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FOR MY SINS by SCCunningham
Escaped convict David Howard has joined an undercover MI6 agent, Moira, to help bring down the evil Lord Knute Bates MP, the boss of a trafficking ring. David has forced a gang of friends to help him. Two tattooed hackers, on loan from prison, have just arrived at their makeshift HQ, footballer Franco’s penthouse flat, to work with them in sourcing the intel the bring the Lord down through a social media campaign. The two, Elvis and Jimmy, are setting up computer equipment and explaining how they will work together.
‘Do you know how to use a computer?’ Elvis asked, nervously.
The gang nodded.
‘That’s good,’ he smiled, relieved. ‘We don’t need to waste time teaching you the basics. These pieces of kit are like any other except that they can link into some pretty powerful secret squirrel databases that will help us raise intelligence, follow someone’s whereabouts, give all ports information, airline travel, passport control, previous criminal history, the prison database, the police national database, Interpol, the benefits agency, vehicle licensing, police custody, forensics, DNA, fingerprinting, doctors surgeries, hospitals, street cameras, train, bus and emergency services cameras, companies house, trading standards, press, media, coroner’s office, you name it, we have access to it,’ he sipped his tea.
‘Is that legal?’ asked Seb.
‘Yes, mainly, ish,’ Elvis scrunched his nose, deliberating. He couldn’t lie. ‘Well, actually no, if we get caught, we could go down for all manner of things,’ he gave an apologetic shrug. ‘Sorry.’
Jimmy quickly intervened.
‘But don’t worry, you won’t be working on this shit, we will. We’ll teach you what kind of information can be dug up. Your job is to work out what’s useful, and what you need, and we’ll gather it for you.’
The gang looked nervous; this was well outside their comfort zone.
‘It’s easy,’ blurted Elvis, trying to keep them on side. ‘You’re sort of already digging dirt on stuff in your everyday life. Whether you’re googling a company and looking at its reviews before you work with it, or searching for the best price on a car, or holiday, or social media spying on someone you’ve met on a dating site or checking out what next to watch on Netflix. You’re intel sourcing all the time. We just have the goods to mine a little deeper. No big deal.’
‘What are you guys doing time for exactly?’ Seb asked, not sure if he wanted to know the answer.
‘Hacking, mainly,’ offered Jimmy, giving Elvis a look of ‘I’ll answer this one’. Elvis missed it.
‘Attempt murder,’ answered Elvis.
Anton squealed. The gang leaned back from the table.
‘And hacking,’ Jimmy corrected.
‘And fraud, and perverting the course of justice,’ added Elvis.
‘Elvis, shut up!’ sighed Jimmy. ‘You’re frightening them.’
‘Oh, don’t worry, it’s the corrupt perverting, not the sexual kind. But we now know how to get away with it, so we don’t aim at getting caught again any time soon,’ Elvis smiled, proudly.
‘You tried to murder someone?’ asked Tara, looking at the meek geek in a new light, he didn’t look like he could cope well with violence.
‘Not really, I’m a vegan, I can’t kill anything, I’m even beginning to wonder if plants have feelings.’
‘Oh, me too,’ offered Anton, finding a fellow soul mate. ‘I can barely beat an egg,’ the two men smiled at each other, having a private moment of kindhearted hippiedom.
‘But you were charged with attempt murder,’ Josie pushed.
‘Oh that, well it was silly really, someone was trying to steal my knapsack, so I gave him a push. My laptop is my livelihood, he can go earn some money and get his own laptop, damned cheek.’
‘So, it was self-defense, you were being robbed,’ Josie tilted her head, trying to understand.
‘It started out as self-defense, but we were standing on a train platform at the time, and the seven forty-five for waterloo was just arriving. It turned into attempt murder. It was a very messy affair.’
‘Is he okay?’ asked Tara.
‘Oh yes, he’s fi…’
‘Can we get on with it please,’ interrupted Franco. ‘I’ve got meetings to get to, I’ve already missed training this morning.’ He gave Jimmy a nod to continue.
‘Right,’ said Jimmy. ‘We’ll meet here every day until the job’s done, it could take a few days or a few weeks. You can go home each night, but you’re prohibited to take anything with you, or talk to anyone else about the project. Think of it as jury service. If we get caught, Moira and her boys will disown us, so we’re on our own.’
Michael put his hand up. ‘I’m not happy releasing information to the media, we may be in breach of an official secrets act or something, with no legal support from Moira’s office to bail us out. He works with the government, for fucks sake, we don’t know what we might find.’
‘Understood,’ nodded Elvis. ‘We always protect any state secrets relating to the security of the country. And anyway, with the methods we use nothing is traceable, that’s our job. We step in and out, clean as a whistle, uncovering the truth and protecting others. Simples.’
‘It may be simples to you, but to us it’s a minefield, we don’t have a clue what we’re doing,’ sighed Tara.
‘I didn’t go to school,’ said Jimmy. ‘And I can do it. Don’t worry, we do all the tricky, risky, stuff, you do all the plotting, maneuvering, creating a media buzz stuff.’
‘There’s one good thing about the internet,’ interrupted Elvis. ‘Okay, so crime can hide behind it to a certain extent, and it does, mountains of it. But when the truth comes out, it goes viral and beats the hell out of evil every time, everything, everyone is exposed. Think of yourselves as superheroes surfing the world wide web saving lives, think of us as your guides.’
‘Oh my,’ gushed Anton, loving the idea of being a superhero. ‘We’re going to have to give ourselves superhero names.’
He trotted around the room with his arms stretched out, singing the superman theme. The gang giggled.
‘Make no mistake,’ interrupted Michael. ‘It may sound like fun, but we’re going to have to be careful, we’re small fry to the likes of Knute and his cronies, life is cheap to them, they’ll have no qualms in silencing us,’ he dragged a finger across his neck.
Anton sat down with a plop beside Franco, looking nervously over his shoulder.
‘Yeah, but we have David and Moira,’ countered Jimmy. ‘I don’t know much about David, but Moira is a hard-arsed bitch, I’ve never met anyone like her. She can get you anything you want, with the click of her fingers, and can take a life without flinching. You’ll want her on your side in a war.’
‘If she’s such a hot shot, then why doesn’t she just click her fingers and get Knute sorted by one of her sniper boys?’ asked Tara.
‘Because David wants it done differently. They have history. Maybe she’s an old romantic, I don’t know, but she listens to him, and will do it his way… until she doesn’t.’
Having worked in the worlds of sport, music, celebrity management, and law enforcement (CID Crime Investigator, Major Crime Team Intel Analyst, Wanted & Absconder Unit), Cunningham creates psychological thrillers with a skilled mix of fuelled tension, dark humor, and pulsating passion, offering a fresh level of sincerity and authority, rare in fiction.
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Historical Cozy Mystery 
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