Zero Hour

by Mark Walden

  ‘Did Nero say why?’

  ‘No, he wouldn’t tell me.’

  ‘They probably want more information about what is happening at the facility in America,’ Furan said.

  ‘I could have them taken into custody at the gates if you want,’ Cavendish suggested.

  ‘No, give them access,’ Furan replied. ‘They will only find out what the Americans know already and that will not help them. Leave the boy’s retrieval to Raven. I don’t want to spook Malpense. If he senses something is wrong and runs we could lose him.’

  ‘If Raven is going to take the boy at GCHQ I need it to look like a terrorist attack. Anything else might raise too many difficult questions.’

  ‘I’m sure that Natalya will be able to come up with something,’ Furan replied, and the line went dead.

  Otto and the others travelled the remaining distance to the GCHQ gates in silence. A long straight road led to the outer perimeter fence and the gatehouse at the end of it was manned by several heavily armed guards. Otto tried to ignore the assault rifles that were trained on them as they approached. Wing pulled up at the assigned spot and one of the guards walked over to the car as Otto lowered the window.

  ‘Good morning, sir,’ the guard said, the polite greeting at odds with his stern expression.

  ‘Tsunami,’ Otto said, and the guard nodded.

  ‘We’ve been expecting you,’ he replied. ‘Please proceed through the gate and follow the security vehicle to the main building.’ Otto closed the window as the heavy security barrier lowered into the ground in front of them. Wing dropped into formation behind the military vehicle and followed it towards the large doughnut-shaped building that was the hub of Britain’s intelligence communications network.

  ‘Big place,’ Lucy said as they rolled towards the main doors.

  ‘Lots of people to eavesdrop on,’ Otto said, finding it hard to shake the sensation that they were walking into the lion’s den. The vehicle they were following came to a stop and one of the guards that climbed down from it motioned for them to step out of the car.

  ‘This way, please,’ he said, indicating the large doors.

  Otto and the others walked inside the building and took in their surroundings. The large glass-walled entrance area was patrolled by armed guards and surveillance cameras seemed to be mounted in every corner. Long channels leading further into the building were fitted with numerous different types of electronic scanners. Smuggling anything through would be next to impossible. Otto was suddenly very glad that they had not needed to try and infiltrate the building. Even with the unique skills that he and his friends possessed he could see that it would have been extremely difficult.

  A short, balding man in a badly fitting suit walked down the entrance channel towards them. He had the air of someone who was being told to do something that he really did not want to do.

  ‘If you’ll come with me, please,’ the man said. ‘My name is Colin Reynolds and I’ll be your escort while you’re here. I’ve been informed of what you need – heaven only knows what they’re thinking in London but ours is not to reason why.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Otto said. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll be gone before you know it.’

  ‘Yes, well, let’s head inside, shall we?’ Reynolds said, looking irritated.

  ‘Lead the way,’ Otto replied with a smile that he secretly hoped would annoy the officious bureaucrat even more. As they all followed Reynolds through the entry channel a buzzer sounded.

  ‘Do you have any electronic devices on you?’ he asked.

  ‘Just a mobile phone and this,’ Otto said, holding out H.I.V.E.mind’s vocal transmitter.

  ‘And what is that?’ Reynolds said, eyeing the device suspiciously.

  ‘It’s my . . . er . . . MP3 player,’ Otto lied.

  ‘Well, you’ll have to leave them here, I’m afraid,’ Reynolds said. ‘We’ve been instructed to grant you access but nobody is allowed beyond this point with unsecured electronic devices. No exceptions. You can pick them up on your way out.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Otto said, trying hard not to smile If Reynolds really knew what he could do or what he had rattling around inside his skull, he’d probably have a heart attack. Otto had everything he needed with him and no one could take it from him.

  They passed through the rest of the scanners in the channel without incident and Reynolds led them further inside the huge edifice. As with most buildings used by the intelligence services there was actually very little to see beyond firmly closed office doors and signs pointing to other departments that were identified by meaningless numbers. After walking down numerous identical anonymous corridors Reynolds finally led them to an elevator that was flanked by two heavily armed guards.

