Fuzz nodded. ‘Alright. Now let’s check we’ve got this all balanced. Holly – make sure those packs are centred and strapped down could ya?’
Bang-Bang nodded and clambered over the cabin interior. Fuzz drew a curve on a clipboard with a fluorescent pen. ‘Should be OK. I ran this on my laptop flight simulator last night with no problems in cg and weight. We’ll see.’
She put the clipboard down and looked at a couple of circuit breakers in her hand. ‘I think I’m going to have to disable a few more things if we’re going to be stooging about with the undercarriage down and a door open…’ she wandered back to the cockpit and started poking around under the instrument panel.
I thought for a moment about the sheer weirdness of simulating a flight undertaken to gather data for a simulation, and then stopped before that particular Moebius strip drove me mad. Then we were in the cabin again, and buckling in, and roaring into the air and heading east over the market in a flurry of rotors. We clattered out over Smithfield meat market.
We watched the City slide beneath us. To our left, we could see hoardings at Liverpool Street station. ‘Can’t believe they’re still rebuilding that,’ murmured Roadrunner. I said nothing. Aldgate slid by, then Commercial Road. Life went on below, oblivious. The hospital; the DLR; the estates, Cable Street.
Fuzz spoke in our ears. ‘Turning now.’ The slipstream whistled in through the small gap in the sliding door.
Bang-Bang was engrossed, her unfocused eyes flicking from her virtual-reality glasses to the system’s twin touchscreen monitors, her tongue sticking out in concentration as she watched the laser system build its eerie simulacrum. I leant over to look at the images building on the screens. A hyper-sharp recreation of Whitechapel was appearing. It reminded me of a freezeframe from an Eighties pop video for some reason, and, unbidden, Bowie’s Ashes to Ashes started playing in my head. I let Bang-Bang get on with it.
In the co-pilot’s seat, Roadrunner was looking from her Google Maps display and back down to the streets below and then up to the rooftops. She nudged Fuzz with her right elbow. ‘Crane to our left.’
Fuzz nodded. ‘Got that.’
I tapped my boom microphone. ‘Sadie’s obviously got her hands full at the moment, who’s Sniper Two for now?’
‘Raggydoll. Remember her? The Goth Desi? She just got trained up. Sniper school, Louisiana. She was in the top five in her class.’
‘Cool. Where’s Calamity?’
‘Ah. Calamity’s keeping an eye on Mishy at the hotel on Osborn Street. You know that hotel?’
I did. It was the one next to the Curry King’s flagship restaurant. She carried on speaking. ‘Mishy’s taken Birmingham quite badly. We’ll go see her.’
‘Yeah. She’s, well, she’s got a bit twitchy and para. Keeps pulling guns on people.’
‘I’ll talk to her.’
‘OK.’ I sat back and thought. Combat and sudden death affected people in different ways. Some bottled it up, some let off steam in various fashions. Others simply went mad. I came back to the present and tapped my boom mike again.
‘Fuzz. What are we doing about guns during this enquiry?’
‘Aha. I’m glad you asked. Your Uncle Khan has been the recipient of a windfall, bhai. A veritable windfall.’
Bang-Bang’s voice cut in over the channel as she tapped away at her keyboard. ‘Yeh. He told me a bit about it. 22 SAS had a weapon amnesty last month. The head shed left a truck container round the back at Credenhill and within a week it was half-full. Rifles, grenades, ammo, rocket launchers, you name it.’
They all started laughing. I’d heard rumours about this too. It had been a hot topic at the office. The Regiment troopers had been souveniring weapons from every conflict going back to the Falklands. And now our uncle had probably been tasked with disposing of it in a secure manner.
And he’d disposed of it by giving the entire haul to the Blackeyes. Roadrunner was still giggling. ‘As long as I get an AK, guys.’
Fuzz cut in on the channel. ‘Yes, Roadie, you’ll get an AK. We’ve got dozens of them now, from every country you can name.’
Half an hour later we’d finished our last racetrack pattern. We were lazily turning over the eastern end of Cable Street. We drifted north. From up here we could see how the A-roads and the rail lines flowed into the City of London’s great maw, slicing the neighbourhood into channels. Like the scars left by claws.
