by Tim Heath
“What is the hype?” Zoe said, having missed that whole side of things up until now.
“That with this device you can literally carve out a future from nothing. That what happens in your life, is really open for you to decide. Hence the uDecide marketing. It’s nothing but a sound bite.”
“And this is what’s driving up the share price?” she said.
“Rumours are a powerful thing, especially when they are referring to something they can’t actually use.”
“Where do we stand on the legal case?” Zoe said, turning once again to Charlie.
“The Home Office has been in a deadlock with the Russians for days now. The Russians are insistent that a death penalty sentence is to be added to the ticket if found guilty. That wasn’t the deal when Bill was released to them, but then it wasn’t really on the cards, so nothing got put in writing. The British have no access to the prisoner now, and the trial starts next week.”
“Already? That’s fast.”
“Yes, the evidence is rather damning though, as we’ve all seen,” Charlie said. He’d become resigned to the fact that there was no real hope for Bill now. He just hoped that Bill would cope under extensive examination.
“Does he stand a chance at a real defence?” Zoe said.
“I hate to speculate, but unless he’s going to change his story and come up with something substantial, I don’t see what chance he really has. I mean, we’ve seen the photos and the forensics. It’s a solid case to press for murder, though to make it a crime of treason doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. It’s as if the Russians just want to live up to the negative publicity it will attract, as if Putin himself doesn’t care that his country will be accused of being a bunch of barbarians, especially by the Europeans. The Americans have been rather quiet on this one, though they themselves do still have the death penalty in some states, so I guess they couldn’t really come out shouting this time.”
“Who’s representing William at trial?”
“The Home Office has been allowed to supply a lawyer to act on behalf of the accused. But I wouldn’t fancy his job, would you?”
Everyone shook their head at the sheer thought of the approaching trial.
“RusCom has asked us to return this device, by the way,” said one of the MI6 technicians. “They’ve given us one month before they insist on having it back.”
“Are they being serious? It’s a piece of evidence for a serious crime. They can have it back when we are done with it.”
“Won’t it be needed for the trial?” Zoe said.
“They’ve not requested it yet. If they do, it might force our hand a little. So get everything we possibly can from it this next week, it might be all we have,” Charlie ended.
13
It was the day before the trial was due to start in St Petersburg. RusCom shares had continued to trade well above their record level. The value of the company was placed at over eighty-five million dollars, though it was globally an insignificant player in the world market. Still, the rumours continued to circulate, that within this Moscow-based company, existed the blueprints for a device that would revolutionise the industry. Apple and Samsung, giants in their field, were said to be monitoring the situation, though there was no proof they were even remotely interested in such a small player.
A few members of the press from the UK had been allowed access to the courthouse in St Petersburg. A jury was being selected, and the judge was about to be announced. William Hackett remained in isolation but had been visited twice by his defence team, and reports were that he was in good health, despite his grim circumstances. Charlie and Zoe remained in the UK, denied entry into Russia, despite arguments on diplomatic grounds. They would just have to monitor the situation from afar.
Anya continued to field questions from the Russian side, but increasingly from the international press as well. As the court date drew closer, with the British more and more sidelined, she became the public face of the trial. She performed well in front of the camera. Less was made of her connection to the UK, especially the role her father played in political circles. More was made of her mother’s influence, especially amongst the Muscovite elite. It was also true that Anya was making her own name for herself, something that had attracted her to the role in St Petersburg, after all.
It was around midday, Russian time, on that day that the latest entry was decoded and released from the device the British were still holding. The Russian legal team had put in the formal request to return the item and arrangements were being made to that end. Still, the latest revelation was going to change all that, and added even more heat to a story that was reaching boiling point already:
Entry 5 - August 2014
Now you all know what my application is capable of doing. This is why my business will become the largest there is. No one can stop me––not even William Hackett. He’s got documents that will enable him to come to Russia because he is now after me. If anything happens to me, it’s him. You have to know it’s him.
This app will make you become who you want to be, which is why it comes at a price.
My company will become the most powerful in the world.
Russian software for a brave new world.
Apple will be crippled. Samsung too––these money greedy monsters. Now they will dance to my tune. The tune my mind has conjured up, the world my hands have made. My imagination, my creation, my reality.
With this app, what I say really does go––and you will find that out with the very next entry––but you will have to wait for that. It will come to you, on the exact day that it is meant to be released to you.
“Brilliant,” Charlie shouted out once they’d reviewed the latest output. “That’ll put everyone into a frenzy.”
“The timing couldn’t have been more crucial, wouldn’t you say? The day before the trial,” Zoe said. “We now know that the victim knew Hackett was coming after him, and that he obtained documents to get him to Russia.”
“But how did he know that, when we don’t even know it? And once again he’s making this stupid claim that it’s his device that can make things happen.”
