Читать книгу The Song of Mawu - Jeff Edwards - Страница 19

13

Sam Tait had become bored watching Bree type away at their report on Namola, and decided to make a further search of the new building.

They both believed that if there was anything hidden it would be found in a place to which they had no access. So far, however, their security passes had allowed the pair to visit all floors of the building, and all parts of those floors, a fact that had disappointed them both.

Sam decided that today he would start in the very bottom of the building and work his way up.

So saying, he climbed aboard a lift, and made his way to the lowest basement, where he searched every office and every cupboard. So far, this portion of the building had not been occupied and the few offices located down here were eerily empty. Most were being used for storage. He met no one and found nothing out of the ordinary, so he proceeded to the floor above and did the same.

An hour later he had completed his search of the third floor of the basement and once more called the lift. As its door opened he was surprised to find Eliza inside with a lap-top computer case at her feet.

‘Going up?’ he asked.

‘Sure,’ she replied.

The lift rose to the lobby, where Sam held the door open for Eliza to exit. Sam remained inside and pushed the button for floor six, where he and Bree had been assigned an office.

Bree looked up from her typing when he walked in, ‘Find anything?’

‘I met Eliza in a lift. She had a computer with her.’

‘And?’

‘I was on the third floor of the basement and she was coming up from a lower basement floor.’

‘And?’

‘And, I had already finished searching the lower floors. There was no one down there when I searched, and no sign of any occupation, or computer equipment.’

‘Interesting!’

‘Thorpe will want to know. I’d better get to a secure phone and tell him.’

***

‘He saw you?’ asked Brian.

‘We shared a lift. I could almost hear his mind cranking over. If you wanted me to get the hard drive out of the building unseen I could simply have used the escape tunnel.’

‘We knew he was down there. We wanted him to see you.’

‘You’re trying to upset Thorpe again, aren’t you?’

‘It’s not for much longer. The end is in sight.’

***

Thorpe rang one of the three young agents currently working undercover in The Fund.

‘The computer, where would she have taken it?’ he asked.

‘There can’t be too many places. I’ve been working on the front desk at reception, and she barely leaves the building. In fact, I saw her leave the building with a computer bag and she returned half an hour later. She didn’t have time to go far with it.’

‘Where does she normally go when she leaves?’

‘We’ve followed her and she usualy goes home to sleep. Most days she’s in her office at the crack of dawn and doesn’t leave till late evening. All her meals are eaten in the cafeteria or at her desk.’

‘Break into her home. I want you to find that computer and bring it to me.’

***

The following morning Justine and Eliza left their shared flat in Walton Village and climbed into Justine’s small sedan for the short drive to The Fund’s headquarters.

Not long after, a young female walking a small dog passed the front door of the flat and proceeded up the street where she came to a halt before kneeling down to pat her companion.

A motor bike passed her and stopped at the kerb outside the flat. The rider took off his helmet and walked up the steps and knocked on the door.

Behind him, the girl and her furry companion had retraced their steps until they drew level with the bike. Here she again stooped to pat the dog.

Seeing that there was no one else on the street apart from the girl and her dog the young man swiftly picked the door’s lock and disappeared inside, leaving the girl to watch for any danger.

His leather gloved hands left no prints as the young man made a thorough search of the flat and finally found the computer hidden beneath the girl’s dirty clothes in a laundry hamper. Tucking it beneath his arm, he exited the flat while making sure to relock the front door.

As he climbed on the motor bike, the girl and her dog were already several houses away, walking calmly toward the far corner of the block.

The motor bike’s engine roared to life, and the rider made his way in the opposite direction to the girl. He turned a corner and was soon heading toward London.

***

Teddy Strang patted the video camera on the tripod in front of him. Its lens was carefully hidden by the window curtains in the front room of the house opposite Eliza’s. He placed a finger on the microchip implanted in his neck.

‘We seem to have at least two undercover agents working within The Fund,’ He reported.

‘Well, we’ll see if we can put that information to good use,’ came the reply.

***

John Thorpe stood looking over the technician’s shoulder as she opened the lap-top and proceeded to turn it on.

Nothing out of the ordinary happened as the technician scrolled through the list of programmes, searching for the downloaded videos that Thorpe was positive the computer contained.

Clicking onto ‘My Videos’ a selection of further file names appeared.

‘Which one?’ asked Thorpe.

The technician shrugged, ‘It could be any one of them. I’ll open them one at a time. Which one do you want me to start with?’

Thorpe read through the file names and saw one titled ‘Glimgrow’. The word seemed to be gibberish but rang a bell in Thorpe’s brain. ‘That one,’ he said, pointing to it. ‘Glimgrow was the name of a dummy company that Jade Green used to buy her Rolls Royce.’

The technician nodded and clicked onto the icon. A file opened and displayed a question. Secure access. Do you wish to continue? Yes/No.

‘What does that mean?’

‘If we answer ‘Yes’, we’ll probably be asked to supply a password before we continue.’