Bang-Bang spoke quietly and pointed out with a pen. ‘I reckon what we see will affect the hunting pattern. Look how it could funnel our hunter east… or west. Channeling. I’m thinking west.’
To our north, the vast expanse of the DLR station at Whitechapel. In front of us, the shining white roofs of Safestore and Sainsburys, dominating the terrain. The machinery hummed and clicked. The machinery didn’t care.
At 4.14pm Bang-Bang gave the OK and saved the data, and Fuzz broke off the circuit and aimed for the Isle of Dogs. The river grew below us.
Three minutes later we were standing on a nondescript helicopter pad by the edge of the Thames, watching the chopper depart. Behind us was the Vanguard depot. The sound of the rotors faded. And there we were. The riverfront and corrugated warehouses. The warehouses read “Self Storage” and “Document Storage”, and some snarky signs about their guard dogs. A staff member gazed at us incuriously from an upstairs office window and went back to his paperwork. Below us, the river, to our flanks, posh blocks of flats.
Bang-Bang was distantly looking at something in her VR glasses. Finally her eyes came back into focus and she smiled at me. She unplugged a black data storage device from her netbook and brandished it at me. ‘Got it. Got the lot. A good morning’s work. C’mon babe, I’ll treat ya to lunch.’
‘Yeah Holly, but my car's still at Battersea.’
‘It can wait. C'mon, I'm buying.’
I couldn’t argue with that. We walked towards the security gates and I mashed the button to let us out.
Back at the enquiry office there was a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts on the table. Someone in the team was paying a forfeit. Before me, on our allotted workspace, the paperwork was piling up, so high in fact that now I had difficulty viewing the monitor. The 2013 Murder Investigation Manual. ACPO best practice guidelines. “Tracking Serial Criminals with a Road Metric”.
Bang-Bang had wandered off into the neighbourhood to pick at leads with her girls, and had left me with the grocery shopping we’d done on the way back from Vanguard. I reminded myself to go and retrieve the hire car at some point.
I picked up one of the “Blue Books” and leafed through it. This one was DS Cammack’s own, so I was interested in what lines she was thinking along. The “Blue Books” were A4 rough books that every officer would have to record notes in. These were for every scrap of information that they received – notes made at briefings, telephone numbers, addresses, results of enquiries, telephone calls received… everything would all be jotted down in here before being transferred onto HOLMES 2. These books would also have to be scrutinised by the Disclosure Officer, a rather taciturn Scots lady who lurked in the far corner of the office, and would have to be available if the defence asked to see them at trial stage.
The team assembled for the afternoon briefing. We had five days to go, several nebulous subjects, and so far, no breaks. The mood was grim. Lynne Cammack came to the front of the office and talked us through what we had so far. Not much, really. And at 6pm, everyone had had enough and left for other pastures.
28.
That night was Krav Maga class at the sports centre in Acton. We were working on choke holds and generally getting out of a grapple. That was painful enough, but then came a refresher on knife attacks. Just like last week. Bloody knives, again. And again. I already had welts and scratches on my arms and a great big bruise on my right wrist from repeated blocking and deflecting of my oppo’s wooden blade. ‘And again!’
The dojo moaned and muttered like the manimals in the Island of Doctor Moreau and back we slo
uched for more pain and repetition. One thing that was drummed into us was that we were going to get carved and cut, no matter what. The trick was to not panic, and to press home your counter-attack regardless. That, or run for the nearest exit. And get stabbed in the back.
Our Sensei was calling out the real deal. ‘An attacker who really wants to hurt you is not going to step in and slash you once, or then just stand there as you punch him or slice him back. No. And it’s not like the films, guys! Chances are you won’t even see the blade and if he’s an experienced knife-fighter, he’ll be leading with a punch, not the blade, to create an opening. So he can carve you up! Pay attention!’
He clapped. ‘OK. Again!’
We took our positions and my oppo screamed and went for me, his knife-hand to the rear and out of sight. I turned and kicked out in one move and he cannoned into my side. I slapped at his knife-hand, he socked me on the jaw, and we went tumbling and rolling to the mat. I fell on the wooden blade. Shit that hurt.
