by Sarah Sky
Christine nodded over her shoulder at members of her dressmaking team who lingered nearby; they were far younger and sported various piercings. “We spent six weeks, working day and night, to stitch all the Swarovski crystals on to it. Then we had the LED lights to deal with, which was quite tricky and time-consuming.”
“You’ve done a fantastic job.”
“Thanks. Luckily, I’ve got top-class backup. We’ve been together for years, working for different designers. We came on board for Ossa’s graduation collection and have stayed ever since. He was demanding even as a student back then. You wouldn’t believe some of his requests, but we haven’t failed him yet. No one ever wants to let him down.”
“And I’m sure you never will, Chrissy.” Ossa straightened his grey waistcoat as he approached. “She’s my rock, Jessica. I couldn’t have launched any of my collections without her. Anything I ask, she and her team can do it just like that.” He clicked his fingers. “Nothing is beyond her, including this digital technology, which would have thrown most dressmakers. The idea came to me in a dream – a dress that would light up the world – and Chrissy turned it into a reality.”
“I guess your fairy godmother’s in line for a nice big pay rise.” Christine winked at Jessica and pushed a row of thick gold bangles up her arm. “I’ve been a dressmaker since I left school and have never been asked to do something as crazy as this before. But when Ossa asks, we all jump as high as we can.”
Ossa blew her a kiss. “Chrissy goes above and beyond anyone I’ve ever known. Not only does she bring my designs to life, she juggles my diary, helps me with model castings, calms me down when I’m close to losing it and generally keeps me sane.”
“Well, that’s going a bit far.” Christine hooted with laughter. “I don’t think even I can make you completely sane, and I’m not sure anyone can stop you from losing your temper at least three times a day.”
Ossa wagged a finger at her. “Now, now.”
Jessica smiled as the pair walked away, still ribbing each other.
Bryn clapped his hands. “OK, people. Let’s get this in the bag. We’ve still got the water shoot to go.” He tapped his foot impatiently as stylists dispersed and the crew made last-minute adjustments to the lighting.
“Great. That’s beautiful. Now stare directly into the camera, Jessica, and look serene.”
She cupped her face in her hands, trying to ignore the raised voices in the background. It was hard to appear composed when a screaming match had erupted on set a few minutes ago. Who was having an almighty meltdown? It was really unprofessional.
“Keep it down back there!” Bryn yelled over his shoulder.
Jessica caught a glimpse of Ossa jabbing a finger in Christine’s face. The photographer didn’t care that the designer was at the heart of the altercation.
“For God’s sake, we’ve got work to do,” Bryn shouted. “Take it outside!”
An assistant cranked up the volume on the iPod before Ossa stormed off the set with a face as black as thunder. Jessica looked directly into the camera again. Why was he having a go at Christine? Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the dressmaker dab at her eyes with a tissue. After a couple of seconds, she disappeared out of sight. Jessica could still hear them arguing faintly in the background as the Ellie Goulding song faded out. Christine had admitted that the designer was demanding to work for and found it hard to keep his cool. That obviously wasn’t an exaggeration.
But why was Ossa treating his “rock” so badly?
Half an hour later, the cover shoot had wrapped and it was apparent why Ossa and Christine were at each other’s throats. The wrong gowns had been brought for the water set and Ossa was spitting blood. He’d hand-picked a deep crimson number and a midnight blue dress for Jessica to wear as she dived on to a wet Mylar sheet. Instead, Christine had picked up two very similar dresses, with slightly different hem lengths and necklines.
“It’ll look virtually the same in the water shots,” Christine insisted as Jessica emerged from the changing area, wearing the midnight blue gown.
“Virtually isn’t good enough for me,” Ossa said through gritted teeth. “I’ll know the dresses are different. I don’t know how you could be so careless. I put the correct dresses on the rails.”
“Then someone else must have come along and swapped them,” Christine shot back.
“That’s impossible! Why would someone deliberately swap the dresses?”
