside the car, and the knife was once again pressed against his flesh. Then he felt a sting in his neck, and everything slowed down. His vision straight away began to blur, and his body went limp. That was the last thing he remembered as his consciousness faded. Then everything went black, his thoughts returning a while later as he found himself naked on a bed, in a strange room.

Maybe whatever they’d done to him after they held him down on the bed was like the LSD he’d tried a couple of times as a young man. Maybe these people’s injection had gone to his spine, shook hands with his DNA, then decided to stick around forever. He wondered if he might stay like this until the day he died. Or was he already dead?

He thought he had a terminal heartbeat and constricted breath, but he couldn’t even be sure of that. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but he experienced a sense of largeness - a world so big and bottomless, it hurt to try and figure it out. He was here, but he wasn’t here. I am me, he told himself. This is real enough. This isn’t real at all. Damn it - I have no idea.

A bright flash blotted out everything else. For the blink of an instant, John Appleby seemed to view himself from the outside. Maybe through someone else’s eyes, or perhaps from a high-above vantage point. In that flicker, he saw himself lying on the bed, eyes closed, a white sheet over his naked body as far as his chest. His arms were a dead weight at his sides on top of the sheet. He didn’t have legs - or at least, he wasn’t aware of them. It was like he was melting little by little into his thoughts. No pain. No sense of foreboding. No discomfort. Just an end to everything except his thinking.

Something rose within John to match that feeling. The sensation of being filled with, something that he didn’t understand, but which felt as if it might consume him if he didn’t find a way to let it out. It hurt, and he wanted to clutch his head which felt like it might explode at any moment. It was as if he was a volcano waiting to erupt - filled with more pressure and fire than he could even begin to handle. So John Appleby did the only thing he could. He let go of his life.

His adulthood slipped away. His identity spilt into the empty void of nothingness. His sense of self skimmed off, as if by a psychedelic drug. He was fifty-two and head of the chemical conglomerate his father had founded. He was twenty-eight and marrying his long-time girlfriend, Joanne. She was unique and he loved her more than he’d loved anyone in his life. Her red hair was long - a deep auburn mixed with flecks of fire. Her cheekbones gave her face the same softness as his mother’s. When she smiled, it turned her mouth into a gentle pout. Her lips arched up to meet her cheeks. Soft, inviting lips. He was twenty-five and had just received his doctorate in chemical engineering from Cambridge. He was eighteen and flat out drunk on his birthday. He’d called his mother, but his father turned up and asked him what the hell he thought he was playing at. But he’d hushed it up and nobody ever learnt of the bar-room scuffle. Nobody ever asked about the broken window or the pool table he’d gouged in anger.

This must be what dying felt like. This must be what losing one’s mind felt like. This must be what they meant when they said your life flashes before your eyes. He was fifty-two again. Scared shitless because the doctor told him he had less than six months to live following a diagnosis of prostate cancer. He should have made an appointment to see him years earlier when the symptoms first became evident, and an effective treatment was still possible.

It seemed like about half-an-hour, but perhaps only seconds had passed since they turned on the machine. John Appleby’s sense of time had disappeared, alongside everything else. He was just a mannequin with broken strings and failing joints. Or one of those push button collapsing toy donkeys he remembered as a child. The last few minutes had been an eternity, like something another version of himself must have experienced. As a new part of himself came to life, John understood these things in a way his conscious mind hadn’t, or perhaps couldn’t, before he was abducted. He fought emotional vertigo as he followed his line of thought. It wasn’t just that he didn’t know what to feel. It was because he couldn’t even grasp the circumstances of feeling any more. He could think, but not feel.

He sensed a small, dark vortex somewhere in his mind. A pool of bluish-black ink, like an octopus’ defence mechanism as it escaped from its prey. But it was neither in his head nor outside of it. Like a portal in time, it was just there, a puncture in his existence.

Maybe what they’d done to him scrambled all the logic inside his head. Or maybe it eliminated logic. Disconnected it from the world. Left him stranded in a place that endured but was without any rhyme or reason. Right now, all that was holding up his thoughts was an agreement that they existed. It’s what happened when there was nothing more rational to cling to. When you were just floating. Without something to make sense of it all, everything drifted apart until it matched the raw emptiness of outer space.

He wondered if he’d lost his mind. If he’d become nothing more than a bunch of ones and zeroes in his daughter’s laptop. If he’d ever get his thoughts back. Or was he just dead?

