Cyber Terror

by Rose, Malcolm

  When he reached the chopper, Kate offered him her hand and yanked him up into the remaining seat.

  While Jordan fastened his safety belt and put on a helmet, the helicopter rose, turned and headed south-west. Leiston and Sizewell disappeared below and behind them.

  As soon as he’d settled, Jordan heard Kate’s voice in his earpiece. “That makes us quits.”

  “How come?” he replied.

  “I saved you. Now you’ve saved me.”

  Jordan twisted towards her. “But I didn’t. The bomb didn’t go off.”

  “You didn’t know it wouldn’t.”

  “Still not sure it counts,” Jordan said.

  By the time Jordan and Kate got back to Highgate, an expert had dealt with Raven’s abandoned Volvo. “There weren’t any explosives,” Angel told them in the bunker. “It was all a great big hoax.”

  Kate sighed and shook her head. “She sent me on a wild goose chase.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” Angel said to her. “You couldn’t have known. Assuming the worst was the only thing you could do and, anyway, no one got hurt.”

  “She must have distracted us for a reason,” Kate muttered.

  “I hate to say it, but maybe she’s trying to prove she can run rings around us. Or perhaps she’s having a laugh at our expense. Like she did with the money in Kingston.”

  “I bet she won’t be kidding next time she goes into action,” said Jordan.

  Angel nodded. “I agree. It’ll be for real tomorrow.”

  “But where? And what?”

  “Well,” Kate said, “we know it won’t be Sizewell.”

  “I need to understand what’s driving her.” Angel sounded frustrated. “Any ideas?”

  “I thought she was getting back at everyone involved in Eli Kennington’s trial,” Jordan replied. “She said she didn’t know he’d been in prison, but she must have been lying.”

  Angel frowned. “Lying’s the least of her crimes.”

  “I don’t think it’s right anyway,” Jordan said. “More likely, she set him up to take the blame.”

  Recalling the conversation in Epping Forest, Kate told them, “She said something about being in a secret organization.”

  Angel gazed at her. “What sort of organization? Did she say?”

  Kate shook her head. “Afraid not.”

  “How did she join Unit Red?” Jordan asked.

  “I keep my eye on universities for any bright kids coming through the system. That’s how I spotted her. If all goes well, there’s a right time to welcome someone special like Raven into Unit Red. You know this,” he said, looking at Jordan. “You weren’t on my radar until the Thames Estuary explosion, but I swooped afterwards – when the time was right. Raven got a job at HiSpec, got booted out – unfairly – and, at her lowest ebb, I turned up next to her in the pub.”

  “You knew she’d worked at HiSpec?”

  “Yes. I also knew why she tried to hide it and I let her think she’d been successful. Maybe...” Angel stopped. He wasn’t going to admit he’d misjudged the situation. Instead, he told them, “She had a troubled childhood. When she was young, she had no time for anything but computer games. Her schooling suffered. Her mum and dad always compared her unfavourably with her brother – a high-flier at school. Apparently, they used to tell her she was worthless and lazy. They said she’d never get a job and earn money. You can imagine the resentment. And the anger. One day, she snapped and burned her house down, but she didn’t realize her big brother was inside. Her parents went in to rescue him. None of them came out alive.”

  “Not a deliberate killing, then?” said Kate.

  “Unlikely. But you can probably imagine the headlines as well. ‘Little Monster Murders Family’ and so on. She was way below the age of criminal responsibility. For her own protection, she was given a new identity – Madison Flint – and adopted.”

  “So even that isn’t her real name,” Jordan said.

  “No,” Angel replied. “But her new parents recognized her genius and she came on in leaps and bounds. She was a lot happier, so it’s possible the young Madison Flint learned that extreme violence pays off. It destroyed a bad family and gave her a much more understanding one.”

  Kate asked, “What are her latest bouts of extreme violence supposed to achieve?”

  Neither Jordan nor Angel had an answer.

