Colony

by Benjamin Cross

  Peterson’s heart sank as Volkov’s words hit home. But before he could protest, Volkov went on in that same stomach-churning tone. “Following this unprovoked attack on our national infrastructure, G&S will, of course, be withdrawing our participation from all international initiatives concerning energy procurement in the Arctic. A Russian team will be commissioned to complete the Harmsworth assessment to the satisfaction of my associates at the internal energy ministry. Russia’s affairs will be firmly back in Russian hands, and the company will enjoy an estimated cost saving in excess of twenty billion rubles.”

  “And how exactly are you going to prove what happened?” Peterson asked, trying to steady his voice. “What evidence have you got that the explosion wasn’t caused by a systems failure? Sabotage by one of your own? Hell, how could you possibly prove that it wasn’t somebody smoking where they shouldn’t’ve been?”

  “A sensible question,” Volkov sneered. “Not that a Federation commission would need much convincing of a foreign terror plot, but several hours of incriminating CCTV footage, starring no less than yourself, has already been uploaded to a secure server awaiting submission to the inquiry. This should satisfy the curiosity of the international community. Your own government will, of course, deny any involvement, and they will no doubt enjoy popular support. Yet they will face some awkward questions when your previous terrorist activities – your assault on your own government’s Barranquitas nuclear facility, for example – are also publicly disclosed and they are reminded that the vetting process for the Harmsworth assessment was largely an internal affair.”

  Peterson couldn’t control himself any longer. On impulse, he strode towards Volkov. “You crazy son of a bitch! Are you trying to start World War Three?” He felt a crushing pain radiating through his chest as a kick landed in his sternum. He stumbled backwards and dropped to the floor, winded.

  “Don’t be so dramatic, Mr Peterson,” Volkov snorted, advancing on him. “You are doing a very good job of lowering yourself in my estimations.” He peered down, his eyes wide and emotionless. “Besides, Cold War Two would seem the more likely outcome, wouldn’t you say?”

  2

  Peterson closed his eyes. How could things have gone so wrong and so quickly? How could he have been so stupid?

  The pain in his chest was nothing compared to the guilt and despair that he felt in that moment. There was no Finback. There was no cause. There had only ever been Ptarmigan, the misguided puppet. He had been one hundred goddamn per cent duped! Manipulated into committing an act so heinous for a cause so offensive to his own convictions. And that was the pit that he really couldn’t swallow; far from helping to prevent the ruin of the Arctic, his gullibility had actually kicked it into overdrive. Not to mention the damage it could do to the spiralling relations between Russia and the west. The more he thought about it, the faster his sense of self-loathing turned to indignation, and then to fury.

  Struggling for breath, he pulled himself up into a kneeling position. Volkov’s pistol was aimed directly at his face, but in that moment it might as well have been a steak sandwich. “You piece of shit, Volkov. You talk about Russia as if you’re it. As if you somehow embody a nation of hundreds of millions of free-thinking souls. But that’s not what this is about. Russia’s got nothing to do with it. You’ve got nothing to do with Russia. This is about you and your greed. Do you honestly think it’s in Russia’s interest to promote the neglect of the Arctic? To promote conflict? You short-sighted sonofabitch!”

  “Mr Peterson—”

  “Save it!” Peterson shouted. “You may kick-start your bankroll on this one, but this is only the start. What about the next project ten years from now, and the one after that, and the one after that, when it’s not you, but your children in the driving seat? You’re just plain deluded, you know that? You’re a power-mongering criminal, nothing more. And you’re certainly not a goddamn patriot!” He broke off, shocked at the vehemence of his own outburst. Then, just as suddenly, he started to laugh. Within seconds he was beside himself, his roars of hysteria echoing around the cavern. He removed his spectacles and wiped the tears from his eyes. “And you need me.”

  “Excuse me?”

  As quickly as it had started, Peterson’s laughter subsided. “I said, you need me.”

  It was Volkov’s turn to laugh. “Well, now I am intrigued.”

  A cocktail of fear, anger and loathing surged through Peterson’s veins, across his tongue and out over his lips. “One word, one letter. Stuxnet D.”

  Volkov’s expression froze. For the first time since their encounter had begun, a quiver of uncertainty sounded in his voice. To most it would have been barely detectable. But to Peterson, it was as if somebody had smashed a gong over the bastard’s head. “You are lying.”

  “Oh yeah? Check your goddamn footage!” Peterson began climbing slowly to his feet. “When I was in the security room on the Albanov, I uploaded the CCTV editor programme just as we discussed. But you’ll see I also uploaded something else from the data stick. A little something I left off the table.”

  “And you expect me to believe that it was the Stuxnet programme?”

  “No,” Peterson replied. “I expect you to believe that it was version five of the Stuxnet programme. Ten times more powerful than the previous version. Ten times harder to detect. Virtually impossible to eradicate without causing permanent, irreparable damage to the host system. It would’ve been transmitted straight back to your Unified Gas Supply System primary control centre on the mainland via your own security control signal. By now it will’ve spread to each and every one of your installations’ operating systems, nationwide.”

