by Tomas Black
Fern slumped back. She couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing. Alice—Ben’s Alice. “We must warn her—warn Drum.”
Misha shook his head. “It is not Alice I am worried about. It is Sergei. Alice will surely kill him and, if she fails, Drummond will kill him. I need to get to Sergei and stop him. Open his eyes to the lies they have told him. I cannot lose him.”
Fern sat in silence for a while, trying to process this new information. She looked at Misha and could feel his pain. “How did you find out about this?”
“After Omega, I was recruited by MI6. My first assignment was to find Victor—Victor Renkov—and bring him back to face justice.” He laughed. “There is no such thing, but I say yes. After a year, I find him. You know Victor, the little shit always has a way out. He tells me about Sergei. We make a deal to get Sergei assigned to London. I tell London that I cannot find Victor. But then I hear Sergei is working with Ben Drummond on this assignment. I am pleased. I am contacted again by Victor. He tells me of the Russian’s plan for Alice.”
“Wait!” said Fern. “Victor is working for Russian intelligence?”
Misha shook his head. “Victor is a double agent.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Ice Station
The American C-130 touched down with a crunch onto the isolated runway of the NATO airport at Keflavik, Iceland, and came to a halt beside a large hanger reserved for the United States Airforce. The plane had been hastily organised by Marchetti, who had pulled strings with his CIA friends at the American base at Lakenheath, forty minutes north of Cambridge.
Drum unstrapped himself from the hard aluminium seat and stretched. It was five-thirty in the morning and he felt cold, tired and hungry. The last time he’d flown in one of these aircraft he’d been operating in the warmer climes of Afghanistan—on that occasion the plane hadn’t made it. There was a whine at the back of the plane, and the cargo door cracked open and lowered itself to the ground. An icy blast blew into the cabin along with a swirl of snow. He pulled up the fur-trimmed collar of his arctic combat fatigues and gathered up his Bergen.
Mei Ling walked over to him, her long, black hair in sharp contrast to the white frame of her hood. “You alright?” said Mei.
“Yeah, tired,” said Drum.
He looked down the length of the plane and watched as the rest of the team prepared to disembark. They had been kitted out with a variety of white parkas and an assortment of equipment that they might need, courtesy of Uncle Sam. Alice looked tiny in her over-sized parka when compared to Sergei who was helping to lift a small rucksack onto her back. It looked as if the flight had taken its toll. She looked tired and haggard. He had wanted her to stay in Cambridge but she had insisted on coming. Stevie also looked tired. She was only just gathering her things. She seemed to sleepwalk through the entire experience. He would need her in the days to come. He hoped she would be able to keep it together.
“What now?” said Mei.
“Mission briefing,” said Drum, nodding towards the hanger entrance. “We’ll grab breakfast and freshen up first.”
“Good,” she said. “I need to pee.” He smiled as she scooted off towards the hanger.
He walked out onto the cold, black tarmac and breathed in the crisp, clear air. He waited for the others to join him.
“Please tell me that that was the last plane ride,” said Alice, placing her hands on the small of her back and stretching.
“You should have stayed in Cambridge, Alice,” said Sergei.
“He’s right,” said Stevie. “If I had any sense, that's where I should have stayed too.”
“Oh, don’t start,” said Alice. “We’re here now.”
Drum smiled. “Go inside and get some breakfast. I’ll be with you in a minute.”
He waited by the ramp for Marchetti, who had ridden up-front in the cockpit. The cabin door at the front of the plane opened and the man from the CIA strolled out, rubbing his neck.
“Thought that flight would never end,” said Marchetti. “Everyone alright?”
Drum nodded. “They’ll survive. Just tired and hungry.”
“Yeah, hope Alice is alright. She should have stayed in Cambridge.”
Drum smiled. “What about the rest of the team?”
“They arrived yesterday morning,” said Marchetti.
“Good,” said Drum. “Let’s get out of this wind.”
