by Joy Ellis
‘One officer is dead, one badly injured, a civilian has been acid-attacked, and we have been threatened by both fire and a dummy IED.’ Nikki threw her hands in the air. ‘Big enough for you?’
‘Shit,’ murmured Vinnie.
‘Indeed.’ She stared at him. ‘So, tell us about the surveillance bugs.’
‘I think they are originally American, but heavily adapted by someone who knows what he’s doing. He’s listening, he’s watching, he’s almost touching you, every minute of the day and night.’ He smiled grimly. ‘Well, actually I’m talking about you, DI Galena. For some reason, he’s not so keen on Joseph. I’ve only located two small devices at Knot Cottage and they are basically coming and going trackers, one back door and one front.’ He gazed at her intently. ‘It’s you he’s interested in.’
Nikki shivered. When she glanced up, she saw how tight Joseph’s facial muscles had become.
‘The thing is . . . what do you want me to do about them?’ He held up a hand. ‘And before you say strip them out and stamp all over them, remember that if I remove them, you won’t be able to use them against him in any way.’
Nikki thought hard. The fact that some evil bastard was watching their every move made her blood boil. And they still didn’t know what he wanted. She ripped the top off three sugar sachets and tipped them into her coffee. ‘Okay, Vinnie. What would you do?’
‘Fight fire with fire. But I’d need to spend some time here with you, and in some guise that won’t alarm him. Because unless I’m very wrong, the moment I step into your cop shop, he’ll know about it.’
Joseph stirred his coffee and without looking up, said, ‘You really think he’s got the station wired as well?’
‘Exterior for sure, but the interior?’ He shrugged. ‘I very much doubt it. But I still don’t want to roll up into your car park and get eyeballed by matey-boy.’ He sipped his drink. ‘Keep my presence here discreet. Tell no one other than your close team about me. I need to be your secret weapon, and by the sound of things, you need one.’
‘I can’t deny that,’ said Nikki wearily. ‘We are like little ducks sitting on a fence just waiting to be picked off, one by one.’
‘Then it’s time we stacked things in the ducklings’ favour.’ He looked across to Joseph, a steely glint in his pale grey eyes. ‘Just like old times, Bunny-boy, although there’s one major factor missing before we can go to war, isn’t there?’
‘Know your enemy.’ Joseph, whose army nickname had been Bunny, because of his surname, pressed his lips together so tightly that they almost disappeared, ‘And that’s something of a problem.’
Vinnie sat back and folded his arms across his chest. ‘First things first. I think I’ll stick with being the surveyor. I have a vehicle full of appropriate-looking stuff: tripods, Hi-Viz jackets, hard hats etc. And you, ma’am,’ he stared at Nikki, ‘have serious drainage problems that are hampering your plans for a new . . . uh, oh, a new water feature. Something fancy with a big Koi pond and a Japanese bridge.’
‘Just what I’ve always wanted.’ She grimaced. ‘I don’t think.’
‘Nonsense, you’ve dreamed about it for years.’
Nikki nodded. ‘Oh yeah, of course I have.’
‘So I’m going to have to spend a bit of time on your property. It’s old and I should think the drainage plans are missing, aren’t they?’
‘Long gone.’
‘Excellent. So here’s my card.’ He reached into his pocket and produced a brightly-coloured business card with a picture of a house on it. ‘Got them done at a service station on the way up. Dead cheap and very useful. If you need to talk to me or make plans to meet, the number on it is safe, as long as you use one of your pay-as-you-go phones. Give me a few hours to formulate something and I’ll contact you.’
‘Where will you stay? Under the circumstances we can hardly offer to put you up.’
‘I’ll find somewhere low-key, don’t worry.’ He took a long swallow of his coffee. ‘I can tell you one thing. From the way he has modified his equipment your man has a great interest in spy gadgets and technology. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s worked with them, either in sales or the security sector. Cutting-edge spy gadgets are big business.’
Nikki looked nonplussed.
‘It’s not so surprising these days. Corporations, governments, investigative companies all use top-range equipment, and it’s easy to come by.’
Nikki had a picture in her head of Stephen Cox. ‘This just doesn’t fit with the man we are thinking of.’
