Chapter Text
José Mourinho was sitting in the reception hall of the English Interpol headquarters in London. Everything around him was impeccably clean and organized, from the leather sofa he was sitting in to the perfectly ironed blouse of the woman behind the reception desk who was now talking on the phone.
“Yes. Yes, I will tell him.”
She came up to José, her high heels sounding loud on the marble floor.
“You can come up, Mr. Mourinho. The lift is around the corner. It‘s in the fifth floor.”
José groaned, which was his usual way of saying ‘thank you’, and headed to the lift. It took mere seconds to arrive to the fifth floor, but when he found himself in another reception hall, he felt his patience wearing thin.
“Mr. Abramovich has a very important phone call,” another secretary informed him. “If you would please wait here. Can I offer you anything in the meanwhile?”
José would need a glass of scotch, but before the meeting with his new boss it probably wouldn’t be a good idea.
“No, thank you.”
The secretary nodded and returned to her desk. After about ten minutes, the phone on the desk rang and she picked up.
“Yes, sir. Of course.”
She hung up and got up.
“Mr. Abramovich will receive you now,” she announced and led José towards the polished door with a golden plate which read ‘Roman Abramovich, ICPO Secretary-General’.
The secretary opened the door and stepped aside.
“Mr. Mourinho is here, sir.”
The man behind the desk lifted his head from some files.
“Thank you.”
She nodded and closed the door behind her. Roman Abramovich got up and shook José’s hand.
“Welcome to London, Mr. Mourinho,” he said. “We are very glad that you are finally here.”
“It’s my pleasure, Mr. Abramovich,” José said.
It was really his pleasure. The last year in Madrid with the bunch of incompetent, rebellious idiots who had no respect for him whatsoever was hell. He was delighted to be finally back in London where his career had once gotten a real boost. He even sometimes wished he had never left. But now he was back and a great position was awaiting him. In London they knew that this work required real, competent and resolute men. Which José knew he was.
“Sit down, please. We still have time before the meeting starts. I invited you for earlier than the others because I wanted to talk to you.”
“Sure,” José said and sat down.
Abramovich put the files aside and clasped his hands.
“Look, Mr. Mourinho, we asked for you because the situation is really unbearable now. We constantly have the gentlemen from the Scotland Yard and other police units here asking for help and you understand that we cannot answer to it unless we create a specialized team. I turned to you because you already have experience with working here in London and because your results and your references speak for themselves.”
It sounded like beautiful music to José’s ears.
“The main problem that we will discuss during today’s meeting when the gentlemen from the Metropolitan Police service and the Merseyside Police arrive, is the terrorist group that is currently based in Liverpool. We decided to opt for some new tactics and that is where we will need your help.”
José nodded. Terrorists were his specialty. That was why he found slightly deceiving that terrorists feared him but in Madrid every secretary dared to roll their eyes after he asked them to do something.
“Because I know that you are the one who will not be afraid to use some methods that are... let’s say... non-standard.”
José raised his brows, but then nodded again. Screw the methods, he had his dream job and wasn’t going to stick to any pathetic rules just to lose it. The phone on Abramovich’s desk rang. He picked it up and listened.
“Alright. Send them in.”
The door opened and four men walked in. Both Abramovich and José stood up.
“Gentlemen, this is Mr. Mourinho whom I called up from Madrid to help us with this miserable situation. Mr. Mourinho, let me introduce Mr. John Terry, the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, Mr. Frank Lampard, the Deputy-Commissioner, Mr. Brendan Rodgers, the Chief constable of the Merseyside Police, and Detective Ashley Cole who had led the investigation until now and who will introduce us, and mainly Mr. Mourinho, to the case.”
After they exchanged some pleasantries, which already disgusted José enough, they gathered around a long table and Detective Cole switched on a laptop and a projector.
“So far, we managed to figure out the bases of their organization,” he said and projected a copy of a crime record. “This is their leader, Steven Gerrard... well, he became the leader only recently after we got their previous leader, certain Jamie Carragher. Gerrard is the head of the group, but you won’t ever prove him anything, it seems. He washes his hands clean of everything. All we have on him are minor offenses in the past, nothing more than assault charges from about five years ago.”
Another record appeared on the wall.
“Daniel Agger, his right hand. What Gerrard thinks, he puts into action.”
The more he listened, the less José understood why they needed him or a special team. Alright, they had a terrorist group here, probably a well organized one, responsible for several attacks, that was smuggling weapons over the borders, but there were hundreds of such groups. Why Interpol was involved, he also had no idea.
“The latest results of our investigation show that there could be a connection between this group and some organizations in South America,” Detective Cole concluded.
So that was why.
“I suppose you have a plan how to find out, as Mr. Abramovich already told me,” José said.