  The two men stared at each other. Both knew that the original Stuxnet virus had been the most powerful computer worm of all time, specifically designed to attack SCADA systems operating national infrastructure, electrical grids, oil and gas installations and pipelines. It targeted specific critical sub-processes, altering them and cloaking those alterations from the relevant monitoring programmes, leaving critical errors undetected. The result? Catastrophic system failures.

  What both men also knew was that Stuxnet D represented a massive advance in the potency of the virus, by allowing it to attack multiple sub-processes simultaneously at predefined intervals. It was the stuff of national security nightmares.

  “You could not have obtained this.”

  “Oh yeah?” Peterson’s eyes flashed. “You selected me, Volkov. What were your reasons again? My passion for the environment? My experience of clandestine eco-terrorism? But that’s not the half of it, is it? You’ve been funding my ventures for some time now, trying to woo me over and building up your goddamn evidence case file on me at the same time. Think about it. You know damn well that in me you’ve got a whole lot more than some jacked up, banner-waving hippy! You look at me like a piece of dog shit on your boot, but in me you’ve got the best. You think I’m not plugged in to the subversive underworld? I’m at the goddamn heart! You think I don’t have global contacts? I got a whole fucking international empire of contacts! I’m not the kind of person who can obtain Stuxnet on the black market? I’m exactly the sonofabitch who can obtain it. And if you weren’t so busy underestimating me, you smug fuck, you might’ve known all about it.”

  Volkov stood quietly, just listening, his eyes searching Peterson’s for any sign of deception and evidently finding none.

  “We’re both big players in our own separate little worlds,” Peterson continued. “Only me and my associates and our little global empire, aren’t in it for the money. We’re in it for the good of the planet, something the likes of you will never understand.” He watched as Volkov’s adamant expression finally wilted.

  “And you know what clinches it? I did it for you, Finback. I did it for you, for God’s sake.” He was unable to stifle another full-on belch of laughter. “I thought it would impress you, you greedy, psychotic asshole! And n
ow, well…” He moved his face closer, until their noses were almost touching. “I’d be interested to hear what Russia has to say when it emerges that the entire national gas infrastructure went bye bye on your watch.”

  Volkov’s hand collided with Peterson’s throat. His fingers clamped into a vice-like grip as he shoved him back into the cavern wall and rammed the end of the pistol into his cheek. “How do I remove it?” he growled, composure a distant memory on his face.

  “You don’t,” Peterson choked.

  “Don’t fuck with me! Tell me how I remove it, now!”

  “I’m telling you, you can’t!”

  Volkov yelled out in fury, his pale cheeks flushed red with rage. He lifted Peterson from his feet and slammed him face-down onto the floor. No sooner had Peterson’s body hit the rock than Volkov was on top of him, his free hand moving feverishly through his pockets, around his person, searching. “Where is it?” he demanded.

  “Where’s what?” Peterson replied, his voice muffled by the cold stone.

  “The data stick. Where is it?”

  “I destroyed it.”

  “Bullshit!”

  “Even if I hadn’t, you think I’d have it on me?”

  Pain erupted in his back as Volkov drove a fist into his kidney.

  “I’m telling you it’s not on me!”

  “We shall see.”

  Having patted him down and found nothing, Volkov thrust a gloved hand between his legs. Peterson screamed out as Volkov’s fingers searched around, crushing his testicles and digging into his anus. The search ended suddenly and Volkov sat back on Peterson’s thighs. Now came the sound of a buckle unfastening, and the next thing Peterson knew, a long, black blade was pressed against his cheek. As the blade rocked back and forth against his skin, he could feel his own condensed breath moistening the steel.

  “One last chance, Mr Peterson,” Volkov snarled, turning the narrowed point of the blade in towards his eye, “or I will start with your eyeball.”

  Having kept his cool for so long, now Peterson began to panic. Sweat broke out across his brow. It wasn’t the pain, but the darkness that terrified him. As a child he had suffered temporary blindness after watching a solar eclipse with his naked eyes. His vision had not dimmed immediately, but suddenly and traumatically. For over a week, until sight had limped back to him, irreparably damaged, the world he had taken for granted the previous decade had simply disappeared, leaving him alone and scared and screaming.

  He struggled weakly, in the grip of the memory. “Please, I don’t have it. You’ve got to believe me. I don’t have it—”

  The blade teetered at the edge of his eyeball, the sharpened steel scratching at the lid.

  “Have you destroyed it?”

  “No,” Peterson whispered. And it was true. He was no longer making any attempt to lie.

  Volkov seemed to sense this, and the control returned to his movements. He leant patiently forward until his face hovered beside Peterson’s cheek. “Where is it?”

  “I gave it to… to…”

  Volkov’s face crept even closer. “Who?”

  Peterson bit his lip. His mind flailed desperately around, searching for something, anything that would keep him from making the admission on the tip of his tongue. Through his fear, he could feel that Volkov had relaxed his grip. Was he off balance? Not entirely, but maybe just enough. His heart pounded. It was now or never.