‘Then either think of someone else or ask yourself if he’s paid for an expert’s services, because your adversary is a tricky one, no two ways about it.’
‘And ruthless.’
‘Then I’d better get my arse into gear.’ Vinnie drained his mug and stood up. ‘I’ll sort out some lodgings and be in touch tonight, okay?’ As he pushed his chair under the table he leaned towards Nikki and whispered, ‘Thought for the day. Consider that both your vehicles will have trackers in them somewhere. Choose one car, find the tracker and disable it. They can dislodge quite easily, so your man won’t be duly alarmed if one goes down, and it’ll give you a bit of freedom.’ He moved away from the table and in a louder voice said, ‘Thanks for the coffee, and I’m sure we can sort out that beautiful water feature for you.’ He winked at her and left.
Nikki exhaled. ‘Wow!’
‘He’s good at what he does.’ Joseph pushed the mugs together in the centre of the table. ‘The best covert communications officer I’ve ever served with, not to mention one hell of a good man in a tight situation.’
‘I believe you.’ Nikki stood up. ‘But he’s still a cheeky sod.’
‘True.’ Joseph grinned. ‘Always was.’ Before he could say more, his mobile phone rang. ‘DS Easter.’
He listened for a while then gave a little exclamation of excitement. ‘Good work! We’ll be there in . . .’ he took a quick look at his watch, ‘ten minutes.’ He closed the phone and raised his eyebrows. ‘Would you believe we have some good news?’
‘Tell me first, then let me decide. Who was that?’
‘Stuart Broad from the IT Department. He and Travis Taylor are with the security company trouble-shooter, Alan Brady, the man whose job it is to find the glitch in the security coverage of the Waterside Quay. Well, they think they’ve solved the locked-room killing of Magda Hellekamp!’
* * *
Nikki and Joseph eased their way into the dimly lit room that housed the monitor screens. There must have been ten others in there, all wide-eyed and eager, and chattering like baby jackdaws waiting to be fed.
‘Can we downsize the audience?’ Nikki frowned, hoping that some code of discretion existed amongst the group. The last thing she wanted was for a possible breakthrough to be leaked before she’d had a chance to brief the superintendent.
‘These guys all have high level clearance.’ Stuart stood beside them. ‘They were responsible for building the system, so they really need to know how someone managed to exploit a weakness in their program.’
Nikki moved towards the front of the gaggle of technicians, and found Travis sitting at a keyboard. His fingers flew across it so fast they were blurred.
‘Explain, please, in words that a woman who thinks a typewriter is cutting edge would understand.’
Stuart Broad placed a hand on his colleague’s shoulder. ‘Travis here suspected what had happened, and as soon as we got into the system we spotted the anomaly. Can you run it for the inspector, Travis?’
‘Coming up.’
Screens flashed up, and Nikki and Joseph recognised the CCTV footage from outside Magda’s apartment.
‘Watch the digital clock, especially the second countdown in the right-hand corner of the screen.’ Travis pointed. ‘I’ll freeze it at the right moment, then you’ll see where the black hat has infiltrated.’
‘Black hat?’ asked Nikki.
‘Criminal hacker,’ Stuart chipped in. ‘Sometimes we call
them crackers rather than hackers. We are the white hats because we only hack ethically, if you get my meaning.’
‘Like the cartoons?’ asked Joseph.
‘I guess. But look.’ He pointed to the screen.
Nikki stared at the view along the corridor outside Magda’s front door. She saw the shiny polished wooden flooring, the entrances to the two top floor apartments, and the landing window at the far end of the corridor. Nothing moved, except for the time-log numbers that flashed continuously.
‘Here.’
Nikki peered at the big screen, but saw nothing. ‘Where? What?’
Travis gave a little laugh. ‘I’ll run it again.’
The screen backtracked, then Travis moved it forward frame by frame. ‘Up until this point, the system was operating perfectly, but . . .’ He paused, and stopped the screen and pointed to the fractions of a second. ‘Here, it has been accessed by black hat.’ He leaned forward and Nikki and Joseph saw a slight tremor and the tiniest change in the digital numbers.
‘What happened?’
