Roadworks

by Gerard Readett

  Suddenly, I remembered something that had bothered me at the time, but more pressing matters had arisen, taking my mind off it. They had given away a vital clue in their initial message. Their conceit would become their downfall.

  I leaned over to whisper to Martin, "How many trucks crashed at main crossroads?"

  He looked at me, baffled. "Fifteen."

  "Right, but how many did the OPA say in their initial message?"

  "Errr. I don't remember." He got up and walked over to the Internet PC. Frowning heavily, he scrolled the messages back to the first message we had received from the OPA.

  "Hugh?" I ran over to him, and clamped my hand on his mouth. He pointed at the number on the screen.

  Sixteen.

  The OPA had said that sixteen accidents should have happened. That meant they had rigged sixteen trucks, not fifteen as we had at first thought.

  Martin roughly pulled my hand away, shrugged and mouthed, "So what?"

  I whispered again, "Third message."

  He scrolled down and reread the third message. Here they asked us whether we had checked out everything they told us in the first message, but instead of sixteen trucks they only said fifteen.

  Maybe it does not sound like much, but what had started out as a nagging feeling was turning out to be a well-founded suspicion. The OPA not only had an on-line computer system on the Internet, but one with which they could monitor the transport network. The network that we control. They could see, as well as we could, the traffic jams, the blocked trains and the rest.

  Martin looked stunned by this revelation, so I clamped my hand on his mouth once again as I continued. "And where is the only place in town, besides here, where you can monitor the whole transport network?" He shouted in surprise; fortunately not a sound passed my hand, I was ready for his outburst. I knew he would react this way.

  When I was sure Martin was no longer in the mood for blurting things out, I pulled my hand away, and went for a smoke.

  ***

  Inside the smoking room, Maria was talking. For a change, they seemed to be listening to someone lower in rank with rapt attention. She pointed out the implications of a bug in the TMC. I waited until Maria had finished before saying my piece.

  "Mrs. Bourgmestre, I think I know where the OPA is."

  "Yes, Hugh?"

  "They must have a system to monitor the network as complete as the one we have, the TMC."

  "Why?"

  "They have shown us that they know the exact state of the network; they can see it as well as we do. To build such a computer system from scratch would be painstaking and costly, and that's without counting the time spent on decryption."

  "Decryption?"

  "Yes, to make our network secure, all transmissions are encrypted. A message from one node is encrypted using a complicated encryption algorithm, also known as a key. It is transmitted across the network in this unreadable form, and decrypted at the other end, another node. That means that someone listening in to messages cannot understand them without the keys. Anyone trying to hack in would have to get the encryption keys of all nodes in the network."

  "So what?"

  "There is one other site in the city where there is a computer installation capable of monitoring our city's network, and can read the messages transmitted across it, and decrypt them."

  The Bourgmestres advisor snapped, "Out with it. Where?"

  "The backup TMC."

  "The what?"

  "The backup TMC is a carbon copy of this one. In principle, it's an unmanned site until this one breaks down, is blown up or isolated."

  The American guffawed and blurted, "What a load of rubbish. Assuming they did manage to get past the alarm systems at the backup site, they would still need passwords to get the computer systems up and running."

  "Wrong," I shouted. "In the backup TMC, the monitoring screens are on at all times. That is to avoid us wasting time if we ever need to move to the backup site, and to ensure the systems are on line. The passwords only restrict access to the control functions."

  The special advisor screwed his face up in annoyance "Look, M. Ryan. The TMC is bugged; they don't need a sophisticated set-up to know what's going on in our city."

  "Yes, the TMC is bugged, but Martin and I---"

  "Who?"

  "My colleague. Together we discovered something." I quickly explained about the trucks. The OPA had rigged sixteen trucks to blow up at main crossroads, but one had malfunctioned somehow.

  "Despite the bugs, no one mentioned that only fifteen out of the sixteen trucks detonated, yet they knew it. They have to be at the backup site. It's the only way they could have known, and they let it slip."

  "You obviously have no experience with terrorist mentality. One classic tactic is to confuse the opponent with erroneous information, sending the police off on wild-goose chases so they have no time to find the terrorist's hideout. Go back to your TMC, and stop coming up with ridiculous ideas. Leave it to the professionals."

  The Bourgmestre noticed my impatience. "Hugh, thank you very much for your input. It may turn out to be very valuable. But at the moment, we must explore all avenues open to us, and think each one out fully, before we make a move. We don't want another building destroyed. Rest assured, we will keep it in mind, though."

  I stormed back into the TMC, livid. What a condescending bastard; another high office taking us for granted. Even the Bourgmestre disagreed with him. Being daily subjected to this type of prejudice, I should know better than let such behaviour get to me, but I couldn't help it.

  From the way the people around the Bourgmestre treated Lyens earlier, it was quite clear that what we have suspected for years was true. The top brass at city hall have little respect for what they consider a group of loud-mouthed, overpaid civil servants, ignorant of the political implications of their job.

