The African Diamond Trilogy Box Set

by Christopher Lowery

  ‘That’s what I thought, so don’t rub it in. I’m still wondering how we all got fooled like this.’

  ‘Who’s this other man, Coetzee?’

  ‘He’s a close friend of Leo and his family in South Africa. He took the video and arranged Angela’s escape to Brazil. He runs a cyber security business in Joburg, and that’s where Leo is now.’

  ‘Do you think Tom and Sharif are involved, or maybe that Daniel Oberhart, the Swiss guy? I don’t trust that man, he’s really weird.’

  ‘We don’t think so, but I’ve got to get them onside, that’s why Marius sent me the video. We’re hoping Sharif can help us to find a way of stopping whatever it is.’

  ‘Well, I think you’ve all been pretty stupid to let that Chinese creep run rings around you like that.’

  Ed unwrapped a pack of spearmint gum. ‘Thanks Lynne, I need all the sympathy I can get.’

  Dubai, United Arab Emirates

  ‘She’s lying, or there’s got to be some mistake. I’ve known Shen for three years and you’ve known him just a few weeks. No way would he do anything like that.’ Tom Connor had just watched the clip with Sharif and Ed. ‘Where did you get that video?’

  Ed gave them the same explanation he’d given Lynne earlier, adding, ‘It was Shen who put him in prison, and we think he probably killed Scotty as well.’

  ‘What are you talking about? That’s a scandalous accusation. Scotty’s death was an accident and there’s no way Shen has done anything to harm XPC. This isn’t the first time you’ve tried to slander his name, why the hell have you got it in for him?’

  ‘OK, Tom, we’ll do it the hard way. Tell him about cell S470C887,999, Sharif.’

  The Pakistani squirmed on his seat. ‘I don’t know anything about it, I already told you that.’

  ‘Wait, that’s the cell Leo asked me about, right?’

  ‘That’s right, Tom. I want you to come down to the lab and Sharif will show you what happens when that cell is awakened. Then I’ll tell you what it is and why it’s there. I saw it for the first time yesterday, and it’s fucking scary.’

  Reluctantly, Tom accompanied him and Sharif down to the basement. Leo’s network was still in place and Sharif ran his version of the upload. Thirty seconds later the system crashed.

  Connor’s face was a study in panic and fear. ‘What happened? I thought the upload was one hundred per cent debugged.’

  ‘That’s not Leo’s upload. It’s a different version that contains extra code addressed to that cell, S470. It’s a capacitor cell that accumulates electricity, then switches the processor to a different mode and shuts it down.’

  ‘Where did they come from? I mean, the cell and the code?’ Bewildered, he looked from one to the other.

  Ed said nothing, and Sharif finally blurted out, ‘They’re both from Shanghai. The cell’s not on my design, they add it to the card in China. Shen gave me the code to test it and told me it would be used for another major innovation. He said it would be as big as ACRE.’

  ‘What the fuck? Lee-Win are modifying our processor in Shanghai with a cell that shuts the system down and we don’t know why? And you’ve been testing it and didn’t think it was important enough to tell me about it?’ He looked at Sharif and raised his fist as if to strike him. Then he looked back at the silent network. ‘When did you find this out, Ed?’

  ‘Yesterday, when Leo got out of prison. That’s the reason he left, he knew he was in danger here. He went down to Joburg to try to work out what’s going on, and now we’re all sure it’s for a cyber-attack. We knew you wouldn’t believe it, so he sent the video to me last night to convince you. He reckons that all the processors built in the last four years have got that cell incorporated.’

  Tom’s mind suddenly cleared. ‘You think they’re going to upload this version of the code instead of Leo’s? But that means…’

  ‘Armageddon, right. Remember Chillicott, the US general who called you? He’s from Homeland Security and they’re investigating Shen and his girlfriend, Elodie. This is a major threat Tom, and we’re right in the middle of it.’

  ‘Why the hell didn’t anyone tell me what was going on? Sharif, I can’t believe you’ve been plotting with Shen to undo everything we’ve been working for over the last three years.’

  Ed grabbed Tom’s arm. ‘I tried to warn you about Shen last week and you weren’t having any of it. I didn’t know the full story then, otherwise I’d have made a lot more noise. And as far as Sharif’s concerned, he’s been duped just like the rest of us. Shen’s the villain, not us. Now we have to help Leo and Coetzee sort it out.’