“It’s the bit that states we’ll find out with the next entry that interests me most,” Zoe said.
“Okay folks,” Charlie said, all action stations once again. “This is what we are going to do. Firstly, make sure this device doesn’t leave this office. The Russians have transcripts of everything we see from it, so they don’t physically need the device themselves. Not when we know there is something more to come. This was written last month at some point, so it’s the newest information we have to go on. He thinks he knows something we don’t, and this was enough to get him killed. He’s fingered William for the crime before it’s been committed. That is strong evidence again, but once more begs the question, how? How can he know so much about this secret life of William Hackett and yet we find nothing on him? He’s also made direct reference to Apple and Samsung. See if he had any dealings with them in the past, anything that might cause him to target them as such. And one more thing––humour me. See if there is any truth in what this app does.”
“That’s easy enough to check,” said one of the technicians, opening up a new note. It automatically came up with Entry 7, though they’d only read the first five up to now. He wrote:
Entry 7 - A pizza is delivered to me downstairs, and I grow four inches.
He smiled at his own witticism. He picked up a telephone and called down to the front reception area.
“Hello, Helen. Look, has anything arrived for me?” he said. There was a pause while he was apparently being answered. He thanked her and hung up.
“Surprise, surprise,” Craig said. “Nothing. And look,” he said, standing up. “I’m still a short fat bloke.”
There was a good laugh around the room.
“Okay, being serious now,” Charlie said. “Is there any record of Anthony having mental health issues. I mean, the way he talks about companies dancin
g to his tune and having conjured something out from his imagination and it being his reality. Is there not a chance that he is delusional?”
“And yet, William Hackett did fly to St Petersburg and murder him. That was no illusion,” Zoe said. It was the reality check he needed.
“Yeah, you’re right. I give up.” Charlie stood up, pushing his chair back under the table.
“Where are you going?” Zoe said.
“I need a drink. Something strong and probably lots of them. You coming?”
“I’ll grab my coat,” and with that, they both left the room.
It was approaching midnight. The crowd in the bar was starting to thin out noticeably, but neither Charlie nor Zoe really paid much attention. Their table was the one most littered with empty bottles and glasses. The waitress had been once, a couple of hours ago, to clear them, but looking now you wouldn’t have known. The drinks had been a good break from the small cramped office they’d been working in for too long these last days and weeks.
“So what do you get up to when you are not a cop?” Charlie said, his hand placed on her right knee, not that either of them really noticed.
“This and that, nothing much really.”
“C’mon,” he said. He took another swig of the beer he’d been most fond of as the night went on. “There must be somethin’ you get up to outside of work. You got a fella?”
“Does it look like I have?” she said, her words coming out slowly, carefully, as if the selection of each one took all her concentration.
“Hell if I know,” he said, taking his hand off her knee and placing it on her shoulders, as he came in to whisper in her ear. “You ain’t one of them, are you?”
“One of what?”
“You know, a lesbo.”
“Would you judge me if I was?” she said.
“Hell no. I’d invite myself around.” He knocked his beer over as he placed it back on the table and swore as a flood of liquid poured onto his lap. They both started laughing, the kind of uncontrollable laugh only drunk people seem to be able to maintain.
“You look like you’ve pissed yourself,” she said, barely able to get the words out through the tears of laughter.
Charlie tried to stand, but it took a couple of attempts before he managed to. The room was swaying, the cheap decorations on the wall now dancing in the light of the table lamp. He staggered off towards the toilet hoping to find some way of drying his jeans. She heard the hand-dryer coming on and off randomly. Clearly, he wasn’t having much success. Two minutes passed. Zoe now stood up herself, straightening out her clothes a little, crumpled as they were from having been sitting for a few hours. She walked over to the gents toilet as if moving between offices. She opened the door and carried on inside. Charlie didn’t seem alarmed, and he was far from aware of his surroundings. He stood there, jeans in hand, trying to get them dry under the hand-dryer.
“Nice boxers,” Zoe said, but it didn’t register in his mind. Between them, they managed to get the jeans under the dryer enough to keep it working. After two or three minutes, the damp was less visible. Standing close to Charlie, the room still spinning for them both, Zoe turned, pausing momentarily, before kissing him. He seemed dazed, coming away from her, before taking hold of her, turning slightly, so that her back was now against the mirror on the wall. He kissed her again, pressing his body into hers, dropping the jeans onto the toilet floor. Every sense in his body was coming alive. He was lost in the moment, just pressing against her, drunkenly kissing her. They parted again, like deep-sea divers coming up for air. Both there in body but not there in mind. Before they had a chance to continue anything, the barman came through the toilet door, thinking everyone had gone. He saw Charlie standing there in just his black boxer shorts, his jeans on the floor, and in front of him was Zoe.
