The London Project (Portal Book 1)

by Mark J Maxwell

  ‘Do you know why I refused to allow the Portal network to be installed in foreign nations?’ White Hat asked, interrupting her thoughts.

  ‘Because they could use it to spy on their citizens.’

  White Hat nodded. ‘Exactly. We have the CSCA in Britain. It protects the privacy of Portal users. These countries will offer no such protections. Those in power will have full control over whatever subnets they create.’

  ‘Portal expansion is inevitable,’ Louisa said, shrugging. ‘It’s been too successful in London for it not to be replicated elsewhere. If Portal doesn’t come online in those cities, another similar system will. Would MI6 having access be such a terrible thing? They’d have an opportunity to do some real good in those countries. They could stop the human rights abuses. Topple the regimes and replace them with democratically elected governments. All without the conflict and bloodshed such a coup would normally entail.’

  ‘The British intelligence services don’t want the people of these nations to have autonomy,’ White Hat snorted derisively. ‘In fact, democracy is the worst-case scenario when a dictatorship falls. The first thing people do when they have democracy is elect a fundamentalist, ultra-orthodox group of religious nutters! That, or they elect a puppet for the country’s military. The new nation ends up being much more of a risk to British national security than the previous regime ever was.’ White Hat shook his head. ‘No, it’s much better when the old government or dictator remains in power, safe in the knowledge they have total dominion over their subjects using the surveillance tools offered through Portal’s private network. Meanwhile, MI6 have a back door into Portal that allows them to monitor the government and the country’s citizens for any potential threats.’

  ‘Why is Benoit helping them? What’s in it for him?’

  ‘His position as CEO. His freedom. I believe MI6 are fully aware of Benoit’s…urges. How they found out, I don’t know.’

  ‘What do you want from me? No games now, the truth.’

  ‘I need Benoit’s private encryption key for this facility’s subnet. Once I have it I can bypass the security on the firewall and leave. I want you to retrieve Benoit’s terminal. He doesn’t use it much now he has an implant but it should still retain the key within its nanoware. Bring the terminal here and I’ll take care of the rest.’

  He’d said it so matter-of-factly Louisa almost laughed. ‘I want you to retrieve Benoit’s terminal’—as simple as that. What was she going to do? Walk into Portal’s headquarters and ask to borrow the CEO’s terminal? ‘Can you not just,’ Louisa waved her hands mysteriously, ‘suck the key out using the subcarrier signal?’

  ‘No. Benoit’s not stupid. When he created the subcarrier signal he introduced safeguards ring-fencing certain profiles, preventing the signal from intercepting their communications. His profile was the first to be protected.’

  ‘If I somehow manage to get this for you, what then? How do we link Benoit to Claire?’

  ‘It’s quite simple. I’ll expose his entire Portal profile. Everything he’s done in the last five years will be made public. He’ll be finished, his experiments stopped and Portal’s expansion plans derailed. With Benoit out of the picture MI6 will have no reason to continue to protect him. You’ll be safe.’

  ‘But, why me? Anyone in Portal could get Benoit’s terminal for you. Simon, or even Dietrich. Why do you want me?’

  ‘Simon and Dietrich were my closest friends when I was still alive. But now? I find myself unable to predict how they would react if they found out about my existence. Would they strive to help me, or would they pull the plug? I needed someone with no emotional attachment to Adam Walsh. When you were assigned to Claire Harris’ case, I found someone whom I believed could help me in my cause.’

  ‘Someone you could manipulate, you mean.’

  ‘No,’ White Hat said solemnly. ‘Someone whose motivations coincided with my own. I made use of Benoit’s subcarrier signal to check out your Portal history, Detective. For that intrusion I apologise, but it was necessary for me to discern if I could trust you.’

  ‘And what did you find?’

  ‘Someone who takes pride in their work. I believe you are motivated by a sense of moral responsibility to those unfortunates whose case files you are assigned. You want…justice for these people. But I also found you to be an honest person.’ White Hat chucked. ‘Your bank balance attested to that! No-one who was accepting backhanders would be so poor.’ White Hat stared at her intently. ‘I decided to take a chance on you, Detective. So…will you help me?’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  The security guard was glaring at her again. Louisa could feel his eyes on her. She was in the Portal HQ once more, sitting in the visitors’ waiting zone.

  Relax, he doesn’t know why you’re here. If you were in his position, you’d be wary too. For one thing, she’d asked to speak to the head of corporate security without any appointment. Then she refused to identify herself with her terminal. I’m surprised they didn’t call the police straight away. Lastly, she looked like she’d gone ten rounds in a boxing ring, and come out second best. The cut above her eye remained half-healed and the surrounding skin had blossomed into a particularly nasty looking bruise. Yep, you’re suspicious looking all right. She glanced over at the guard. He continued to scrutinise her. Quite the dodgy looking character.

