10 : Basement Dwellers
The visitors started to arrive around 7pm. Mary greeted them at the door while David stayed out of the way in the den. After the quick exchange of the usual pleasantries they were allowed in, being showed down to the basement.
The meeting wasn’t until 9pm; but the problem with people like this, David reflected, was that they thought themselves to be more than friends of the host. It was one more thing, amongst a growing list, that David had begun to find more and more annoying these last few months. He overheard a few of the group asking where he was and how he was.
Mary dealt with their questions as instructed.
“Plenty of time for all that,” she said. “He’ll tell you all what happened later. Let’s get a few drinks and relax first.”
It was the usual pattern and easy to distract them with. They’d arrive and bring a few bottles of wine and beer, then in the basement they could start drinking and smoking, some of them doing a little more. In truth, most of the dealing David was doing now had started by supplying members of the group, most of whom wanted to enjoy the drugs but didn’t have the balls to seek out a street dealer. Well here he was, happy to take advantage.
For the next hour or so David heard others arriving, but he was too absorbed in what he was doing to pay much attention to the chatter at the door.
He’d opened up his connection to the Tor browser on his computer, a way to surf the internet anonymously. In addition he was using a piece of software to further encrypt his website requests and data. This extra step shouldn’t have been needed, but recent reports of Tor being hacked made him reticent to rely on it alone. Double-bagging, as Wolf had called it.
Wolf had shown him to surf outside the normal internet, on the Darknet, but also to hide the unique address of his computer. That way, no one would be able to trace his surfing, what websites and forums he went to. It made sense even if he didn’t understand it.
Given the events the last few days and most especially since meeting Lauren, he thought it even more important to hide what he was doing from prying eyes. Though on reflection, he realised Lauren clearly already had knowledge of what he did and how to get hold of him.
He searched out anything he could find about the riot. He visited the usual sites that provided illegally gained content. A search engine that collated the Darknet content was the first stop.
He looked for hacked surveillance camera feeds, tapped police radio transmissions, emails that had been intercepted and names of anyone that may be related to the event. There were scant references to the night, mostly police emails and a few stolen news reports that had probably already been published.
Most of what he found referenced Greenpeace, the numbers who turned up, arrests made and names of known activists. Then he found it — a link to a police surveillance video showing the march. This would be far more informative than the ground-level view they’d been showing on TV. He watched and saw the groups being split, the front one getting walked away and the group at the back become more violent as the minutes passed.
He saw himself in the crowd, throwing the tear-gas canister back at the police. He cursed himself again for his stupidity. A moment later there was the person he’d been searching for.
“Got you!”
The video rolled on and David continued to watch in morbid fascination.
He saw the riot police burst through the lines and head straight towards him. He watched aghast as they surrounded him, knocked him down with no attempt to restrain him, and then dragged him out of the crowd and through the police lines. Almost out of shot of the camera, a van was waiting for him.
The film rolled on but David had stopped watching. He stood up and stepped away from the desk.
“Holy shit,” he said aloud to no one.
The arrest was all planned, right down to the police van, ready to take him away.
David picked up the phone again.
“Two calls in the same night?” Paul asked.
“Yeh, I know. I just sent you an email on your private account. There’s a link to a video, but you’ll need to Tor in to see it,” David replied.
“Interesting, what’s it of?”
“Me getting my head smashed in, but that’s just the highlight. Watch a few seconds from four minutes onwards. The guy who runs over to me is the guy I want to know more about.”
There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line.
“OK, I’ve got it. Give me a second to get the video up,” Paul said. “By the way, don’t send me emails about this stuff from your normal account if you’re trying to stay hidden. I have your details here in the email header.”
David wasn’t even sure what that meant, but agreed to be more careful in the future.
“OK, I see him. Friendly guy. You sure you never saw him before, then? He sure looks like he knows you,” Paul said.
“Sure of it. Can you use this to find him?”
“Almost guaranteed. I’ll ping you a message to your phone when I have it.”
Paul hung up and looked at the man on screen, frozen in mid greeting to David.
