Prediction

by Tony Batton

  But the alarm did not work. Again and again the guard hit the red button, but there was no response. Confused, he attempted to call the police using his mobile, yet there was no signal. The nearest wall-phone was dead as well. That was as far as he got before three intruders appeared on the floor, tasered him, and moved on.

  Several of the men re-emerged from the building carrying silver flight-cases marked ‘classified’ and ‘dangerous contents, handle with care’. Unhurriedly they began loading them into the backs of the vans.

  On level three a small explosive charge opened the recently-fitted security door, granting the waiting men access to the new computer lab. Inside a bald man in a white lab coat cowered behind his desk as the intruders spread around the room with purpose.

  The leader consulted his tablet then began pointing at various items. "That, and that. Leave that. Pack everything that’s plugged in. Handle it all with care." He turned to the man wearing the white coat, again holding up the tablet. "Lee Chow?"

  Chow nodded, wide-eyed.

  "Go with this operative. Any trouble and you will be killed."

  "I don’t understand."

  The leader raised his automatic pistol. "Talk is trouble. Now do as you’re told."

  Chow nodded.

  "Good." He holstered his weapon. "Let’s move it out. Remember, we’re on a deadline, people."

  Seventy-Six

  The interrogation room at Charing Cross Police Station was windowless and badly lit. Michael stared at the grey brick walls - featureless except for a single TV panel that was currently turned off - and wondered again just why he was in this predicament. He had used his one phone call to reach Eve - she was getting someone to finish her shift and said she would be there in about an hour.

  For now he sat in this tiny room, across a bolted-down table from the Inspector and Sergeant that had arrested him. Next to him was the spotty-faced duty solicitor who had been woken up to represent him, who had said little that Michael didn’t already know about the process, and who on several occasions had appeared to fall back asleep. On the table were four stewed cups of tea.

  "So, Mr. Adams," said the Inspector, "shall we start again?"

  "Why?" Michael replied. "I’ve told you everything I know."

  The Inspector looked down at his notes, underlining something with a pencil. "I find that unlikely."

  "Look, it’s really simple. I sent a message to Nichol asking to meet with him, face-to-face."

  "At nearly midnight on a Friday night?"

  "I’m a City lawyer - we work long hours. Nichol replied that he was working in his office, and I should meet him there. When I arrived, I found him dead. After that I called you."

  The Sergeant folded his arms. "There’s no record of a message on Nichol’s phone. Nothing on yours either."

  "Then look again. And ask the security guard - he’ll confirm when I arrived. What do your crime scene people say about time of death? That will show it happened before I was there."

  "Time of death? Already started planning your alibi?"

  Michael took a slow breath. "Look, just ask the guard, will you?"

  "We’re having trouble tracing him, but we will."

  "Then speak to my colleague - Kara Simmons. She can account for my whereabouts after I left the office."

  The Inspector tapped the table. "Word is, you lost a major client today, and that you got fired. Had a grudge to settle with Mr. Nichol, did you?"

  "Fired? Where did you hear that? Kara will confirm that’s false."

  "You were at her apartment you say?"

  "Yes. Earlier. Then I went for a drink—"

  "—So you were drinking?"

  "Only a couple. I met my former boss - Gordon Freeman - at a bar in the city."

  "Building up the courage to do the deed?"

  Tom flexed his fingers. "No, Detective. After that I went home. I did some work, and my mother called by. She didn’t stay long. Then I messaged Nichol, after which I went to the office."

  "So you say."

  "Yes, and I say it, because that’s what I did."

  "None of these things prove that you didn’t kill Mr. Nichol."

  "None of them prove I did. I’ve never fired a gun in my life."

  The Inspector nodded, then looked down at his notes. "So, you were at the apartment of Kara Simmons? Why?"

  Michael hesitated. "What do you mean?"

  The Inspector picked up his tea, and took an unhurried sip. "It’s a simple question. Why were you there?"

  "Discussing work."