  ‘In you go,’ he said with a sniff. ‘I’m not cleared beyond this point.’

  ‘Thanks, Colin,’ Otto said with a smile. ‘I’d tell you why we’re here but . . . it’s classified.’ Otto actually thought he might burst out laughing as Reynolds glared at him and then stormed off down the corridor muttering to himself.

  ‘Be nice,’ Lucy said, elbowing him in the ribs as they stepped into the lift. ‘We’re trying not to upset anyone, remember.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Otto said, grinning. ‘Couldn’t resist.’

  The elevator descended for what seemed like an unusually long time before the doors slid open and the Alphas found themselves in a long windowless corridor ending in a single door flanked by two more armed guards. Above it was a single word.

  Echelon.

  As they approached one of the guards punched a code into the numeric keypad mounted on the wall and the door hissed open. Inside dozens of technicians sat at consoles monitoring hundreds of screens. A woman with curly blonde hair wearing jeans and a T-shirt walked over to them and inspected them carefully.

  ‘Could you give me the code word, please?’ she asked.

  ‘Tsunami,’ Otto said, trying to ignore the background hum of digital activity that surrounded him.

  ‘Welcome to Echelon,’ the woman said with a smile. ‘I’ve been instructed to give you full access. I’ve prepared a terminal in one of the side offices. If you’d like to come with me . . .’

  Otto and the others followed her into the small room off to one side of the main monitoring area, which contained a single desk with an array of touch screens mounted on its surface.

  ‘I’m not sure exactly what it is that you need,’ the woman said. ‘I’m told that you’ll know what to do. If there’s anything you want or if you require help at all, I’ll be just outside.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Otto said. ‘I think we’ll be OK.’

  ‘Fine. I’ll leave you to it.’

  She left the office, closing the door behind her. As she walked back out on to the main floor one of her colleagues looked up at her with a curious expression.

  ‘What’s that all about?’ the man asked, nodding towards the office.

  ‘Don’t know, don’t want to know,’ the woman said with a slight shake of her head, ‘but considering who my orders came from I’m guessing that it’s a little bit above our pay grade.’

  ‘But they’re just kids,’ the man said, looking puzzled.

  ‘Kids with a higher security clearance than you, Mike,’ the woman said with a shrug, heading back to her desk.

  Back inside the office Otto looked at the array of monitors on the desk with a mixture of excitement and apprehension. If there was a pot of gold that lay at the end of the signals intelligence rainbow, this was it. Echelon may have been a badly kept secret within the intelligence community but to most members of the general public it was still just a myth. At its core it was nothing more than an advanced search engine but what made it astonishing was the amount of data that it filtered. Every phone call, internet search or radio transmission was routed through the Echelon servers, where intelligent algorithms scanned through their content looking for key phrases of interest. It was a giant ear listening to the whole of humanity and highlighting to it
s operators anything that might be of concern to them. Otto thought there was something deeply sinister about it – it represented a huge invasion of privacy for people all over the world. For his money it was just as evil as anything that he’d seen G.L.O.V.E. or any of their foes produce.

  ‘He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither,’ he said under his breath.

  ‘What’s that?’ Laura asked.

  ‘Nothing – just something an old revolutionary once said,’ Otto replied. ‘Check this out.’

  He pointed to a series of diagnostic readouts on one of the screens.

  ‘I can’t believe the bandwidth they’re dealing with here,’ Laura said, studying the monitors with an expression of awe.

  ‘It’s the level of real-time decryption I can’t believe,’ Otto replied.

  ‘What bit level of encryption before they hit processing bottlenecks, do you reckon? They have to be using a massively parallel array,’ Laura said.

  ‘The who do what now?’ Shelby said with a sigh.

  ‘They’re talking computer at each other again, aren’t they,’ Lucy said, sitting down in one of the chairs against the wall.

  ‘I believe they prefer the term nerdspeak,’ Wing replied as Otto and Laura chatted away to one another, seemingly oblivious to the rest of the world.

  ‘Er . . . guys,’ Shelby said, stifling a laugh, ‘hate to break up the party but we’re on the clock here.’ She tapped on her watch.

