Dark Market

Chapter Five

Thomson's grip was ruining the line of Savage's perfectly pressed suit. The man snarled into his face.

'Now what? I could cry for help if you like?' Savage said.

'I'll give you something to cry about.'

'Trev, I've been in the building less than ten minutes and you've already assaulted a staff member. I'm sure even a jaded ex-copper like you knows how that looks. The head of security loses his job, sorry, my job, again. Standards have certainly slipped.'

Thomson slammed him one last time against the wall and let go. He straightened his own suit and then pressed the intercom button.

'It's Thomson. Safety test. Your responses were sloppy. Get this thing moving.'

'Yes sir!' the disembodied voice said.

He turned to Savage. 'Why you?'

Savage smoothed his suit and kept the wide unrelenting smile on his face. Very Tom Cruise. Could he make him snap again?

'They needed a kite,' Savage said.

'A what?'

'Well let's see. You and your team are cleaning house?'

'Possibly.'

Savage raised an eyebrow. 'While your team clean house and keep tabs on whoever has been naughty, it's my job to be the kite. You fly me high and bright to distract the crowds' attention, and while they're all looking up at the sky, you riffle through their pockets, their cell phones, their bank accounts and their lives to find out what's really going on.'

The lift moved slowly back to life.

'That's it?' Thomson said.

'That's it. I make myself obvious while you do all the real work.'

'But why you?'

'With my rep. Are you kidding? Who's going to draw more attention than a blood red kite the size of an airplane.'

'True enough.' Thomson smirked, like a schoolboy bully who'd got away it. 'You mean, they'll worry they'll end up dead like the last guy?'

'Something like that.'

'So you got the files I sent you?' Thomson said.

'Yep.'

'Read them?'

'Skimmed,' he said. 'In the hotel.'

'The presentation?'

'Sure, that too.'

'Oh, good,' he said.

The lift doors opened.

'So where're we going?'

Golden light gave way to the bright white floors and delicately tinted glass walls of the conference area. One of those ultramodern affairs that looks like a 1970s futurist's innermost fantasy come to life.

Thomson led the way, strutting along the corridor. The receptionist caught his eye, he pointed a question at the nearest door.

'They're already in there, sir. Waiting for you.'

He grunted at her and strode on. Swinging the smoked glass door open to a corner conference room. A long oval table sat in the centre, suits all round.

The sudden sense of light and space lifted Savage's spirit after the dark confines of the lift.

Especially the windows on two sides that looked out from London's Canary Wharf over the sunlit Thames. The air conditioning in the room kept it chilly. Savage shivered. The desert now truly behind him.