  The CEO looked frantically around the room, as if he didn’t know where he was. He went to the door. ‘No, Ed. I have to call Han Wang Tāng, the MD in Shanghai. Find out what the hell’s going on up there. We’ve got to make sure they don’t send out this version of the upload. If anyone can help us to fix it, he can.’

  Ed grabbed his arm. ‘Whoa. Hang on, Tom. Shen might be with him now, we can’t let him know we’re onto him. And both the processor card and the code have been changed by Lee-Win, so someone there must have authorised it, and it must come from high up. We reckon they’ll send out our clean upload first and we’ve probably got a few days before the trigger code goes out. If you call Tāng and he’s working with Shen, they’ll make sure they send it out right away and we’re screwed.’

  ‘Jesus Christ! I don’t know what the hell to do. Sharif, why in hell were you testing a code from Shen on a cell that you didn’t design? It must have been obvious something was going on.’ Now Tom was convinced, and he was scared. This threat had been developed on his watch, by his team and under his responsibility.

  ‘Ed’s right. I didn’t know any of this, I swear. Shen fooled me like he fooled everyone. I’m sorry, I’ve been an idiot. I just wanted to achieve something for myself. Scotty and Leo were brilliant and I just wanted to get some credit, to show I was as good as them.’ Tears came to Sharif’s eyes and he turned away.

  ‘Guys, there’s no point in going over it again and again, it’s all history now. What we’ve got to do is help Leo to sort it out. Do you know the hub address they’ll use for the upload?’

  ‘You mean they can hack into it and change the code?’

  ‘That’s the only chance we’ve got, but it’s a long shot.’

  ‘I’ve never seen any of the coordinates from Shanghai.’ The CEO shook his head. ‘I was just as stupid, I left all the Lee-Win relations to Shen. He’s their board member, it never occurred to me.’

  Sharif pulled himself together. ‘Me neither. I’ve never had any contact with them, Shen never allowed it, he did all the communications.’

  ‘How did you get the code from him?’

  ‘On a flash drive. Scotty saw it just before… Shit, that’s why he was killed. I told him it was just photos and music, but I know he didn’t believe me.’

  ‘Did you tell Shen about it?’ Ed could see from the Pakistani’s expression that he had.

  Tom saw the expression too. ‘My God! Shen… You really think that’s what happened to Scotty?’

  ‘Probably, Tom. I’m sorry, but there’s no way you could have known.’

  ‘That fucking devious, corrupt, murdering Chinese son of a bitch. I’d like to rip his throat out…’

  ‘Join the queue, Tom, but we don’t have time to talk about it now. Sharif, where’s the stick? Does it have any other data that might help us?’

  ‘Shen gave it back to me after… It’s in my desk. Come on.’

  Ed refrained from telling him how stupidly naïve he’d been, and they went up to his office. Sharif pushed the memory stick into the USB port of his laptop. ‘There are two files on it. This one has the code I added to the upload.’ He pointed the cursor at a text file named ‘Sharif’ and double-clicked to open up a sheet of coded instructions.

  Ed explained to the CEO, ‘See the last three lines of code? They’re sending the same message thousands of times to that cell. That’s w
hat sets off the command to close the processor down.’

  ‘And millions of Lee-Win customers around the world will download it, and governments, businesses and whole industries will stop working.’ Tom put his face in his hands. ‘Oh my God, how could I be so blind.’

  ‘Wait, if they do it in two parts, we might have a chance. What’s the other file, Sharif ?’

  ‘I don’t know, it’s an encrypted folder in Chinese and I can’t open it. I don’t know why it’s on the stick.’

  ‘It has to be connected in some way. Let’s see.’ Ed looked at the screen. The folder name was written in Chinese characters, 金路. ‘It can only be for Shen.’

  He clicked on it and a new panel came up with a picture of a silver key and more Chinese text, 回车键. A typing box was provided to enter the encryption key, and he knew he couldn’t get past it.

  ‘Dead end, at least for me. Encryption’s not my thing.’

  Tom Connor said, ‘Can’t you see from those lines of code where the cell is sending that command to?’