  ‘Yeah, I suppose we’d better get on with this,’ Otto said with a sigh. ‘Can you clear me routers on every major transmission hub?’

  ‘On it,’ Laura said, tapping away at one of the touch screens.

  ‘Right. You ready, H.I.V.E.mind?’ Otto asked.

  I am ready, the voice in Otto’s head replied.

  ‘OK, I’m going to hook us up.’ Otto explained. ‘Once I’m connected to each server I’ll give you the word and you can begin transmission.’

  Understood.

  ‘I know you can’t tell me what this signal is,’ Otto said, ‘but tell me one thing before we do this.’

  What do you want to know?

  ‘Why does it have to be transmitted from here?’ Otto asked.

  Because this is the only place on Earth where we can be sure that the transmission will not be intercepted. The identities of the recipients of this transmission must not be discovered and the only way we can be certain that they remain hidden is if we send the signal to them directly from here. Echelon monitors every other network that is sufficiently powerful to send the signal. G.L.O.V.E.net would have been both secure and powerful enough but H.I.V.E. is the hub of that network.’

  ‘I get it,’ Otto said, suddenly understanding. ‘When we lost H.I.V.E. we lost the network that was supposed to send this message. Any other network would have been vulnerable to Echelon and the only way around that is to take advantage of the fact that the one thing Echelon can’t hear is its own voice.’

  That is correct.

  Otto found himself wondering again what this signal could be. What was it that Nero had to be so sure would not be intercepted by anyone? It wasn’t that H.I.V.E.mind wouldn’t tell him, it was that it couldn’t tell him. It was built into his code, part of his fundamental architecture. If there was one thing that Otto hated it was not knowing what was going on.

  ‘OK,’ Laura said, ‘routers are clear.’

  ‘Here goes nothing,’ Otto said, closing his eyes.

  The connection he made was instant and overwhelming. For just a split second he felt as though he was suddenly spread throughout billions of different places all over the world at the same instant. He could see everything, hear everything. It was the most fascinating and yet horrifying thing he had ever experienced. At that instant he made a decision, something that he simply had to do.

  Connection verified. Target locations confirmed. Transmission initiated, H.I.V.E.mind said.

  Otto tried to ignore the bewildering sensation of near omnipotence and instead focus on his task. He began to build blocks of code in his head, transmitting them as quickly as he could. He consciously hid what he was doing from H.I.V.E.mind – no one could know what he was planning.

  Transmission complete, H.I.V.E.mind said.

  Otto needed just a few more seconds.

  You may disconnect, H.I.V.E.mind said.

  Otto fired off the last block of his own code.

  Otto, you may disconnect now, H.I.V.E.mind repeated.

  ‘Done,’ Otto gasped, disconnecting from Echelon’s network and feeling a sudden wave of dizziness. He grabbed the edge of the desk to stop himself from falling as the room spun around him. Wing caught him and helped him down into one of the nearby chairs.

  ‘Are you all right, my friend?’ he asked, studying Otto’s unusually pale face.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Otto said, taking a deep breath. ‘That was just a bit much to take in. Unless anyone has any objections I’d like to get the hell out of here. This place gives me the creeps.’

  Nero looked out of the window of the helicopter as it flew low over the English countryside. Not for the first time in the past couple of days he found himself wondering if he had done the right thing. He had always known that the plan he had put in motion might be necessary one day but, that didn’t make him any more comfortable with the possible consequences.

  ‘We’re two minutes out,’ the pilot reported and Nero just nodded. Moments later the cell phone in his inside pocket began to ring and he quickly took the call.

  ‘Hello, Mr Malpense,’ Nero said. ‘I hope you have good news.’

  ‘Yes,’ Otto replied. ‘H.I.V.E.mind has sent the signal. Any chance of you telling me what this is all about now?’

  ‘All in good time, Mr Malpense,’ Nero replied. ‘I take it that you received full cooperation from the GCHQ staff?’

  ‘Yeah, though I think they might be wondering why a bunch of kids in jumpsuits were given access to the most secure data network on the planet.’

  ‘No doubt. Let’s hope that they never find out,’ Nero said. ‘I shall be there very shortly. Are you ready to leave?’

  ‘Yes, we’re inside the main entrance.’

