“What?”
“I have a confession. On video.”
West frowned. She couldn’t help but remember the person in front of her as a young boy, terrified and charming – in truth he didn’t look too different even now. But she knew that, charming as he may be, he was now a serious criminal, who had killed an innocent man. “You want to confess? You can say it now, we can videotape it later on.” Both would be admissible.
“No. It’s not mine. I didn’t do it.”
West hesitated, long enough that Black spoke up. “In that case you can tell us at the station. We’ve got a ton of evidence says you did.” He tried to get Billy to move, but Wheatley resisted, and in the small cabin was able to do so against the much stronger man.
“Please Jess, I need to show you here. It’s vital.”
She hesitated again, fearing a trick. But she looked at the pair of them. The girl looked terrified, and both were handcuffed.
“Check them for weapons. Both of them.” She ordered, and she watched and waited while Black did so, keeping her gun ready in case either of them tried anything. They didn’t, and neither were armed.
“OK. What do you want to show me?”
Slowly, keeping his eyes on West, but her face rather than the gun, Billy sat down behind the computer. He was able to type, even with the cuffs on, and a few seconds later he pointed to the screen. A video file was ready to play. It showed a still of a young man – she didn’t recognize who – sitting in what looked like an interview room in a police station. There was another man opposite him, you could tell he was older, even though only the back of this head was visible. A tape deck sat on the table.
“What is this?” Black asked, then added. “What the hell?”
“Can I?” Billy asked, his hand hovering over the play button.
“Yeah.”
He pressed play, and the recording began. The camera must have been fixed somewhere high up on the wall. It didn’t move as the older man asked the name of the younger man. He gave it as James Richards.
“You know why you’re here?” the older man asked.
“Yes. I want to confess to the murder of Keith Waterhouse, and to all the bombings of the Fonchem Chemical company.” The younger man, James Richards, spoke clearly and calmly. Then he scratched his head.
“How did it happen?” There was something familiar to West about the older man’s voice, but she couldn’t focus on it right now.
“I set up my friend, Billy Wheatley. I made it look like he did it. I set up the whole thing to make him look guilty. But now I want to confess. Billy didn’t do anything. I killed that man. I set the bomb.”
Up to that point the video tape had looked completely real, but at that moment something odd happened. It seemed to freeze – but only part of it. The part of the screen showing the older man, asking the questions, continued to run as normal. And then he turned slightly, so his face was visible for the first time. And then suddenly he spoke again. And the whole thing went totally weird.
“Houston, we have a problem.”
“What the fuck?” Black said. “Is that Tom Hanks?”
Chapter Sixty
“Yeah. I didn’t have time to finish that part.”
There was silence in the little cabin, so Billy tried explaining again.
“I borrowed the clip from that movie. Apollo 13. I’ve always liked that movie.”
It was clear that no one was following him, though Amber seemed to be the closest to understanding.
“You got him saying that?” She cut in now, apparently forgetting she was under arrest, and moving to Billy’s side. “You got him confessing? But where is he? It looks like he’s in a police cell.”
“More like an interview room,” West interrupted now. “What is this Billy? What are you showing us?” Everyone turned to Billy, and he waited a few seconds before trying to explain again.
“It’s a confession by James Richards. He and a man called Oscar Magnuson planted the bomb that killed the security guard. They made it look like I did it, to frame me.”
“But how did you get this confession?” West went on. “And where is it? And what the hell’s that at the end?”
“I didn’t get it. I made it.”
“I don’t understand.” West said.
“Nor do I,” Black added, in case anyone was in doubt.
“That’s why I need to explain. Here. Before you take me away, so I can show you?”
The two agents looked at each other, both assessing the risk. Any interview done with a suspect was far better carried out in a controlled environment, but at the same time, it wasn’t uncommon for suspects to clam right up once they got to an interview room. Furthermore, this one had just shown them a tape of another guy confessing to the crime they’d just arrested him for. This didn’t fit easily into the scenarios they’d been trained on. West nodded.
“OK.” Black said. “But the cuffs stay on. And you make one move out of turn – either of you – and this stops. Whatever the hell it is. We take you away and do this by the book. You got it?”
“Yes.” Billy replied. Amber said nothing, her round eyes indicating to West that she was just as confused by this as she was.
Billy began by telling them the whole story. How he’d met James Richards and Oscar Magnuson along with Lily Bellafonte – whose family founded and still held a controlling share in the Fonchem chemical company. And how Richards had approached him regarding the site’s planned extension, and Billy’s opposition to it.
“You probably saw I was running a campaign against Fonchem,” Billy said. “A poster campaign, mostly, about the sea-dragons.”
“Yeah. We saw. Go on.” Black told him.
He told them about the photographs of the dead sea-dragons that he’d been sent, and the plan to fly the drone over the site to search for the telltale heat signatures of chemical leaks. How they had come to the island, Billy renting a car and booking the ferry under an assumed name. He explained how the drone had not worked properly in the snow, and how he’d discovered James and Oscar had cut a hole in the fence, and how he’d felt pressured to go inside and attempt to find the leak on foot. And then how the next thing he knew there was an explosion, and James and Oscar had disappeared.