‘A new system has taken over from the original. It operates for exactly one minute, and then the old system is reactivated.’ Travis looked up at Nikki. ‘For one minute the cameras were locked. And in that minute, we suspect your killer entered the apartment block completely undetected.’ He moved the screen forward. ‘The same thing happened fifteen minutes later, a one minute hold on the cameras. In that time, he could easily have exited the apartment and disappeared.’
‘The thing is, DI Galena,’ Stuart rubbed the side of his nose thoughtfully, ‘black hat disabled the whole system for those two individual minutes. That’s why the entrance key card recording log showed nothing.’
‘And,’ Travis looked really excited, ‘we found a security weak point in the layout of the residential complex. A black spot where the cameras do not cover and there are no windows looking out from the side of the apartment block. There is one wall, easily scaled, that drops into some shrubbery. Stuart did a trial while I timed him. It is perfectly possible to get from the road, over the wall, through the front door and up the stairs in exactly one minute.’
‘The return trip was even quicker, as going down the stairs is a damned sight easier than running up them.’ Stuart looked well pleased with himself. ‘Not all us nerds are unhealthy you know. I did the Sea-bank Marathon last year in three hours fifty-seven!’
‘Then you’re a fit lad. That’s seriously impressive,’ said Joseph. ‘But regarding those minutes where time stands still, wouldn’t the gate security man have noticed something?’
‘Black hat left the entry gate and the road cameras active,’ Travis explained. ‘I’d say whoever did this is an elite hacker and he’s done a lot of research in order to get the timing so good.’
‘Where calculated murder is concerned there’s no room for error.’ Nikki turned to Joseph. ‘I’m supposing that Aaron Keller isn’t this black hat?’
Joseph shook his head. ‘No way. But don’t forget he used a crack team for logistics. Black hat is just one of the team of enablers that he used.’
‘Bloody Rent-a-Crook,’ muttered Nikki.
Joseph was staring at the screen. ‘How did you find it, Travis?’
The young man swung round on his chair. ‘Well, we look at programs differently to the way you police officers look at CCTV, sir. With software there are all sorts of crazy anomalies going on behind the screens, so to speak. You basically just look for weird computer code.’
‘But in this case Travis actually did see something on the screen as well, didn’t you?’ Stuart added.
Travis laughed. ‘Yeah. After I’d got the warning bells, I saw this.’ He went back to the shot of the corridor just prior to the time when the system was interrupted.
‘Watch the window.’
They all stared at the window at the far end of the corridor.
‘See that tall tree on the perimeter of the estate?’
Nikki nodded. It was massive old oak, obviously ancient and probably had a conservation order stuck on it. The evening breeze moved the high branches gently around in a lazy dance.
‘And now.’ Travis touched his index finger to the screen. ‘The seconds are still ticking, but guess what? No wind. No wind at all, not a whisper.’
They waited for one minute and the tree instantly began its swaying motion.
‘Voila!’ He grinned smugly. ‘I know we get some strange weather in these parts, but that’s something else.’
‘Good work, boys.’ Nikki allowed a smile to spread across her face. ‘Another part of the puzzle is complete. We now have the who and the how. All we need is the why and we can stamp “closed” on Operation Windmill.’
Joseph paused as they prepared to leave. ‘Stuart? When that other software was running, would there be a record of what was really occurring anywhere? I mean, would your black hat guy have the killer on camera somewhere?’
Stuart looked at Travis and they both pulled faces. ‘No, I don’t think so. He more or less just pasted a picture, a still frame, into the system. I think recording what really happened would have been counter-productive, don’t you?’ Stuart asked his friend.
Travis nodded. ‘Definitely. He was protecting the killer, allowing him the time he needed to come and go. Keeping some kind of video log on Keller’s movements could incriminate them.’ He sat back. ‘No. Sorry, Sergeant, but I think this is all you’re going to get.’
‘It’s good enough, Travis. One last question. Can you trace him? This black hat.’
Travis puffed out his cheeks, ‘We’re going to give it our best shot, sir, but as I said before, this guy is elite, and I’m guessing there will be no finding him.’
‘Okay. Well done, you two. Great job.’
‘Absolutely. We’ll see you back at the station for a debriefing?’ said Nikki.