  ‘I’ll be on the ground in thirty seconds,’ Nero said as they crossed GCHQ’s perimeter fence, heading for the helipad a short distance from the entrance.

  ‘OK, see you in a minute,’ Otto said and the line went dead.

  The helicopter was on its final approach when the front entrance of the GCHQ building suddenly exploded in an enormous ball of fire.

  ‘What the hell –’ the pilot said, staring at the billowing cloud of smoke that shrouded the front of the building. Nero watched in horror as something blew away the cloud, revealing the huge hole torn in the entrance. There was a shimmer in the air and he felt his heart sink as a Shroud dropship uncloaked, landing just twenty metres from the building. The rear hatch opened and a figure dressed in black ran down the boarding ramp, pulling two glowing purple swords from the crossed sheaths on her back. A squad of heavily armed men followed close behind her.

  ‘Get me down there now!’ Nero shouted.

  Raven ran through the smouldering rubble, swords drawn, searching for her target. The glass frontage of GCHQ was supposed to be bombproof but the Shroud’s missile strike had torn it apart.

  ‘Fan out. Find the boy,’ she snapped at the soldiers accompanying her. ‘He’s here somewhere.’

  There was a groan from nearby and Laura sat up, still dazed from the explosion. Raven signalled to two of the soldiers to take her.

  ‘Put her on board the Shroud – she may be useful.’

  Raven watched as the two men dragged the struggling girl away before turning her attention back to the ruined room. Through the clouds of dust hanging in the air she could just make out another figure in a black jumpsuit staggering through the remains of the entrance area. She moved quickly towards the figure and saw that it was Lucy Dexter, bleeding from a gash on her forehead. As she saw Raven approaching, Luc
y took a couple of stumbling steps backwards, a look of startled fear on her face.

  ‘Leave me al—’ Lucy never had time to finish the sentence as Raven clamped her hand over her mouth.

  ‘Not this time,’ Raven said, wrapping her arm round Lucy’s throat and squeezing until she felt the girl lose consciousness. She called two of the soldiers over.

  ‘Put her on board too. Make sure she’s sedated,’ Raven said. The soldiers picked up Lucy’s unconscious body and carried it outside. There was the sudden sound of gunfire from outside as the GCHQ security forces started to recover from the shock and mount a counter-attack. Raven continued to move through the rubble – she needed to find Malpense fast. She almost tripped over the body lying on the floor half covered in debris, the white hair at the back of his head stained red with blood. Kneeling down, she placed two fingers on Otto’s neck and felt a strong pulse. She quickly searched his pockets and found what looked like a partly dismantled Blackbox and a mobile phone, then flung them against the nearest wall, smashing them to pieces. Satisfied that they could no longer be tracked she pulled Otto from under the fallen plasterwork and slung his limp body over her shoulder.

  ‘Raven to all forces. I have acquired the primary target. Everyone back on board the Shroud now!’ she said quickly into her throat mic. She ran through the doors towards the waiting dropship and pounded up the boarding ramp, lowering Otto carefully on to the deck.

  ‘Pilot, get us out of here,’ Raven said and the Shroud’s idling engines roared into life. She looked back towards the entrance as the Shroud lifted from the ground and saw Wing running through the debris towards her. He leapt into the air as the Shroud climbed, just catching the edge of the boarding ramp, and started to pull himself inside. Raven took two steps towards him as he tried to haul himself up over the edge and kicked him in the jaw. Wing’s head snapped back and he dropped off the loading ramp and fell. He hit the ground hard, landing on his side with a thud.

  ‘Wing!’ Shelby shouted as she ran across the forecourt towards him. She rolled him on to his back and after a couple of seconds his eyes opened.

  ‘Help me up,’ he groaned, grabbing her shoulder and pulling himself to his feet. They both watched helplessly as the Shroud climbed into the sky, its loading ramp closing as the rounds from the GCHQ guards’ assault rifles pinged harmlessly off its armoured hull. A moment later the skin of the dropship seemed to shimmer for a second and then it vanished from view as its cloaking field activated. Shelby turned as she heard footsteps running up behind her. It was Nero, flanked by several of the facility’s security guards.