by Oisin McGann
Jonny splits off from his friend, agreeing to meet up later that afternoon. I wander after him as he makes his way into an internet café. Mani and I have been leap-frogging, swapping positions with each other so that neither of us has to shadow him too closely. I’m hanging behind him and watch him take a seat against the wall on the far side. I pay for a half hour and a bottle of water, then sit down at a PC that gives me a half-decent view over his shoulder.
Manikin comes in a minute later and does the same, sitting a couple of rows in front and to the right of him. She brings up some website that’s mostly black, and I realize she can watch Jonny without him noticing, because he’s reflected on her screen. We both have our earpieces in, so we can talk to each other.
“I can’t see his screen,” Manikin says. “What’s he doing?”
“Checking his emails,” I reply softly. “It’s not from the account that FX found on his phone though. Can’t make out what he’s reading—but it looks like numbers … Hang on …”
Jonny has a book out on the desk beside him—an old paperback. He’s glancing repeatedly up at the screen and down at the book, flicking quickly through the pages. I get a glimpse of the title on the cover: Strangled Silence. It’s one of those paranoid surveillance state thrillers—became a bit of an underground classic after the WatchWorld system was introduced and those kinds of books were quietly withdrawn from the shelves of libraries, bookshops and even online retailers.
“Mani, he’s reading something in code. Whatever it is, he’s using the text of the book as a key. And who’s he most likely to contact on the sly?”
“His dad,” Manikin murmurs. “He’s talking to his dad.”
“That’s a blacklisted book,” I tell her. “I know a book dealer who can probably get me a copy. If we can get those numbers off the screen, we might be able to find out what they’re saying.”
It’s a pretty secure but easy-to-use system of code, and very old school, but when you have a government that’s suspicious of anyone who wants to hold onto their privacy, digitally encrypted emails tend to draw the attention of WatchWorld’s hugely powerful computers, which trawl the web searching for criminal and terrorist communications. Old-fashioned codes like this are less likely to raise a red flag.
By using only page numbers, line numbers and a number to indicate which word on the line, you pick out words from the book to compose your message. Jonny’s made a mistake by using it in public. The numbers should seem completely random with no pattern to them. Only somebody who knows which book to use, and has a similar printed edition, can decipher the message—ebooks are unreliable because the text reflows.
But now that we know what the book is, we can find each word that each set of numbers in the message refers to. Now all we need are the numbers in the message.
We need to be quick—FX might not be able to find that email later, or Jonny might delete it after he’s finished with it. Manikin is already on her feet. Like me, she has a small backpack with her, which she slings over her right shoulder as she loudly pretends to take a new phone call. Striding down the aisle, she hitches her bag on her shoulder a couple of times as if it’s sliding down.
“Hello?” she says in a clear voice into her earpiece. “Katie? Hello? Hang on, the signal’s rubbish here. Let me get outside–”
As she walks past Jonny, her bag swings out and catches him on the head.
“Oh, Jesus! Sorry!” she gasps, half-laughing. “God, are you all right?”
She’s turned around behind him, putting her hands on his shoulders. Funny how charming, attractive girls can do that to almost anyone. Because of her position, he’s turned his head away from the hand that’s holding the phone. He can’t see it, but she’s just taken at least one photo of his computer screen.
“Yeah, yeah,” he waves her away. “Just watch where you’re swinging the bag, all right?”
“Sure, look … sorry again,” she waves at him and walks on out, her attention back on her phone.
“Got it,” she tells me.
Later that afternoon, I’ve left Mani trailing Jonathan, and I’m in my bedroom at home. It’s not a typical kid’s bedroom; it’s lined with reference books, insect collections, an ant farm, a high-quality microscope and telescope, and wall charts ranging from anatomy to the periodic table. Some might call it obsessively neat, but I call it well kept—as everything should be.