  ‘It doesn’t work like that. That code just charges the cell then we don’t know what happens, it creates a physical switchover in the processor. Let’s have a look at that code file again, we might get lucky.’ Ed clicked on the file name, then opened up Properties on the screen. On the General page, the creation date of the file was 26 February 2017.

  ‘That’s the month before Shen gave it to me.’ Sharif looked as if he wanted to sink through the floor.

  Ed brought up the Details page. ‘Well, well, very careless. Look, the author left his moniker, somebody called Hoi Wei. That definitely sounds Chinese to me.’

  He removed the flash drive from the laptop. ‘We know who wrote the A2 code and when, but we don’t know what’s in the other file, ‘cos we can’t bloody open it.’

  ‘Leo’s the king of encryption, Ed.’

  ‘Just what I was thinking, Sharif. Plus, he’s got some really switched-on ex-hackers down there. I’ll send him the folder right away. See what he can do with it.’

  The Pakistani grabbed Ed’s shoulder. ‘If Scotty died because of this, we have to stop it. I’ll work all day and all night to help if I can.’

  Delmas, Mpumalanga, South Africa

  ‘Right, guys. We’ve got some decrypting to do.’ Leo had just received the folder from Ed, with a note saying, ‘This is from the flash drive Sharif got from Shen. The code was written in Feb 17 by a careless Chinese called Hoi Wei. We can’t open the other file. Hope you can.’

  He was with Abby and the team in the lab, having failed several more times to catch the elusive A2 command, and now all were resigned to it being impossible. The information from the memory stick might be their only chance of finding a way into Lee-Win’s hub network.

  ‘Does anybody here understand Chinese characters?’ he asked Abby.

  ‘I don’t think so, but you can copy it into an online translation programme. Here, I’ll do it.’ A moment later, she said, ‘OK, the first text means “Golden Path”, and the other one just says “Enter Key”.’

  ‘Golden Path? So this might be about money after all. And who’s this guy, Hoi Wei?’

  ‘Leo, never mind about that, we don’t have time. Just send the folder to Rod and Julia and we’ll get started.’

  Marbella, Spain

  The email started, ‘Good morning Jenny, greetings from Hong Kong.’ It was midday in Spain and Patrice’s message had just arrived. Jenny put on her glasses and read the text.

  ‘Saw Mme Lee-Win this afternoon. Charming and elegant, you wouldn’t know she’s ill. Looks fine, but tires quickly. We talked for two hours, mainly about the death of her husband, Chongkun. In 2012 a Chinese man and a French woman came to see them, from a syndicate that wanted to buy the microprocessor business. The business was not for sale, but they returned and phoned several times, making new proposals, until she told them to go away and leave them alone. A few weeks later, Chongkun’s car was hit by a lorry and he was crushed to death. The verdict was an accident, but she’s sure (me too) that it was murder. The couple came repeatedly, until she was frightened for her sons and finally gave up and sold the business to them. It was handled by her lawyers and she can’t remember the details. I’m coming back again tomorrow and one of her sons will be here from Macau, so I’ll get the rest of the story and any available documents. Sorry, it’s so difficult. Hope this helps. PM.’

  Jenny sent off a thank you note and called Marius Coetzee with the news. Maybe it would start to make sense for him, if not for her. She was still feeling under the weather, and went up to her room for a nap.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  Shanghai, People’s Republic of China

  Thursday, 15 July 2017

  ‘We’ve done all the necessary tests and we’re most satisfied with the results. The upload works efficiently, the download procedure is faultless and activates the connectivity module, and the new ACRE and Mark VII versions exceed our expectations. Your Dubai team has done great work, Shen, you must congratulate them for us.’ The speaker was Han Wang Tāng, Managing Director and Head of Product Development at Lee-Win Micro-Technology, Shanghai.

  ‘Thank you, Han, I’ll do so. As you can now see, our concerns over the departure of Leo Stewart were unfounded. The other members of my group accomplished the work quickly and efficiently, and his absence caused us no disruption.’

  The man sitting next to Han, Bohai Cheong, the company chairman, intervened. ‘I wasn’t aware of that, what exactly happened?’

