“That was bloody quick. It’s good to see that he still works all hours, what does it say?”
“Well, I asked him for an aircraft to be made available and ready to take us all to Nassau.”
“And...” Dillon said impatiently.
“And there’s a Navy helicopter on its way to pick us up, with instructions to take us to the nearest military airfield. From there a Ferran & Cardini Learjet will fly us to the Bahamas.”
“Estimated time of the chopper’s arrival?”
“ETA is twenty-five minutes, give or take.”
“Good. I think that we can safely assume, then, that LJ and the Partners are treating this whole Kirill affair seriously.”
“Oh, they started to take this threat seriously, when the Scorpion squads started being assassinated, and Scorpion HQ was destroyed...”
“Great,” said Dillon. He sipped the tea, and then held out the mug for a refill.
“What do you think, Claudia? Are we walking into a trap?”
Tatiana shot Dillon a sharp glance. “Dillon?”
“Hmm?”
“What’s with asking the opinion of the girl we’ve just picked up and know nothing about?”
“I wouldn’t say that, Tatiana. We know that Claudia worked at the facility, and that she has a full working copy of the Chimera Programme. What more do we need to know?”
Claudia hesitated before saying,” Well, if you look at it logically, it is highly probable that you’ll be walking straight into an elaborate trap. But, my gut instinct is that it’s not, and that tells me that Ezra is still alive and on a mission - to stop Ramus.”
“Thanks, Claudia. That’s settled, then. We go - even if only to get away from the infernal cold of the Scottish Highlands.” Dillon said finishing the last of his tea.
They could hear the distinctivesound of rotor blades beating the air long before the Sea-King came into view. They all looked skywards as the Royal Navy helicopter approached, creating an enormous downwash as it hovered into land.
* * * The Westland Sea-King was noisy and relatively uncomfortable. But Dillon couldn’t help feeling at home in this British made antisubmarine helicopter with its fully computerised warfare control systems, and Rolls-Royce Gnome engines. Dillon was sitting opposite Claudia, he’d decided that she could be of use; after all, she was at the centre of the Chimera Programme, and she happened to have a master copy of the full programme in her rucksack - something which Dillon acknowledged could probably be useful.
As the Sea-King buzzed low over the lush green landscape, the pilot worked hard to maintain their speed at an altitude of only twohundred feet. Dillon looked out of the small porthole, watching the terrain race by below them, and it occurred to him that maybeEzra was alive and had been captured by the Assassins. If he had been tortured, blackmailed, whatever, then maybe the Chimera master copy could be used in an exchange situation.
“Claudia?”
“Yes, Dillon?”
Sitting directly opposite her, their knees were almost touching,
Claudia was an attractive woman, and Dillon glanced admiringly at her.
“You know Chimera intimately, don’t you?”
“I helped create the programme; so you could say that I know it a little more than intimately...”
“Flippancy is something I can do without. So if you don’t want to be left at whatever airfield we’re heading for...”
“Okay. I concede - you are doing me an immense service, by letting me tag along with you all. Although, I’m a little concerned as to how I ended up sitting opposite a lecherous old pervert who keeps looking at my tits. Not that I mind, at all...”
“Lecherous old pervert?”
Claudia smiled, crossed her legs and slowly ran the toe of her shoe up the back of Dillon’s calf.
Tatiana had heard, looked round the edge of her seat laughing. It was not a laugh of support.
Dillon flushed red. “Old?”
“Well, middle-aged, then.” Her eyes sparkled mischievously.
“Middle-aged?” Dillon sounded aghast. “Do you really think I look that old? Jesus, I knew we should have left you up that mountain...”
“Dillon, do you have a question for the poor girl or what?”
“Okay. If we could load your programme onto a computer - would it conflict with the copy that Ramus is planning to launch?
