The Tribes

by Catriona King

  “What’s the other reason?”

  Craig stared into his cooling espresso, not answering.

  “Don’t tell me. It’s the wumman.”

  The way he said it made them both laugh.

  “Katy has to be a consideration. We see little enough of each other as it is, with my job and her on call, and-”

  “That’d all stop if you got married.” The veteran cop adopted a martyred expression. “Then you couldn’t avoid seeing her every night.” It was punctuated with a sigh.

  Craig reared back in his seat. “Now, hang on! No-one’s talking about marriage. We’re not even seeing each other at the-”

  Liam dismissed his objections unsympathetically. “And whose fault is that? You need to talk some sense-”

  Craig cut him off. “No. She’s not ready.”

  “Oh, good God, man. Who ever is? If you’re waiting for a romance to work by itself then you’ll be in your grave before it does.”

  “Where did that bit of wisdom come from?”

  “My mother, but she was right. You two are an omnishambles.”

  Craig arched an eyebrow at the trendy word. “Thanks for the relationship counselling but that’s quite enough.” His tone said that he meant it. He changed the subject. “If I took the D.C.S. post you might have to pick up the slack on some of our cases.”

  “Ach, away with you. How many intelligence emergencies do you think they get? And if you have the right director in place you’ll only have to supervise.”

  Craig’s face was grim. “That’s the problem. I’m not sure Susan Richie is someone I can trust.”

  “OK, then. Get rid of her and put someone you can trust in the job.”

  Suddenly Craig had an idea; perhaps he could leverage a change in director as his deal breaker to take on the Intelligence role. He leapt to his feet, suddenly keen to leave. As he moved Liam grabbed the note out from under his hand, his eyes widening as he read.

  “What the hell’s this?”

  “Information I was waiting for from Davy. I think we might just have caught a break.”

  ****

  Stranmillis Embankment, Belfast.

  Natalie tutted loudly at the sound of her doorbell, partly because she was tired and sore and didn’t relish any interruptions, and partly because John had set the tune to a noise generated by one of his equations and it sounded like a cat being killed. As she hobbled towards the half glass entrance her mood shifted from annoyance to astonishment at the sight of the huge bouquet filling her view. She opened the door, just about to forgive her errant husband when she recognised the deliverer’s shoes.

  “Katy?”

  The bouquet bobbed up and down.

  “Are those for me?”

  Another bob. Natalie grabbed the flowers and hobbled away, still talking.

  “Well, unless you intend to just stand there all day, I suppose that you’d better come in. I’m presuming these flowers are for me, as a grovel. Well, grovel accepted, as long as you make the tea.”

  Katy heaved a sigh of relief. “I’m so sorry, Nat. If you hadn’t been trying to help me none of-”

  Natalie waved her free hand. “Yes, yes, and if we’d never left the caves, blah, blah, blah. It’s just life, so don’t worry about it.”

  She entered the kitchen and plonked herself on a stool, stifling a laugh. “That was some exit from the ED, by the way. Ever thought of taking up sprinting?”

  Katy boiled the kettle, wearing a rueful smile. “Did I look really stupid?”

  Natalie placed her bandaged arm in full sight. “What I could see of it through my drug addled haze. John enjoyed it though.”

  Katy carried over a tray and made the tea, before summoning the nerve to ask. “Did Marc say anything?”

  Natalie grabbed a biscuit. “Not much. I think he was just shocked that you could move so fast.” After a gulp of tea she fixed her friend with a serious look. “Look. You two need to grow up. You’re trying to prove that you can cope with an event that is less likely to happen again than me going to the moon, and Marc’s intent on depleting the Dutch flower fields rather than force you to talk face-to-face.” She swallowed the biscuit and took another, biting into it before reiterating. “Grow the hell up.”

  Katy could feel her temper rising, but it only manifested as flushed cheeks because she knew that her friend was right. Instead she turned her ire on the person who wasn’t there.

  “If Marc really wanted me to come back he would make me.”

