Coding Isis

by David Roys

  Chris thought about his employer and how they liked to eavesdrop on phone calls. Naylor was probably right.

  ‘What’s this about?’ said Chris.

  There was a pause. When Naylor’s voice came back it was quieter, almost a whisper.

  ‘Not on the phone, OK? When can we meet?’

  ‘How about we meet up after work tomorrow. I try to leave around six. We could meet for coffee, or a beer?’

  ‘Do you know Union Jacks on North Glebe?’

  ‘Sure I do. Do they still do London Pride on tap?’

  ‘Sounds like you really do know the place. Meet me there at seven.’

  Chris walked back into the lounge and found Michelle nursing a whiskey, curled up on the sofa. Chris grabbed a drink for himself and sat next to her. Michelle leaned over and lay her head against his chest. She smelled good, and he kissed her on the top of her head. She made approving noises and rubbed her hand across his chest.

  ‘What did he want?’ she asked.

  ‘He wouldn’t say. He wants to meet up.’

  ‘And you’re going to meet him?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Why not? The last time that asshole got involved with our lives, you ended up in prison.’

  ‘That wasn’t his fault. He was just doing his job.’

  Michelle sat up again and set her drink down on the low table. She shifted in her seat so she could look Chris in the face.

  ‘He said on the phone he thought you might be in danger. What was that about?’

  ‘It’s nothing to worry about. I think he was just trying to get my attention. Now how about you come over here again?’

  Michelle leaned back in to Chris and he let his hand fall to her breast. She turned her head and looked at him and he kissed her. But the kiss didn’t turn into anything else and Michelle seemed somehow removed from the situation. Chris looked at her and studied her features trying hard to see what she was thinking. Maybe he had been neglecting her. That would be a first, taking marital advice from Wyn.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing. I’m just tired,’ she said. She was lying of course. Ten years of marriage had meant a couple shared many things and amongst them was a certain ability to tell when your loved one was upset, or worried. Chris topped up his glass of whiskey and waited for Michelle to open up.

  ‘How much do you really know about the work you’re doing?’ Michelle asked.

  ‘I’m not supposed to talk about it.’

  ‘Oh come on, don’t give me that national security horseshit.’

  Michelle set her glass on the table and moved to one side of the sofa so she could look at Chris; her arms folded across her chest.

  ‘No, I’m just saying, I’m not really supposed to talk about it, but I’ll tell you what I know, which isn’t a lot after one day, believe me. I work for a branch of the NSA. It’s a research and development project run by a man called Joshua Tully. They’re building new technology to help to protect the country from terrorists.’

  ‘How is this linked to you? And what about what happened to Jasmine?’

  ‘Their project is called Horus, it’s named after the Egyptian god of the sky, god of war, and the god of protection. They’ve used the facial recognition software that Jasmine and I built and have created UAV snipers. UAV is military jargon for unmanned aerial vehicle. You’ve heard of drones right?’

  ‘You mean they have robots flying around shooting at people?’

  ‘You make it sound worse than it is. The project is at a prototype stage, but yes they have small drone vehicles that use powerful camera and imaging equipment to track targets. They then use what is essentially a computer controlled sniper rifle to neutralize the target.’

  ‘Is that what happened to Jasmine? Was she neutralized?’

  Chris took a long swallow of his whiskey. Michelle was slowly picking away at a scab that had managed to cover up his feelings for what had happened to Jasmine. She was uncovering a part of Chris’s life that he would rather remain concealed.

  ‘What happened to Jasmine was an accident. She had found out that someone was hacking into our computer system and copying our code. This was Joshua’s team of course, but we didn’t know they were doing this. They could have had the damned code, they paid for it after all. Jasmine tried to prove that the programming code was her creation and in order to do this, she accidentally loaded an image of herself into the targeting system.’

  ‘Oh my God.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘She killed herself? Couldn’t they have stopped it?’

  ‘They didn’t know. The system is a prototype, it had bugs in it. They’ve built safeguards into the system now to stop anything like that from happening again. I made sure of that as one of my first tasks.’

  ‘Why did they have live rounds in a prototype system? Surely these flying killing machines can’t just take off and kill people without anyone having any input to the process?’