  Tāng responded, ‘Tom Connor mentioned this matter to me, but I understood that Leo Stewart had taken just a few days off to rest and was then returning to supervise the final work programme. Was I wrong?’

  ‘Unfortunately, yes. He left XPC last Friday and we don’t know where he has gone. But it made no difference, the work was completed under my supervision and we delivered the final package ahead of time. I’m very proud of what we accomplished.’

  ‘And so you should be, Shen. But I’m shocked to hear of the behaviour of that man, Stewart, a most irresponsible attitude. But thanks to you and your other colleagues, the project has been executed to perfection.’

  Shen smiled modestly. ‘I assume you’ll be deploying the upload immediately?’

  Mr Cheong said gravely, ‘Tomorrow, July 16th, is the anniversary of the birth of our illustrious founder, Chongkun Lee-Win. He would have been sixty-five years of age, if his life had not been cruelly ended in the motor car accident five years ago. We will send out the upload tomorrow morning at eleven o’clock to honour him in the most appropriate manner we can. He was a great visionary, and we would not have the successful business and reputation we enjoy had it not been so. I am only sorry that he cannot be here to celebrate this great event with us. Our directors and staff will mark the occasion with two minutes of silence all together in the main hall.’

  Shen listened to this eulogy, a solemn and respectful expression on his face. At last, he thought, it’s going out tomorrow morning. I fly to Moscow at one o’clock. Perfect timing. Aloud he said, ‘I am indeed fortunate to be able to join your memorial ceremony tomorrow morning, before I leave. Sadly, the great man is no longer here, but I am sure he is at the side of Buddha, looking down on us as he achieves nirvana.’

  Cheong patted him on the shoulder. ‘Thank you for those words, Shen. Sadly, you did not know Chongkun. He was a most extraordinary visionary and would have been proud of the way we have continued his great work. When the world sees what we have achieved, it will stop for a moment and marvel.’

  It will most definitely stop, and perhaps for more than just a moment, he said to himself. Let’s hope it has the desired effect. ‘I’ll call my office now and share this news with them and pass on your congratulations. I’m sure they’ll respect that same two-minute silence in Dubai at the appropriate hour.’

  He left the room and called Elodie. ‘It’s going out tomorrow at eleven o’clock, that’s seven in the morning for you. I’ll text you when it�
�s done and we start receiving reports. I’m missing you, darling. Goodnight and dream sweet dreams, and you should wake up one step away from nirvana, as they say here.’

  Next, he called the Moscow number. ‘It’s confirmed for tomorrow morning. I’ll be there in the evening as arranged. Get everything ready for Sunday, we’re on the final stretch.’

  Shen went along to the canteen, where a group of techies were drinking sodas and talking. He was carrying his computer bag. He glanced over at one of them, a smartly dressed, tall, dark-skinned Chinese with a hair lip, then went to the elevator and pressed the button for the garage level. A few minutes later, the tall man came into the garage and got into a green Toyota. Shen waited a moment then got in the passenger seat. He took an envelope from his bag and handed it to him.

  ‘Here you are, Hoi, the second instalment of your money. Five hundred notes of 200 Euros - 100,000 Euros. That’s 150,000 altogether. You want to count them?’

  The man shook his head. ‘It’s OK. If you want me to finish the job, it better be right. How will I collect the rest?’

  ‘Don’t worry, we’re not dishonest people. I’ll find you and you’ll get the last hundred.’

  He shrugged. ‘I’ll be around. What’s the timetable?’

  ‘You know it’s eleven tomorrow morning for the Lee-Win upload. Yours is on Sunday, I’ll be in Moscow and I’ll text you. It’ll be around midnight Moscow time. About five in the morning here, with the time difference. OK?’

  ‘I’ll be here before midnight just to be sure.’

  As he moved to turn away, Shen grabbed his head and stared into his eyes. ‘By the way, Hoi. I’ve never mentioned this before, but now is a good time. If you fulfil your duty, you’ll be paid in full, as I’ve promised. But if for any reason the deployment fails, for any reason at all, your life and your family’s lives will not be worth a single yen. The men behind this attack are the richest, most powerful, corrupt and ruthless in existence and they will find you wherever you try to hide. If anything goes wrong, that 150,000 Euros will buy you nothing but pain, misery and death. Understood?’