  Natalie nearly choked. “Did you really just say that? How the hell could he make you?” She set down her mug, warming to her theme. “You’d actually chuck away a century of feminism in favour of him grabbing you by the hair and dragging you into his cave?”

  Katy’s flush turned dark red. “That wasn’t what I meant-”

  But Natalie wasn’t letting her off the hook. “That’s exactly what you meant, madam.” She started laughing. “Just wait till I tell John.”

  Katy’s blue eyes widened. “You wouldn’t!”

  “I certainly would, unless you tell me exactly what you expect Marc to do. The poor sod has sent you flowers and half a stationer’s shop in the past month, and you’ve ignored all of it.”

  “I wasn’t ignoring it. I was in rehab!”

  Natalie scoffed. “And that stops you from picking up the phone?” Her voice softened, but only slightly. “Look, Katy, you’re my friend, but I would be wrong if I didn’t tell you this was getting ridiculous. The man loves you and you’ve punished him long enough for what some psycho did to you.”

  “I wasn’t punishing-”

  “You were. That’s exactly what you’ve been doing and you know it. Well, enough’s enough. Either take Marc back or cut him loose for good.” She paused meaningfully. “But if you do, don’t complain to me when he meets someone else.”

  Katy went from red to white in seconds. “Has he? Has he met someone? You have to tell me.”

  Natalie gave a knowing smile, knowing that jealousy often worked where pleading and logic failed.

  “Well…”

  When Katy’s pallor had turned sufficiently grey she reckoned that she’d played her enough.

  “Not that I know. So far. But you know fine well there are women who fancy him. Jacelyn in dermatology fluttered like a demented moth every time he came to visit you, and then there’s-”

  Katy shook her head. “That’s enough, Nat. I get the message.” She gripped her mug so tightly that Natalie thought that it would break. “I haven’t been punishing Marc.” She ignored the surgeon’s raised eyebrow. “Or at least not consciously. I just honestly don’t know if I’m brave enough to be with him.” Her voice began to break. “It’s not just what one of his criminals might do to me; it’s what they could do to him too. I never know if he’s going to be killed on a case-”

  Natalie’s eyes widened. “You think I don’t know how that feels? John was shot. Remember?”

  Katy gave her an apologetic look. “I’m sorry. You’re right. It’s anyone concerned with criminal justice that’s vulnerable-”

  Natalie cut in again. “How do you think they feel, Katy, about what we do? Lots of doctors get assaulted by patients, plus we’re exposed to illness every day. We could be assaulted, or catch something, maybe even bring it home to them. But John’s never asked me not to do my job. Has Marc asked you?”

  The physician shook her head, chastened.

  “OK, look. Nobody’s denying that you had a bad scare. But it wasn’t Marc’s fault and the odds of it happening again are miniscule. You don’t have to be brave enough to jump out of airplanes or race cars; you just have to decide if you love him enough to take the risks that come with him.”

  Katy nodded silently and rose to leave. She had a life changing decision to make and she had to make it alone.

  ****

  The C.C.U. 4 p.m.

  After an hour of frustrated tapping Ash rode his wheelie chair over to Davy’s desk, hovering by his left elbow un
til the senior analyst stopped what he was doing with a sigh.

  “What do you w…want?”

  “How do you know I want something?”

  “Because you never sit that close to anyone unless it’s a blonde in a bar.” He held his hand out for the paper he’d seen Ash scribble on a minute before.

  Ash was tempted to deny that he wanted anything, just to maintain the macho image that no-one but he actually believed he had, but the P.P.S. had them on a deadline so he swallowed his pride and handed over the note. Davy scanned the paper, his earlier disinterest changing to curiosity.

  “This might w…work.”

  Ash leaned forward eagerly. “Which one? Tracing the purchase or using the Wi-Fi?”

  “The second.” Davy lifted a pen and a sheet of A4, making some scribbles of his own before speaking again. “OK, let’s assume Miskimmon would have had all his computers connected.”

  Ash’s brown eyes widened. Why hadn’t he thought of that? “You mean on a tailored LAN.”

