The Song of Mawu. Jeff Edwards

rang. ‘I took the computer down to our mechanical engineers. There was nothing we could do with the hard drive. It had been booby trapped. The minute the computer identified that we were using the wrong sort of hardware to operate the drive it activated a phial of acid inside the hard drive itself. There was nothing usable left inside the case by the time we opened it. I’m sorry.’

      Thorpe had no intention of trying to console his staff and hung up in her ear. ‘The bastards are trying to stuff us around again.’

      ‘Why now?’ asked his deputy.

      ‘Because they’ve brought the videos out from wherever they were hidden. They knew they had nothing to fear when they didn’t go near them but now that they’ve been moved they’ve become vulnerable.’

      ‘What do we do now?’

      ‘The girl. She had the lap-top. She must have known what was on it. I want to talk to her.’

      The deputy consulted his notes, ‘Eliza Strang.’

      ‘Strang? Isn’t she the daughter of that petty thief they employ as a security officer?’

      ‘Apparently so. She’s a Director of The Fund.’

      ‘I’ve met her before. She forced the Minister for Inland Security to release her father when I was interrogating him. But she doesn’t look anything like the person I ran into at their former headquarters.’

      The deputy passed over a pair of photos from the file. One was of a pasty faced Goth and the second a well groomed young woman. ‘She certainly has undergone a change. I also have a note here that she is about to leave England. She’s booked on a flight to Jersey. She’ll be staying there overnight before flying to Paris with further connecting flights that will take her to Namola.’

      ‘Why the stopovers in Jersey and Paris? I smell a rat. When’s her flight?’

      ‘This evening at eight.’

      ‘I’ll need a couple of agents to come with me to the airport. I want to speak to her before she goes anywhere.’

      ***

      Eliza sat in the airport lounge, sipping a fruit juice as she waited for her flight to be called. To pass the time she was hard at work sending SMS messages to her contacts in Namola, letting them know that she was on her way back and offering any help that they might need. Her latest lap-top, issued by The Fund’s technology department, rested in it’s satchel between her legs. There was no way that this computer would be allowed out of her sight.

      As she worked, Eliza could not help but feel that there were eyes watching her, and glanced around. She noted that amongst those people present there were at least four who could have been security agents. Or am I just being paranoid?

      She returned to her texting as three suited men entered the room.

      Eliza saw them approach and casually reached up to tap at her neck.

      The oldest of the three men held back while his companions approached and produced their Inland Security identification, ‘Please come with us Miss Strang.’

      Eliza ignored the two men and waved to the third, ‘Good evening Mr Thorpe! It’s good to see you again.’

      Thorpe refused to reply, simply waving to his agents, who took up positions on either side of Eliza.

      Shrugging at Thorpe’s rudeness, Eliza rose and picked up her hand luggage before following after the retreating Thorpe while the other agents closed in behind her. The other occupants of the lounge stared at the young woman as she passed and wondered if they were experiencing a close encounter with a terrorist.

      ***

      Thorpe sat behind a small desk in a nondescript office located in the bowels of the airport terminal.

      Eliza was directed to a chair opposite while one of the agents took her personal items and searched through them carefully. Her lap-top was handed to Thorpe.

      ‘You wouldn’t want to do anything silly with that Mr Thorpe, would you now? You know what happened last time,’ she added sweetly.

      ‘I see you have your father’s sense of humour,’ replied Thorpe acidly.

      Eliza shrugged, ‘I’m simply reminding you Mr Thorpe. It’d be such a waste to ruin another computer.’

      Thorpe turned to one of his men. ‘Take it apart. Remove the hard drive.’

      ‘And what are you looking for?’ asked Eliza innocently.

      ‘The same thing that was on your other computer, Jade Green’s videos.’

      ‘There was no such thing on my other computer. There couldn’t be because those videos don’t exist. They’re only a legend.’

      Thorpe shook his head, ‘That crap may have worked at one time, but we know better now. We have the DVD of a certain prominent judge and we know for sure that Green used the videos to gain your friend Toby Brown a favourable decision in a court case. You and your friends even showed a DVD to the Prime Minister.’

      Eliza realised that it would be silly to continue denying the videos existence. The time for that had long passed. She waved her hands in a dismissive gesture to Thorpe, ‘Who cares about a bunch of silly men paying to have sex all those years ago.’

      ‘The Prime Minister cares.’

      ‘He only wants them for his own purposes. Mrs Green wanted them used to do good in the world and that doesn’t mean turning them over to the government. Besides, he didn’t seem to care too much when his own brother was exposed.’

      ‘The British Government will never kowtow to a bunch of blackmailers.’

      Eliza smiled, ‘The PM did seem to enjoy all the wonderful publicity that assisting The Fund brought to his re-election campaign.’

      Thorpe’s agent had opened the lap-top and now handed over the hard drive, which Thorpe slipped into his coat pocket, ‘Why are you going to Jersey?’ he asked.

      ‘Holidays.’

      ‘Bullshit! You’re not due to stay more than one day. You were delivering the hard drive to The Fund’s bank, weren’t you?’

      ‘Not now. You have the hard drive. But it won’t do you any good. It will end up like the other one.’

      ‘Not if we remove your little surprise first. It can’t self-destruct if there’s no acid phial.’

      Eliza appeared to pale in shock as that fact struck home. Thorpe smiled at her discomfort. He rose from his chair and made toward the door. ‘Well then Miss Strang, I hope you have a delightful flight and a pleasant ‘holiday’ in Jersey.’

      ***

      Eliza was escorted back to the lounge by a single agent and then left to await her flight.

      The other travellers gave her a wide berth as she took her seat but she gave them a cheerful grin and concentrated once again on her phone calls.

      ‘You heard?’ she asked.

      ‘Everything. It went well.’

      Eliza smiled, ‘He’s not going to be too happy when he finds there’s no phial of acid and no video files on that hard drive.’

      ‘You’ll be well on your way by then. Good luck.’

      ***

      Several hours later Eliza had checked into her hotel room where she showered and climbed into bed for a good night’s sleep.

      She ate breakfast the following morning in the restaurant located off the lobby and after returning to her room was able to confirm that it had been searched by experts in her absence.

      Smiling to herself she dialled the front desk, ‘I forgot to ask when I arrived last night. Did a package arrive for me?’

      The receptionist