“So who are you, then? Not going to ruin my little party, are you?”
David placed the phone down.
At least now he had a chance of finding out who the guy was and quickly. He disconnected all his software and closed down the computer.
It was just after 8.30pm, and it was time to go and mingle. As their leader and dealer he could at least enjoy having a little fun with his guests while he sold them his wares. They might not be useful protesters, but they were useful for that at least.
He stepped out of the den and saw no one was in the hallway. From the noise coming from the basement he guessed everyone was already here anyway. He locked the front door and turned the hallway lights off, then headed down to the basement.
It was easy to make a grand entrance. The basement was essentially two big rooms where he’d knocked down the dividing wall. As such, the stairs ran down the wall so everyone could see who was coming and going. Who was coming could also see everyone in the room, too, which David liked.
There were a couple of sofas against the back walls, a makeshift bar and a few tables near the middle of the floor. Scattered around were huge cushions masquerading as chairs, and the look was finished off by strategically placed lamps. The whole place was designed more like a nightclub lounge than a space for a serious group to meet.
“Hey everyone! Did we have fun yesterday or what?” he said as he walked down the last few steps, greeting them with his arms open as if ready to receive their praise.
A number of people called out his name as a return greeting, and a couple of the men came up and slapped him on the back and shoulders.
He was handed a beer, which he raised up to everyone in the form of a toast.
“Cheers, everyone, well done on yesterday!”
Beers were raised and the cheers returned. He could tell by the look on a few faces that they were already drunk or drugged enough to not even remember yesterday.
“David, how are you, bro?” Brother Wolf asked.
With a joint and beer in one hand, he held out his other hand, palm up, towards David.
David swung down his outstretched hand and gave Wolf’s hand a slap.
“You got hit pretty bad, went down straight away, man. Some of us tried to get in the way of the police, to stop them dragging you away but they were away with you before we could do anything.”
“Hey, Wolf, no problem, man. I think they were a little bit pissed at me throwing that canister back!”
“Yeh, man! We saw you do that and couldn’t believe it, what the hell got into you!” Wolf said, flailing his arms about his head and leaning back as if swooning over at the idea of what David had done.
David didn’t reply, instead indicating he was going to greet some of the others who were there and walked away. Good, so at least they think I did that on purpose, he thought as he walked away.
He saw Mary in her favourite spot, propped up against the back wall, sitting on her favourite cushion. Next to her were a couple he recognised by sight only. “Hey, Mary,” he said, pulling up a free chair to sit down with them.
“David,” she said, standing to lean over and kiss him on the head. She sat back down. “Colin and Louise,” she indicated, waving her hand at the couple next to her by way of introduction.
Colin looked like a straight — dressed normally, trimmed beard. But Louise was obviously a long-term activist. He could almost smell it on her, sense her attitude. Of more interest, her pierced nose and gaunt complexion marked her out to David’s experienced drug-dealer eyes as yet another junkie.
“Mary was telling us the police kept you overnight,” the woman said.
David noticed how she seemed to twitch and struggle to move her mouth as she spoke.
“Yep, got back just a few hours ago. They gave me a hell of a grilling in the station, wanted to know all about who I was and what group I was with,” he said, lying for the fun of getting them worried and to play up his adventures in their eyes.
“Damn, what did you tell them?” the man asked.
“Nothing of course!” David replied, acting offended at the idea.
He was already enjoying this. Doing his best to get in with the girl and alienate the boyfriend. It was a favourite pastime. David knew that Colin was too straight to make a scene and maybe that would be to David’s advantage later.
David reached out his hand to Mary and, addressing them all, said, “Listen, you guys relax for a bit longer, we’ll do the meeting stuff in about ten minutes.”
He got up and walked off to speak to Wolf again.
“Hey, mate,” he said to Wolf, grabbing his arm and motioning him to follow him to a quiet area near the makeshift bar.
“Listen, did you see the guy who came over to me before I got arrested?” he asked.
“Not me, no. But some of the crew asked who he was, they thought you knew him,” Wolf said.