  “Either a local area network or a w…wide one.” As Davy said it he shook his head. “Nope, not wide, a WAN’s normally used by organisations.”

  The police had had their own wide area network for years.

  “OK, so say Miskimmon’s got his own LAN and all his computers connect to it. LANs can stretch twenty metres indoors or further in the open air, but you need a Wi-Fi hotspot-” Just then something else occurred to him. “Have you traced the IP address yet?”

  “Ashley did. To Belfast. She couldn’t narrow it further than that and now we can’t find it at all.”

  “W…When was that?”

  “End of June. Miskimmon must have stopped using that computer then.”

  “Or found a way to mask it.” Davy’s face brightened. “Maybe it belongs to one of the three computers we found at his place near Moygashel.”

  Ash’s face fell. “If it does then we’re screwed. Des says the firewalls on those will wipe everything if they’re even turned on; there’s not even time to enter a password. They tried with one and it fried instantly.”

  Davy shrugged. “We need to rule them out at least. Des can use an external signal to check their IP addresses. Give him a call and get that moving.”

  Ash kicked himself for not thinking of it and did as he was asked. When he’d wheeled himself back to Davy’s desk the discussion started again.

  “OK, so until Des says different let’s s…say the IP address Ashley found belongs to a fourth computer we haven’t discovered yet.”

  Ash shot him a quizzical look. “Why didn’t Miskimmon cover his tracks better? Letting Ashley spot the IP has to be a trick. Or this computer will turn out to be firewalled as well.”

  Davy shrugged. “He was just s…starting out then so maybe he got careless. Or maybe he’s just so arrogant he didn’t think we’d ever find out about that one. Let’s face it, until Ashley came though w…we hadn’t and Miskimmon could never have predicted a Canadian working with us.”

  He doubted himself immediately and started to mentally retrace his steps, tapping a pen against his teeth for so long that Ash wanted to rip it from his hand. Finally Davy shook his head.

  “Nope. I think we’re OK. If there’s another computer it can’t be firewalled, or if it is it’ll be in a much weaker form. Miskimmon would never risk it.”

  Ash looked confused so he elaborated.

  “Miskimmon was prepared to destroy the hard drives on the three computers we found, with the degaussing loop at his Moygashel place. Correct?”

  “OK.”

  “And he also knew that even if we got the computers out of there unscathed, as soon as we turned them on they would be fried by the high level protection he’d installed.”

  “OK. So?”

  Davy gave an exasperated sigh and then tried another tack. “OK. Let’s say that you’re a super hacker.”

  “I am.”

  Davy rolled his eyes. “Modest, aren’t we. Let’s say you’re Miskimmon and you’re a super hacker then, and you’ve found a hack that can control an operating system algorithm that’s used in drones, businesses and traffic s…systems all over the world.”

  Ash was beginning to see where he was going.

  “Then you get caught, but you’ve made s…sure that any computers the police find are impregnable so that you go to prison for a much lesser crime, like visa fraud. So, how long do you get?”

  Ash shrugged. “Five years, maybe? But it might be in a South American Jail-”

  “It doesn’t matter where it is. It’s doable and in a few years you’ll be out. But the police have all your files on the computers and even though they can’t access it they’ll never give them back. Files that you’ve probably spent years w…working on. Data that has a black market value of millions to the right person-”

  Ash’s jaw dropped. “I’d never lose it. I’d have a backup copy, maybe two.”

  Davy nodded. “Good. But on what? A memory stick or CD you’ve hidden somewhere?”

  Ash shook his head. “The information could degrade and devices change so much that by the time you got out of prison it might be unreadable. I’d store it on another computer and hide it.”

  Davy smiled. “Now we’re getting somewhere. So, OK, your data is on this other computer you’ve hidden but you want it back to s…sell. Right, next point. If all your computers are linked on a LAN then you can wake one computer up from any other quite s…safely-”

  Ash interrupted. “That explains the firewalls on the three we found being so strong. I bet Miskimmon never turned them on directly; he used a wake up LAN from the fourth computer that we haven’t found.”