A copy of Strangled Silence is open on my desk, and Mani’s photo of Jonny’s screen is open on my phone. I’ve just finished deciphering the strings of numbers on his email: “HAPPY BIRTHDAY SON SEE YOU AT THE PARTY ON SATURDAY.”
I sit back and stare at the words I’ve written down on the paper. The masked costume party Jonny’s friends are throwing for him on Saturday. The Duke’s going to be there. So much for them “not getting along.” Looks like father and son are patching things up.
That’s when my phone rings. It’s Move-Easy, calling to see how we’re doing.
“Hello, my Little Brain,” Easy gurgles. “How goes your investigation? Makin’ progress?”
I swallow, trying to figure out what I can and can’t say. I’m about to lie and say we haven’t tracked Jonny down yet, when Easy adds: “From what I hear, you might’ve found the little scumbag.”
I feel a cold shiver run through me. He’s having us watched. But how? If somebody was following us through the rat-runs, I’m sure I’d have spotted them—and Mani or FX definitely would. There’s no other way someone could have kept up with us at the pace we were moving … except I’ve had my phone on a lot of the time. Idiot. If FX can track Jonny’s phone, Easy’s hackers could definitely track mine. I should have taken the battery out and used it as little as I could. That’s my lack of street sense showing. From the way my phone’s been moving around, it wouldn’t take a genius to figure out our search has gone from online to the real world.
“Yeah, we think we’ve got the guy,” I say in a level voice. “We weren’t going to bring it to you until we were sure. We want to get a look at the tattoo without tipping him off that he’s being watched. If it really is him, we think he might be in contact with his father. He’s been receiving some coded emails. I’m working on breaking one now.”
“That’s my girl,” he chortles. “A proper little Miss Marple, ain’t ya?”
“Miss Marple’s really old,” I remind him.
“Keep up the good work, love, and you might be old too someday,” he says. “Now, quit faffin’ around and bring me that boy. There’s debts to be paid.”
Then his voice is gone from my ear, and I realize the phone is pressed hard against my head to keep it still in my trembling hand. I’m double-crossing Move-Easy. I must be insane.
About an hour later, I get a text message from Nimmo telling me he’s “done for the day.” That’s the signal to let me know he’s got the gun. This whole thing is starting to get very real.
By now I’m out in the rat-runs with FX and Manikin. I’m pretty fast on my feet and agile enough, but it’s still hard to keep up with them. I’ve got asthma too, which isn’t normally a problem if I manage it properly, but sometimes I can feel it in my lungs when I’m going all out. Like I am now. The stress of this whole thing might be getting to me too. We stop at a corner as FX peers out, timing the turn of a surveillance camera. As it’s turned away from us, we run across the forecourt of a car valeting firm, onto the bonnet and roof of a car and over a wall. There’s a pile of rubble on the other side and we lower ourselves more carefully onto it, wary of twisting or breaking our ankles. Then it’s on down an alley, leaping through a window into the shadows of a burnt-out building. Here, we stop to catch our breath and get out of sight as an aerial drone flies overhead.
The circular camera platforms basically work like those unmanned drones the air force uses. They’re about the size of a large remote-controlled aircraft; they carry some of the same gear as a Safe-Guard, and have a range of over fifty kilometers. We’re no
t doing anything wrong here, but the less we’re spotted the better. WatchWorld has computers that look for patterns in surveillance footage—patterns like a route taken by a group of kids moving along the back streets. The kinds of kids who might work as runners for criminals. Some of those drones carry weapons, too.
FX is checking something on his console. High above us, surveillance satellites look down on the city, doing the same job as the drones, but on a larger scale. FX can track the movements of some of them but, like the drones, it’s pretty much impossible to avoid them altogether.
“Okay,” he breathes. “Let’s go.”
And we’re off again, out of the building and running along the edge of a rundown park, keeping under the trees as much as we can. The top of a litterbin acts as a useful springboard to get us over the fence, and then we’re out on a main road, where we slow down and walk normally for a while.
“Can you sort out the mount for the gun by Saturday?” I ask FX.