Claudia shook her head, her main of red hair tousling around her face. “It’s a virus, Dillon, not something you can simply load up onto any old processor, and then let loose globally. But change the little bitch’s script slightly, and bingo, I can create the ultimate anti-virus. This would be more powerful than the Kirill version and would hack and crack anything...” Tatiana’s eyes lit up at that. Claudia continued: “Point it at the global computer highway and it’ll worm its way through the original code in under a second. The Kirill version won’t be able to detect its presence because it will have the same Chameleon cloaking ability, but with one subtle difference. My version will have only one objective - to destroy the original code... Nothing is untouchable; nothing is hidden from it.”
“Will your code be left inside the processors, mainframes, and servers that it cleans up?”
Claudia shrugged. “Any machine that it comes into contact with will benefit from a full hardrive scan. It will also be tweaked-up, and yes my version of Chimera will remain hidden on the hardrive. But, only as protection, nothing else...”
“What would be the reason for it to remain hidden on the hardrive?” Tatiana asked bluntly.
“Like many pieces of software, Tatiana, certain elements are always there, left behind on the hardrive even if the programme is deleted.”
“I get the picture,” said Tatiana softly.
“But do you? Chimera was originally developed to assist the Government in their fight against organised crime and terrorism. The main brief was to come up with the most powerful programme ever developed to retrieve encrypted information on targeted hardrives, and then destroy the hardrive. But what Kirill actually came up with, was a viral programme that could self replicate itself a trillion times in the blink of an eye, and be controlled to do whatever was asked of it by the main source.”
“Main source?” Dillon asked.
“The server that the programme is initially loaded onto. Well, find that and we’re in business to stop a global computer catastrophe...”
“Really? You mean you can actually stop this thing?”
“Oh yes. I can stop it, alright. The Chimera Programme that Ramus stole was running at around 94% perfect, but it was getting better by the day when...” Claudia trailed off. She coughed, gazing out at the passing countryside below the helicopter. “We had almost finished our work at the facility, the glitches in Chimera were being worked out, and the programme was almost ready to go operational. We were about to run a series of trials in the lab.”
“So it was feasible to destroy the mountain facility? Because it had served its purpose?”
“I suppose,” nodded Claudia. “But I don’t understand why. There was no reason to destroy the facility. What a waste of a valuable resource!”
“Unless you didn’t want anyone to get at the state-of-the-art hardware located in the main lab. You were lucky, that you weren’t blown from here to kingdom come.”
“Lucky?”
“Yeah, lucky. But, I’ll give this to you - you’ve got balls, missy. And brains, you had the foresight to make a second master copy... Although, that begs the question of whydid you make it? No matter. Hiding it right under their noses was pure genius.”
“What are you insinuating, Dillon?”
“I’m not insinuating anything, Claudia. You made a copy, because as a former hacker, you know that with it, you’re in a position of domination, if that tickles your fancy. But re-write certain elements of the script to create the anti-virus, and bingo, every major power on the planet would pay a king’s ransom to get their hands on it. In fact, you would have the world
at your fingertips!”
“You would need to know which scripts to alter... Which means you would need to understandthe programme intimately, really intimately.” Said Claudia.
“And of course, Ezra would have the right codes, Kirill would have hadthem, and this character Ramus no doubt hasthem. Seeing as they all had something to do with designing it.” Dillon snapped.
“Ramus,” said Tatiana softly.
Their gazes met; it all sounded too fantastic, but then, sometimes fantasticcould happen. Take a terrorist; who makes it his business to acquaint himself with a government scientist who is working on a top-secret ground breaking project. The terrorist then sets about persuading him to join his cause, or whatever it is. He realises that he could make a mountain of money; blackmail the world’s richest super-powers; cause a global cyber war; whatever. And he wants his five minutes of fame, to establish his own immortality; to further his own ends. To play at being God...
“This is beginning to sound like a megalomaniac’s fantasy playground,” said Tatiana coldly. “I don’t think the world is ready for it.”
“You’re probably right,” said Dillon.
“Perhaps that was why they destroyed the facility?” said Claudia.