  Sadly, this feeling was perpetuated down the whole hierarchy of the transport authority. Out of all the departments in the authority, ours--network--was said to be full of lunatics. Since our work was on-line, when we asked another department for help, we needed it now, if not earlier. The other departments, not so pressed for time, tended to take things slower than we did. Naturally, this made for a lot of shouting from network.

  Inside the network department itself, we, the guys doing shifts, were taken for the lowest of the low. They all assumed that we know nothing, and when something happens we simply call in help. Well, I was tired of being taken for a feeble-minded idiot. I was going to show them all, from the Bourgmestre down to Nys, just what a moronic traffic controller could do.

  Sitting at Nys's desk, I dialled the number for the backup TMC's videophone. It rang eight times then, surprisingly, someone picked up the phone.

  "Hello?" A nervous sweaty face appeared on the screen. Behind him I made out at least three other people sitting at consoles, tapping away at the keyboards. Two of them were clearly Africans, but the others were Caucasian. Then my eyes focused on the chair in the middle of the room. Lying on it was what looked like a black GSM taped to a blue box, about the size of a pack of cigarettes. Even more astonishing was what was behind the phone.

  A brand, spanking new black machine-gun.

  "I would like to report a crash on Place De Brouckere." I tried to sound like a regular customer of the TMC. My English accent would easily be mistaken for a Flemish one.

  The nervous face looked around anxiously as someone approached him. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" The second guy looked at me for a few seconds, then flew into a rage. He punched the daylights out of the guy sitting down, then put his fist through the video camera.

  I reeled back in fright as the picture faded out.

  Return to Contents

  * * *

  Chapter Fourteen

  11.24 a.m. (1 hour 5 minutes to OPA deadline)

  If we had known what was going to happen, we probably would have kept quiet and remained in our safe little cubby-hole. Hindsight is a wonderful th
ing, but the funny thing is: it's only with hindsight that you can discover this.

  Despite the video evidence, the Bourgmestre still took a lot of convincing. She needed confirmation from the minister before she undertook any action, and her special advisor wasn't particularly ready to accept the word of an insignificant traffic controller.

  What she had obviously failed to realise was that Martin and I took considerable pride in our job. By stretching a point, what the city was experiencing today fell under the aegis of the Transport Authority, and, by extension, on us. Our job involves detecting anything that causes difficulties on any of the three transport networks, and ironing it out. Today, that anything happened to be the OPA. Admittedly, not your run-of-the-mill cause, and the difficulties, not your run-of-the-mill difficulties either, covered not one network, but all three with cars, trains and metros in complete gridlock.

  In a way, she was acknowledging this, by counting on us to get the city traffic rolling again, but she was either too pre-occupied to notice or too stubborn to admit it. Later, if I were asked one thing I remember about the workings of high office, it would probably be that you don't attain that position by making hollow promises you know you'll never keep, to people with no influence. Still, she was more honest than most politicians were. They would butter us up with amazing promises, then ignore us when the crisis was over.

  In case of terrorist action, Michaux had ultimate authority over all army units, any police force and all public servants inside the city, barring the Bourgmestre and her advisors. Michaux's squads on the Rue Royale had been informed, and were making preparations for a counter strike. Now that they knew where their target was, they were straining at the leash, eager to do battle. He wanted Maria over there to update him on the OPA activities today, without giving anything away over the airwaves. Hopefully, surprise would be on their side.

  The nasty business came when the Bourgmestre's special advisor butted in, although I must say I tended to agree with him. He suggested that the OPA, who so far, had been ready for everything we tried, would not have neglected to install some system to cut the main TMC off from the network if we got too close. The moment the troops attacked, there was a very high probability that they would use it, leaving us blind. With the main TMC down, an attack squad would have to be careful not to damage the equipment of the backup site. They would be hampered trying to pick off the terrorists.

  For this reason, Martin and I, being the two most closely involved, had been selected to accompany Maria to the Rue Royale, and then join the strike party. That way, if the TMC were cut off during the attack, the two of us would have the weighty task of restoring the network from the backup site. If it were damaged, we would be as likely as anyone to get it back on-line.

  All of five minutes later, we were practically running through the corridors to keep up with Maria's determined stride. We emerged onto the road through a back entrance. The quiet was the first thing that hit us, in the way unusual calm can sound deafening to someone used to a constant background noise. Despite a road packed with cars, not a single engine could be heard. Occasionally, a slamming door broke the silence as a driver got out to stretch his legs or join another in a conversation. A quiet level of noise was fed by drivers talking to each other.

  We slowly headed down the street, fascinated. Ahead of us, we heard a hollow thumping in one car. A motorist was testing the capabilities of his quadraphonic sound system.

  Angry motorists glared at any unfortunate passers-by. Some even stood by their cars hurling abuse at any comers, and we were in no way excluded from the hatred. In thoughtful anticipation of this, Maria had ordered us to hide our Transport Authority badges in our coat pockets. She had also collected three more badges from Support, and about a dozen others from the security guards. The badges would be vital in any action involving the backup management centre. They would give the attack squad access to the building without the need for lock-picking skills or deactivation of the alarm systems. One headache less for us.