“Enough!” Bryn said, holding up his hand. “We’ve gone over this a hundred times. I’m happy with the outfits. We’ve only got the warehouse for a few more hours, so I suggest we all get on with this. Right, Jessica?”
She nodded. To be perfectly honest, she couldn’t understand why Ossa was kicking up such a fuss. He was behaving like a small child. Hadn’t he noticed there were slightly more important things to worry about at the moment? MI6 had managed to keep the name of The Collective out of the news, but every bulletin carried stories about cashpoints ejecting money, planes being grounded due to technical faults and trains being derailed across the country after signal failures. Looting and even rioting were happening a few miles from here.
A man helped her up the steps on to a giant glass runway that stretched across the warehouse. Water sloshed across the mat, doused by a rubber hosepipe. Bryn was shooting from beneath, enabling him to capture interesting water patterns.
“I need you to run and dive gracefully,” the photographer shouted. “No crash landings, please.”
“OK, here goes,” she called back.
She took a deep breath, ran and dived head first. The icy cold water almost took her breath away as she whizzed along the mat. This took her mind off things. The last time she’d done anything remotely similar, she was five years old and playing with a friend on a water slide in her back garden.
WHOOOOAAA! This was way faster and cooler.
“I’m back!” Jessica hollered as she let herself in the front door. She threw her handbag on the floor.
“I’m in here,” her dad replied. “Good shoot?”
She pushed open the study door and walked in. Her dad sat at his desk, squinting at the computer screen.
“Yeah. The water was freezing, but I’m just about defrosted now. Is everything OK?” She looked over his shoulder.
“My account’s working normally and no money’s missing. You should be able to use the credit card again.”
“That’s good news. The money’s miraculously appeared on my Oyster card too. I tested it at an Underground station. Pity the tubes still aren’t working.”
“You got a taxi back, right? I don’t want you walking around London when it’s so risky. There were reports of more rioting on the news.”
“Yeah, of course I got a taxi. Like any buses are running today.”
“Have you told Nathan that we’ve probably been hacked?”
Jessica shook her head. “I haven’t had a chance. Anyway, like you said, everything’s back to normal now. I doubt MI6 would have time to investigate something as minor as this, particularly since it happened before the launch of the midday hacking competition.”
Her dad frowned. “I know it seems insignificant compared to everything else that’s going on, but you should definitely record it. We don’t know if anyone else at MI6 has been personally affected. You could be the only one.”
“You’re right. I’ll let Nathan know tomorrow. There’s no point trying to get hold of him now. He’s got his hands full.”
“Make sure you tell him.” He stood up, using his walking stick, and limped to the door. “Are you hungry? Do you want a toasted sandwich?”
“Yes, please. Can I use your computer?” Her dad kept his main computer in a hidden underground bunker, accessed via the bookcase. But for day-to-day stuff, he logged on in his study.
“Sure.”
She slid
into his chair and checked her emails. They seemed OK. She hadn’t received any spam messages, which could be a sign that the hacker was attempting to take over her account. Twitter was still down, but Instagram and Facebook had started to work again a short time ago.
What about MI6? Had Sam managed to protect the firewalls? She logged in via a remote account and her protected PIN. She only had very limited access, but she might be able to see if the missing agents had made it to safe houses.
Blast.
Her inbox was empty. Nathan clearly didn’t have time to give updates in the run-up to the release of the next undercover agent’s name at three p.m.; plus it was probably beyond her security clearance. She shouldn’t have been inside the comms centre when the hacking began; it was doubtful anyone else from Westwood had gained a glimpse of that hidden world.
She tried to navigate away from her home page. Six months ago, Nathan had given her a temporary password for the MI6 computer system when she was working with him in Monaco, trying to bring down a double agent called Margaret Becker. They both suspected Margaret had tampered with the helicopter that killed her mum on the orders of a notorious terrorist called Vectra. Jessica had done a secret search on “Sargasso” but it had produced nothing back then. She didn’t have the clearance to search for sensitive files in more secure areas of the MI6 site. Shortly after Jessica had helped Nathan apprehend Margaret, he’d restricted her access to the computer system again.
