Punish the System - 9

The air in the converted warehouse stank of stale coffee, whiteboard ink, and an aggressive sort of sweat. In fact, it smelled like the building itself had been panicking overnight and still hadn’t settled down from its nightmare. A dozen mismatched chairs formed a loose semi-circle in the middle of the space, their cushions sagging under the weight of men and women who didn’t look like they sat much.

At the far end, a battered projector beamed a flickering map of Birmingham onto a cracked plaster wall. In the centre of the projection, a red dot pulsed like a vein under the skin.

The Dane stood in front of it, sleeves rolled up, jacket discarded on a crate beside him. One hand gripped a laser pointer, the other held a folder so creased it looked like it had been used to club a suspect.

He didn’t pause in his monologue. Didn’t slow. His voice was steady, accent thick but clear, as he gestured to the map as if it had personally offended him and the folder snapped shut like a warning shot.

"We have eventually got a line on our target off the back of three separate chatter spikes. Namely, burner-to-burner voice traffic, a flagged keyword in a darknet forum post, and a UC who reported a new face flashing significant money and keeping odd hours. All three threads converged here…"

He jabbed the pointer at the red dot on the screen.

"...an address in Kings Heath. A safehouse, we think. However, there’s no-one there now. Surveillance was light because we didn’t want to spook anyone before we knew what we had. That was yet another mistake. We need to stop making those with this guy."

The map shifted to CCTV stills of a man in a leather jacket with a rucksack.

"This is our courier. We believe he arrived in Birmingham with six kilos on him…"

"Heroin?" someone asked.

“No, baking soda, you muppet,” Joyful said.

The Dane tutted at the introduction. 

"Yes. Heroin. High grade and likely uncut. And now, presumably, being diced up and sold to kids in Digbeth. However, we no longer believe a little drug run was the be-all and end-all of the operation."

Connor stood at the back of the room, arms folded tight across his chest, doing his best to ignore the flicker of glances and the shift in temperature his presence brought. No one said anything outright, at least not to his face, but the tension had a shape. It was crouched in the corners and was prickled along necks.

“Glad to see you up and about, Connor,” the Dane had said when he’d walked in first thing that morning. No smile. No welcome. Just a nod and that clipped, military cadence he wore like a badge.

"Wasn’t he, like, dead a few days ago?" someone muttered, just loud enough to be heard.

Connor didn’t bother to turn. 

“What can I tell you? I bounce back hard.”

There’s been a few chuckles at that. Nervous ones. Joyful, parked beside the main board with his tie hanging loose, shook his head and gave Connor a look: You shouldn't be here yet, mate. Why are you making it harder for us all?

And standing there, staring at the CCTV stills and crime scene snaps, photos soaked in the blood he’d left behind on Stephenson Street, Connor had to admit it. Joyful was probably right.

“This is all very seriously boring, Mr Connor,” Izzy said, dancing and twirling in the corner of his eyes. “Are you absolutely sure you wouldn’t rather be looking for more Dungeons? There’s more XP to be gained!”

Tempted as he was by the suggestion, Connor did his best to ignore her. Because he’d woken with one thought grinding away behind his eyes, louder than a hangover and twice as insistent. Leather Jacket. The man who’d put two bullets into him, winked and then walked off like he’d done nothing more serious than his laundry.

“The guy who shot me,” he’d said to Izzy, between bites of his breakfast toast. “He’ll be having the same sort of issues as me, right?”

“Issues, Mr Connor?”

“Yeah, the same lack of access to an overarching System? He’s not going to be like sitting at +10 across the board already or something like that, is he?”

Izzy looked up from her perch in the bottom left of his vision. Gone was the tommy gun and trenchcoat of the night before. Today’s aesthetic was legwarmers, big hair and a very glittery jacket. She also appeared to be chewing a matchstick.

“Well, Mr. Connor,” she said. “As we’ve no idea how long your assailant’s Sprite has been active, we really have no way to know that for sure, do we? That we came across a Dungeon fit to bursting suggests someone - but not necessarily your target - has been online on Earth for quite some time.”

Connor wiped crumbs from his hands and stood, reaching for his jacket. That worry was what was causing the itch in his skull. The not knowing. If Leather Jacket had his own version of Izzy, his own Dungeon access, and his own way of feeding XP into his stats… then Connor was very late to this particular party. 

And if he wanted Round 2 to have a different outcome than the first, he needed to run this guy to the ground. Fast.

“Our key problem,” the Dane said, raising his voice just enough to cut through the low murmur of stale breath and shifting chairs, “Is that we have no more good news. None. We’ve lost him.”

He gestured at the screen. 

“We don’t have this gentleman on camera after he exits Grand Central. The cab he took doesn’t appear on any registry. No plates. No sightings. It might as well have evaporated. And even if it did exist, let’s not kid ourselves—it’ll be torched and rotting in some canal right about now. By the time we find it, there’ll be no prints, no fibres, no DNA. Just melted plastic and more missed opportunities.”

“Is he always this glum?” Izzy stage-whispered.