  At the first intersection, several drivers were standing on the roofs of their cars while staring down the road. Puzzled, I tried to see what interested them so. All I could see was a thin veil of swirling dust floating above a long line of stationary cars. Then I realised what they were looking at.

  This was the road to the Central Library.

  I quickly looked round for a better vantage point. There was a letterbox by the side of the road, and I hauled myself up.

  The cloud had thinned partially. Although I knew what had happened, it was still a shock to see the empty space where the Central Library used to be. On the road itself was a huge jumble of loose wreckage. Great slabs of cracked concrete impaled by twisted iron girders towered over the cars. From here I could just make out two ambulances winding their way along the sidewalk.

  I tried to see more, but Maria unceremoniously dragged me away. Having lost my balance, I managed to fall off the letterbox without any damage. I was ready to yell at her, but she was already on her way, crossing over the ring road.

  The cars were literally bumper to bumper. Maria went first, clambering onto the rear bumper of one car, and motioned for us to do likewise. Martin went next, but as I climbed up, the driver of the car leapt out and stormed over to Maria.

  "What the hell do you think you're doing? I just got that polished last week."

  She flashed her badge at him, and he simmered down. He waited until I had landed. Then, muttering something about bastard cops, he bent down to examine the bumper.

  Maria forged ahead along the Rue de la Loi. On our left was the 'Parc de Bruxelles', a well-tended, open-planned green space. On the other side of it, and clearly visible through the perfectly straight rows of trees, stood the Royal Palace. The flag was at half-mast; obviously no one was home. Not a bad thing, considering the circumstances.

  A little further on, we passed several 'Gendarmes', one of the two kinds of uniformed policemen to be found in Belgium. Each one wore a hip-holster and a walkie-talkie, clipped to the shoulder pad. What caught my attention, though, were the gleaming machine guns.

  We were nearing 16 Rue de la Loi, the Belgian equivalent of 10 Downing Street. The buildings on either side of it contained the House of Representatives and the Senate. In front of each were more 'Gendarmes', some of them in guard boxes, and each of them manning a barrier.

  Maria walked past with assurance. Always nervous around guns, I tried to keep from looking suspicious, and increased my pace to catch her up. Several of the 'Gendarmes' glanced at me, nodded and returned to their survey of the traffic jam behind us.

  Maria turned the corner, onto the Rue Royale. Martin and I followed her. Strange as it may seem, I had the feeling that this road, although as full of cars as the last one, was somehow different.

  This was the business district.

  I have noticed the same effect in other cities. People's attitudes change when they enter the areas containing banks and big businesses. They usually fall silent, and their pace changes. Someone strolling, as opposed to walking, down the street in the business district is a rare occurrence. The only kind of conversation likely to be heard on the sidewalk would be two or three businessmen walking briskly to their office, whispering about work.

  Although the ever-impressive architecture of the buildings may play a part in this peculiar behaviour, I think we city dwellers may still be, unconsciously, acknowledging the power banks have over our lives. Many banks had their headquarters here, but despite the traffic jam most of them seemed open for business. I suppose their employees came in early to count the money.

  After the last bank, the road widened into a square. In the centre, a large statue stood in front of a stone pedestal. Atop the pedestal and inside a small, stone saucer, burnt a strong flame. This was the memorial to the Unknown Soldier, commemorating the dead of World War II. Maria had said something earlier about Michaux's building being nearby.

  She walked across the square, and entered the first bu
ilding. Naturally, she knew it well, and took us straight to the operations room. After a brief greeting and introduction, she got right down to business. She enumerated the OPA's actions in the city.

  Martin and I were shown to two chairs around a large black desk, where police officers began to join us, sitting down, then looking over at us expectantly. Obviously, we were going to be the centre of attention. I felt a bit nervous at the prospect of talking to what would probably be a very attentive audience.

  In an effort to relax, I examined the table more closely. It was unusually large, even for a conference table, and for some reason it was much closer to the floor than I had expected. Come to think of it, there was something else. I have long legs, and often I find out early where the legs of a table are. Bruises up and down my legs can testify to that. Here, however, although my legs were at full stretch, I had failed to make contact with any obstructions. The surface of the table was covered by a uniformly black sheen, but now that I looked closer, I noticed a small round patch. It was slightly less shiny than the rest of the table.

  Intrigued, I ran a finger over it.

  An area of the table about half a metre square lit up right in front of me. Hiding my surprise as best I could, I leaned back and leisurely placed my hand back on the table. I now realised what I had done. The table was one of the new models of office furniture, and was extremely expensive. Each place around the table had a sunk-in computer console and keyboard. The whole surface was touch sensitive, and my finger had activated the on/off switch, the less shiny round patch.

  By this time, everyone was seated. Michaux wasted no time in wheedling the information he needed from Martin and myself.

  "Hugh, do you have a floor plan of the whole building?" he asked politely. He seemed to be on a first name basis with everyone here.

  "Yes. I'll have to download it from the TMC, though." As I spoke, I looked down at the unfamiliar computer in front of me. The screen was tilted in my direction, quite a feat considering my height. Not only was the screen sunk-in, but it also adjusted itself to the person in the chair. Once I had the floor plan for the backup site on my screen, I looked up.