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The Company
Time: Friday, June 29, 2012 (pre-dawn hours).
Place: Leaving Ahsan Asif's residence.
Last Event: Partying with the little brother.
Anabel, Jili, Qoqa, and Wen make their way back to the group's apartments from Ahsan Asif's, planning to use a mixture of taxi rides and Tube trips to shake any tails. As usual, Wen wants to grab a snack on the way home. Jili (who might have inhaled) also has the munchies. However, as the four walk toward the falafel joint, Wen spots a large car pacing them. She can just make out four men inside, one of whom appears to be Ahsan's driver . . .
The women decide to duck into the restaurant anyway, where Wen orders junk food while Anabel goes to call for backup. Unfortunately, the phone is out of order – well-and-truly vandalized, as is often the way of things at all-night greasy spoons. When Anabel reports on the state of the phone, consensus is "Not carrying cell phones is a bigger problem than having our cell phones tracked would be!" Short-term, though, the solution is to have Jili look at the phone. It doesn't take her long to get it working.
Jili calls in and lets Paul know what's happening. She asks him to meet her, Wen, Qoqa, and Anabel at a Tube station a short distance up the line – not right outside the restaurant, where there's a risk of being followed back to home base. The idea is to ride a few stops underground in order to lose the men in the car. Jili also requests that Paul bring along Zhang, just in case. Paul acknowledges the plan and gets moving.
As soon as Wen and Jili are done filling their faces, the four head out and walk toward the Tube station – and predictably, the car follows alongside, the driver making no effort to be secretive. What comes next is less predictable: The car lurches to a stop at the curb and disgorges Ahsan's driver and two other men, who immediately start shouting things like "Whores!" and "Sluts!" The fourth man remains behind the wheel of the vehicle. When the women break into a run, the goons give chase and the car keeps pace. Wen deliberately falls back a little, looking for a chance to kick the crap out of someone.
After a few seconds of this, the man in the car abruptly pulls up over the curb, cutting off Anabel from Jili and Qoqa. Wen eyeballs the distance, figures that Anabel can fend off one dirtbag, and turns to face the goons coming up from behind. At this point, things get hairy: The driver of the car slides out the passenger-side door and lunges for Anabel, his three buddies rush Wen, and Jili and Qoqa suddenly realize that there's trouble and turn around to assist their friends.
For Anabel, the opening moments of the altercation go poorly. She slaps aside her attacker's grasping hands, only to slip up on a kick and have him take advantage of this by kicking her on the ground and trying to pin her down when she covers up. Jili and Qoqa's arrival saves her bacon – they dash around either end of the car and lay into Anabel's assailant with a flurry of kicks and punches. After one of Qoqa's blows sends the man staggering, he tries to jump back into his ride, but he's too slow – Jili kicks the car door and bounces it off his leg. When he finally crawls into the vehicle, Jili rushes the still-open door, grasps the roof of the car, and swings into him feet-first. By the time Anabel is upright again, all she can see is Jili kicking the living hell out of someone in the car.
Meanwhile, down the street, Wen and two of her opponents go down in a clumsy heap. The third goon remains standing and tries to kick Wen, but she rolls away and stands up before he can land a single hit – and before his pals struggle back to their feet. By the time Wen and her adversaries are standing and ready to trade blows again, Jili is stomping the man in the car while Qoqa is racing to lend Wen a hand.
At this stage, things take a bad turn for the would-be attackers. Wen lands kick after kick, lifting one man off the ground with a shin to the crotch, and then getting airborne herself to lay a shin across another goon's face. She shows no signs of stopping until her targets either flee or surrender – and it seems that their twisted sense of honor prevents that, so two of them end up beaten senseless by a 5'2" women. Over on Wen's left, Qoqa handles the third guy, getting in close, avoiding his paws, and driving uppercuts into him until he collapses. Once Qoqa and Wen are sure that their three won't be getting up, they turn around to see Anabel and Jili dragging the driver out of the car up the street.
Wen and Qoqa join Jili and Anabel, whereupon Qoqa realizes that the driver isn't just the loser of a punch-up, but in critical condition. She suspects that no court would interpret the man's injuries as the consequence of self-defense – it's painfully obvious that Anabel and Jili did their best to beat him to death. Qoqa gets to work on him, doing what she can to maximize his odds of survival. The other three fan out to search their attackers before the police arrive, turning up two cell phones and a couple of wallets.
