LITMIR.BIZ

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purchase was made. From a bank not ten minutes away from the auction, the payment came from the account of one…” There was a shuffling noise as she shifted through what sounded like a load of paperwork; she’d obviously been researching this for hours.

      “Jason Smith. Who is a high-flying investor for the fishing trade.”

      “And he’s linked to the Circle how?”

      “He’s not. But we went to question him an hour ago at his home in Whitstable. We’ve only just got back.”

      “And…?”

      “And we found him dead in his living room.”

      “Crap. So no leads.”

      “Dax, he’s been dead for a long while, we reckon about five months. He was well into the rotting stages when we got there, and there are no fingerprints at the scene but get this: the last thing he actually purchased and signed for himself was a disused oilrig off the coast of England but we haven’t found where exactly yet. It has been redundant for decades, apparently it was built on unreliable intelligence and when they found nothing, it was just left to rust. It’s little more than a pile of scrap that goes unnoticed these days. So why would he buy it?”

      “Because someone forced him to.”

      “That’s what we think. He is co-owner with a partner that is using a false name on the deeds, there’s a paper trail so vast that it’s nigh on impossible to trace it back to whoever it is. But we also know that this ‘partner’ is the co-owner of every single one of those boats and that submarine.”

      “It’s got to be worth chasing up.”

      “Definitely. There are some old dockyards in Chatham that Leyth and I are planning on investigating. That’s where the submarine was auctioned off. It might give us some useful leads, and if not we can see if anyone went with Mr Smith on the security camera footage. You want to come?”

      “Count me in, I’ll get my stuff together, leave in ten?”

      “Sure thing, we’re just going to go and brief Julian.”

      Finally they had a lead that might work. Tamriel made a good private investigator; she and Carl had the right idea with their new firm. Dax was well educated and a frigging genius with technology and hacking but he would never have thought of a submarine, even now the idea seemed ridiculous. But hell, the Circle were everywhere, it made sense that they would take to the seas as well.

      Dax hastily typed the name ‘Jason Smith’ into his computer’s search programme and then ran a separate search for redundant oilrigs on the coast of England and left his computer running. It would ping the results to his phone if it found anything anyway. Shoving his thick bomber jacket on and checking his knives and Glock were present, he stalked out of his house, clicking the alarm sensors on as he walked back to the mansion.

      Tamriel and Leyth were already out front loading up Leyth’s beat-up old Range Rover and Julian was outside with them barking orders into his phone.

      “I don’t give a crap how much it costs, Saph,” he was shouting as Dax came within hearing range, “we’re gonna need a boat, charge it to your pack credit card!”

      He paused for a minute, presumably listening to her talking before adding, “Fine, just make sure it’s a subtle boat, nothing ‘spanky’, and make sure it’s fast. But big enough for all of us to get on.”

      He spun on his heel and marched around the side of the car, hefting his huge muscular body into the passenger seat, muttering something about Sapphire wanting to buy a ‘damned pink boat’ and slammed the door.

      “Dax!” Tam shouted as he approached them. “You ready?”

      “Yup,” he grunted, sliding himself into the back seat of the car.

      “Cool, let’s get moving,” Leyth growled, starting the engine as he slammed his door.

      “We’ve got a meeting with the auctioneer first,” Tam explained, sliding into the back seat next to him. “They have given us permission to do a thorough search of the dockyard but we have to be subtle because it’s open to the public today.”

      She bent down to pull something from one of the bags she had at her feet, shoving a plastic container onto his lap.

      “Eat.”

      “Not hungry,” he grumbled.

      “Don’t care. Eat.” She grinned at him. Damn that female could be a pain in the arse, but he did as she asked anyway. It was just easier not to argue. Cracking the lid on the Tupperware container he found four thick beef sandwiches sat there neatly stacked up; protein and lots of it. He bit them down quickly, barely tasting the meat as it hit his tongue. His stomach reluctantly accepted the sustenance.

      It took about an hour in total to get them down to Chatham’s Historic Dockyard. The drive was tedious. Dax found himself drifting in and out of sleep; a belly full of beef would do that to a wolf. Maybe Julian was right. He really should get some proper sleep soon.

      As Leyth pulled the car up to the main entrance to the dockyard, Tamriel leaned out of her window and explained who she was, showing them her new private investigator’s licence and ID card. The guards let them straight through and directed them to the car park, explaining how to find the main office.

      “Dax, you and Leyth go take a look around, see if you can find anything while Tamriel and I go talk to this auctioneer and look at the CCTV footage, cool?”

      Everyone nodded in agreement as Leyth pulled the car into a parking bay. He helped his female out of the car, and landed one hell of a kiss on her lips, leaving her a little flushed as she walked away with Julian.

      “Come on, man, where do you want to start?” Leyth nodded at Dax.

      “Not sure, let’s find an area map.”

      It didn’t take long for them to find one of those huge boards with the ‘you are HERE’ arrows on it. The dockyard they were in was huge. There was a museum and a large boat you could walk around. There were also rope-making warehouses and some privately owned warehouses too, as well as a small café and several car parks.

      “OK, they hold the auctions in the museum most of the time. It would make sense to hold this one there too as they were selling off boats, the museum is near the water.” Dax glanced that way; it was indeed close to the water, yet not close enough. There was a replica of the ‘midget submarine’ on display, and little else.

      “I need to look at their private rentals information, we need to know who else is renting space here.” Dax started walking towards the café.

      “They’re not going to let you see those documents, that’s private for a reason!”

      “They don’t need to let me.”

      Leyth snorted as he waked over to the counter to order some coffee as Dax plonked his arse into one of the spindly plastic chairs. Damn thing felt like it was going to bend and break under his weight.

      Tugging his laptop out of his bag, he set it on the table in front of him and turned it on. It scanned his fingerprint on the mouse pad and allowed him access. A message popped up notifying him that the search he’d started at home was still in progress. No surprise there!

      Hitting the Wi-Fi on he scanned the area, quickly finding the dockyards network. It was of course password protected but hell, like that mattered. He clicked the little cursor onto his encryption software icon and set it into motion. The software in question was something he’d designed years ago; it was pretty basic, but that’s all it needed to be. It ran through the millions of number and letter password sequences in a matter of seconds, leaving no digital ‘fingerprint’ in its wake. As it briefly touched the network, it deleted all trace of itself as soon as it had made it. As the word ‘accepted’ finally flashed up on the screen, the programme made a note of the password and stored it in the depths of its hard drive for later use if ever needed. Now he was logged on to the network,

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