  On cue, Angel’s computer chirped to announce the arrival of another audio file. This time, Short Circuit hadn’t doctored the sound. There was no point. Jordan, Kate and Angel recognized Raven’s voice straight away.

  I know how it works. I bet you’re having a meeting – probably in the bunker. Trying to figure me out.

  I don’t know the first thing about explosives. I’d probably blow myself up if I tried to do anything with them. No. Working with electronics isn’t as showy, but it’s far easier and much more deadly. As you’ve found out, I was joking about the bomb in the boot.

  Jordan’s sound system picked out background noises. He heard the Lemon Jelly song playing very quietly. There was also the roar of an aeroplane’s jet engine. Short Circuit was clearly toying with them. Again.

  When Stryker took the case on, he asked me to find out if Short Circuit had had a practice run before bringing the planes down. Barking up the wrong tree. It’s all been a practice run for what I’ve got in mind. And it’s nothing to do with Eli Kennington and his trial.

  I knew Kennington had been behind bars. I also found out he put hardware Trojans in HiSpec’s chips – for fun and challenge, I suppose. He’s pathetic. No malicious intent at all. He wouldn’t do anything to get his own back. What a waste of technology. So I hijacked his Trojans for my own ends. But it took me a while to figure out how to use them.

  To be honest, trying to control Paige Ottaway’s robotic laser was a complete flop. It all went horribly wrong. The Trojans I activated went into overdrive and killed her. I had no control at all, so I went back to basics. I hit a couple of planes. Big targets, easy jobs. Just had to stop some circuits in the flight systems and down they came.

  But I’m ambitious. I still needed to step up a gear. I had to work out how to make circuit boards do what I wanted. Once I’d cracked it, I fine-tuned my methods on the people who’d put Kennington away so he’d take the rap if anything went wrong. I even tried to mimic his weird way of talking on the sound clips.

  I got control for the first time when I persuaded a Trojan in Victoria Truman’s automated system to turn her gas on and another in Edward Jackson’s pacemaker to shock his heart. But I wanted to test myself with another form of transport. Stryker’s Jag came to mind, but I didn’t want to do it under your nose, so I went to Ipswich. I wasn’t really trying to get Lazenby but – I could hardly believe my luck – Stryker put him in the Jag.

  I was going to carry on with everyone who’d played a part in getting Kennington jailed, but you got too close, especially when you locked him up in his holiday cottage and sent someone over to talk to him. That would have been...awkward. Made me pleased I’d brought my plans forward. I’m ready.

  There was a gap of a few seconds. Angel didn’t turn the audio file off, though, because he could see that it had not finished.

  You think you know everything about your agents, Angel. You think you know everything about me. But you don’t. I got introduced to a mixed bag of people who believe society in this country needs overturning. They think we should step back from the relentless pursuit of money and goods. Life shouldn’t be about owning the next gadget.

  Strange thing for a computer geek to say? I love computers because they’re under our control. They help us do things. But what’s the next generation of gadgets? It’s all about cybernetics, artificial intelligence, robotic soldiers. They’ll get out of our control. That sort of technology is a step too far. It’s a danger to all our futures.

  In a way, I’m the opposite of Eli Kennington. He can’t wait for the singularity. I dread it so much I’m going to do everyone a
favour and stop it happening. Now you know why I never liked Stryker. It isn’t anything to do with terahertz technology. It’s about what he is.

  “She’s been brainwashed,” Angel muttered.

  Actually, bringing a plane down on the Houses of Parliament was another one of our attempts to destabilize the country. Pity Stryker got in the way. Anyway, you wouldn’t believe how pleased the group is to have me. An agent with the computer skills to force a change of direction. You also won’t believe what’s coming next.

  The clip ended and Angel let out a snort. “I need to listen to that again, but we’re no closer to what she’s doing.”

  “Or where she is,” Jordan added.

  Brightening up, Kate said, “Don’t forget she’s in my car. If we can find it...”

  “Already done,” Angel replied. “It was abandoned in central London. I’m having it towed back. Interestingly, three cars were stolen within five kilometres of it. Maybe Raven nicked one of them. It doesn’t tell us where she is now, but I’ve got someone tracing all three.”