The two agents listened, mostly in silence, with occasional questions when Billy skipped past details. He got to the part where he was installed in the boat, knowing the world believed him to be dead.
“Dad was bringing me food, and fuel for the generator, until you bugged his truck.”
“You knew about that..? How the…?”
“I have a sweeping device. I told Dad to use it every day. So after that he had to take the fuel to the caves at Moors point, and I kayaked down to get it. It was nice to get the exercise actually.” Billy turned to Amber.
“It’s my kayak, not the one I borrowed before.”
The agents exchanged confused glances, which grew deeper when Amber replied.
“What about the…” Amber glanced at the agents, as if unable to work out if there was anything she shouldn’t be saying, but she gave up. “You had cameras set up in the road, why didn’t you see these guys coming?”
“I had to take the cams. I needed the processing power for the video.”
West took the opportunity to bring the conversation back to the video. “What is the video? Where is it filmed? And how did you get it?”
Everyone turned back to Billy again.
“I didn’t get it. I made it.”
“What do you mean, you made it?”
“I made it. Look.” Billy turned back to the computer, pulling up a box where he was able to type. He thought for a moment, then turned to Agent Black.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“You what?”
“What’s your name? And what’s your… what’s your favorite food?”
“Huh?”
“Just tell him Don,” West said, impatient to see what Billy was doing. Black replie
d this time, somewhat chastened.
“Agent Don Black. I like – Jesus I don’t know. I like ice-cream.”
At once Billy’s fingers moved rapidly on the keyboard, and a second later the box was gone, replaced by a front-facing image of the same younger man, the one Billy had called James Richards. Billy hesitated before hitting play though.
“Go on,” West told him.
The voice came from the computer’s speakers, the young man’s lips in perfect time to it. It looked completely real.
“My name is agent Don Black. I like ice-cream. Strawberry flavor is my favorite.”
“I made that bit up,” Billy added into the silence that followed.
“What the hell is that?” Black was the first to respond. “How’d you do that?”
“I used a type of neural network called an autoencoder. It reduces an image into a lower-dimensional latent space, and then reconstructs that image from the latent representation. But the latent representation contains key features about things like facial features and body posture taken from other sources. That’s then superimposed on the underlying facial and body features of the original video, represented in the latent space.”
No one spoke for a long while after Billy finished his explanation. Then Black found his voice.
“You wanna run that by me one more time? In English maybe?”
Billy took a breath. “Most people call it deep faking. I’ve built a computer model of what James Richards looks like, or would look like if he were sitting in that room. And now I can feed in any words I like, and make it look like he’s actually saying them.”
Another silence, while the other made sense of this. Black was the first to respond.
“And Tom Hanks? What’s he doing there?”
“Well I haven’t quite finished. We had to bug his house – James’ house, not Tom’s – and hack his social media and stuff, to get images and audio to feed into the model. But I had to practice first, so I used Tom Hanks. There’s tons of footage of him online, in films and interviews and stuff.”
Black stared, still not understanding. West was the next to speak.
“I’ve heard of deep fakes.” Her voice was slow and thoughtful. “But what you’re saying is this James Richards, he didn’t confess after all, you’ve just made a fake video of him confessing. To convince us you were innocent?”
“Yes. Only I didn’t do it to convince you. I wouldn’t have explained it all if I had.”
“So why did you do it?”
“It’s the only way I can get out of this. But I’m also going to need your help.” Billy stared at West, and for a long time she was silent. Only Agent Black still wasn’t getting it.
“So this kid, James, he didn’t confess?” Black said. “He didn’t do it?”
Patiently Billy turned to him. “He did do it, but he set up fake evidence to make it look like I did it. And he’ll never confess to it. So you have a choice. You can either put me in jail for something I didn’t do. Or you can catch him.”
Chapter Sixty-One
“I’ll have the veal,” Oscar said, speaking sharply to the waitress but not bothering to look at her. He held out the menu for her to remove, and looked around at his friends. Jennifer was sitting next to Lily, who was next to James. Eric was there, but he was fine – the grit in the oyster that produced the pearl. With a dash of irritation he noticed the serving girl was still there.
“What is it?”
“I’m sorry sir, I said the kitchen has run out of veal.”
“Run out of veal? What is this..?” He couldn’t think of a suitably caustic analogy, so instead he snatched the menu back and looked over the options again.
“Then gimme the fillet steak. I assume you’ve got some of that?”
“Yes sir. How would you like it?”
“How about properly cooked?” Oscar offered her a sneer, then handed her the menu a second time and leaned forward, cutting her off from the exchange. He poured himself some more wine, muttering under his breath. Jennifer watched him coolly the entire time, and he knew she liked it, delighted in it. And he liked that.
“Should be fresh snow by the weekend.” It was James speaking, one of his arms draped casually around the shoulder of Lily. “Anyone up for the slopes?”
