As he emerges from the stall, he catches sight of himself in the mirror. He looks a fright. There is blood caked around his nose and mouth, more of it matting his hair. It stains his jacket and his shirt, particularly conspicuous against the pale blue of the latter. If he does make it out of here, he isn’t going to get far on the street without attracting attention.
He brought a cagoule and waterproof trousers in case he ended up being pursued and needed a quick change: man in a grey suit to man in baggy dark blue wet-weather kit. They were lightweight and compressible, ideal for this purpose, but they were in the rucksack.
Along with the flight case.
He washes the blood from his face at a sink, then hurries back to the computer. There is a message waiting for him on the screen. It is timed from twenty seconds ago.
He tries to calculate how long this means he has until they make their way to the lab. Gives up. There’s no way of knowing and it won’t help.
He crouches down to connect the SSD to a port on the front of the computer, relieved to see a light blink into life on the slim black drive. Then he looks up at the monitor for a corresponding sign.
A message dominating the centre of the screen tells him there is a Java update available and asks if he would like to install it. Parlabane comes very close to putting his head through the monitor, then dismisses the prompt and proceeds with locating the video files on the newly connected drive.
There are two: one from each of the hidden cameras. He launches them both, quickly maximising the one affording a view at what he estimates to be the right height. He uses the slide bar to scroll along, squinting intently at the preview thumbnail in a frantic search for the very brief moment he needs to see and hear.
He is running through his visit in his head, trying to remember in what order he saw these things.
A new message appears.
He finds the moment, notes the time on the progress bar for replays. The woman reaches for the keypad and he hears four chimes, but the position of her hand obscures all but the first press. He plays it again, jacking up the volume, trying to memorise the rise and fall in the pitch.
He rushes to the Secure Disposal door and tries a code: one five nine six.
No response.
He tries one two nine six, which produces almost the same chime sequence, but still the lock is unimpressed.
It occurs to him that they might have changed the code. He can’t afford to think about that, however. It’s the bins, for Christ’s sake, and it is less than three weeks since he made that video.
He returns to the computer and plays it again. He definitely has the chime sequence right, but that first press could actually have been a four.
That’s got to be a minute at most; forty seconds maybe.
He runs back to the door, singing the chime sequence to himself, then punches in a new code. Four two nine six. It sounds right, but still nothing.
Four five nine six.
This time there is a buzzing and the door responds to his urgent push.
He hurries through, finding himself in a small room accommodating three plastic bins and a tall aluminium tray caddy on castors. There is also, merciful Zeus, a lift. As he pushes the button he glances at the trays slotted into the caddy, similar to the one he saw carried through the same door on the video. They are filled with damaged components, circuit boards, empty compressed air canisters, USB sticks and hard drives.
Oh no.
He remembers the SSD, still plugged into that computer out there in the lab. The videos on it identify exactly who he is and what he was doing there.
He has to go back.
He hits the green release button and sprints to the computer, tugging the SSD free from the cable. On the screen, the videos instantly vanish.
Parlabane races for the door yet again, and is keying in the PIN when he remembers he has left the VOIP program running. It has all of their recent messages on screen, including Sam’s mobile number.
Holy mother of fuck.
He can hear voices approaching, someone saying, ‘The sub-zero room is inside the research and development labs.’
He lunges back across to the computer a second time and closes the program. He can hear the voices closer now. The screen shines out like a beacon and there isn’t time to shut down the computer. In about three seconds they will be coming through the double doors, just around the corner.
If he runs now, they’ll see him.
He hauls the power cable from the monitor, rendering the screen black, and ducks beneath the desk.
Their footsteps only yards away, Parlabane holds his breath as he huddles out of sight. He knows they will be making for the sub-zero room first, which gives him the chance he needs.
He skips across on feet as light as his pain and desperation will allow, then keys in the code once more. He closes the door very softly behind him and allows himself a breath.
Before him there is a length of white material sticking out from beneath the lid of a bin. He’s hoping for a lab coat. What he finds is an old sheet, spattered with a dozen colours of paint.
It is better than a lab coat, he decides, tugging it free. If he wraps himself in this, he will be able to invoke the nutter-invisibility charm. People encounter someone walking down the street wrapped in a manky old sheet, they look away; and if they don’t avert their gaze, the sheet is all they will see or remember.
Parlabane takes the lift to the basement level, his memory of the building telling him the rear is lower than the front.
He steps onto a dimly lit landing with a corridor to the left and a door directly ahead, leading out to the secure enclosure where he and Sam did their first dumpster dive. There is a lock and a security guard to negotiate that way, so it’s not an option.
He follows the corridor around a corner, where it leads to a locked door, though a green release button indicates that like upstairs, access is only secured from the other side.
He emerges at the foot of a concrete stairwell, which he reckons could be the same one Cruz took him up during his visit. There is a door opposite the foot of the stairs, marked Emergency Exit. A sign warns that the door is alarmed, which isn’t really an issue at the moment.