  Unsure whether he was about to make a fool of himself, Jordan said, “I can’t help thinking about something Amy Goss once told me.” For Kate’s benefit, he explained, “She was my best friend at school and her dad was big in crime. He got away with a robbery years ago. His men broke into a bank vault and stole a lot of money. The police never found it. They put it somewhere really clever and used it bit by bit.”

  “Where?” Angel asked, intrigued by Jordan’s story.

  “In the bank they nicked it from. Is it called a safe deposit box or something?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s where they put it. In Mr. Goss’s safe deposit box in the vault they’d just smashed their way into.”

  Angel gazed at him. “And your point is?”

  “It was a sort of double bluff – and it worked.”

  “What are you saying?” Kate asked.

  “Maybe Raven is targeting the nuclear power station at Sizewell. Because she’s already pretended to have a go at it, it’s the one place we wouldn’t expect her to choose.”

  “I can’t base my tactics on a hunch like that,” Angel said.

  The secure phone rang and Angel answered it immediately. At first he simply listened, his face fixed with concentration. Then he responded, “Follow up the burned-out one.” Putting the phone down and looking at Kate, he said, “Those stolen cars. One’s been found burned out, another’s not been traced and one’s in police hands after a high-speed chase with a joyrider. Raven would be careful to destroy evidence so, if she did take one of them, she might well have torched it once she’d finished with it.”

  “Where did they find it?”

  “Still in London. South of the river. Not near any obvious target.” He glanced at the clock. “Besides, it’s too early. She’s going to strike sometime after midnight. Sunday 27th May is what she said.” He shook his head. “Do you know what I think we’re going to need?”

  Jordan reckoned he was on Angel’s wavelength. “Help with computing?”

  “Exactly. We need the best.”

  Jordan nodded. “Someone like Eli Kennington.”

  Angel smiled. “Not someone like him. We need the real thing. Go and find him, Kate, and then reel him in. Don’t tell him who we are, but promise him anything you like. Just get him.”

  23 TOO LATE

  The sun sank behind Highgate Cemetery and nocturnal animals took over from tourists, prowling between the old gravestones. Above them, bats circled around the open space, picking off insects. Saturday night seemed to be lasting for ever, like history lessons when Jordan was the schoolboy Ben Smith. Now, it was tension rather than boredom that made time expand. Without knowing what Raven was doing and where she was, there was nothing that he could do. Apart from wait. He was waiting for the end of civilization – or whatever she was planning – instead of preventing it. And that frustrated him.

  Jordan Stryker had been built for threats like this – built for action – and he was lounging around, watching the figures on the digital clock transform every second.

  Saturday became Sunday and there was still no news, no sightings of Raven, no action. It crossed Jordan’s mind that, in telling them she was planning chaos some time today, Raven could be bluffing once more. But Jordan had a feeling that this time she wasn’t. She’d perfected her attacks. She was all set.

  It was well after dawn when Angel took the call from one of his agents. Immediately, he turned to Jordan. “Right. This is the best we’ve got. Another car went missing a few kilometres away from that burned-out wreck and it’s just been picked up on the CCTV of an engineering company next to Gatwick Airport. It smells like Raven to me, covering her tracks by switching cars on her way to a target. Remember she said she wanted to practise on forms of transport – like your car? Maybe it’s a Gatwick plane next. Get on the road, Jordan. I’ll send the postcode to your inertial navigation system.”

  Jordan nodded and made for the door.

  “Take care,” Angel said. “Raven is devious and determined.”

  The plain flat-roofed building belonged to an engineering company. It stood at the end of a private lane, positioned on the perimeter of Gatwick Airport. From the top of its two storeys flew a large Union flag. The upper level appeared to consist of offices. The ground floor of the building was tall and cluttered with machinery. On a Sunday, it was devoid of workers, but outside a solitary car stood in the large parking area. It looked out of place.