  Davy’s smile became a grin. “Exactly. But if he’d put high level protection on the fourth, so high that he didn’t even have time to put in a password, like with the computers Des has, then it would fry as s…soon as he tried to switch it on. So he must just have put lower level, password protection on the fourth computer, or even none at all. A LAN where one of the computers is accessible is the only thing that makes sense-”

  Ash cut in. “And it has to be a computer, the phones they found in Moygashel wouldn’t have enough memory to store all his stuff.” He punched the air. “The labs can easily crack password protection so all we have to do is find the other laptop!”

  “Yep!” After a moment of excitement Davy frowned. “Now, how to do it…”

  Ash gave a smug smile. “I thought you’d have worked that out as well.”

  The senior analyst rolled his eyes. “Go on then. Amaze me.”

  Ash obliged eagerly. “You said it yourself. A LAN has a certain radius and needs a Wi-Fi signal.” He stood up, heading for the door. “I’ll tell you the rest when I get back from the lab.”

  ****

  McMorrow’s Bar. 5 p.m.

  Tommy turned his cut-glass whisky tumbler towards the only light in the dusty bar; admiring the prismed rainbow it cast on the wall as he waited for Michael Hanratty to appear. He’d positioned himself perfectly in the dark space. Facing the bar, back to the wall and between two doors; giving him a one eighty scan of everyone who came and left, and any man getting ready to shoot. It was a technique that he’d perfected in the bad old days when more than one bullet had had his name written on its tip.

  As the clock struck five he glanced at Billy Ross. He was leaning on the mahogany bar reading the paper, ringing his picks for the next day’s racing with the pencil he kept wedged behind his ear. Tommy’s throaty croak cut through the quiet.

  “He’s late. If he’s nat here in ten minutes he can whistle fer his info.”

  Ross didn’t look up. “He’ll be here.” He settled back to his odds without another word.

  Five impatient minutes later the door to Tommy’s right opened and the barman straightened up and poured a Jameson’s, both the entrant and the alcohol appearing at Hill’s table within seconds.

  “Yer late, Hanratty. I wus leavin’.”

  The Rock’s general shrugged. “So then
you wouldn’t have got paid and I wouldn’t have my information, and why would we both want to lose?” He downed his whisky in one and tapped for another. “What have you got for me?”

  Tommy normally expected to be wooed but he decided against dragging things out this time; there was only so long the cops would be fooled by a tag around a Templepatrick table leg that didn’t move an inch.

  “Money first.”

  Hanratty slid a slip of paper across and sipped at his second drink. Tommy peered at the note, eschewing his spectacles in a show of hard cool.

  “What the fuck’s this? We said cash.”

  “And my information is that the police are watching you like a hawk, so I opened an account down south for you and paid in the money in euros. You can draw it out anywhere in the world.”

  Tommy wasn’t sure what to do. Punch Hanratty and walk. Punch him, take the paper and walk, or trust a paddy that the money was where he said it was. Ross decided to intervene.

  “It’s how I get paid, Tommy and I’ve never had an issue. The lads up here know nothing about it so you don’t get asked questions and you don’t pay tax.” Just then he noticed the number on the paper. “Bloody hell! That’s a tidy sum.”

  Tommy grabbed the slip and reared up in his face. “Mind yer own, bizness, Ross. I huvn’t forgit that yer working for a Taig.”

  The Dubliner cut in. “I can assure you the money is there and safe, Mr Hill. Who knows, you may work for us again in the future and we can add to it.” That’s if I don’t sort you out first. “Now. Can we get on with it, please? I have a driver outside waiting to take me home.”

  Tommy muttered under his breath for long enough to make his displeasure known then he straightened up and stared Hanratty in the eye.

  “The Albanians have set up a network down yer way. They’re bringing in girls and drugs through yer ports and spreading them all over the place.” He shot him a look of disgust. “They’re bringin’ the filth up here as well nye. Ye Irish lat can kill yersel’s if ye like but we dun’t want none of that stuff.”