“Jesus, does everyone think that? I never saw the guy before then. But I do want to know who he is,” David said.
“Well, that should be easy. I heard a couple of the guys hung around him after you were dragged away. He was asking where you’d gone, seemed proper concerned. I think some of them might have his number or something.”
David looked shocked. “Crap, I never even thought of that,” he said. “OK, let’s ask them.”
David took an empty bottle from off the bar and clanged it against the other one he was holding.
He kept doing that until everyone in the room had stopped talking and was looking at him.
“Thanks for coming, everyone. The other night was great and despite how it ended for me,” he said, giving a theatrical smile and rubbing the back of his head, “it was a successful protest!”
He raised his bottle to the cheers of the group.
“We’re not done yet, though: the fight goes on and we have a lot more work to do to get the message across,” he said to further cheers.
“By the way, did anyone else get arrested?” he asked, realising he knew nothing of what happened after he was taken away.
A few confirmed that neither they nor anyone they knew had been arrested.
“Great, just me then!” he said with a strained tone, causing more cheers and laughter.
“Well, OK, good. Let’s get down to business. It looks like we made a couple of contacts that night, one of whom was the guy who came over to me from the crowd. Did anyone find out who he was?”
Nick, an old regular of the group, raised his hand.
“He said he was called Frost, I got his number here somewhere,” Nick said, stretching out so he could get into the front pocket of his jeans from his seated position. “I have it here I think.”
David couldn’t believe his luck. Maybe now he could get a real activist into the group, not one of these half-arsed layabouts. If the cops really were targeting him now, he needed a patsy to run interference and take the spotlight.
“Yeh, here it is. Frost… that was it. Not tried the number though,” Nick said, holding the scrap of paper up.
David took it from him.
“That’s great, he looks like just the type of guy we could do with in the group. I’ll contact him tomorrow,” David said.
“Now, bigger news. I made another contact at the police station. I managed to get away with no charges against me, despite the dramatic arrest and exit,” he said to sounds of surprise from the group. “It seems we may have made a friend in a high place, possibly a sponsor of sorts,” he added.
There was a combination of surprise and silence across the room, and then Wolf spoke up.
“A sponsor? What does that mean?” he asked, all eyes still fixed on David, who was enjoying his moment of power.
“A sponsor, a supporter, someone who’s on our side and can help us out in some way. Who and what, I don’t know precisely yet. What I do know is they got me out of jail free, no passing go and no paying a fine,” he said. “Don’t overthink it, Wolf,” he added, seeing Wolf was mulling over the badly propositioned game reference and not the real message.
Wolf snapped out of his reflections. “What do they want from us?” he asked, again seeming to be the mouthpiece for the group.
“Nothing yet, they’ll be in touch soon and I’ll let you know. For now, enjoy the good news that we’re not on our own anymore!” David raised his voice as he finished speaking and raised his beer bottle again as a salute.
Most echoed his cheers and gesture; he noticed that some didn’t, but chose to ignore them.
“OK, that’s the official stuff for tonight, everyone relax and have a few beers. You deserve it!”
He walked off through the room and back to Mary.
When he got to Mary, she was alone with Louise, sitting next to her where Colin had been earlier.
“Hello, ladies, how you doing? No Colin?” he asked, sitting himself down in front of them both.
“He had to go, early to work tomorrow,” Louise said.
David smiled inside. “Ah, shame, I was just going to suggest we get this party started properly,” he said, pulling out the two wraps of heroin he’d taken from the drawer earlier and holding them out, one to each of the women.
They cast a glance at each other and David knew they were recognising and acknowledging each other’s addiction. He quickly closed his hands around the wraps. Like kids in a candy store.
“You’re with friends here, Louise, don’t sweat it,” he said softly. “Come on, let’s go somewhere more private.”
He stood and headed to the stairs, which led back up out of the basement. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the two women stand up and follow him. An image of himself as the Pied Piper leading rats to their doom came into his mind.
He smiled to himself again, took a left turn at the top of the basement stairs and headed up the steps to the first floor, back to the bedroom he and Mary had been in a few hours before.
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