“No. The effort required in planting such an explosive device and the unnecessary risk that Kirill appeared to undertake in overseeing it himself, indicates to me that he was ordered to stay behind, because someone knew that he would not survive. I’d say that our friend Ramus wanted him dead,” said Dillon. “But I’m sure that when we come face to face with Ezra once more - then he’ll no doubt have some answers for us.”
The Sea-King banked round to the left and then levelled out over the glistening mountain peaks, rotors thrashing the air, its two Rolls Royce Gnome engines humming with reined-in torque and power; it banked to the south-west, heading for the coast and the airfield just north of Edinburgh...
And as they moved at speed over small villages, towns and open countryside. Dillon mused about their imminent meeting with Ezra...
Chapter 21
The Learjet 85 cruised at an altitude of thirty-three thousand feet across a cloudless sky of brilliant blue; flying in the black and gold corporate livery of Ferran & Cardini International, at an average speed of 500 mph over the Atlantic Ocean far below.
The aircraft came in low over Grand Bahamas and touched down on the tarmac runway with a squeal of brakes and rubber. The co-pilot’s voice came over the intercom, “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Grand Bahama.”
“I thought we were heading for Nassau.” Snapped Tatiana. Dillon held her gaze and nodded, “We are - eventually. But I’m still not convinced that we’re only dealing with Ezra. If it was Ezra who sent that message?”
Dillon went forward and spoke in a quiet voice to the captain. “Fly the Lear under five hundred feet until you reach the Florida coast, and then make sure you’re on the radar from there into Tampa. The authorities will assume you’ve come through the Bermuda Triangle. Then file a new flight plan from Tampa direct to Nassau.” The captain nodded, and Dillon continued. “One thing, though. Make sure you’re only on the tarmac at Tampa for as long as it takes to fully re-fuel.”
“Nassau?”
“Assuming we’re not all murdered there? Make the jet ready for a quick getaway. If I remember rightly, the partners of Ferran & Cardini have a private hanger at the edge of the airfield apron. Use it. I’ll message you when we’re in need of flight. Understood?”
“Understood, Mr Dillon.”
Dillon grinned, “It’s always a pleasure flying with you captain.”
“And life is always interesting when we fly you, Jake.”
Dillon and the others watched as the Learjet disappeared from sight within seconds, its vapour trail streaking an otherwise clear blue Bahamian sky.
* * * The night was hot and humid. Distant sounds of a boat party echoed across the bay, followed by the splash of revellers diving into the water in high-jinx.
A quarter of a mile away, the forty-six power cruiser probed the surrounding darkness. Dillon opened the throttles as they rounded Pinders Point and entered the Northwest Providence Channel.
The calm water parted easily under the force of the cruisers bow. A deep rumble emanated from the inboard V8 engine, the sound penetrating the early hours of the morning as the small group headed towards their destination - Nassau. Dillon sat at the helm, his gaze flitting from the green lit dials of the control console to the glittering black water ahead of them. Tatiana stood beside him in the opulent gloom of the luxury cruiser’s bridge; she leaned forward, peering out through the windscreen over the lapping dark water.
“I always dreamed I would visit the Bahamas.”
“Sorry luv, but this isn’t going to be a holiday visit,” said Dillon softly.
* * * Dawn was breaking as the power cruiser entered the Northeast Providence Channel, heading in a south-westerly direction towards Nassau, the Berry Islands clearly visible on the starboard side as they raced by. Half an hour later Dillon eased back on the throttles and the hull of the forty-six foot craft eased back down into the water, half a mile off New Providence Island. He allowed the cruiser to drift with the tide, as he gazed through binoculars towards the busy port of Nassau. After a few moments he opened the throttles again and headed straight for the port entrance.
Dillon berthed the cruiser, shutdown the engine, and went down to the day saloon to join the others. Vince was busy at his laptop, Claudia and Tatiana both looked up as he came down the steps.
“Anyone for breakfast?”