‘We don’t have a password. What will we do?’

The technician smiled, ‘I’ll hook this one up to our mainframe. Then they can talk to one another until we hit on the right one.’

‘How long will that take?’

‘With the counter-intelligence programmes we’re running it won’t take more than a couple of hours. Do you want me to go ahead?’

‘Yes, of course. Let me know as soon as you’ve gained entry.’

Thorpe turned to go just as the technician punched the ‘Yes’ option.

‘Shit!’ yelped the technician.

Thorpe spun around in time to see a message flash across the screen.

‘System has detected use of unauthorised hardware. Too late to do anything now. Better luck next time Mr Thorpe.’

The sound of hissing came from the lap-top and smoke began to rise through the keyboard. They watched in shock as the screen went blank and more smoke seeped out of the computer’s interior.

The technician quickly pulled a fire extinguisher from its bracket on the wall and sprayed foam over the machine.

Thorpe stared in dismay at the ruined computer.

‘I’ll take out the hard drive and see if I can recover anything,’ offered the technician.

Thorpe felt like kicking the infernal machine across the laboratory, but knew that he couldn’t show that sort of weakness in front of a junior staff member.

‘Ring me when you know something,’ he demanded and stormed out.

***

Thorpe was in a meeting with his deputy when the technician finally rang. ‘I took the computer down to our mechanical engineers. There was nothing we could do with the hard drive. It had been booby trapped. The minute the computer identified that we were using the wrong sort of hardware to operate the drive it activated a phial of acid inside the hard drive itself. There was nothing usable left inside the case by the time we opened it. I’m sorry.’

Thorpe had no intention of trying to console his staff and hung up in her ear. ‘The bastards are trying to stuff us around again.’

‘Why now?’ asked his deputy.

‘Because they’ve brought the videos out from wherever they were hidden. They knew they had nothing to fear when they didn’t go near them but now that they’ve been moved they’ve become vulnerable.’

‘What do we do now?’

‘The girl. She had the lap-top. She must have known what was on it. I want to talk to her.’

The deputy consulted his notes, ‘Eliza Strang.’

‘Strang? Isn’t she the daughter of that petty thief they employ as a security officer?’

‘Apparently so. She’s a Director of The Fund.’

‘I’ve met her before. She forced the Minister for Inland Security to release her father when I was interrogating him. But she doesn’t look anything like the person I ran into at their former headquarters.’

The deputy passed over a pair of photos from the file. One was of a pasty faced Goth and the second a well groomed young woman. ‘She certainly has undergone a change. I also have a note here that she is about to leave England. She’s booked on a flight to Jersey. She’ll be staying there overnight before flying to Paris with further connecting flights that will take her to Namola.’

‘Why the stopovers in Jersey and Paris? I smell a rat. When’s her flight?’

‘This evening at eight.’

‘I’ll need a couple of agents to come with me to the airport. I want to speak to her before she goes anywhere.’

***

Eliza sat in the airport lounge, sipping a fruit juice as she waited for her flight to be called. To pass the time she was hard at work sending SMS messages to her contacts in Namola, letting them know that she was on her way back and offering any help that they might need. Her latest lap-top, issued by The Fund’s technology department, rested in it’s satchel between her legs. There was no way that this computer would be allowed out of her sight.

As she worked, Eliza could not help but feel that there were eyes watching her, and glanced around. She noted that amongst those people present there were at least four who could have been security agents. Or am I just being paranoid?

She returned to her texting as three suited men entered the room.

Eliza saw them approach and casually reached up to tap at her neck.

The oldest of the three men held back while his companions approached and produced their Inland Security identification, ‘Please come with us Miss Strang.’

Eliza ignored the two men and waved to the third, ‘Good evening Mr Thorpe! It’s good to see you again.’

Thorpe refused to reply, simply waving to his agents, who took up positions on either side of Eliza.

Shrugging at Thorpe’s rudeness, Eliza rose and picked up her hand luggage before following after the retreating Thorpe while the other agents closed in behind her. The other occupants of the lounge stared at the young woman as she passed and wondered if they were experiencing a close encounter with a terrorist.

***

Thorpe sat behind a small desk in a nondescript office located in the bowels of the airport terminal.

Eliza was directed to a chair opposite while one of the agents took her personal items and searched through them carefully. Her lap-top was handed to Thorpe.

‘You wouldn’t want to do anything silly with that Mr Thorpe, would you now? You know what happened last time,’ she added sweetly.

‘I see you have your father’s sense of humour,’ replied Thorpe acidly.

Eliza shrugged, ‘I’m simply reminding you Mr Thorpe. It’d be such a waste to ruin another computer.’

Thorpe turned to one of his men. ‘Take it apart. Remove the hard drive.’

‘And what are you looking for?’ asked Eliza innocently.

‘The same thing that was on your other computer, Jade Green’s videos.’