  "That’s what they’re calling it these days?"

  Michael folded his arms. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

  "Were you in a relationship with Ms Simmons?"

  "What?" Michael blinked. "No, I was not."

  The Inspector turned to the TV screen and tapped a control. Hi-resolution footage from a wide angle lens camera began to play. It showed Michael standing in Kara’s apartment, Kara next to him in her bathrobe. She reached forward and kissed him. Then the footage froze.

  "Nice work if you can get it," said the Sergeant.

  Michael shook his head. "This isn’t what it looks like."

  "So you agree what it looks like?"

  "There’s no context. No sound. She kissed me. It was completely unexpected."

  "Really? She was there in her bathrobe, giving you brandy. If you were uncomfortable why not just leave?"

  "Because she was my boss. Look, keep playing the footage."

  "That’s all there is."

  "So you don’t see me pushing her away and leaving?" Michael clenched his fists. "How convenient."

  "That’s what you did, is it?"

  "And, more to the point, how did you get this footage?"

  "Why does that matter?" asked the Inspector. "Are you suggesting it’s been tampered with?"

  "It’s certainly highly misleading." Michael shook his head. "Look, what does this even matter? Aren’t you trying to find out who killed Duncan Nichol?"

  "We’re working on it, Sir. But when we went to speak to Ms Simmons, we didn’t find her home."

  "So then—"

  "We did however find some blood. A great deal of blood."

  Michael froze. "What are you saying?"

  The Inspector leaned forwards. "What I’m asking is: did you kill more than one person today?"

  Michael turned to look at his solicitor, who had started snoring. "I want a lawyer. One who can actually stay awake."

  The Inspector frowned. "You make a reasonable point. This interview is suspended. But this conversation is far from over."

  Seventy-Seven

  Jenson slowed his Mercedes as he approached the gates to the ZAT Reading site. Two police cars, blue lights flashing, blocked the entrance. Inside he could see half a dozen more police vehicles, including three vans.

  "What is going on here?" Craig asked from the passenger seat.

  "That is a lot of cops," Millie added from the rear of the car. "Too many."

  Jenson shook his head. "This is not good." He pulled out his mobile and noted he’d received nearly fifty messages in the last couple of minutes. "Not good at all."

  A uniformed officer walked over to them. "Sir, if you could move along," he said, waving with his arms, "the site is closed because of an incident—"

  Jenson flipped out his photo ID. "Thank you, officer. Since it’s my site, perhaps you could tell me what the hell is going on."

  The man narrowed his eyes, stepped back to read the number plate, then spoke into his radio. There was an immediate reply and he nodded. "Mr Jenson, please drive through. They’re waiting to brief you."

  Two hours later, Jenson joined Craig and Millie in a conference room. He closed the door, then sat at the table, his head in his hands.

  "What happened?" Craig asked. "You look terrible."

  "There was a raid. Armed men stormed the site this morning. They kidnapped my lead scientist, Lee Chow. We have no idea where they’ve t
aken him."

  "They weren’t just here for the scientist, surely?" Millie asked.

  "No. They took full specifications for all models of our micro-drones. And twenty cases of product. I didn’t know there was that much in existence, or how it all came to be here. I have people looking into it, but it seems to have got messed up with the consignments for Project Parallel."

  "No one noticed?"

  "We actively discouraged anyone to notice the classified shipments in the first place. We’re not supposed to be continuing the project, remember. And unfortunately it gets worse." Jenson hesitated, glancing at Millie and Craig. "They took Parallel. They had access codes to the entire facility. They shut down security, then just walked in and took what they wanted, including the bespoke CPUs and the Parallel test rig. With Chow to help them, they have everything they need to make it operational. And we have nothing."

  Craig shook his head. "This just goes from bad to… worse than bad. I suppose the police have no idea who did it?"

  "Oddly," Jenson said, "they say they’re pursuing leads that link to Regina Rose thanks to an anonymous tip. It makes sense: Rose found out where the micro-drones were, and she came and got them, but the tip tells me something more is going on."