  He bucked suddenly, as if a ten thousand-volt shock had cramped his spine up into an arch. With a growl of surprise, Volkov toppled over onto his back and Peterson rolled the other way and lashed out with his foot, catching him square in the groin. As the Russian doubled up in pain, Peterson sprang to his feet.

  Adrenaline had full control of his functions. Without any sense of a plan, he bolted for the Centaur. He arrived at the open hatch and reached for the rim. His palms were slick with sweat as he seized his fingers around the edge of the cold metal panelling and went to haul himself into the cabin.

  There was a loud bang. The strength left his arms, and he turned around just as another gunshot sounded. This time he felt a dull thump, followed by a pain radiating throughout his torso. His hands pressed against the flood of warmth welling up through his jacket, and his legs began to buckle.

  The last thing he saw as his vision faltered to the top of the slope was Volkov, his pistol smoking and aimed towards him, his face like hell warmed up.

  “You overestimate yourself, Mr Peterson.”

  With a groan Peterson stumbled back towards the Centaur and then collapsed onto the edge of the harbour. Half sitting, half sprawled, his body teetered.

  Volkov raised his pistol once more, but before he could fire off another round, Peterson folded like a ragdoll and tumbled backwards on an avalanche of rock.

  3

  Volkov lowered his pistol. Rage tore through him like never before. That American bastard! How dare he create such an obstacle! Why couldn’t he just do as instructed? Did he not understand what a delicate game Volkov was embroiled in? Did he have any idea how far up this thing went? Of the calibre of the players involved?

  It was all supposed to have gone smoothly!

  Unused to being defied, he threw his head back and roared out with frustration. The sound took off like a banshee around the cavern, echoing from wall to wall and back. With the taste of blood on his tongue, he strode towards the water’s edge. The American’s body was nowhere to be seen, buried under the fall of dislodged rock that had followed him into the water.

  He took aim at one of half a dozen seals that had hung around in the inlet, curiosity getting the better of their instinct to flee. It had probably never seen a human before. Only its eyes and nose were visible above the surface as it stared up in evident confusion.

  Volkov blew its brains out with a single shot.

  He knew it was petulant and pointless, but he didn’t care. He craved catharsis. He needed to vent what he was fast accepting to be fear rather than simple anger. If seals were all there were to take it out on, then seals it would have to be. He took aim at another, firing off a medley of shots, all of which missed as the frantic creature dove for cover.

  The American’s words chased round and round inside his head: the entire national gas infrastructure… bye bye on your watch! …entire national gas infrastructure… bye bye on your watch! …bye bye on your watch… bye bye…

  And the bastard was right. Volkov couldn’t have cared less about the effect on Russia, not the sorry, spineless excuse for a nation that it had come to be. Soviet corpse. Europe’s energy fence. In truth, there was nothing left there to love but the pursuit of wealth, nothing to take pride in but power.

  What he did care about was the effect of Mr Peterson’s meddling on the interests of his associates. He had promised them a minimum twenty billion-ruble saving, not a share in the worst national systems failure the country had ever seen. At this level, these were the sort of people that even he, Andrei Vyacheslav Volkov, was reluctant to disappoint. If the Harmsworth project went sour, the consequences would go way beyond his bank balance.

  He reached into his pocket and removed the chrome-plated pill dispenser. He dropped four red and white pills into his hand, threw them into his mouth and dry swallowed them. Then he lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply, fighting to regain his composure. This was a business venture. Business ventures encountered problems. Blips. Granted, this blip was of a greater order of magnitude than usual, but it was not insoluble. All was not lost. He just needed to calm down and think it through.

  His mind flitted to the data stick. It was the key. Its recovery was paramount. He was no technology expert, but then he had fiscal involvement with some serious players in the European and Asian technology markets, including systems security. If he could deliver the raw virus to one of them, they could unlock the programme’s base coding just like any other. They cou
ld then formulate a solution. An anti-virus. Stuxnet would lie dormant for a period before becoming active, in order to adapt to the specific operating parameters of the host system. With any luck, he could cleanse the entire national delivery system before anybody even knew it was infected.

  That just left the small matter of locating the data stick itself.

  The obvious first port of call was the submarine. The late Mr Peterson had proven himself an unexpectedly adroit opponent, and while Volkov believed his terrified confession that he had entrusted it to somebody else, he wasted no time ransacking the submarine anyway. Finding nothing, he then disabled its systems with his last two bullets and made his way back to his own vessel.

  He seated himself in the leather operator’s chair and began to think. Where would it be? If I were an impudent, Yankee tree-hugger, who would I have entrusted it to?

  As a former illegal resident KGB operative, the ability to accurately profile a target had often proven the difference between success and failure. So critical a skill was it, that it had developed into an intuitive, almost mechanical, response that had served Volkov equally well in business. Even now his mind had begun picking apart Mr Peterson’s. What were his weaknesses? He cared about things, people, places. Why did he care about them? Because he ascribed meaning to them. Why? Because they elicited an emotional response from him. Did he cross the fine line between the emotional and the sentimental? Yes. He was clearly sentimental. So how did sentimental people act? They pined and they regretted and they pitied and they loved and they… loved.