‘There was no such thing on my other computer. There couldn’t be because those videos don’t exist. They’re only a legend.’

Thorpe shook his head, ‘That crap may have worked at one time, but we know better now. We have the DVD of a certain prominent judge and we know for sure that Green used the videos to gain your friend Toby Brown a favourable decision in a court case. You and your friends even showed a DVD to the Prime Minister.’

Eliza realised that it would be silly to continue denying the videos existence. The time for that had long passed. She waved her hands in a dismissive gesture to Thorpe, ‘Who cares about a bunch of silly men paying to have sex all those years ago.’

‘The Prime Minister cares.’

‘He only wants them for his own purposes. Mrs Green wanted them used to do good in the world and that doesn’t mean turning them over to the government. Besides, he didn’t seem to care too much when his own brother was exposed.’

‘The British Government will never kowtow to a bunch of blackmailers.’

Eliza smiled, ‘The PM did seem to enjoy all the wonderful publicity that assisting The Fund brought to his re-election campaign.’

Thorpe’s agent had opened the lap-top and now handed over the hard drive, which Thorpe slipped into his coat pocket, ‘Why are you going to Jersey?’ he asked.

‘Holidays.’

‘Bullshit! You’re not due to stay more than one day. You were delivering the hard drive to The Fund’s bank, weren’t you?’

‘Not now. You have the hard drive. But it won’t do you any good. It will end up like the other one.’

‘Not if we remove your little surprise first. It can’t self-destruct if there’s no acid phial.’

Eliza appeared to pale in shock as that fact struck home. Thorpe smiled at her discomfort. He rose from his chair and made toward the door. ‘Well then Miss Strang, I hope you have a delightful flight and a pleasant ‘holiday’ in Jersey.’

***

Eliza was escorted back to the lounge by a single agent and then left to await her flight.

The other travellers gave her a wide berth as she took her seat but she gave them a cheerful grin and concentrated once again on her phone calls.

‘You heard?’ she asked.

‘Everything. It went well.’

Eliza smiled, ‘He’s not going to be too happy when he finds there’s no phial of acid and no video files on that hard drive.’

‘You’ll be well on your way by then. Good luck.’

***

Several hours later Eliza had checked into her hotel room where she showered and climbed into bed for a good night’s sleep.

She ate breakfast the following morning in the restaurant located off the lobby and after returning to her room was able to confirm that it had been searched by experts in her absence.

Smiling to herself she dialled the front desk, ‘I forgot to ask when I arrived last night. Did a package arrive for me?’

The receptionist checked and reported, ‘Yes Miss Strang we have it here. Do you want us to bring it up or are you going to call down to collect it?’

‘I was wondering if you could do me a favour? Could you have the concierge arrange to have it delivered to Mr Lionel Rafter at the Jersey International Bank for me?’

‘Of course. We’ll have it delivered as soon as the bank opens.’

‘Thank you very much.’

***

At precisely ten o’clock that morning Eliza presented herself at the Jersey International Bank and was conducted to the office of its President, Lionel Rafter.

‘Welcome!’ he beamed as he rose and shook her hand, ‘It’s good to meet one of the bank’s female owners at last.’

Eliza saw that there was a brown paper wrapped package on his desk and breathed a sigh of relief.

‘I see my package has arrived.’

‘Yes of course. Do you want to open it in private? I can make an office available to you.’

‘No. I need to show you the contents and give you instructions as to what to do with them.’

‘I’m intrigued.’

Lionel Rafter handed the package to her, ‘It’s surprisingly heavy for its size. I would have guessed a gold ingot but I know the weight of gold and it’s too light for that. Jewellery perhaps?’

‘No, but the contents are extremely valuable,’ said Eliza as she unwrapped it. ‘We forwarded it to our Singapore office from headquarters and had Wendy Chung forward it back to my hotel here in Jersey.’

‘I’ve met Wendy and her sister. How are they?’

‘I’m told they’re fine,’ replied Eliza, as she finally revealed the contents of the package.

‘If I know my computer science, I’d say they were hard drives.’

Eliza smiled, ‘Correct. They’re identical. One is for you to hold in your vault. Guard it with your life.’

‘Of course I will. And the other?’

‘That one you can hand over to Inland Security when they call with a Search Warrant.’

Lionel Rafter hid his surprise well, ‘How can you be sure that Inland Security will come looking?’

‘They searched my room this morning and found nothing. I was probably followed here. They’ll be at the courthouse as we speak, seeking the order.’

‘I can claim that we know nothing about this matter.’

‘That’s not what we want. Be polite and give them what they’re looking for. We don’t want you getting in trouble with the authorities.’

‘It seems a lot of trouble to go to. Why not simply hand it over to the authorities yourself?’

Eliza smiled, ‘Smoke and mirrors. While they’re busy looking in one direction, the real game is taking place elsewhere.’

Lionel Rafter nodded in understanding.

Eliza stood and shook his hand, ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a flight to Paris to catch.’