CHAPTER ONE

Though he tried hard not to let it show, Tommy Dodd was a troubled man. At seventy-nine years old, he didn’t understand any of the things that the woman from the government had told him. She’d rung him two days ago and said she was going to disable his electronic equipment and disconnect him from Britain’s consolidated system if he didn’t pay the tax he owed. But Tommy was just a pensioner with some savings so he didn’t think he owed any tax. And anyway, he didn’t understand what she meant about Britain’s consolidated system. He knew it couldn’t be anything good because you never got anything good from the government. They only ever sent you bills for doing nothing.

And the woman had admonished him not to discuss it with anyone, or government enforcers would immediately fine him even more money, and wipe out all his legal records and direct debits. That had been two days ago. Though the woman from the government had sounded very nice, and though Tommy knew that she was just doing her job, and it wasn’t really her fault, he was still nervous. He was sure that the executioners who had dropped the guillotine in France, or wielded the axe in Britain, would have had nice voices, and were just doing their jobs. But bad things still happened, and the result was always the same for their victims.

Tommy’s hands shook as he dabbed at his eyes. The woman, who said her name was Marita - or something like that - had been very placid and polite and had explained that she would email him all the information - along with details of what he needed to do to put matters right. Tommy had tried to remember his email address but couldn’t. He knew it had an @ in it. The woman said not to worry because she already knew it. But it had been so long since he’d used it, Tommy no longer remembered his password either. He’d tried to find the little blue notebook where he’d written all his important information and passwords down in case he forgot them, but he couldn’t recall where he’d put it. He thought it was in the drawer in the kitchen, but it wasn’t. And it wasn’t in his bedside cabinet either. Nor in the bureau in the living room. After a while, he’d given up looking and made himself a cup of tea. He knew he needed a password because he could only read emails on the internet after he stopped using the email programme on his tablet. But now he didn’t even know how to get on the internet. He’d almost called his grandson to talk to him about it. Geoff was good with electronic things, but Tommy was too afraid to ask in case it made him look stupid. Anyway, the woman, who’d said she was from the tax office, had been very clear that this was a private matter between them. Just before she rang off, she said, Don’t talk about this with anyone, emphasising the word ‘anyone’.

Tommy had remembered that Marina - no Marita - said she would call back in two days’ time if he did nothing. He didn’t need to write that down, because he knew he needed to talk to her again and get things sorted out. So, for the past two days, Tommy had been waiting for her call. Marina sounded like a nice woman. Some sort of a foreign accent, but a nice woman nonetheless. He was sure she’d understand when he explained that his doctor had said he was showing signs of memory loss due to his age. He’d tell her how he didn’t quite understand email and, anyway, couldn’t find his password. And maybe, since she knew his email address, she would know his password as well. He needed to point out to her that his hearing wasn’t so good either nowadays. And that he had cataracts and struggled to see things like other people could, except for the TV, which had a big screen.

Tommy had always been a proud man. He’d worked for the Post Office all his life and had never missed a day through ill health. He’d never pretended to be feeling bad and ‘pull a sickie’ as his workmates called it. But old age was catching up with him and he knew he wasn’t as active as he had once been. Tommy didn’t want to go into a care home. He’d stuck it out in his own little bungalow, trying to enjoy every last moment of personal autonomy and self-reliance he could get before society wrote him off. He knew darn well that, once that happened, they would stick him in some smelly Kafkaesque blockhouse with locks on the doors, and big Gestapo-like matrons to stop him doing what he wanted. He knew these places were populated by old people who dribbled in their soup, and he wasn’t yet that far gone. On the other hand, he’d begun to think that maybe everything was a little beyond him. One day soon, he was going to have to accept the inevitable. When it did, he hoped the end would come quickly without any pain.

He still wasn’t sure what Mariana meant about disabling all his electronic equipment. Tommy knew he had meters for the electric and gas in two little cupboards outside, but he wasn’t too sure about the router that the woman had mentioned. He used to have the internet a few years ago when he used to talk on Skype to his older brother in Bognor. But his brother had died, and Tommy had never used the little tablet thing again. Now, it wouldn’t even light up if he turned it on, so it lay at the bottom of his wardrobe collecting dust. All he used now was his TV. He’d stopped watching movies on the movie channel because he had to use a second remote control for that, and he could never figure out how to swap from the TV to the movie channel. The system was just too complicated. So, until now, he had pointed the remote control at the TV and watched whatever happened to be available.

Tommy liked that little dark girl, Naga Munchetty, on the morning programmes. And the weather woman from Scotland, Carol Kirkwood. But he wasn’t too keen on that Victoria Derbyshire because she was always trying to put words in people’s mouths, and she wouldn’t let them answer her questions. She’d make a good matron in an old people’s home, she would.