“Okay folks, that’s enough,” he said in a friendly enough way. “I’m going to have to ask you to put your jeans back on and leave. I’m locking up.”
The words made no real sense. In slow motion it seemed, Charlie got to work trying to locate his jeans, before sluggishly pulling them on, both legs being in the same trouser leg at first. He managed to figure it out, and they both staggered out of the door. She picked up her jacket from her chair, their table resembling a battlefield, fallen bottles everywhere. They walked uncertainly out of the front door.
“I’ll get a taxi,” Charlie murmured, walking off to their right-hand side where some black cabs were parked.
“Do you want to come back to mine?” Zoe said, not looking up. Charlie hadn’t heard and instead had got into a cab which she then saw pull away. “Great,” she said, walking in the same direction and getting into the next cab; she too was on her way.
They’d both sleep well that night before waking up, wondering what had happened exactly.
Social media sites were starting to buzz with gossip and rumours about the new RusCom tablet that was meant to hit the market shortly. While at the time of the murder little was really known about the device, that crime itself had served as a platform for exposure and coverage. While the leading industry publications were now only just starting to take notice, it was the role of social media that had really got the wheels moving.
Initially limited to some chat rooms, things had spiralled massively in the last few days. Specifications, supposed to be top secret but leaked from the company itself, were doing the rounds. These, coupled with the evidence and discussion based on the revelations coming from the entries Anthony had written on his device, gave power to the rumours. The hype was reaching an intensity not seen since Apple brought out their first iPhone. Indeed, and unofficially, even Apple and Samsung themselves were keeping a watchful eye on proceedings. Their own teams were picking up on interest levels rarely seen before, and never on a product that was not their own or one of their biggest rivals.
What was unclear to all was how the death of the company’s owner would affect the potential launch. It was clear that the device was in its final testing phase at the time of the murder. People knew that the one device that had been made so far had been in operation for several years, reportedly before Apple’s first iPad ever hit the shops. This was a particular piece of information that excited bloggers. While years later Samsung had been made to pay Apple two billion dollars for apparent breaches of copyright, had there been a device that pre-dated them all? This was the speculation, and what added to the mystery was the first-hand readouts from the only device in existence, which now everyone was receiving. Much talk centred on what the proof would be, as stated in the fifth entry. Industry talk focused on the state of the business as a whole. Was RusCom indeed to be sold off now, following the death, especially with something of this much interest in their books? And if it was to be sold off, the main players were already preparing to make their move. The blueprints for the device, as yet unseen by anyone who was really in the know, were fast becoming the golden ticket. Get them, it would seem, and you’d hit the jackpot.
As a result of these increasing rumours, the speculation was continuing to drive up the RusCom share price. Now valued at just under one hundred million dollars, it was the highest it had ever been. How the next few weeks would pan out would determine which direction the share price would go. If plans failed to prove anything substantial, regardless of what the hype was, the share price would plummet. If, on the other hand, and as the rumours speculated, proof of something new was forthcoming, that would turn the industry on its head, then analysts predicted the share value could do anything. Triple the current value was not out of the question. The futures market was fuelling this speculation, and the shares were trading higher there because of it. Only time would tell who would make the most money, but at the moment, few were betting against them.
The technicians at MI6 were monitoring the chat rooms. A small team had been brought in to work behind the scenes, gathering data, sometimes joining the online conversations, occasionally pushing the rumour on a little. Anything that came from thi
s was recorded in a daily briefing which was passed to Charlie and Zoe, who together headed up the investigation. They’d both been rather quiet since arriving that morning, partly because they both had a horrible hangover. Neither had said much to the other, and there seemed a little bit of ice between them now which needed breaking, though no one else had mentioned anything. Both were needing a strong coffee, and they headed to the kitchen together.
“I have some vague memories of things last night,” Charlie said to Zoe, just the two of them now.
“Me too.”
“Did we kiss?”
“Yes, we did.” Zoe was smiling a little, though she looked down at her feet after just a few seconds.
“Look, I’m sorry for whatever happened. We were very drunk...”
“Yes, we were. It was nothing,” Zoe said. Things were coming back to her a little more as they’d been talking. Charlie standing next to her, the impulse she’d had last night to kiss him. There was no impulse now, far from it. But there was the memory, the buzz running through her body as they’d kissed. The freedom she’d had. She hadn’t had that with a man for so long, and yet it had been alcohol-fuelled, and this with someone she was working with and had not really seen eye to eye with from the start. Still, last night had changed that a little. “You asked me if I was a lesbian,” she said.
“Did I?” Charlie had no recollection. “I’m honestly not bothered, either way, you know. Really.”
“I’m not, you know.”
“As I said, it doesn’t bother me.”
“Look, Charlie. Maybe after this is all done you and me could...”