  Now that Chris thought about it, it didn’t seem so clear cut.

  ‘It’s not just about acquiring a target. There’re a lot of sophisticated calculations go into firing the shot. Calculations for wind speed, humidity, if the target is moving. All of these factors need to be combined to allow a shot that no human could pull off. I’m guessing they needed to verify that the bullet would definitely hit the target.’

  ‘This is bullshit Chris. They can’t just go around shooting at US citizens.’

  ‘It was an accident.’

  Michelle did not look convinced and Chris wondered if he was really convinced either. Michelle seemed to be reading the doubt in his eyes.

  ‘Are you sure you’re doing the right thing?’ she asked.

  And there it was, the question that had been nagging at Chris all day: was he doing the right thing? How did any one of us know we were doing the right thing?

  ‘What is the right thing Michelle?’ he said. ‘I’m not sure I know anymore. The world has changed. Sneaky little fuckers crash airplanes into office buildings. Is that right? Bombers get on to buses. These guys don’t play by our rules. They don’t care who gets hurt and we need to fight back, we need to stop these people from hurting us.’

  ‘But what about the constitution? What about being innocent until proven guilty? What about human rights?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. If he was honest with himself he’d been asking these questions all day.

  ‘I’m just doing my job,’ he said. ‘If it wasn’t me, it would be some other guy. They have some good engineers there. I have a good job, I’m well paid. We should be happy.’

  ‘You said we should be happy. Are you having doubts Chris?’

  ‘I really don’t know. How did I get into this? I didn’t wake up one morning and decide that today would be a good day to work on killing terrorists. Things move slowly, little changes, a bit of programming here, an idea there. Before I knew it I was up to my neck in this shit, and do you know what? I can’t get out.’

  ‘Of course you can honey. What are they going to do?’

  ‘I don’t want to find out. I just want to keep us all safe until I figure a way out.’

  ‘Can’t you go to the authorities?’

  ‘They are the authorities.’

  FORTY-SEVEN

  Maynard walked into Joshua’s office and waited for him to finish on his computer screen. He looked up and gestured for Maynard to take a seat.

  ‘We have a problem,’ said Maynard as he sat.

  ‘Why doesn’t that surprise me? What’s wrong?’

  ‘Do you want the good news or the bad news?’

  Joshua smiled. ‘Surprise me,’ he said.

  ‘The good news is that we’ve found a way to get phase two online quickly, in fact we’re ready to trial it now.’

  ‘That is good news. And the bad news?’

  ‘I think we might need to use it tonight.’

  ‘Need to?’

  ‘Remember that cop that’s been
calling Chris?’

  ‘Detective Naylor.’

  ‘We monitored his calls and he’s set up a meeting with Chris tonight. He said he has something vitally important to tell him. He didn’t want to talk about it on the phone.’

  ‘He’s smarter than he looks,’ said Joshua with a grin. ‘Do you think he knows?’

  ‘He has to. God knows how he found out, but he knows. We pulled Michelle’s voicemail and yesterday he called her and left a message. He said he thinks he knows who killed Jasmine Allan.’

  ‘How the hell did he figure that out?’

  ‘He’s a detective. I guess that’s what he does. He could be on the wrong track but if he knows and he tells Chris, this could get messy quickly.’

  The smile fell from Joshua’s face.

  ‘Take care of it,’ he said. ‘But only get rid of the cop. I think Chris has a lot of use left in him.’

  Maynard nodded and turned to leave the office.

  ‘Oh, and Maynard? Make it subtle.’

  Ben hoped that Chris would have enough faith to take his warning seriously, even though he had no evidence to give him. Margot had said there was no evidence, only the recollections of some that had known Joshua at the time, he’d been careful to ensure there was no paper trail. She wouldn’t reveal the names of her sources, despite his best efforts at persuasion which included another expensive dinner out. It seemed that even after all these years people were still afraid of Joshua Tully.

  Ben was worried for Chris’s safety, but he knew that he needed to keep his warning discrete and allow Chris to make up his own mind as to the seriousness of the threat. He walked out to his Buick and opened the door. He’d long ago dispensed with the formality of locking it; he knew that if anyone wanted to take his car, there was little he could do to prevent it. His best anti-theft device seemed to be a permanent array of garbage inside the car coupled with an exterior that would turn off even the most desperate of crack-heads.