“Hush!” Connor said, making the Dane glance his way. Then he clicked the remote and brought up a timeline. Thin black bars and red flags marching across the screen like a slow bleed.

“Following the little contretemps at Grand Central,” the Dane continued, “Our courier proceeded to make contact with Geraldo’s crew. We can confirm this because, at precisely 10:20 a.m. yesterday, one of our embedded assets reported that a meeting had just been greenlit with a ‘new face.’ Apparently, spirits were high. People were excited. Plans were being made.”

He paused, then clicked his tongue. 

“At 10:48 a.m, that same asset was found dead. Extremely dead.”

A few heads shifted. No one spoke.

“We do not believe this was a deal gone sideways. Geraldo’s boys and girls are still slinging and hustling with no sign of panic. We’ve picked up on no unexpected radio silences. And there has been no bloodletting clean-up. So, that tells me this death wasn’t an accident. Rather I suspect that this was a signal.”

The pointer jabbed down at a block of text. 

“Our working theory is that the courier knew who our fellow on the inside was. Somehow, he was able to clock our man for what he was and then immediately took him off the board. A favour for Geraldo, perhaps. A gift to supplement the £300k of gear he brought with him. A nice little calling card to show his worth.”

The Dane let out a long breath through his nose. 

“As you may imagine, that has not improved my disposition this morning.”

Connor didn’t say anything else. He was staring at the projection with his stomach coiling like wire. He’d had him. Leather Jacket. Had the man cold. He could’ve ended all this back then. He could’ve stopped the descent before it started. Instead, he’d let him walk away.

And someone else had already paid the price.

“I know you don’t need me acting as your emotional support animal here,” Izzy said, her tone dry as a desert martini, “But let’s not gloss over the small matter that this man did manage to kill you, Mr Connor. It’s not like you were, and I’ve cross-referenced this stereotype extensively, sitting in a squad car eating donuts while he tiptoed into the sunset.”

The Dane kept clicking through stills. Facial reconstructions. Transport logs. Cell tower skims. His mouth tightened with each slide. At last, he stopped, sighed, and killed the projector with a final snap of the remote.

“The upshot is this,” he said, eyes sweeping the room. “We still don’t know who he is. We don’t know where the heroin is. And we don’t know what he is here to do! What we do know is that he shot one of ours at point-blank, walked out of a major transport hub untouched, and followed it up by executing one of our best undercovers less than forty-eight hours later.”

He folded his arms.

“That little tale of woe alone should motivate you to deliver your sharpest and cleanest work.”

The shift in the room wasn’t loud, but spines straightened. Chairs stopped creaking. Connor didn’t have to look around to know: the tension had gone from ambient to electric.

“So!” the Dane snapped, the pointer striking the edge of his folder like a gunshot, making half the room flinch, “We dust ourselves down and re-engage. It’s full-court press time. Joyful, you’re on comms. I want a full asset grid review, every name reflagged and stress-tested by nineteen hundred. If there’s anyone even remotely exposed, I want them pulled. I don’t care what op that trashes, we’re not bleeding another damn body to this guy.”

Joyful gave a nod, already flipping through his notebook.

“Faye. Gareth. Go over the clean phones again. Line by line. If we’ve got a leak, I want it found, bagged, and named. Don’t stop at suspicious patterns, I want you to prove it to me. If I’m to shoot whoever’s dirty in the head myself, I’d like it to be righteous. Do we understand?”

Faye’s response was immediate, while Gareth didn’t even look up. His laptop was already purring, fingers moving fast.

The Dane scanned the rest of the room, eyes locking briefly on Connor at the back. 

“Connor. If you’re vertical and sentient, I want you to partner up with Jaz today.”

Jaz didn’t look up, but everyone in the room saw her tense. She was a tiny, dark woman with no patience for theatre, but she still managed to flinch at the assignment like someone had aimed an RPG at her soul. Dying once in a week, Connor thought, did little for your professional desirability as a partner. He suspected fatal lead poisoning - even one you bounced back from - had a way of putting colleagues off their sandwiches.

“I want the two of you to sweep the louder fronts in Aston,” the Dane went on. “One of our sniffers flagged a new holding site near Nechells Parkway. Might be our courier’s stash. Might not be. It’s in Geraldo’s territory, so I’m feeling lucky. You both know the drill. Hit up barbers, ice cream parlours. Anything with too many staff and too little custom. Find out if any of our courier’s payload is finding its way onto the street. If that heroin drop was a cheery ‘hello, shall we work’, I want confirmation of that. If he’s a link to a new supplier, I want a name.”

Jaz finally raised her eyes. They were very tired of the world. 

“You sure you want Lazarus tagging along, boss? No offence, but he’s a little… melanin-deficient for blending in where we’re going. Might stand out, just a smidge, is what I’m saying.”

There was a very short silence, spoiled only by. 

“She didn’t call you ‘Cute’ Lazarus, Mr Connor. Does that mean she’s not attracted to you?”

“I hadn’t realised you’d been promoted, Jaz,” the Dane said, voice sharpening. “Many apologies for not consulting you more thoroughly on resource allocation. While we’re here, is there any other part of the operation you’d like to micromanage?”