They walked to a side door of the enormous hanger and stepped into its cavernous space. The walls echoed with the buzz of conversation and the squeals from Stevie as she ran up to a tall man in arctic combat fatigues. Drum walked over to the pair, a broad grin on his face.
“Hello, Captain,” said Poacher. He looked down at Stevie, who had wrapped her arms around him. “I see nothing much has changed.”
“Poacher, good to see you man,” said Drum. “Glad you could make it.”
“Glad to be invited. Life on the estate was getting a little tedious.” He looked down at Stevie. “Hello, my lovely. I’ve missed your smile.”
Stevie looked up at the tall man and beamed. “I’m glad you’re here, Poacher.” She turned to Drum. “I’ll help Alice.”
Drum watched her walk over to Alice and Sergei who were queuing at a long table laden with pastries, eggs and bacon.
“There he is,” said Brock, rising from a table. He walked over and gave Drum a hug.
“Get off me, you big lump,” said Drum, wincing in pain and laughing at the same time.
“Oh sorry, I heard you had a run-in with a toy dog.”
“Right,” said Drum. He noticed a man sitting at the end of the table. His face was more lined and craggy than he remembered it and he now sported a full beard, sprinkled with salt and pepper, but it was the same man he had served with over a decade ago. “Hazard! Good to see you, man.”
Tommy McPherson stood and embraced his old comrade. “Good to see you, Captain. I’m glad to be back in action.”
“Let’s all grab some food and I’ll fill you in on what’s going on.”
~~~
They had arranged a long trestle table and a projector screen in one corner of the hanger. The team had spent the short time over breakfast catching up with each other before Marchetti called them to order. They sat with steaming cups of tea and coffee and waited.
“I’ll make a start as soon as my colleague arrives—speak of the devil.”
A door opened at the far end of the hanger and in walked McKay dressed in Army combat fatigues. Drum wasn’t surprised to see his old major. You couldn’t keep McKay away from a fight.
“Morning everyone. Glad you could all make it.” He walked to the front of the group and stood easy, waiting. There was another clang and a thick-set man, older with short, blonde hair, entered the hanger. He was dressed for the cold in a thick woollen jumper, ski pants and sturdy boots.
“Morning,” he said, in a thick Nordic accent. There were no introductions, he simply smiled and sat down at the end of the table.
It was Brock who broke the ice. “We were just asking ourselves, who are we fighting?”
McKay nodded. “I know you must have lots of questions, which is the reason for this briefing. I’ll tell you what I know and others will fill in the rest.” He paused and looked around the table. “I’ve just come from a joint meeting of the security directorate in London. There have been a lot of behind the scenes diplomatic discussions with the various parties affected by this.”
“Affected by what?” asked Poacher.
“Drummond.”
“A rogue computer program,” said Drum. “An advanced AI, supported by a group of Ukrainian hackers, led by a delusional scientist.”
“Well, I’m glad you cleared that up,” said Hazard.
McKay cleared his throat. “Right, right, sounds mad, I know. A few months ago, this program—they call it Tau—was used to compromise the security apparatus of each of the nation-states represented here. The data it stole is extremely sensitive and could destabilise the
relationships between our countries.”
“You’re talking about war?” said Brock.
“Aye. We have agreed that we form a temporary alliance to neutralise the threat.”
“Sounds straightforward,” said Hazard “We blow it up and the rest of the fuckers with it.”
McKay smiled, which was something his men didn’t see very often. “If only it were that easy. Drummond will explain.”
Drum stepped in. “Hazard is right, but we have a problem. The AI we’re talking about is extremely sophisticated. It is very proficient in the art of cyber warfare. So far, it has anticipated our moves against it. And, being a computer program, it could be anywhere on the Internet and exist in multiple copies.”
“We neutralise the scientist,” said Poacher. “We cut off the head of the snake.”
Drum nodded. “That’s an option, but we must also neutralise Tau at the same time. The rest of the group is led by a man called Vashchenko. He is just the muscle but is the chief obstacle between us and Tau. He trained in the military and has recruited a small army of mercenaries. But we are well versed in removing those obstacles.”