  He turned the key in the ignition and the v8 engine burst into life. His car maybe looked like trash but it started every time. Ben gunned the throttle a little and enjoyed the throaty growl. He checked his watch, he needed to get moving if he was to catch up with Chris on time.

  The traffic was light as Ben turned on to Annapoli and headed towards Martin Luther King Jr. Highway. He started to pick up more traffic leaving the Springdale area and heading in towards the city. He approached the traffic lights at the intersection and slowed to a stop. He looked around and noticed a bum living by the underpass. He’d been a cop for too long now not to see the world through cop’s eyes. He couldn’t wait at an intersection without glancing around looking for drug dealers, hookers, or anything that looked out of place. In this case there was nothing unusual about a vagrant trying to get a dry place to sleep, although he was pretty sure the guy would be moved on before the next night. It wasn’t a good look for the nation’s capital, home to many visiting public figures to be seen to be filled with so many homeless, and yet, like every major city in the world there were homeless people, beggars, hookers, and other undesirables.

  The lights changed and Ben pulled away from the stop sign and time seemed to slow, as from the corner of his vision he noticed a semi-truck and trailer thundering through the intersection at high speed. He felt his heart quicken and adrenaline pumped through his blood, seemingly giving him lightning-fast reactions. He stomped his foot down hard on the brake pedal and his car tires screeched in protest as they shed their outer layer across the asphalt. In reality the whole moment lasted a few fractions of a second, but in the adrenaline-filled brain it stretched out across what seemed like minutes. The ’65 Buick slowed to a stop and the large truck sped past with what must have been inches to spare. The force of the wall of air the truck was pushing before it made Ben’s car rock from side to side on its soggy suspension.

  In a few seconds it had played out and now it was over and for Ben’s body it was payback time. The extra performance that had been borrowed by the surge of hormones had caused an oxygen deficiency in his muscles, his heart and even his brain. Ben felt his heart pounding inside his chest and he let out a deep breath.

  ‘Shit,’ he said. Ben had often thought that no matter what kind of drama came into his life, or that of any number of people he had seen go through dramatic situations, that one single word always seemed the most appropriate thing to say. A loud beep from behind helped him to snap out of his state of shock and he realized that his life’s small drama had passed and he was back to the reality of a frustrated driver angrily beeping in order to get him to move through the junction now that the lights had turned green. He carefully glanced right and left and then pulled off through the intersection.

  Chris managed to get away from work at a reasonable time and he was pleased with how things were going. It had been another successful day. His programming work was going well and his teammates seemed amazed at what he was able to produce in such a short period of time. He liked the whiz kid status he seemed to have at this place. He parked in the Ballston Common shopping center’s car park and walked along to the Union Jacks bar. He’d been to this place a few times in the past, he should probably take Wyn to it. It had all the things he looked for in life: fried food, good beer, and attractive barmaids.

  He walked in to the place and found it nearly deserted as bars often were at this time of day. It seemed strange to leave the early evening sunshine and enter the dark building with its wall-lighting and neon sign hung over the bar. A TV was mounted on a bracket so it could be seen from the bar and on it was a game of cricket, the sound was turned way down. The barmaid smiled as he walked up to the bar.

  ‘Hello love,’ she said. ‘What can I get you?’

  Chris couldn’t work out if she really was a Londoner or if this was part of the theme for the pub. He looked at his watch, Ben should be here soon.

  He ordered a pint of London Pride and the barmaid took a pint glass from beneath the bar and let the golden ale pour slowly into the glass. He hadn’t noticed when he first saw her that she was quite short, about five feet, the bottom of the tap was level with her eye line and she had to reach up slightly to pull on the pump. She looked up and smiled at Chris.

  ‘You sound like you’re from England,’ she said. ‘Are you here on holiday?’

  ‘I am from England but I’ve been over here for nearly ten years now. I work over at George Washington University, or rather I used to, I’ve just moved to a new building.’

  ‘What do you do?’