“In reality, it’s Mr. Rodgers’ plan...” Detective Cole said with an unsure look at the Merseyside Police Chief constable and his bosses.
“Yes, it is,” Rodgers said. “I say it’s high time we stopped observing from the outside. We need someone inside that group.”
“So you mean an agent?” José asked with interest.
“Not really,” Abramovich intervened. “I’m not willing to put any of our agents at the risk. Those guys are not dumb... well, certainly not all of them. You send a policeman working undercover to them, Gerrard knows in three seconds and in another two Agger fires a bullet in his head. We need someone they will trust... at least for some time.”
“And you have someone like this, I suppose?”
He couldn’t miss the smirk Terry and Lampard exchanged, while Detective Cole looked like he wouldn’t be angry if his role in the case ended right here and now. Nevertheless, he projected another record. José frowned skeptically. If this... this freckled kid was supposed to be their secret weapon, then probably there was something wrong with either him or the Scotland Yard.
“Fernando José Torres Sanz,” Detective Cole said. “Currently serving a life sentence in Wakefield.”
“Did he rob a toy shop?” José snorted.
“Three banks,” Detective Cole said with a serious face. “During the third robbery, killed four guards, held hostages, used a child hostage to get away and finally shot two police officers on the run before being arrested.”
“Impressive,” José said in a flat voice.
“There is a reason for this choice, though,” Rodgers said, setting his glass back on the table. “He had an accomplice. Certain José Manuel Reina Páez. Whom we have seen a while earlier as a part of Gerrard’s group.”
“That makes sense,” José nodded.
“Perfect,” Abramovich said. “What I will want from you, Mr. Mourinho... provide me a competent agent who will be constantly keeping an eye on him and who will be a link between him and us. We don’t want this freckled monster running on the loose around here. And just in case he’s seen with that person, we need to make sure it’s someone nobody knows around here.”
José nodded.
“I know of a perfect man,” he said.
Abramovich smiled contentedly. Terry, Lampard, Rodgers and Cole got up to leave. When José was about to get up as well, Abramovich turned to him.
“If you would wait for a moment, Mr. Mourinho, I still have something to tell you.”
They waited for the other men to leave. Only then Abramovich came closer to José and folded his arms.
“I think you’ve already understood that I couldn’t tell you all in front of them.”
José smirked.
“And I thought you knew me well enough to understand that you didn’t need to explain everything to me.”
“So we are clear?” Abramovich asked.
“Of course we are. I can assure you that he won’t be running around here for more than will be absolutely necessary.”
***
José’s day started ridiculously bad. He only managed to sit down in his new office when the door flew open without him hearing a knock, and a guy with reddish brown curls that looked suspiciously like the mop José’s wife was using to wipe the floor, stormed inside, carrying a pile of envelopes in one hand and a cup in the other. It was then that José remembered the guy was probably his secretary that he inherited from his predecessor.
“The post,” he announced and threw the envelopes on the desk, right where José was planning to set his leather writing pad. “And coffee.”
“I didn’t order coffee!” José growled.
“You don’t need to order it, it’s free!” the guy grinned.
José’s jaw tightened and he looked at him.
“Listen, you...”
“David Luiz, sir,” the guy beamed.
“Listen, Luiz. If once more you set even one curl of that thing you probably call hair in my office, without you knocking and me giving you permission to enter, I will personally make sure that the next time you serve someone coffee will be in McDonald’s, is that clear?”
“Sure, sir!” Luiz grinned and danced back to his office.
He either didn’t get any of what José was saying, or the prospect of working at McDonald’s instead of José’s office was really appealing for him.
José made a mental note to kick that individual out as soon as he would have time to find a new secretary.
***
Five minutes later he was literally fuming, and the curly secretary wasn’t to blame this time. He was on the phone with the head of the Madrid unit, Florentino Pérez. And the discussion didn’t go like he had planned. At all.
“What do you mean you’re not giving me Modrić?” José shouted.
“Well, don’t take it bad, José,” Florentino said. “But the last time I gave you six of my men, you returned two, suffering from severe PTSD on top. Modrić is one of my best guys and if I lose him, the whole team I built around him will just fall apart.”
When did Florentino build a team around Modrić was a mystery for José.
“I can send you someone else,” Florentino offered. “Who is not busy at the moment.”
“I swear, Florentino, if you send me...”
“Ramos has just returned from holiday!” Florentino said enthusiastically.
“He wasn’t on holiday, I sent him off-duty because he is an incompetent...”
“Let’s not play with words, shall we?” the false sweetness was practically dripping from the phone right into José’s ear. “Ramos is an experienced agent and an international duty will only do him good.”
Sure, José thought, only it will not do me good.