It was Alice who saw the conflict of interest. “Assuming you get past Vashchenko’s men and neutralise Tau, what do you propose to do with the data?”
McKay was the first to reply. “The consensus is we destroy it. Each country’s intelligence operative will be present to validate the operation.” He nodded toward Mei Ling, who had retreated to the end of the table. “Mei Ling will represent China and Sergei Russia. Drummond will represent the combined interests of the UK and the US.” He paused. “It will be the job of the combatants to get these people to their objectives.”
“What if one of them doesn’t make it?” asked Poacher. There was silence. “Sorry, but I had to ask.”
“It comes down to trust,” said Drum. “We will all have to trust that we do the right thing, otherwise this will not work.”
“What resources do we have?” asked Brock.
McKay and Marchetti exchanged glances. It was Marchetti who spoke. “Officially, you don’t exist.”
“A black-ops,” said Brock.
Drum attempted to explain. “Tau has threatened to release the data from each of its hacks into the public domain unless governments provide it with amnesty and cease all hostilities against it. Officially, each government has agreed to those terms. Also, Tau has almost certainly compromised the security of our intelligence organisations, including our operational and communication protocols. We can no longer trust what’s coming out of our command-and-control centres.”
A murmur ran through the room. “Who do we trust then?” said Brock.
“Just the people in this room,” said Marchetti.
Sergei, who had been silent until now, finally spoke up. “This is all pointless. We still don’t know if Tau is at this location—wherever this is.”
“I can help with that,” said Drum. “Before we left Cambridge, Mei Ling and I were able to confirm that Tau was no longer at the Cambridge location. More importantly, it hadn’t been transferred to the array.”
“What array?” asked Alice.
“We may have a small window of opportunity to tie Tau down to a specific location,” said Drum. “Before fleeing the country, Professor Kovac—our mad scientist—was preparing to transfer his creation to a hardware device called an ‘array.’ Physically, it’s a sphere, one metre in diameter, designed to run Tau a hundred times faster. He didn’t take the array from the Cambridge data centre, so he must have another one somewhere. We believe it is located here in Iceland at the geolocation provided by Jane.”
“Er, I must have missed something,” said Brock. “Who’s Jane?”
Drum placed his phone on the table. “Hello, Jane.”
“Hello, Ben,” said Jane.
Everyone looked at Drum. “Who’s that?” said Poacher. “And can I have one?”
“This is Jane,” said Drum. “It is an advanced AI working for Marco Salenko and now working for us. We share a common goal.” He paused. “Jane, what is your primary goal?”
“To destroy the program called Tau,” said Jane without hesitation.
“Please report,” said Drum.
There was a pause and then Jane continued.
“I have been successful in uploading my full program to a host server on the network at the geolocation provided earlier. Contact has been lost with my program on the Salenko Cambridge network. I assume this copy has been discovered and destroyed.”
“Is Tau still present at your location?” asked Drum.
There was a slight pause. “Yes, Tau agents are present on the network and are continuing to scan for unauthorised activity. I have successfully repelled several probes of my host server, but I estimate only a seventy-five per cent probability of remaining undetected.”
“What of the main Tau program?” asked Mei.
“Hello, Mei Ling,” said Jane.
“It’s very polite,” said Brock.
“Hold on,” said McKay, “let it finish its report.”
“Thank you, Major.” There was another brief pause before Jane continued. “I can confirm that the Tau main program is resident on the network and I have identified the host device. I can confirm that Tau agent Kovac is preparing to transfer Tau to its APU.”
“What’s an APU?” asked Brock.
“The Augmented Processing Unit that you call the array,” said Jane. “Once transferred, Tau’s processing capability will far exceed my own.”
“Is Jeremy there?” said Stevie.
“I have contacted Jeremy Burnett. He is well and helping Tau agent Kovac prepare the APU. He is trying to delay the transfer.”