Vince looked up and said, “What are we talking here, chap? Eggs, Bacon, all the trimmings?”
“I think that can be arranged, big-man. I’ll get right on it.” Dillon
went up on deck and made a call from his unregistered pay-as-you-go
mobile phone. If anyone was trying to track him, they’d have no luck if he only used this handset. Most of all, Tatiana did not know about
this phone...
Dillon re-joined the others, and twenty minutes later a beautiful
Bahamian woman in her early forties was standing on the pontoon
alongside the power cruiser with a very large rush basket in her hand.
Dillon went out onto the stern sun-deck and greeted her with a wave. “Margarita.” He went down the gang-plank and hugged her
affectionately.
“Well, I’ll be damned, Jake Dillon.” She held him at arm’s length.
Man, you’re looking older and you’ve acquired more of those nasty
little scars on your handsome face, since the last you were here.” “Been through a bit since my last visit to Nassau. But, it’s really
good to see you, Margarita. And girl, you’re looking more beautiful
with each passing year.”
“Flattery will get you everywhere, you charmer.”
“Did you manage to get what I asked for?”
“Of course, Dillon. Eggs, bacon, fresh bread and, tomatoes. Oh,
and I also got the other special items you asked for. At the bottom of
the basket; you’ll find two Glock 20s with additional clips, along with
the two-way radios you asked for, and a dozen small stun grenades.
Happy?”
“Very. Thank you, Margarita.”
“Good luck, Dillon. You know where to find me if you need
anything else.”
“Sure, and thanks once again. I owe you one, Margarita.” The attractive woman walked away, disappearing up the pontoon
towards the Harbour Club, got in an old battered 4x4, and then drove
off in an easterly direction along E Bay Street, disappearing almost
immediately in the early morning traffic. Dillon went back inside to
the others, made his way straight down to the galley, and immediately
extracted the weapons and grenades. He placed one of the Glocks
in the waistband of his trous
ers, the weapon reassuringly snug in
the small of his back. He then concealed a spare clip in each of his
pockets, and then hid the other weapon and grenades in his rucksack,
which he slung over his shoulder.
“Dillon, you going somewhere?” Vince asked.
“I’m just popping out,” said Dillon suddenly, moving towards
the door.
“I thought you said you wanted breakfast first?” Tatiana said. “Time for that later. I have people to see, errands to run; like I
said, I have friends here in Nassau.”
“Dillon?”
“Yes, Claudia?”
“Be careful.”
Tatiana’s head snapped round as if on a tensioned spring. A cold
glint in her eyes.
Dillon paused for the briefest of moments, “I’ll see what I can
do.” He stepped out on to the stern sun-deck, got in the inflatable
dinghy tied up to the dive platform rail, and a few seconds later was
powering out into the harbour in a cloud of two-stroke fumes.
* * * Claudia lay relaxed on one of the day loungers on the sun-deck, weariness overcoming her. She pulled the courier bag close to her, her gaze falling on her hands, the grime under her usually manicured nails. She smiled gently. Once, that would never have happened: dirt would have been impossibility. But something had changed. She was lucky to be alive; and, it could have been so different.
Claudia removed the clear case protecting the small metallic optical disc from deep inside the bag. She held it up to the daylight, gazing at the master copy of the Chimera Programme.
“I hope you’re worth all the trouble,” she muttered, resting her head back against the pillows. They felt luxuriously soft - a complete antithesis to the last couple of days...
God, had it only been that long?
Since the facility had been destroyed.
Since Kirill had ordered everyone murdered.
Since Dillon had shot Kirill.
She shuddered, then closed her eyes and was able - for the first
time in days - to relax. Her breathing deepened and she licked her dry lips. The lounger was so comfortable that it made her want to stretch out and wallow all day long. Oh, to curl up and sleep for a lifetime; to curl up in a ball and forget...
Chimera Code (Jake Dillon Adventure Thriller Series) Page 40