  "I don’t like this," Millie replied. "Did you tell them who I was?"

  "Of course not. I didn’t tell them who Craig was either, but it’s possible they may start asking questions."

  "Normally if I get into trouble with law enforcement I have the option of leaning on my connection with Saxton. Right now I don’t think that will have too much value."

  "If you want to leave," Jenson said, "I’ll completely understand. It’s not your fight."

  She put her hands on her hips. "You don’t need to mock me for having a sense of self preservation."

  "Sorry, did I hurt your feelings? One of my friends has been kidnapped and my whole business has been compromised, so you’ll forgive me if I’m a little brusque."

  "Whatever. I’ll hang around for now."

  "Have you quite finished?" Craig frowned. "Was the Parallel tech in the same part of the building as the drones?"

  "No," Jenson replied. "Completely separate."

  "And yet they knew where to find it, and to take Chow with them. That doesn’t sound random at all. It sounds the opposite of random."

  "It sounds like they knew everything. And now they have everything, too. While we have nothing at all." Jenson shook his head. "I need to speak with my assistant, Kelly. She’s been conducting some investigations on my behalf, though, so she’s off-grid at the moment."

  "When did you last speak to her?"

  "A couple of days ago."

  "Are you sure she’s OK? I mean, it sounds like you sent her to poke the hornets’ nest."

  "Which is why she went dark: we were worried our comms were being monitored. It seems we were probably right."

  Millie laced her fingers together. "I wouldn't say we have nothing. Craig invented Darwin. That’s something."

  Craig folded his arms. "What do you mean?"

  "Based on what you showed me, I think I can locate Darwin. I can take your pattern and feed it into my proprietary search engines. If it’s operational, then we just follow the searches back to the source."

  Craig frowned. "That might just work."

  "But," Jenson said, "what about Rose? What about my drones? What about Parallel?"

  "If we get Darwin," Millie said with a smile, "then we can get all of them."

  Seventy-Eight

  A uniformed officer led Michael from the interview room and down a corridor. Halfway along he unlocked a door and ushered him inside a plain white room containing a table and four chairs.

  "You sit on the far side," said the officer.

  Michael glanced around. "Is this another interview? Don’t I get a break?"

  The man shrugged. "You have a visitor and ten minutes. Make use of them."

  Michael blinked and took his seat as directed. A moment later Eve stepped into the room and closed the door behind her. She looked around and put a finger to her lips.

  "What?" he asked. "There’s no one else here."

  "They’re probably monitoring us."

  "I know there are cameras everywhere, but the sound will be turned off. This isn’t 1960s Berlin."

  "Espionage tech then was stone age by comparison with today. There could be a dozen microphones in here and we wouldn’t even know."

  He hesitated. "You could be right. But I don’t care. It’s not like it will matter if they overhear me confessing my innocence."

  She gave a snort and ran around the table, hugging him so tightly he gasped. "What the heck have you got yourself into now?"

  "I really don’t know."

  "For my benefit, try and explain."

  He shrugged. "We had a difficult work meeting yesterday. Lost a big client, everything went to custard. Then I had an odd conversation with my mother – some stuff about my Dad – which oddly seems to be linked with ZAT."

  "The arms manufacturer? Why them?"

  "Because they’re our client. Or were." He swallowed." Look I probably shouldn’t have even said—"

  "How could ZAT be connected to your Dad?"

  "I don’t know. It’s just that…" he hesitated. "You know maybe it’s best if I don’t tell you everything."

  "Because you don’t trust me?" She jabbed a finger in his ribs. "I’m the only one you can trust."

  "That’s not it. Look, I’m not imagining the danger. Someone died. Maybe two people."

  She sucked in her lip. "Yeah, they haven’t found that Kara yet. And in fact it might be worse. Your former boss has vanished. Gordon Freeman, from CWP. He’s been reported missing by his wife. It’s all over the news."