He pushes through and steps into the narrow alley that skirts the side and rear, leading to the loading bays and the security guard’s booth. He is on the right side of it, only about fifty yards from the street.
He sweeps the invisibility cloak around his shoulders, draping himself from neck to ankles, then proceeds towards the main road with a shuffling gait, head down. As he approaches the corner he hears sirens.
Parlabane presses himself against the wall as two police cars whizz past the mouth of the alley.
He allows himself a quick glance towards the main entrance as he rounds the corner. He sees three cop cars and an ambulance, the two recent arrivals discharging their personnel in a hurry. Looks like the boys upstairs have been into the sub-zero room and called in some help in finding the perp.
Parlabane makes it on to King William Street where he is surprised and delighted to see a cab heading towards him with its yellow sign lit up. Must have just dropped someone off. He waves to hail it but the taxi continues past like he’s not there, because he’s wrapped in an old sheet and looks like a nutter.
FILE NOT FOUND
I see cops and paramedics hurry around the building, popping up on camera after camera, but they are not who I am looking for.
I am searching, hoping not to find.
Every new feed that doesn’t show Jack is a relief, every feed showing a policeman charge through a door brings a renewed anxiety.
Though he stopped responding, I kept sending him updates on what I could see, right up until he ki
lled the VOIP link. I don’t know whether he found somewhere to hide or he somehow made it out of the building, but I do know they’re still searching for him.
When they broaden that search, they’re going to want to know what he looks like, and they will have more than Aaron’s description. The CCTV recordings will have picked him up several times before the lights went out in R&D, then there will be all that ultra-damning footage from the sub-zero room. Footage I was supposed to delete.
Jack walked in wearing a hat and glasses so that any eyewitness description would be flawed, the plan being that this would be the only clue as to what the intruder looked like. Once they get a hold of those videos however, it will take no time for him to be identified, and after that there will be no hiding place.
Wait, though. As I now have proper control over the CCTV system, maybe I can access the recording files too.
I log back into Coleridge’s account, grateful that Jack remembered to log out of it, and within a few minutes I have located the videos. It looks like they are broken into six-hour blocks to limit the file sizes, the names indicating location, date and time. The recordings still in progress started at nine, and are ongoing. Everything that happened since Jack entered the building is on here, apart from what took place in the dark. It hits me that this means there ought to be footage of what happened in the sub-zero room before nine o’clock, and I look for that file.
It’s missing.
I scroll through the lists, comparing the tags for recordings before and after nine. Several have been deleted.
It figures. But two can play at that game.
I select all of the files and click to delete.
A message appears stating: ‘Cannot delete while recording is in progress.’
I navigate through the controls until I find the option to ‘Stop recording and commence new’ on the first camera. I hold my breath as I click. If it turns out I don’t have the privileges, I won’t be able to erase these videos until three in the morning, which will give the police plenty of time to watch them on chasing playback.
The recording stops and a new file is automatically created. Breathing out, I click to delete the old one.
‘File is protected. You need permission to delete this file.’
Shit toasters.
Somebody sure had permission earlier.
There’s no way of erasing the footage, as I don’t even know which user account would have that authority, let alone the means to hack it. But just because a file can’t be deleted doesn’t mean it can’t be amended.
I look out a piece of malware I once used to hold Jack’s files and folders to ransom, back when I first wanted to grab his attention. The Synergis network identifies it as malware and tries to block my upload, but logged in as Coleridge I can disable the protection and allow the program through.
I try it out on the recording I recently stopped, and get the result I’m hoping for. Then I repeat the process, stopping all cameras and encrypting the video files.
I still haven’t deleted a single file, but if anyone wants to look at this footage, they’re going to need the password to do it.
STOLEN GOODS
Everything is so quiet now. It’s plooting down outside, as Dad used to say, so there are no late-night stragglers on the street, talking at pub-level voices or singing or arguing. Lilly must have finally nodded off, and there is no sound in my earpiece. I feel very much alone, disconnected from the outside world, and yet if I look at the laptop screen or at the mess around the floor, it is clear I am still in the eye of a storm.
I am compelled to keep looking at the CCTV feeds, but I know I have to log out. My standard hacking protocol dictates that I take certain steps not only to clear my own footprints, but to conceal that there was a hack at all. To this end I restore the 2FA settings and undo any changes I have made to the accounts I was using. Looking at the cops and paramedics swarming the screens, it seems all the more urgent and yet all the more trivial. A hack might appear to be the least of anyone’s priorities tonight, but covering it up is among the most important of mine.
I’m exhausted but I know I won’t be able to sleep. I don’t know where Jack is and I don’t know what is around the corner: what might be coming for us.
There is a thought that has been banging on the door of my mind like a team of feds: I have been refusing to let it inside, but it is smashing its way in and demanding to be heard.
That was meant to be me.