A box flashed up, requesting a PIN again. Jessica re-entered the sequence of numbers. She opened another screen and clicked on to YouTube to check out the latest video from The Vamps while she waited for it to load. Once the clip had finished, she switched back to MI6. Ohmigod. She was in. She clicked and clicked again, navigating fully around the site. She had full, unrestricted access. This must be a mistake. Nathan would never have given her the OK to look at confidential files without supervision, probably not even back then.
What was going on?
Had MI6 experienced a security lapse while it repaired its firewalls? Sam could have temporarily changed agents’ clearance levels as he rebooted the system. Or had The Collective hacked in again and deliberately widened her access, along with other members of Westwood? It could be a ruse to introduce another virus into the system if she called up confidential files.
What should she do? Sam could notice the security glitch and terminate her access within minutes. Her head was telling her to exit the site right away and ring Nathan on a secure line. But her heart was telling her something different. She would never have another chance like this to find out what files MI6 had gathered on Sargasso. Kat wasn’t likely to cough up anything useful soon – she was deliberately withholding info as a bargaining chip. She’d said she might want a favour one day and wouldn’t reveal more details until then.
Jessica glanced at the door. Her dad was banging around in the kitchen. She had to do this. If she noticed anything seriously wrong, she’d shut down immediately. Heart beating rapidly, she typed “Sargasso” into the file headers and pressed return. One file flashed up marked “Confidential: Restricted Access”. Clicking it open revealed dozens of documents. She pulled up the first one. It was a scrambled mess of digits and letters; it had to be written in some kind of code. The second one was similarly encrypted.
She sank back in the chair as she opened the third file. A passport-style photo of her mum stared back, alongside a separate pic of a dark-haired man with glasses and a beard. He was an ex-KGB agent called Sergei Chekhova who had died in a car crash in the Ukraine. Her mum’s entry was under her maiden name, Lily Matilda Farr. Both deaths were marked as suspicious.
“Here you go.” Her dad kicked open the door, balancing a plate while gripping his walking stick. “Didn’t you hear me hollering?”
“I’m sorry.” She jumped guiltily and attempted to flick back to YouTube, but the computer was frozen. She wiggled the mouse about, unable to minimize the screen or pull it down.
Her dad put the plate down next to the keyboard and froze as he glanced at the screen.
“How did you get that man’s photo?”
“You know him?”
“I used to. He was a Russian agent your mother had dealings with. She always said he was her best post–Cold War source, but he went missing.”
“According to this file, he died six months after Mum in a car accident. Their deaths must be connected somehow. They’re both marked as suspicious and kept in the same MI6 file.”
“Sargasso,” her dad said, reading the name on the screen.
“Does that mean anything to you?”
He shook his head. “Should it? What’s going on?”
She quickly recounted the barest of details – that the organization was somehow linked to her mum’s death as well as Sergei’s, leaving out the fact that the tip had come from Kat.
“You know this how exactly?” her dad persisted.
Jessica bit her nail. Kat had warned her that if she breathed a word about Sargasso to anyone else she’d destroy the file she’d found on the subject. She hadn’t been in a position to argue back – Kat had blackmailed her into keeping quiet about a series of thefts she’d carried out using an invisibility cloak in return for the little info she’d provided on the subject.
“I can’t say who told me, but I believe them.”
“So Nathan’s allowed you to trawl through MI6 files based on a tip-off from a source?” he said sharply.
Jessica flushed. “Well, not exactly. I was checking my MI6 account and found that I could get in, well, you know, deeper than before.”
Her dad’s jaw dropped. “You mean you have total access to the MI6 computer system?”
She bit her lip, nodding.