When flashing lights become visible far down the street, all four women jump into the thugs' car, and then Jili hits the gas and speeds away. Fortunately, it looks as if the police didn't see them leave the scene, as there are no signs of pursuit. Jili drives toward the rendezvous point she gave Paul, while Anabel searches the dash. Anabel finds only one item of interest in the glove box, but it's very interesting indeed: papers registering the vehicle to Muhammad Asif!
The women find Paul and Zhang waiting at the rendezvous, Zhang looking a little put out that there doesn't appear to be any fighting to do. The six Agents quickly search the purloined vehicle, but they find nothing of further interest in the dash or trunk, or under the seats. After a brief discussion, everybody agrees that it would be amusing – perhaps even worthwhile – to park a car owned by Muhammad Asif outside Terence West's house, where MI5 can examine it at their leisure. Without further ado, Paul takes the wheel and hits the road. The others follow in the team's own car, with Zhang driving.
The drop-off is uneventful. Paul parks the confiscated car around the corner from Terence's, sneaks over to the front door, and tucks the keys and registration papers into Terence's letterbox. Then Paul slips into the car with the others (it's a good thing that Anabel and Jili are slim, and that Wen is downright tiny!), takes the wheel, and drives back to the apartments. All six Agents are on high alert for someone tailing them, but as far as they can tell, their plan comes off without a hitch.
It's after sunrise by the time the Agents pull in at home base and stumble upstairs. Despite everyone's fatigue, there are a few things to do before getting some sleep. Qoqa breaks out the first-aid gear to treat the bumps and scratches sustained in the fight . . . mainly Anabel's, mostly because Anabel whines interminably about her bruised ribs. Meanwhile, Jili checks the two phones grabbed from the attackers in the street. Stored on both she finds one of the numbers she found on Ahsan's phone, a private number for Muhammad Asif. She notes that one of the phones was called from that number about five minutes after she and her friends left Ahsan's apartment. Paul searches the stolen wallets, but finds only cash and driver's licenses.
With all that done, it's time to get some rest at long last. Hamid thoroughly disables the two captured cell phones, just in case. Then everybody hits the sack. Nobody is up and about before early afternoon.
Once everybody is awake and functional (Anabel still complaining about sore ribs), Hamid and Jili get back to work on the data stolen from Ford Chisholm's offices. It isn't long before they have a couple of things to report on. Hamid goes first. He explains that after breaking the encryption on the files copied from the hard drives and thoroughly searching the records in several different ways, he found nothing at all pointing to Muhammad Asif. In his opinion, that's highly suspicious, because if Asif is one of Chisholm's clients, there should be some evidence of a past relationship, if only a phone number.
Then it's Jili's turn. She says that she managed to get past the (tough) security on the memory card that Paul found hidden in Chisholm's desk, which turned out to contain only files on Muhammad Asif. She reports that there are digital copies of receipts, deeds, and many similar records, including extensive documentation linking Asif to numerous holding companies and tying those operations to yet more companies. Among this information is unambiguous confirmation that Asif owned the bomb-maker's factory at two removes. The data reveals far too many other properties for the Agents to stake out in a sensible amount of time, but it's safe to say that Asif is into real estate in a big way. In Jili's opinion, Chisholm was holding onto this evidence as "insurance" or even as blackmail material.
After hearing all this, the Agents agree that it's time to submit a report on Muhammad Asif. Anabel starts writing at once, with copious input from the others. The primary content consists of everything the group learned about Asif's companies and holdings, including South Star Import-Export and the less-obvious firms enumerated in Chisholm's secret data. Anabel also includes everything the group discovered about Ahsan Asif, Ford Chisholm, and the London-Pakistani Youth Initiative. She gives a lot of practical information, too – for instance, the make and model of security systems at Muhammad Asif's home, where he parks in the garage, and what his private telephone numbers are. And she tosses in an account of recent events, with assessments of the personalities that would lead to such actions.
Once everyone is in agreement on Anabel's report, Hamid and Jili bundle it with the data from Chisholm's hard drives and memory card – making copies, of course! All the discs and cards containing this information go in a bag with the captured phones and wallets, the fingerprints that Qoqa lifted, and copies of the clearer photographs that the Agents dug up at the library. If it has to do with Muhammad Asif, it goes in the sack. With that done, Anabel hangs her drawers out the window to signal Belinda.
Toward evening, as everyone is sitting down to the first meal Vinnie has managed to cook since his beating, Belinda turns up at the door and invites herself in. Her table manners are quite atrocious, but then being a polite diner isn't her job. She seems visibly excited to learn that the team has procured intelligence conclusively linking Muhammad Asif to the bomb-maker. After having a bite to eat, she collects the bag containing the records, thanks the group, and says that it will take her people a few days to analyze the information. With that, she departs.