‘Again!’
I got back to the flat feeling like a victim of Sugar Ray Leonard. Maryam and Bang-Bang were cooking so I stayed out of their way. I fired up my PC and printer, and spent a good hour running off Google maps of Tower Hamlets via Photoshop. I assembled the A4 sheets on the lounge table and started on them the old Intelligence Corps way, as I’d been taught. Scissors and sellotape. Presently I had a large blow-up satellite map of the area, complete with street and building names. I stuck it to the lounge wall with duct tape and stood back. It filled half the wall. Bang-Bang came in from the kitchen, chewing on a chilli, and regarded my handywork for a while.
‘Have you ever done one of these investigations before bhai… y’know, murders?’
‘Only once, and that was with the Ministry of Defence Police and RMP 34 Section. We found him within 48 hours, mostly because everyone we talked to knew who’d done it.’
I went back to the blown-up satellite map and carried on sticking up yellow Post-it notes and pushpins. Maryam limped by, trilled ‘Five days to catch tha killa!’ and disappeared into the kitchen. Pans rattled. Bang-Bang narrowed her eyes in that direction. Then she returned her attention to the wall map. After a while she tapped the bottom left of the map, made a circle with her hand, crunched on the chilli and left for the kitchen.
I leant in to look at the area she’d pointed at. The nexus. The mosque, the hospital, Brick Lane.
29.
DAY SIX
An hour’s haggling with GCHQ and the Colonel and some juggling of phones got me a deal. Northrop Grumman would let Bang-Bang test her mad simulation on their test range, if they’d get a chance to wargame against her FlameLite software. Sounded like a win-win to me. I rang her mobile.
It rang… and rang. Suddenly it connected to the crackle of small-arms fire and shouted orders. I remembered that she and the girls were on a combined-arms exercise with MSSG at the urban combat village on Salisbury Plain. Bang-Bang yelled tinnily in my ear. ‘Awight babes! It’s pissing down with rain and where we are is on the fold of my map, I think. It’s great innit!’
I laughed. The army never changed. ‘I’ve got some good news for ya. Northrop Grumman say yes, if they can dance with FlameLite for a bit. You game?’
The whoop stung my ear. ‘You betchya! I’ll get my kit. Send me the postcode?’
‘Will do. You’ve got a head start, I’ll see you there.’
‘Cool. By the way, they made me a Lance Corporal.’
‘A Lance Corporal?’
‘You think that’s bad – they made Fuzz a Sergeant! Mwah!’
The satnav led me down the M27 to a bland industrial estate near Fareham. I parked up and went through the heavy glass-and-steel doors of Leander House. The day staff team leader met me in the lobby. ‘Hello Riz. I’m Stewart. What’s your security clearance?’
I flourished my KTS and MOD90 passes. ‘DV(TS/SCI).’
He looked duly impressed. ‘That’ll do very nicely. Your wife showed me her proof-of-age ID.’
I laughed. ‘She would.’ I signed in, handed over my BlackBerry for the duration of the visit, and was led down a brightly-lit hall.
The team leader was speaking as our shoes squeaked along the polished corridors. ‘You’ve probably had the briefing, Riz. The test range simulates a network of over 1,500 computer terminals, modelling their infrastructure – that means everything from the volume of email and web traffic all the way through to instant-messaging and file sharing.’
I nodded along. All part of the scenery. He carried on. ‘The main target nodes today are in the DII Deep-Secure System. It’s been evaluated to EAL4 by the Communications-Electronics Security Group, and all the top brass are here today to see how it holds up.’
He glanced askance at me. ‘And your wife, God love her, is about to attack it like the Luftwaffe.’
We made our way through airlock doors into a darkened auditorium. A movie theatre, no less. There were ranked seats with scattered top brass and industry professionals, and a huge touchscreen display table on the stage floor, with croupiers sweeping their hands to reveal new threats on a digital map of NATO countries and the Atlantic. Ahead of us were six wall screens. One of which held a view of an online social network and a character I knew well. The Fox Princess stood before us, her head cocked serenely. On other screens, white text scrolled on black backgrounds as Bang-Bang’s FlameLite software attacked the HQ’s bespoke firewalls.