  Michael blinked. "What? I only met with him last night."

  Eve’s eyes widened. "Oh boy."

  "And I was at Kara’s apartment before that."

  "Why on earth would you go there?"

  "To discuss work. But they have some footage of me kissing her—"

  Eve folded her arms. "There’s quite a pattern there, hotshot."

  "C’mon, this is all beyond ridiculous."

  "Of course it is." She gripped his shoulder. "So what are we going to do about it?"

  "What do you mean we? You don’t have to get involved."

  "I’m your best friend, idiot. I’m not going to sit by while they stitch you up for triple-murder."

  "We don’t know if Kara or Freeman are actually dead—"

  "For argument’s sake, let’s assume. We have to push back. Someone set you up. We need to work out why. We have to get a damn idea, damn quick. Or you could be staying here a very long time."

  "Sure. But my options to do much are rather limited, unless you’ve got a plan to break me out."

  "It’s not something they teach at med school. You’re the one with the analytical brain – haven’t you got any ideas?"

  Michael thought for a moment. One pattern was immediately obvious. "I know what you said about helping, but I think you should get out of London. Go stay with your cousin."

  "How can I help you from there? Added to which I have work on Monday."

  "I want to know that you’re out of harm's way. It’s just a precaution. And warn my mother as well."

  Eve rolled her eyes. "She knows how to take care of herself. Chances are she’ll be off overseas on another trip in a day or two anyway. I’m sure she won’t let your situation change her plans."

  "Please just speak to her. You’ll find a way to say it right. That’s your talent. Telling people difficult things in a way that makes it OK."

  "Sure. And in that vein, I’m telling you that I’m not going anywhere, and that that is OK."

  "That’s not what I meant—"

  "I’m not going to abandon you. No, unpleasant as it may be, I’m going to connect with your mother. We’ll pool our resources and start developing a plan." She turned towards the door. "Including hiring you a law
yer who can actually stay awake."

  "How did you know about that?"

  "He was on the sofa in reception, snoring. I don’t mean to pick fun – I’ve done that once or twice myself near the end of a double-shift."

  Michael gave a snort. "At least you can’t accuse me of being boring any more."

  "Like I said, I never called you that." She put her hand on the door handle. "You know maybe you should have listened to me. All this nonsense started when you accepted that job at Infinity. I did say you should think twice about it."

  "Believe me, I’m doing that now."

  Seventy-Nine

  At ZAT Reading’s site, Jenson had taken Craig and Millie to a basement room, scanning it several times before declaring it clean. They had then set up a local server, with a triple firewall.

  Millie was now glaring at multiple display screens. "This is not working as quickly as it should, and I don’t know why."

  "The layered firewalls?" Jenson asked. "It’s too risky not to use them."

  "No. Something else has changed," Craig said, looking up from lines of code. "The volume of traffic has reduced dramatically and there’s almost nothing to analyse. Are they suddenly managing to mask it or has it been switched off?"

  "After all this time it gets turned off now?" Millie said. "I don’t believe that for a second."

  "Maybe they've detected our intrusion?" Jenson suggested.

  Craig shook his head. "They couldn't react that quickly. The way Darwin works, it can't be turned off in a moment. You can't really turn it off at all. Whatever is going on, this feels planned."

  "Well maybe they’ve changed the rules," Jenson said. "Maybe in fifteen years they’ve found a way." His phone buzzed. He pulled it out and stared at the screen. "Oh, you have to be kidding me." He walked over to a large display screen and called up the BBC News website.

  LAWYER MICHAEL ADAMS ARRESTED FOR DOUBLE MURDER read the headline below a picture.

  "No!" shouted Craig.

  "Total BS," Millie said with a groan.

  Jenson stared at the screen. "‘Victim is Duncan Nichol, managing partner at Infinity Law, and it is also believed that Kara Simmons may have been killed, though no body has been found. Police are also investigating a third, possibly related, disappearance,’" he read.