“He can be there tomorrow.”
“Fine,” José sighed. “Tell him not to forget his gun and possibly not make himself noticed by everyone before he gets here.”
Without any more comments, Florentino hung up. José threw the phone on the table, flipped through the pile of crumpled papers that David Luiz had previously called ‘post’ and then got up. It was time to get some more information than he had gotten the previous day. If Abramovich wasn’t telling the heads of the Scotland Yard everything, José had no illusions of getting all the information from him either.
***
Special agent Sergio Ramos got off the private plane and looked around, immediately cursing at the London weather. Only two days ago he was enjoying the sun on the beach. Now it was raining cats and dogs and he was glad that he had decided to take a jacket with him. And the weather wasn’t the only reason why he was in a bad mood.
If he was to be honest, to find out that he was to work under Mourinho again after they had all celebrated his departure was really deceiving. Iker, their psychologist, even offered him free phone consultations, just in case his mental health would be at risk.
He had spent the last few hours reading the files Mourinho had sent him. It wasn’t a very amusing material and Sergio was sure that it wasn’t only his mental health that would be at risk.
Remembering not to attract any attention, Sergio caught a taxi and went to the hotel previously booked by Mourinho’s people. He still had about two hours until the meeting with Mourinho and he wanted to at least take a shower and make himself presentable, because Mourinho hated when people arrived to meetings looking untidy. Well, Sergio himself hated looking untidy. At least one thing he and Mourinho had in common.
***
Two hours later he was waiting in front of Mourinho’s office, already dressed up in a suit. Mourinho’s secretary couldn’t tell him when Mourinho would receive him or whether he even knew he was there, but he offered Sergio coffee, so Sergio gave up and accepted. Finally it turned out to be possibly the best coffee he ever had.
In twenty minutes, the door to Mourinho’s office opened and Mourinho stormed out, not stopping for even a moment and heading to the elevator.
“Come on, Ramos!” he yelled over his shoulder. “Abramovich is waiting downstairs!”
Sergio sighed and jogged to the elevator to catch up with Mourinho.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“To Wakefield,” Mourinho said. “We’re going to have a chat with our new friend.”
***
Senior Prison Officer Branislav Ivanović carefully looked through the peephole and then unlocked the door.
“Torres, you have a visit!” he announced in a bored voice.
The man on the bed lifted his head.
“I think you’re in the wrong cell,” he said. “I don’t get visits.”
Branislav was in a bad mood. He imagined the unfinished sandwich he had to leave in his office and crossed his arms.
“Will you lift that ass off the bed or should I help you?” he said through gritted teeth.
His dangerous voice worked as always. There was no second warning in his case and the prisoners knew that. They also knew that if he wanted to make someone’s life a hell, the word ‘hell’ got a whole new meaning.
He stepped to the side, letting the prisoner pass.
“I don’t have all day!” he barked, shoving him forwards as soon as he closed the door again.
There was no response from the prisoner. Branislav found it a bit frustrating. He hated the resigned ones. He preferred either the problematic guys who were giving him plenty of reasons to show them who was harder, or the sissies, because they were easy to exploit. There was always something Branislav wanted that they could give him.
This whole thing was frustrating, in fact. It wasn’t a visiting day. Just because three guys in suits wanted to see this guy he had to renounce on his lunch break. On top of everything, they requested a closed room, not the visiting room.
He led the prisoner in and remained standing at the door.
“Leave us alone, officer,” one of the men said.
“I can’t leave the room, sir!” Branislav replied.
He knew he was in trouble the moment he finished the sentence.
“You will now leave this room or your job, decide now!” the man growled.
Branislav opened the door, walked out of the room and banged it shut behind him. Whatever was going on in there was really weird.
***
Sergio was looking at the man in front of him. He looked a lot different than at the photographs he had seen before. His hair was darker as he obviously had other things to do here than to bleach it, and he was also paler, so the freckles weren’t so visible. What surprised Sergio the most was that he had thought he would look older. The photographs were obviously a few years old, and Sergio knew from experience that in prison people aged twice as fast. But this man didn’t look a day older. Just the sparkle Sergio remembered from the pictures was gone from his eyes.
“Would you sit down, Mr. Torres?” Abramovich said.
It took the man a while to react. It has been probably a long time since someone last called him ‘Mr. Torres’. Then he sat on the empty chair, opposite to Sergio.
“We won’t beat around it,” Abramovich said. “Remember your friend, José Manuel Reina?”
Torres just looked at him. It obviously wasn’t really a question.
“Know what he’s doing now?” Abramovich asked.
“Serving his time?” Torres asked in a flat voice.
Sergio frowned. The voice kind of didn’t fit him.