Unfortunately though, the TV didn’t seem to be working now. Tommy thought it might have something to do with the fact that even the old channels they used to have before someone invented television satellites, came through something they just called a box. He’d tried switching the box on and off, but it made no difference. He knew it wasn’t the batteries in the remote control, because Mrs Anderson, who sometimes did his shopping for him, had put new ones in just a week or two ago. So, for the past two days, he’d sat in total silence, reading the paper which was delivered through his letter box every day. Or just dozing off and waiting for Martina to call back. Tommy knew that, for the younger generation, all these technological gadgets were very useful. But for the older generation like him they were only ever any good when they worked. When they stopped working, they were older people’s worst nightmare.

Tommy was sitting by the fire enjoying its warmth, when he heard and felt something vibrating on the arm of the chair. It was his mobile phone - another bit of technology he didn’t quite understand. When he picked it up, he saw the bright red button that he had to swipe across the screen. He pressed hard on it with his arthritic index finger, and moved his hand across the screen like he’d been told to do, but it took several seconds before he succeeded. Nowadays, if anyone called him, it was always a race to try and answer before the phone stopped ringing and he was left with an empty buzzing noise. Mind you, not that many people called him nowadays. Most of his friends had already checked out from planet earth.

Hello? he said, then remembered he needed to pick the phone up and put it against his ear, because of his hearing issues.

Hello, am I speaking with Tommy Dodd?

Yes, this is I, he said in a loud voice to be sure the other person could hear him.

Good evening Mister Dodd. This is Marita from the government tax office. I’m calling to inform you that we have not yet received payment of your overdue tax. I did speak with you two days ago and warned you that unless you paid within three hours of my call we would have to disable some of your electronic devices to make our point.

Did you? Oh, I forgot. I thought you were going to call me tomorrow - or was it today? I even wrote a note to myself to remind me. But I can’t find what I did with it.

I called you two days ago, Mister Dodd. I’m sorry, but this is your final call and last warning. As I said we would, we have already disabled some of your devices.

I don’t have any devices. What devices?

I read you a list of the devices in your home. Some of them are now disabled.

Is that why my television no longer works? I can’t even get the BBC.

That’s correct. Your Sky subscription has been cancelled. But that’s just to show you that we mean what we say.

But I need the TV. It’s the only real friend I have.

Mister Dodd, we have identified you as having sufficient wealth to pay extra taxes. It’s all part of the government’s drive to pay off the national debt.

But I’ve saved hard. And I’ve paid tax all my life.

So have I Mister Dodd, but now Britain is embracing the same system that many European countries use, and we are adopting a tax on wealth. Since you have money, the law now requires you to pay the new tax.

I might have money, young lady, but I can’t spend it. I can hardly walk, or see, and I never get out anymore. You see, I am seventy-nine and have bad arthritis. Did I tell you about my hip and my leg?

Mister Dodd, I have sent you an email explaining how to pay the tax owing. You now have two hours to pay the full balance. If you do not pay, I must remind you that we will disconnect you from Britain’s consolidated system.

But I’m not in Britain’s consolidated system. I’ve probably heard about it, but I’ve never visited it or gone there. I don’t even know where it is. So, if you want to disconnect me from it, I suppose that will be just fine.

Mister Dodd, when we disconnect you from the consolidated system, amongst other things, we will block access to your bank accounts, we will remove your health records, and we will cancel your phone subscription. There are more things we will do, but I hope I don’t have to list them all right now. I’m hopeful you will have understood that we are serious and that you will co-operate with us.

What more things? What sort of things?

Marita continued, listing all the other digital records that Tommy had. The list was extensive and included quite a few things that he now remembered and were actually very important.

No. Mrs Martina, you cannot disconnect my health records or my council records. I need my prescriptions. Or that electricity account or the gas account. I need them too. If I don’t have any electricity, how will I heat up my food or make my tea? And without the gas, I’d freeze to death when winter comes.

Mister Dodd, all you have to do is pay the tax that you owe within two hours. Failure to comply will result in termination of all your digital records. Please read the email I sent and follow the instructions. And, for your own good, please do it right away.

Tommy shook his head as if the caller was sitting in the room with him. But I can’t read the email, because I can’t remember my passwords. And I can’t find my little book where I wrote them down. Tommy could feel himself getting stressed and confused. His heart was beating like a butterfly, trapped in his chest. He knew that, if he was there, his doctor would be telling him to relax and take a few deep breaths. He’d tell him to close his eyes and think of nice things. How... how much is this tax, and how am I meant to pay it so soon? I can’t get out of the house and the banks are now closed.

As explained in the email, Mister Dodd, you must pay £50,000 in Bitcoins.

£50,000? In split coins? What did you say? Tommy