  “Yes,” Jordan whispered into his phone. “The car’s here. No sign of anyone, though.”

  The voice in his ear replied, “Proceed with caution.”

  Somewhere behind the factory, an aeroplane’s engines roared. By the time Jordan saw the plane, it was climbing into the sky on its way to some distant destination. He thought of Ecuador and Edinburgh.

  Walking up to the factory’s main entrance, he looked through a window. He could make out nothing but earth-moving equipment, scaffolding components, concrete mixers and a lot of other heavy machinery. There was no movement. He couldn’t see into the upper storey.

  The entrance did not appear to have been forced open. It was firmly locked. The huge sliding door – used to get the bulky items in and out – was also intact and secure. Jordan went to the right and began to walk round the brick-built factory. Turning the corner, he saw a large field beyond the sturdy wire fence. It belonged to the airport. Another plane was now hurtling along the runway, not yet off the ground. The tall fence was topped with vicious razor wire.

  The side door bore a large sign. Staff Only. Like the entry at the front, it was intact and did not respond to Jordan’s pushing and pulling. If Raven was inside the works, maybe she’d got hold of a key.

  To Jordan’s enhanced power of smell, the whole area reeked of fumes from aviation fuel. Against a background of aircraft coming and going at regular intervals, he continued his examination of the factory. The back of the building – the wall nearest to the airport enclosure – was almost entirely brickwork. It was decorated only by graffiti and a narrow door. But this one had been levered open. The wooden frame bore the marks of a crowbar and the door itself was dented around the lock.

  “Someone’s forced their way in,” Jordan reported quietly. “I’m checking it out.”

  The ground floor was oddly still and sinister, filled with strange giant shapes. Girders and cranes reached up and out like huge framework arms, metallic and rigid. Jordan’s footfalls echoed around the vast space. Even with his hearing on maximum, the drone of aircraft and his own footsteps were the only sounds that he could detect.

  He made for the aluminium steps up to the offices. Perhaps, if Raven was somewhere among the machinery on the ground floor, he’d spot her from high up on the stairs.

  He placed his foot silently on the metallic grid that formed the first step and eased himself up quietly. He didn’t place his right hand on the aluminium banister in case it made a clunking sound. He continued up
the stairs slowly and noiselessly.

  From halfway up, he hung over the rail and surveyed the works below. Using visible and infrared wavelengths, he saw no evidence of anyone else. Everything was colder than a human being so his night vision detected only dull blues and greys. There was no telltale glow from a warm body.

  Taking a deep breath, he carried on cautiously to the top of the framework steps.

  The upper storey wasn’t divided into small rooms. There was a corridor leading to two massive open-plan offices. At a glance, both were empty of people. If Raven was in the building, she could have concealed herself behind a photocopier, desk or partition. She could even be hiding in a cupboard. Jordan’s terahertz vision didn’t reveal anything and he couldn’t hear the distinctive sound of breathing.

  At the end of the corridor, there was a ladder leading up to a hatch in the ceiling. Before he searched the offices more carefully, he decided to poke his head out, just in case Raven had gone out onto the roof.

  He grasped the rails and climbed the rungs. Noting that the bolts were undone, he pushed open the hatch. The flat roof had a thick plastic waterproof coating. At the end of a long pole in the centre of the structure, the flag flapped noisily in the wind. Beyond was a clear view of the whole airport. An Airbus lifted off the ground and rose steeply into the blue sky and scattered cloud. With her back to Jordan, Raven watched it go. Just like the flag, her long black hair streamed out behind her.

  It was windy, but not windy enough to make the roof scary and dangerous. His heart racing, Jordan clambered quietly onto the flat surface and tiptoed towards her. He hoped the scream of the receding jet would cover the sound of his footsteps as he prepared for the final confrontation, as he prepared to grab Short Circuit.

  He’d taken only four steps when she called out, “Ah. My cyber workmate. I wondered when you’d find me. Too late, as far as you’re concerned.” Without turning, she pointed downwards. “The Jag’s a bit of a giveaway.”