As far as Zodiac knew, it was me who was going in there tonight, a one-girl operation. It makes me feel all the more guilty about what I’ve done to Jack, but that’s nothing compared to the impact of my fear. Until now the biggest thing I believed I needed to be afraid of was going to jail and leaving Lilly.
Zodiac intended to kill me; and not out of anger or revenge, but simply to cover up his own crime. That’s how ruthless he is, and now I am a threat to him, because I have information.
My mobile rings, shaking me from thoughts that were drawing the walls in upon me. I don’t recognise the number, but it’s from central London: a landline.
Jack’s voice sounds out in my right ear, and my heart thumps in response.
‘It’s me.’
‘Where are you?’ I ask. ‘Are you all right?’
‘My evening has been sub-optimal so far, but I’m not in custody and I’m not locked in a freezer. Those are the positives, and I’m not sure how long the first one will remain true. I take it you can still access my mobile?’
‘Yes,’ I admit.
‘Good. I need you to perform a remote wipe. Of everything. He took it so that I couldn’t phone for help, and I’m betting it will conveniently turn up during the police search.’
‘I’m on it.’
‘Did you get anywhere with the CCTV?’
‘I couldn’t delete the files, but I have encrypted them. It’s their own stuff, so they’re going to find a way to decrypt it soon enough, but I’ve bought us some time at least. What happened back there?’
‘Lights went out and I got sandbagged. After that I decided to chill for a bit. Woke up next to the late Leo Cruz, minus my rucksack and my phone.’
‘Who did this? Was it Winter?’
‘I don’t think so. He used a hand-held electroshock device to put me down. Winter wouldn’t need something like that. He’s a street-fighter in every sense of the word.’
‘Yeah, but he could have outsourced the hit. Zodiac certainly outsourced the scapegoat role.’
‘Has he been in touch?’
‘Why would he? I was to await instructions regarding handing over the prototype, remember? Can’t see that happening, seeing as he already has it.’
‘Ah, but he doesn’t.’
I can barely dare believe it.
‘He doesn’t?’
‘It was in a flight case, which I put in my rucksack. The prototype itself I stuck in my trouser pocket. I wasn’t sure how soon this handover might take place and I had a paranoid notion it might involve a theft or mugging shortly after I left the building. Clearly I wasn’t paranoid enough. Either way, I knew that once we delivered what he wanted, our only leverage would be gone, so I saw a way we might have two bites at this.’
‘What is it? The prototype, I mean.’
‘I still don’t know. It’s just a tiny metal box. That’s what pisses me off most – after everything I’ve been through tonight, I’m none the wiser as to what this was all about or who Zodiac is.’
MISSING PARTY
Parlabane feels the rain running down the back of his neck as he hangs up the payphone. He can’t remember the last time he used one of these things, and is trying not to dwell on the irony that the primary reason for his call was to ask Sam to erase his mobile. He’s still got the non-hacked one stashed at Mairi’s flat, but he didn’t want to wait until he got back there to make the call.
He touches his arm tenderly, probing to feel the response. It isn’t as painful as it was, so he’s starting to think it
might not be broken.
The rain is getting heavier and the cabs are still giving him a wide berth. He doesn’t want to risk the bus looking like this, as the invisibility effect isn’t quite the same in a confined space. People won’t want to make eye contact, but he will nonetheless be massively conspicuous and thus memorable.
It occurs to him that he could turn his jacket inside out. It would conceal the bloodstains, and although that might seem conspicuous too, he’s seen pissed City boy cock-sprockets do it on a night out.
A night out. Oh shit.
He remembers his genius alibi. He is supposed to be at a party. He checks his watch. It is ten past eleven. It’s not too late if he heads straight there. He ought to go home and clean up, but he doesn’t have time, not doing it by bus. Besides, he can’t get changed, as he has to reappear wearing the same clothes.
He ditches the sheet in a bin and reverses his jacket, pulling it tight around the collar to hide the blood on his shirt. It takes him twenty minutes and two buses but he is back in Islington a little after half past.
Parlabane presses himself into a doorway as he sees people spilling out of Shallot’s main entrance into waiting minicabs. He doesn’t recognise them but he doesn’t know who might walk out next, and he can’t afford to be seen outside.
He slips down a narrow alley leading behind the building and commences his climb. It is an ascent that he would normally manage in a matter of seconds, but doing it one-handed in the driving rain means he has to take his time and be ultra-cautious.
He stalls on the branch of a drainpipe next to the gents toilets window, listening for sounds from inside. He has to wait a couple of minutes through toilet flushes and running taps before deciding it’s safe to proceed. He levers the window up using the pen he had left wedged at the base to prevent it falling fully shut, then tumbles awkwardly inside.
He catches sight of himself in the mirror. His hair and face are soaking, and the reversed jacket looks inexplicable in this context. The bloodstains on his shirt collar are obvious too.
Want You Gone Page 28