“I hate to tell you, but he’s not,” Abramovich said. “He only got five years and appealed after two and a half, so he’s happily running around England again.”
When there was no reaction, Abramovich continued.
“To be more precise, he is running around Liverpool. He got together with a certain group led by Steven Gerrard... oh, I see the name is familiar.”
“Everyone knows Gerrard,” Torres said, again in the flat voice.
“Of course. What interests us is that Reina knows him better than us. And we think that it is the right time you and Reina got back together.”
Torres frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“What would you say to a deal?” Abramovich asked. “You do us a favor, we do you a favor. For how long have you been here, Mr. Torres?”
“I stopped counting.”
Abramovich smirked.
“I will tell you. Next month it will be five years. If you’re already so desperate that you stopped counting, let me remind you that there are about fifty more years ahead of you. No possibility of parole, if I remember well.”
“What do you want from me?”
Abramovich looked delighted. The dialogue was finally getting somewhere.
“Let’s say that there are places where we can’t get. Where we would need a... connection.”
“You want me to infiltrate Gerrard’s group.”
“Yes.”
“It’s impossible.”
Abramovich chuckled.
“Nothing is impossible, Mr. Torres. If you reassess this option and judge it possible, I will judge possible the option of you appealing for the whole life tariff being quashed, and you being granted the parole.”
Sergio blinked when Abramovich’s words were met with silence. He knew everyone would jump on such opportunity. Hell, he would jump on it the second Abramovich would say it.
Abramovich leaned over the table.
“I am offering you freedom for your help, Mr. Torres.”
“I understand,” Torres said calmly. “How long do I have to decide?”
Abramovich looked at his watch.
“I can give you five minutes.”
***
Steven Gerrard banged his fist into the table. A few of the men around him jumped up.
“Out of all people you sent Carroll?” he shouted.
“Excuse me, but the ‘out of all people’ part doesn’t fit,” one of the men said.
“How come, Agger?”
“I didn’t have anyone else at the moment. Suárez is in South America with Coates, sealing up a few deals. We need Kelly and Škrtel here, and I didn’t want to send any of the youngsters.”
“But I didn’t ask for toasts and milk, I asked for explosives, and you just don’t send Carroll for anything more important than a screwdriver!” Gerrard shouted. “If he fucks up, I swear nobody will know what piece of your bodies belongs to who so they will have to bury you in one coffin!”
“We simply need more people!” Agger said. “After they got Enrique and Allen...”
“But I can’t really place an advertisement in The Sun, can I?” Gerrard snapped. “Find me more people, then! Reliable people, not snitches and not donkeys like Carroll!”
Suddenly a klaxon sounded from the street. A young boy from the group came to the window, carefully drew the curtain aside and looked out.
“It’s Carroll,” he announced.
Gerrard pursed his lips.
“This time you were lucky.”
***
Roman Abramovich was a generous man. He said five minutes but actually gave Torres a twenty seconds bonus. He understood that such decision deserved to be thought through.
“Time is up,” he announced then and leaned back in the chair. “So?”
Torres looked at him, then his eyes flickered to Sergio for a moment, like he was trying to understand who he was and why he was even there, when it was Abramovich doing all the talking. Mourinho he completely ignored.
“I take it,” he said then.
Abramovich looked at Mourinho and smirked.
“How do you want me to do it, though?” Torres asked. “You can’t just let me go like that, Gerrard would immediately know you’re behind it.”
“Of course not,” Mourinho finally spoke. “You will not just go like that. You will escape.”
“From Wakefield?” Torres raised his brows. “This is a Category A prison.”
“The Prison Service will decide to transfer you to Whitemoor. During the transport, you will escape. Agent Ramos will help you with that.”
Torres’ eyes again flew to Sergio, who tried hard to pretend that he wasn’t hearing about it for the first time.
“He will be helping you with everything. He will be a connection between you and us. And he will ensure that you...”
“Don’t forget about our deal, “ Torres nodded. “Got that.”
***
José stepped out of the elevator and headed to his office. He liked the situation less and less, and he wasn’t going to go with it until he knew what he wanted to know. Though he wasn’t sure if the things hadn’t gotten too far for him to back up.
“Coffee, sir?”
“Fuck you, Luiz.”
“Sure, sir. Anytime.”
José stopped in his tracks, desperately trying to figure out whether his Brazilian secretary’s English was really that bad or if he was in fact making fun of José, but then he decided that an international mission involving terrorists still had bigger priority than a curly haired Brazilian idiot, so he just banged the door of his office behind him.
That Abramovich wanted Torres dead after they got what they wanted, that he understood. That the Scotland Yard wasn’t to know about it, that was clear. But he wanted to know why he couldn’t tell Ramos about it. Mainly if he was supposed to be the one to fire the gun.