A croupier called. ‘Attack is inbound. Ports 81 through 120 scanned.’ Red cubes began to pop up on the touchscreen display, fast, faster. Lines curved on the map.
‘OK. Threat Cells one through three are on it. SATURN is active and recording.’
Those would be the rooms next door where Northrop and the MOD’s own geeks got ready to defend the systems. Stewart was chewing on a biro. He was talking into a company phone. ‘Shell access in 20 seconds? Really? AET… Shit.’
‘What does that mean?’
He turned and dropped the pen from his mouth. ‘She’s… her things… are using AETs. Advanced Encryption Techniques.’
I spread my arms.
‘OK. Put simply, it looks like her FlameLite has morphed, leveraged an off-the-shelf Evader tool, and chopped up the attack package into bundles our systems can’t recognise. It got in and then the malware reconfigured inside our systems.’
He got back on his phone and started to look sick. ‘OK. The certificates. Thank you.’ He closed the phone down. He looked apologetically at me. ‘Right – that was low and unsporting. Her FlameLite used captured, legit digital certificates from Adobe to gain entry on another port while we were engaged with the AETs. It’s installing automatically all over the building.’
I nodded slowly. ‘OK…where have you let her plot up?’
‘Second server unit, in the basement. Look for Container Three.’
‘Take me there?’
‘Course. Least I can do.’
I got two teas from a machine and we made off. As we headed down the hall, the power went out. A second later the red emergency lights came on. I grinned. Stewart glanced at me. ‘FlameLite?’
‘More than likely.’
He muttered under his breath, issued some terse commands on his phone, and then said ‘Every time we plug the vulnerability, another one comes in. We’re racking our brains over the last one. It didn’t even touch any of our static IPs.’
‘That’s what it does, Stewart. And it reconfigures as it goes.’
‘I noticed. Tell you what; these raccoons are a new one on me though.’
I laughed. ‘You’ve seen Rocky and Ronnie and co then. They’re infomorphs.’
‘Infowhat?’
‘Infomorphs. A virtual body of information that possesses emergent features such as personality. Artificial intelligences that live in cyberspace. Fun huh?’
He shook his head. Not really. We turned left and came to an elevator. He swiped. Doors hissed open, in we got. He tapped in a long code with a few hashes in it, and down w
e went.
‘Riz. Explain this Fox Princess thing to me.’
I laughed to myself. He’d been waiting till we were on our own. Obviously the whole thing was so daft he felt worried about asking out loud in public. ‘It’s a bit like… a bit like an alter ego, Stewart. Remember Cannonball Run? Captain Chaos?’
It was his turn to laugh now and he nodded. ‘Yeah, that’s my age group. I remember.’
A silence. Level 1B passed. Stewart spoke again. ‘We have enough problems dealing with joining the dots with these attack programs. First it was Stuxnet, then there was Duqu which is related to Stuxnet, then there was Flame out of which came Gauss ¬– we think – and now there’s your other half’s FlameLite. It drives us nuts.’
The lift stopped. Level 1C. The doors opened and he led me down another corridor and through a set of heavy swing doors.
Ahead was what looked like a cross between a shipping container and a black industrial trash compactor, lit blue from within. There was an armoured door with various warning signs on it. Container Three. Stewart indicated the door. ‘All yours. I’m off to fight the losing air battle.’
Stewart left the way he’d came and I tapped on the container. The door hissed open. Bang-Bang was inside, conducting the proceedings via internet glasses and two large screens. She was still in her army DPMs and was wearing a wolf hat with those ridiculous pocket ears. I started laughing and she turned and blinked. ‘You might well larf, love, but it is a recognised fact that if I wear this, then I’m a wolf and the other wolves will be scared.’
I placed the teas down and raised my hands in mock surrender. ‘OK, Lance Corporal Kirpachi, you got me.’
She returned to hitting keys. ‘Did you also know that snow leopards put their paws over their noses so they can’t be seen in the snow?’
I sat on the jump seat next to her. ‘I didn’t. OK what are we doing here with my allotted forty-eight hours of mainframe time, babe?’
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