Manikin waves at me to be quiet, tilting her head across the road where there’s a listening unit on the post of a pedestrian light. It’s a sphere about the size of a football packed with sensitive microphones. There’s my lack of street sense showing again—you can talk pretty freely in Move-Easy’s, and sometimes I forget how careful I have to be outside. I haven’t done the same kind of time on the street as a typical rat-runner. We’re around a corner and further up the road before I get an answer.
“Yeah,” he says. “It’ll be ready. But we’re still not mad about this other guy you’ve found to place the gun. It’s the riskiest part of the plan and we don’t even know who’s taking the shot. If I was the type to put my life in the hands of some invisible stranger, I’d go the whole hog and start believing in God. I just don’t do faith, Scope.”
“He’s taking a huge chance helping us out,” I tell him. “He didn’t have to put himself on the line for us, but he’s doing it. And that was his one condition—only I know who he is.”
“I still don’t like it,” FX mutters.
“The short-arse is right,” Mani says, nodding. “I don’t want to help murder someone, but I don’t want to die to save him either. How do we know we can trust this anonymous donor of yours?”
It’s a big ask. We’re just not in a very trusting business.
“You don’t,” I reply. “So you have to trust me.”
Neither of them says anything after that, which I suppose is as good as I’m going to get. Any further discussion gets parked when we turn another corner onto a narrower, leafy street and I get my first look at the house where we’re going to try not to shoot somebody.
Chapter 6: Complications
On Friday, I deliver the news to Move-Easy with what feels like a cement weight in my gut. The phone call’s encrypted, but I’m still careful not to mention names:
“His mates are throwing him a birthday party tomorrow,” I tell Easy. “It’s a masked-costume thing. We think his dad is going to use the chance to show up in disguise, to see his son.”
“Well played, my Little Brain,” he says to me. “We shall endeavor to pick our man out of the crowd and give ’im the welcome he so richly deserves. I think I’ll ’ave ’im over for the weekend. His boy can come along an’ all. We can all spend a bit of quality time together.”
He hangs up and I take a deep breath. We better balls up this job properly, or we’re screwed.
The following morning, just before dawn, FX and I are at the house where the party will take place. It’s very plush, with a name, not a street number. It’s called Clayton Dean: a large Victorian three-story affair with jutting sections of roof and randomly placed windows, situated on over half an acre of landscaped grounds. Jonny’s got some rich friends. We’re casing the place one more time before we head off and get ready for the job. Nimmo’s here too. We haven’t spotted him, but I’ve assured FX he’s here. He’s on the other side of the curving driveway, out of view of the house. He’s choosing his tree.
I didn’t ask Nimmo how he was going to get the gun across town. Hardly anybody dares to carry guns now—not with the streets scattered with X-ray cameras, including those used by the Safe-Guards. Even a gun that’s disassembled and carried in pieces is like holding up a sign saying “Arrest Me.” The same goes for any knife large enough to be considered a deadly weapon—which is most of them. But if anybody can get a gun here undetected, it’s Nimmo. He’ll already have hidden it nearby; now he’s got to decide where he’ll set it up tonight.
“Oh, Christ,” FX mutters. “No, no, no, no.”
We’re hidden in some bushes in one of the large gardens across from Clayton Dean. I look out to where FX is pointing. A Safe-Guard is walking down the path opposite us. We duck lower, pressing against the wall, hoping it doesn’t look in our direction. Two kids hiding in a garden this early in the morning is enough reason to call in the police. With its thermal scope, it’ll be able to see right through the wall. We hold our breaths, waiting, not moving, careful not to make any sound that its sensitive mikes could pick up. It doesn’t look our way, but it does stop at the gate of Clayton Dean … and then it turns up the driveway.
“Oh bugger,” I mouth silently.
We pull back further from the street, retreating to the rear of the house whose garden we’re in. We watch from around the corner. The Safe-Guard doesn’t leave. It circles Clayton Dean a couple of times, and then rings the doorbell. Whoever’s there lets it inside. They have to—it’s the law. With very few exceptions, Safe-Guards can go wherever they like, but what’s it doing here … now?