‘Ma’am? Would it be alright if I called in at the hospital on the way? It was my afternoon off and I’d promised to go see Cat. I don’t want to let her down.’
Nikki nodded. ‘No problem, but get back ASAP so that we can get all this into a report. And tell Cat I’ll see her when I finish, whenever that might be.’
‘DI Galena?’ Alan Brady blocked her exit. ‘Would it be in order for me — well, my company — to ask your technicians to go over all this with some of our top people?’ He was still looking worried out of his skin. ‘This should not have happened, and there’s a chance your chaps could throw a few pointers our way.’ He looked at her imploringly. ‘Something to help protect future projects?’
‘I don’t see why not. But it can’t be on our time, Mr Brady, and only if their company agrees, okay?’ She looked at his pasty and deeply etched face and added, ‘Have a word with them before they leave.’
‘Thanks a lot, Inspector. Much appreciated.’ He scurried off.
‘Can we draw a line under this now?’ asked Joseph, as they exited the building. ‘I mean, stop chasing ‘elite’ black-hatted shadows, and get back to hunting Snipe and his very real threat to us all?’
‘Maybe.’ Nikki walked slowly across the car park. ‘Magda’s probable time of death, according to the pathologist, corresponds pretty well with the CCTV freeze. There are still a few grey areas, like how did the killer get hold of a duplicate key-card for Magda’s flat? But there is no doubt that it was Aaron Keller who murdered her.’ She halted, some way from her car. ‘Considering the pressure we are under with Snipe, I could throw Operation Windmill upstairs and let another section tie up the loose ends. But . . .’ She paused.
‘But that’s not your way, is it?’
‘I’ve never passed the buck before. I’d like to think we’ve done a thorough job. But under the circumstances, maybe I’ll talk to Rick Bainbridge and be guided by him.’ She looked across the concrete to her father’s old car. ‘Now, before we go back to the station and Snipe’s blasted covert surveillance cameras, what say we go bug hunting?’ She walked slowly towards the old Countryman, her face screwed up
in thought. ‘Do you know what we are looking for, Joseph?’
‘Oh yes, ma’am. I do.’ He grinned and rubbed his hands together. ‘Easy-peasy! Let’s get the little bugger, shall we?’
Nikki watched as Joseph slipped into the car, turned on the engine and cranked up the radio. ‘Just in case it’s voice sensitive and not just a location tracker.’ He opened the back and ran deft fingers around the interior of the boot. Happy that it was clear, he walked to the front and lifted the bonnet. He kept his voice low and said, ‘Expensive GPS tracking devices are sometimes hard-wired to the battery and then hidden almost anywhere, but,’ he slammed the lid closed, ‘not this time.’ He eased himself down to the ground and slipped his head and shoulders under the vehicle. His voice was muffled but she heard him say, ‘Signals are well received near the road surface. Under the car is a favourite, or,’ she heard a chuckle, ‘tucked into the wheel arch!’ He dragged himself out, stood up and checked his watch. ‘Two minutes. I’m getting rusty.’ He showed her a small black coin-shaped object, then he dropped it onto the concrete and crushed it beneath his heel. ‘Oops, butter-fingers!’ The grin broadened. ‘Shall we go?’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Cat had been right in believing that a visit from Travis would lift her spirits, although it wasn’t in the way she had envisaged. For the first fifteen minutes he regaled her with his and Stuart’s first mega-success at cybercrime fighting.
If he told her once how pleased DI Galena had been, he must have mentioned it six times. ‘And we have to go in later for a debriefing with her and Sergeant Easter,’ he finished off self-importantly. ‘Cool, isn’t it?’
‘Very cool, techno-freak. I bow to your superior brain power.’ She gave him a look like that of a long-suffering parent towards a pretentious child. ‘But don’t forget, we detectives do that sort of thing on a daily basis. And we don’t crow about it for weeks either.’
‘I’ll remind you about that next time you have a . . . oh, what do you professionals call it? A blinding good collar?’
‘Do that. Now . . .’ Cat tried to drag his attention away from his CCTV footage and back to her present predicament. ‘I’m going quietly barmy in here, Travis, and apparently I’ve now got an infection in one of my leg wounds.’ She broke off. ‘You have noticed the odd dressing, haven’t you?’