Jaz didn’t rise to it. Sensibly.

“In case it slipped your notice,” he continued, swiping back through his slides, “We have no good visual on the courier. Not one. Just these blurry Rorschachs in leather. Connor is the only asset we’ve got who’s had eyes on the man. If our courier is out there pressing flesh or pushing product, I want the one operative who might actually recognise him within spitting distance. That clear enough for you?”

“Crystal, boss,” Jaz said. “I was just saying…”

“I don’t need you to say anything at all. I need you on the pavement turning questions into answers. Stop questioning my orders and get out there and get me something I can use.”

Connor ambled over to Jaz’s desk, hands shoved in his trouser pockets, trying to summon something approximating charm or at least non-threatening competence. He didn’t know her especially well. A few shared drills, a tactical debrief that ended in mutual eye-rolls. That was about it. 

He remembered she was particular about her hair which she kept tight to the scalp like she didn’t want it getting ideas. But it was her eyes that gave her away. Connor recognised the look. Tired, angry, and done pretending otherwise. It was the expression his own bathroom mirror wore most mornings.

“Hey,” he offered, aiming for casual and landing somewhere nearer apologetic.

“Hey yourself, Lazarus. Let’s set some ground rules. Out there, I talk. You walk, breathe, and try not to bleed on anything important.” She gave him a long once-over and frowned like she was appraising a dodgy meal deal. “You don’t look right. Are you gonna keel over mid-buy or what?”

“I’ll do my absolute best to remain upright and non-leaky.”

“You better,” she said, already standing and preparing to leave. “I’m not carrying you if you turn out dead twice in one week.”

The Dane handed out the last of the assignments and wrapped the briefing with a clipped, “Our best work, people. No more casualties this day.”

Chairs scraped and feet shuffled. It was the usual post-meeting rustle of people suddenly with somewhere more dangerous to be. Connor stayed planted, eyes on Jaz as she packed with the quick efficiency of someone who didn’t trust tomorrow was likely to come.

First, she fitted a compact comms rig into her ear, folding it down like origami against the curve of her skull, then she checked her burner with a flick of her thumb that suggested to Connor that she’d done it mid-foot-chase before. 

Next came her weapon. She drew it from her desk drawer and it was compact, sleek, and very much not standard issue. Definitely imported, Connor thought. Czech, maybe? Polymer frame, oversized barrel vent. One of those guns that spoke fluent violence in three dialects and didn’t care who overheard. Connor had seen its like before. Guns like this always came with a history and a price tag that meant favours had changed hands.

Catching him watching, Jaz slid the piece into a Kydex holster tucked just inside her jacket, squarely in the grey zone of legality: fine on paper, but she didn’t want to get pulled over. Then, though, came the kicker. She took out a curved blade, handle worn from years of serious use, and slipped into her boot. She didn’t glance his way as she did so. Everything about the way she moved said, You better be up for this.

“Sorry to be a wet lettuce,” Connor said, “But did I mishear the briefing? Are we off to buy drugs from an ice-cream parlour, or are we staging a coup on the Third Reich?”

“You never know what’s cooking in that part of Birmingham. Could be waffle cones, could be war crimes. Depends on the toppings and, in any event, I’ll be ready.”

She tossed the line over her shoulder, already moving to the exit. Connor caught the tail end of a grin she didn’t quite let happen, and something in her gait shifted, becoming more business than banter now.

“And not all of us have a spare life to put in play,” she added, pausing long enough to fix him with a look that didn’t quite soften. “You coming, Lazarus?”

Connor hesitated just long enough to be annoying, then followed, boots echoing in the corridor like reluctant punctuation.

“I like her. She’s spunky! You should definitely try to be friends. Tell her she looks pretty! Compliment her shoes.”

Connor followed Jaz into the car park, boots scuffing against the cracked tarmac, the morning light smearing everything in the kind of dull grey that made even colours look guilty. The Ford pool car they’d drawn was sulking in its bay, rust blooming on one door.

Jaz tossed him the keys without ceremony. “You’re driving.”

“Why?”

“Because I said so. And because you should always do what a lady asks. Didn’t your mother raise you right?”

Connor caught the keys and pocketed the retort. He didn’t have much to say to that. Mostly because there wasn’t much to say. If the late, thoroughly unlamented Mrs Keene had ever offered guidance on the subject of ladies, it hadn’t survived the shouting. She’d been more about ashtrays than etiquette, more about vodka than values. Connor had learned early on that doing what women asked didn’t always end in thanks, or safety.

He walked around to the driver’s side and gave the car a look. 

“This thing got brakes?”

“Mostly. And it pulls a little to the right if you hit forty.”

“So do I,” Connor said, unlocking the door. Izzy bounced around in the back of his head but, for once, didn’t seem motivated to say anything. She was probably trying to work out what a Ford Focus was.

"So, Aston bound," he said, more for something to say than anything else.

"Yeah. Let's see if the ghost that shot you has left us any breadcrumbs on the street."