“The peeper’s been assigned to the house,” FX whispers. “It’s going to be here all day. Maybe they’re onto us.”
“Or maybe it’s just a precaution,” I say, “because the law knows the Duke will be here and they’re not taking any chances.”
“Would they even let him do that, if he’s in witness protection?” FX asks.
“I wouldn’t have thought so,” I reply, shrugging. “Even other coppers aren’t supposed to know where these guys end up; it’s a tight operation. But it could be the Duke’s still got some leverage—something he knows that they want, so they’re letting them visit his son to sweeten him up. Or maybe they’re even hoping Easy will try something and they’ll be able to nail him for it.”
“So are we calling this off?” FX asks.
But he already knows the answer. We’re not going to get a better chance than this. Besides, Easy won’t let us back down anyway, now that the ball’s rolling.
“This helps us,” I say at last. “Or it helps Jonny and his dad, anyway. We just have to make sure we don’t get caught in the jaws of this thing.”
“Well now, that’s a lovely image,” FX snorts.
The guests start arriving at about 9 p.m. They arrive in a wide array of outlandish costumes, each one wearing a mask that hides his or her features with varying degrees of success. Manikin, FX and I sit in a van parked just down from the gate. We watch them pass. Also in the van are three of Move-Easy’s hard men. They’re led by a skinheaded ogre known as the Turk—an odd nickname, given that he’s actually Greek. But he has the body of an American footballer on steroids and has electrical shock points built into his knuckles, so nobody ever questions him on it.
There are three more trolls in the car parked further down the road waiting to be called in. The Turk sits beside the driver of the van—the only two in the van with a decent view outside. He eyes everyone who passes as if he might be able to spot Jonny or his father on sight. I wish he’d show a little more discretion. He’s brutally efficient at his job, but keeping a low profile doesn’t come naturally to him.
It’s getting dark, and we wait until we reckon there’s a couple of dozen people in the house before Manikin makes her move. There’s a group of seven approaching the gate in front of us. FX found the artwork for the invitations on Kim Jordan’s computer, so we just printed one for Mani. The troll who’s sitting in the back wit
h us slides open the side door and she hops out.
She’s dressed in a Catwoman outfit, complete with utility belt. The mask covers the top half of her face. The belt is real; each pouch contains miniature cameras, complete with microphones, plus a few other handy pieces of kit. The bottle of beer she’s holding clashes slightly with the costume and she’s walking loosely but carefully, like someone who’s already had a few. She times her stroll down the path so that she meets the group as they reach the gate, and walks up the driveway with them.
A couple of minutes later, we hear her voice in our earpieces, overlaid with thumping dance music from the party that’s already in full swing: “I’m in.”
FX has his console on his lap. The empty window on the screen comes to life, giving us a view inside the front door. Manikin has secreted a tiny camera there to give us that view. She’ll do the same throughout the house as she moves through it. A few seconds later, we can see into the large living room. It’s about twelve meters long by eight wide. We watch Mani walk away from us through the press of costumed bodies, swaying to the music. A few seconds after that, we have a view from the far wall, looking the other direction. They’re wide-angle lenses, so we can already see most of the room.
There are two big bay windows in the one long wall and one in the shorter wall that faces out onto the street. The windows on the long wall face the same direction as the front door, toward the grove of trees on the far side of the driveway. That’s where Nimmo will be with the gun, lining up his sights for the shot.
The antique furniture has been pushed back against the living-room walls, the main lights are off and there’s some kind of fancy system shooting nightclub lights at the ceiling. A bar has been set up along the shorter wall facing the windows; the shelves behind it are lined with bottles of liquor. The door into the hallway enters next to the bar. Milling around the room are guests in costumes ranging from cartoon characters to superheroes, from 1930s gangsters to orcs from Lord of the Rings.