“I’m in,” Jennifer said, and she glanced at Oscar. Lily’s family were members of the Hamilton Club, a private ski resort up in Vermont, owning a large lodge there. The five of them had been many times, and Jennifer was a big fan.
“Sure.” Oscar smiled. But as he did so his eye was taken by a couple entering the restaurant, and speaking to the maître d. There was something about their manner that looked wrong. They wore suits, but not the kind you put on to eat here. And they were too assertive, they didn’t have the relaxed way of diners. When the three of them – the couple and the maître d – looked repeatedly over to their table, Oscar knew. He allowed himself a deep breath, but still pretended not to notice as they walked closer.
“Excuse me sir,” the maître d tried to say, but the woman cut him off, flashing a silver badge in a black leather wallet.
“Oscar Magnuson? James Richards? My name is Special Agent Jessica West of the FBI and this is my partner Agent Black. Do you mind if we have a quick word?”
James stiffened in his place, but Oscar remained quite calm.
“What about?”
The female agent – West – turned to speak directly to Oscar, she let her eyes flash to the other diners at the table. “It might be better if we speak in private sir.”
“Why? I don’t have anything to hide. What’s this about?”
The agent hesitated a second longer. “As you wish. I see you’re dining with Lily Bellafonte tonight. You’re aware no doubt of the young man who was accused of bombing her family’s business premises? One Billy Wheatley?”
“The environmental nutjob? Who killed himself? Jumped off the ferry?”
“Perhaps. Only it turns out he didn’t kill himself after all. He’s been apprehended.”
A ripple ran around the table, shared by Oscar. So that’s what this was about. Internally, Oscar smiled, excited about what was to come. On the outside his face appeared to show completely authentic shock. He lifted a hand to cover his jaw.
“Oh my.” He glanced at Lily, and noticed James did the same, offering her a sad smile. This was going to be hard on her. Then Oscar turned back to the agent.
“It’s good of you to let us know.” He tried a dismissive smile, then turned away.
“We’re not here to let you know. We’d like to ask you some questions.”
Oscar turned back, feeling the beginnings of anger. “What about? It’s nothing to do with us.”
“I’m afraid Mr Wheatley has accused you and Mr Richards of being involved in the bombings.” West didn’t take much care to say it quietly, and the entire table fell silent, while the diners on other nearby tables were also now clearly watching. That pissed Oscar off. What fucking right did this bitch have? What the fuck was she playing at? But he suppressed the anger. Suddenly he burst out into laughter.
“He’s accused us? Oh wow, that’s a good one!” Oscar turned to James again, reassuring him with the glance and encouraging him to play along. They were always expecting this, there was nothing to worry about.
“Well that’s preposterous. Completely ridiculous.” Oscar stopped laughing now. But West didn’t reply.
“You can’t possibly be taking this seriously? The testimony of that murdering little jerk? Who faked his own death?”
“Just a few questions sir.”
“What here?” Oscar looked around at the restaurant.
“We have an interview room at the bureau offices. Two interview rooms.” West looked up at James, then fell silent. Oscar broke the quiet.
“And this can’t possibly wait? This nonsense, until we’ve had our dinner?”
“It won’t take long to clear up, Mr Magnuson.”
Oscar glanced at James, givi
ng him a tiny nod that no one else caught, then he shook his head as if in disbelief. Then he removed his napkin and pushed his chair out.
As he got up from the table, Oscar caught the eye of Jennifer. She gave him the tiniest nod of her own, reassuring him this was nothing to worry about.
“What did you say your name was?” he asked the female agent, and when she repeated her name he added.
“I think you’re going to regret the way you’ve approached this, Agent West.”
Outside the restaurant he and James were put into the back of separate unmarked cars, his driven by another woman who didn’t introduce herself. The other agent, Black, got into the passenger seat. Then they drove. No one spoke to him on the way, but he asked where they were going.
“FBI regional headquarters.” Agent Black replied without turning around. When they arrived Oscar was led inside via a back entrance, and along several corridors until they came to an interview room. Here Oscar realized that Agent Black had gone, and only the woman was there.
“We’ll be with you just as soon as we can. Would you like a cup of coffee?”
“I’d like my dinner.”
The woman left the room.
Just as soon as they can turned out to be a long time. The woman returned to check up on him after thirty minutes, and when he protested that he hadn’t been dragged out of his dinner to sit and wait for nothing, she promised she would ask Agent Black to speak to him directly. He came another ten minutes later.
“What the hell is this? What am I doing here?”
“We told you Mr Magnuson. Mr Wheatley has made certain accusations against you and your friend James Richards. We have to follow them up.”
“Then why aren’t you? Why are you just holding me here?”
“We’re not holding you here, you’re waiting. We’re speaking first to Mr Richards, when we’re done there we’ll get to you.”
“So I can leave?”
Agent Black got up from where he was sitting and opened the door. “You’re free to go anytime.” He sighed deeply, as Oscar began to rise from his chair. “But we would appreciate it if you could hold on just a little longer. Believe me, we want to get this cleared up just as much as you do.”
The Island of Dragons (Rockpools Book 4) Page 29
