Free The Dead Speak Ill Of The Living (The Dead Speak Paranormal Mysteries Book 1) by Robert Wilde Page A

warning shots.
      
Soon all the guards had been herded off, representatives from Belgian and
British intelligence had arrived, and the foursome in the central lab had been
liberated. Although all this practically meant was they were waiting in the lab
while the intelligence agencies conferred outside. Soon a man in a smart grey
suit and short blonde hair came in.
      
“Hello, I’m Peters, and I’m going to be the one to escort you back to the UK
and debrief you.”
      
“We can go?”
      
“Yes Miss Nettleship, we have negotiated with the Belgians for you to be taken
immediately back to the UK, while they deal with the situation here.”
      
“Deal with?” Pohl said suspiciously, “will someone be charged for my brother’s
murder?”
      
“I’m afraid that’s still to be decided. The Belgians would like to keep this
quiet, they don’t want another intelligence embarrassment, and they want this
Array gone as soon as possible. So what we are finalizing now is we, MI5, will
take the array to the UK, and they can tie ends up here as they wish.” Pohl did
not look happy, so he continued. “This just means no trial. I’m sure the people
who killed your brother will end up confined somewhere.” He said ‘I’m sure’ as
if the decision was already taken. Which it was.
      
“What does a debrief entail?” Nazir asked, wondering if his story would stand
up to this.
      
“Full statements from you all, questions from us, but none of it ever to be
made public. From you or us. You’ll have to agree to remain quiet on the array.
Completely silent.”
      
“I’m sure we can do that,” Joe said for them all. “Who’d believe us anyway?”
     
      
A week later, the foursome met in Dee’s house for a meal. As they arrived, all
bearing bottles of wine, Dee and Joe dished out a roast beef lunch they’d made,
and everyone sat down. The debriefing had taken a while, and then each had to
go back to their normal lives and explain their absences.
      
“I’ve been suspended,” Joe began. “With no one to run the project, and
everything destroyed, Monroe doesn’t know if we’ll ever be able to restart. But
rather than just sack us we’re all suspended on small pay until we know what’ll
happen.”
      
“How long will that take?” Pohl asked.
      
“No idea. What about you?”
      
Pohl poked some of the tender beef with a fork. “They slipped me into a
sabbatical. I got a warning for vanishing for a week rather than just being
ill, but when they heard my brother had gone missing they gave me all the time
I would want to find him.”
      
“Handy,” Joe replied.
      
“Well I’ve been sacked,” Dee sighed. “There’s plenty of people who want to
write for a shitty local paper, so when I went AWOL one of them got my job.”
      
“What about you Nazir?” Joe asked, completing the circle.
      
“I’ve still got my contract there if I want it.”
      
Dee had a thought. “I suppose you’re the only one of us who’s been through
something worse than this.
      
“There have been an excess of gunmen in my life,” Nazir confirmed.
      
“So, two unemployed, one on holiday, one still annoyed with tech support. What
a group.” But as Pohl finished, Dee had an idea.
      
“We’ve still got the machine right? We can still talk to the dead?”
      
“Yes?” Joe confirmed nervously. MI5 hadn’t realised what he’d been carrying,
and no one had mentioned it.
     
“Let’s monetize it!” Eyebrows were raised at Dee. “Seriously, let’s use it. We
must be able to make some cash out of speaking with the dead.”
      
“We are not holding séances with this technology,” Joe said rather offended.
      
“No, not séances but, I don’t know, solving murders or something.”
      
“It’s all getting very Scooby Doo.”
      
“Exactly Nazir, we’ll be our own group, only with no dog. Hang on, how do you
know about Scooby Doo?”
      
“We have YouTube in