“Are you mad? Turn off the computer. Log out.”
“It’s frozen.”
“I can’t believe you’d do something as stupid as this. It could be a trap, set by The Collective. If they hacked you yesterday, they could already know that you’re working for MI6. They might want you inside the system. Can’t you see that? They could be launching another hack on the back of this.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
He banged the mouse up and down and tried to log out. “Aaagh!”
He reached down and pulled out the power socket. The computer screen flickered off.
“Do you have any idea what kind of trouble you’ll be in if this little stunt is traced back to you?”
Tears pricked Jessica’s eyes. “I have to find out what happened to Mum. I can’t live with the uncertainty any longer. I want to find out if Vectra definitely ordered the hit and if Margaret sabotaged the helicopter. Don’t you?”
“Not at the expense of you getting hurt,” he said quietly. “If MI6 finds out you’ve somehow assisted the hacker, Nathan and I won’t be able to protect you. You’ll be thrown out of Westwood and possibly face criminal charges.”
“Seriously?” Nathan snarled. “You want to do this now?”
Jessica fiddled with her earpiece as she hid in shadows at the rear of the International High School in West Kensington. Nathan had temporarily blocked Sasha, Natalia and Bree from the comms to enable the two of them to speak in private. Her dad had warned her not to make accusations about a colleague, but she had to finally speak up. A Moscow-based academic, Andrew Docherty, had been outed on a news website as an MI6 operative hours earlier on Sunday afternoon and was now in hiding, along with his family. She couldn’t let Westwood jeopardize this dawn raid on a high-ranking member of The Collective due to Bree’s involvement in the mission. This was the only solid lead they had.
“I’m telling you, it’s a mistake to allow Bree to take charge on the ground,” she said, staring at her icy puffs of breath. “I don’t trust her.”
Nathan sighed with exasperation. “Is this because of the Shard job?”
“I don’t have any proof,
but I think she could have been involved.”
“We rigorously checked all the girls, particularly Bree, after she froze that night. They’re clean, understand? You can trust them. They had nothing to do with the seizure of the USB device or the attack on you. We’re sure of it, so let’s move on.”
Jessica kicked a stone. How did Nathan know for sure that Bree wasn’t a double agent? He didn’t sound like he was going to budge; she had to try another tack. “What happens if Bree freezes tonight when we get inside?”
Or if she betrays me and raises the alarm, she wanted to add.
Nathan fell silent. “Fine. Change of plan. You and Natalia will go in, Bree and Sasha will keep guard at the front. Happy now?”
No. Natalia was inexperienced and hadn’t exactly shone at the Shard either. She certainly hadn’t backed up Jessica and had sided with Bree during that debacle. But this line-up was better than the alternative – having to rely directly on Bree for such a high-risk mission. She listened as Nathan moved the other Westwood girls into position around the perimeter. Pulling her black woollen hat further down over her ears, she leant against the wall and stamped her feet to keep warm.
MI6 had worked fast. The hacks on all the prisons across the UK, the traffic-light systems and the emergency service comms had been traced back here, to the most exclusive boarding school in London, where seriously rich expats, diplomats and some of the most powerful people in the world sent their children. They even had the laptop’s exact location thanks to a trace on the IP address – room 59 in Highfield Boarding House, which was occupied by a seventeen-year-old sixth former, Henry Murray.
Henry was the only son of a Canadian diplomat. He was also spoilt, uber-bright and believed to be one of the most prolific and audacious hackers the country had seen since Lee Caplin, according to the hastily prepared MI6 file. A number of other male teenage hackers across the country had also been identified in the last few hours, but Henry was being red-flagged. Over the last nine months he’d been in regular correspondence with LibertyCrossing, the mysterious person who’d set up the hacking websites and issued the code word, “Bluebird”, initiating all the cyberattacks on Saturday. With any luck, Henry could lead them directly to this shadowy leader of The Collective, who was coordinating havoc across the country.