  Chris thought of telling her that if he told her he would have to kill her, but then he realized that this was probably a little too close to the truth.

  ‘I’m a computer programmer.’

  And there it was. The four words that were almost guaranteed to stop any conversation in its tracks. He waited for the glazed look, or the strange comment about her computer that had contracted whatever the latest virus happened to be but neither came.

  ‘I’ve done a bit of programming myself, mostly Java,’ she said as she placed the pint on the bar top. ‘That will be six dollars love.’

  Chris was shocked and the barmaid clearly enjoyed his reaction.

  ‘So how come you’re working as a barmaid?’ he asked.

  ‘What’s wrong with being a barmaid?’

  ‘Nothing, I guess, it’s just, well, you know.’

  ‘So you think that serving pints is a menial job and that I should be sitting in an office hacking code all day long do you?’

  ‘Something like that, yes.’

  Chris didn’t want to insult this lady, but at the end of the day, if she was qualified to work as a programmer, he couldn’t see why she would possibly be doing this.

  ‘I work in a bar because I like it,’ she said. ‘I get to meet people, I have a laugh, I make enough money to pay the bills. You may think that you can’t be successful doing a job like this, but how do you measure success? I think that having a place to live, food to eat, clothes to wear and wa
king up every morning feeling happy is as good as it gets. Do you feel happy when you wake up every morning?’

  ‘I guess not,’ said Chris. ‘But I am happy.’

  He looked up at the TV, then looked at his watch. It was twenty past seven. Where the hell was Ben?

  ‘Are you expecting someone?’ asked the barmaid.

  Chris nodded. ‘Yes, he was supposed to meet me here at seven. Has anyone been in or called.’

  ‘No, it’s been dead like this all day. I expect he’s caught in traffic. Do you want to see the menu?’

  Chris declined the offer, he was pretty sure that Ben would be here any minute.

  Ben continued his drive along the beltway, it had been a long day and he was feeling tired. He pulled into the exit lane and took his foot off the gas to slow a little. He watched as the needle dropped gradually from fifty-five to forty as the car swept around the cloverleaf.

  Maynard was watching the detective’s car through the composite feed from the UAV’s cameras. The fidelity of the image was incredible and the new three-dimensional modeling that Chris had built meant that Maynard’s view of the detective in the driver’s seat was as clear and crisp as it would be if he was sitting on the bonnet of the car. The image of the detective’s face showed a cross-hair superimposed over his forehead and a blinking green indicator showed that the weapons system was online and the target was locked. There would be no recording of this test and Maynard was alone in the operations room. He lifted the safety cover and pressed the fire button. There was no ceremony and no second thoughts. He watched with interest, this was, after all, the first live field trial.

  Ben’s expression didn’t change as the beam of ultra high frequency radio waves was targeted directly into his skull. The lack of reaction was consistent with some of the other tests Maynard had conducted; the victim didn’t feel any pain as there were no nerve endings in the brain. After only two seconds, Maynard watched on the monitor as Ben’s eyes rolled back and started to close. He noticed a trickle of blood appear from the detective’s nose and then his head slumped forward. Maynard knew that the next few seconds would be difficult to watch using the close-up image and so he switched to the long-view. The detective’s car tracked straight for a moment but appeared to be accelerating. As the road bent, the car did not steer and it hit the safety barrier at over fifty miles an hour. The car bounced from the barrier and skewed across the road to the other side, hitting that barrier and bouncing like a ball-bearing in a pinball machine. Maynard had wanted the car to flip, but he now realized that to get a car as heavy as that to turn over he would probably have needed a much higher speed and a road with fewer safety controls. The car skidded through 180 degrees and was now facing an oncoming stream of cars that had no chance to stop in time. The first car to hit the Buick was a large SUV which caused the front end to crumple and twist. The SUV deflected to one side which turned the detective’s car so that the driver’s side door received the full impact of the next car. Maynard grimaced when he saw the hit, although at the same time he felt the sort of thrill he got when watching a bone-crunching tackle in a football game. Maynard pulled back even further and saw the chaos spreading on the interstate as the accident spread further back along the road. He typed a command on the console that instructed the UAV to return to base. He was pleased with what had turned out to be another successful trial.