“We have a man on the inside?” said Poacher.
“He’s being held captive,” said Drum. “It’s important we get him out.” Drum had a thought. “Jane, do you have access to internal surveillance?”
“Yes. I am monitoring all video and audio channels, including infrared and motion sensors.”
“How big a force?” asked McKay.
There was a long pause. “I have identified fifteen combatants, but MSUs have been detected.”
Drum subconsciously felt his ribs. “How many?”
“I have detected five units.”
“What’s an MSU?” asked Poacher.
“Kovac’s robotic dogs,” said Drum.
“They are almost unstoppable,” said Sergei.
Jane interrupted. “They have detected this channel. I must cease communication. Ensure all personnel are carrying my mobile agent prior to infiltration.” The call ended.
A buzz of conversation filled the hanger. McKay raised his hand. “Settle down, people. Questions?”
“Let’s start with the easy ones,” said Brock. “Location, terrain, infiltration.”
“Good,” said McKay, happy to be on familiar ground. “I’ll leave the location details to Magnús Jónsson of the Icelandic Security Force.”
The man with the blonde hair rose and faced his audience. He looked relaxed. “Dim the lights, I think,” he said.
The lights lowered and Magnús took out his phone. He swiped at the screen and a projector behind them lit up to display an image of Magnús standing at the edge of a glacier, kitted out in snow gear and sunglasses, holding an ice axe.
“This is Drangajökull, a glacier in the northwestern peninsula of Iceland. It sits at a low altitude of just a thousand metres above sea level. Not really on the tourist trail, I think, and difficult to cross—but possible with the right guide.” He flicked through several slides of rutted gully’s of ice and snow beside deep crevasses, a low sun flaring in the camera's lens. A row of men and women in snow gear were posing beside it, all roped together holding ice axes and smiling. He flicked up another photo of a dome-shaped structure on the edge of the glacier at a lower elevation, sitting on a flat rocky outcrop. “This is the ice station, southwest of Hornstrandir, an uninhabited nature reserve in the Westfjords. It was
built to study the movement and geology of the glacier and to act as a kind of educational facility. It was abandoned over ten years ago and was recently bought by a foreign consortium as part of an environmental initiative to study global warming—or so they claim.”
“What was the issue?” asked Drum.
Jónsson brought up another photo of a building with several large steam vents further down in the valley. “This is a private geothermal station that the owners of the site drilled to supply power. The local Icelandic administration was not happy when this structure was proposed and initially denied the application. But ...”
“Money talks,” said Drum.
“Precisely,” said Jónsson. “Local people are still not happy with the plant. It is not in keeping with the location, which is deemed a site of scientific interest.”
“How much power does that plant supply?” asked Drum.
“We estimate over several megawatts—enough for a small town—at least in Iceland.” He seemed amused by his own joke.
“What’s our way in?” asked Drum.
Jónsson brought up a map view of the area. “Frontal assault would be very difficult,” he looked around the room, “and costly. You don’t have enough people.” He zoomed in on one of the many fjords penetrating the rugged coastline. “This area is the most promising for a landing in the Westfjords. I took a party there a few years ago. The farms there have been abandoned.” He pointed to a series of rocky steps ascending to the white cap of the glacier. “This ridge is not hard to climb and brings us to the top of the glacier. From there we travel a few kilometres to the rear of the escarpment where the station is located.”
“How difficult is it to cross the ice in this weather?” asked Poacher.
“Possible—but dangerous. I hope you all have a head for heights!” he gave a hearty laugh.
“Great!” said Brock. “That’s all I need.”
“Have you ever been inside the building?” asked Drum, hoping that Jónsson could describe the lie of the land.
Jónsson nodded. “A few years ago. I understand from people in the area that extensive work has been undertaken at the site—almost exclusively by private contractors. But before the work, there was a large area underground that was used to store the ice cores taken from the glacier. A tunnel was used to ease access onto the surface.”