  It was half eight in the morning and the Portal headquarters was a hive of activity. Thousands of Portal employees were streaming into the building. They looked enthused to be back at work, striding through the foyer with a sense of purpose. Occasionally one would fire a curious look in her direction and she’d tense, fighting the compulsion to jump to her feet and make a dash for the exit, but then they’d continue on their way and she’d relax once more.

  Dietrich’s terminal was at the bottom of Regent’s Canal. She’d dumped it soon after leaving the research facility. Then she’d purchased a prepaid mobile phone from a twenty-four hour garage—with cash this time. The next part caused her the most concern. She had to get in touch with Simon Carlyle. He was her only route into Portal HQ. The only way to get close to Benoit. She needed somewhere with a decent-sized dead zone. Somewhere where she could make the call and then get lost before anyone tracked her. There was Brixton, of course. Ken had blown a sizeable hole in Portal’s sense grid, but it would have been swarming with tech crews busy re-establishing the network. Instead she’d gone to Hyde Park—the only other place she was sure still had limited sense strip coverage. Then Louisa had phoned Portal’s public directory service and asked to be put through to Simon.

  Their conversation was brief. Simon must have been desperate to know what happened to her at the facility, but she didn’t want to speak about it on the phone. He’d been on his way back to London. He said he hadn’t been with his ‘former colleagues’ for long, which Louisa interpreted to mean the Portal lawyers had performed as expected and secured his release from the Northumbria police. When she said she wanted to meet with Benoit, Simon was quiet for so long she thought the connection had dropped.

  That had been six hours ago. The longest six hours of Louisa’s life. Six hours of driving around London afraid she was being followed, of MI6 catching up with her, and all the time second-guessing herself as to whether she was doing the right thing. When Simon finally called her back she was surprised at how relieved she felt. Now she was waiting again and all her uncertainty had come flooding back with a vengeance.

  Could she trust White Hat? Would he really be able to leak Benoit’s profile if she retrieved the terminal? She wasn’t sure, but she was running out of time to do something. She knew what would be waiting for her when she activated her terminal. The NCA would want her to come in. They’d be crying out for her report on the SCD7 operation. The DPS would want her to cover what she knew about Korehkov. White Hat had offered her a nice ‘wrapped in a bow’ explanation for everything that had happened over the last four days, but he hadn’t mentioned Korehkov. How does he f
it into all of this? She chewed on a fingernail, then removed her hand from her mouth and sat on it. Louisa glanced over at the security station again. Simon had arrived. He was talking to the guard. Or arguing with him, more like, judging by their body language. Simon appeared to have won. He waved her over.

  ‘You’re breaching all our security protocols, you know,’ Simon said as they walked towards the lifts. ‘“No profile, no admittance”—it’s a security fundamental in here. You’re going to get me into trouble.’ He winked at her then, just to show he was joking.

  Glad someone can still see the funny side of all this.

  ‘I hope you know what you’re doing,’ Simon said softly as they entered the lift and the doors shut. He tapped on his terminal and the lift accelerated upwards.

  I hope so too. ‘Can we talk freely?’ Louisa glanced at the ceiling.

  Simon shook his head. ‘Best not to.’

  The lift was cylindrical in shape. Half of it was recessed into the building, but the other half was fully transparent, allowing a clear view of the atrium and the other lifts in the ring as they hurtled past. She leaned forward to look down at the increasingly distant lobby below and instantly regretted it as she felt a sudden wave of vertigo. She took a step back and closed her eyes, trying not to think about where she was. She felt Simon’s hand on her shoulder. ‘You’re not afraid of heights. Are you?’ He sounded more concerned than amused.

  ‘A little,’ Louisa admitted between gritted teeth, her eyes still firmly shut. ‘I’ll be fine, just tell me when we get to the top, okay?’

  ‘I don’t think that’s going to help much.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, we’re here, you’d better have a look.’

  Louisa felt lift start to slow and she prised open her eyes. ‘You’ve got to be shitting me.’

  Instead of the lift once again merging into the comfort of solid surroundings, it emerged into…nothing. Louisa peered around in horror. They were at the top of the building. The four sides of the pyramid merged together in an apex above them. The lift had become completely transparent, the floor and ceiling included. Little appeared to hold the lift in place apart from a few struts of steel and cables. Outside was no better. A walkway, again transparent, spanned the cylindrical shaft that reached up from the foyer. It separated them from another lift a full thirty feet away. She could see for miles in all directions across the London skyline.

  Then she looked down. Another mistake, but Louisa couldn’t help herself. Forty stories down, people in the lobby were tiny dots scurrying around.

  With a ping the door slid open; a blast of cool air hit them both. Oh God, the walkway’s uncovered! Louisa’s knees wobbled. Simon wrapped an arm around her waist as she staggered. She latched onto him, knowing how pathetic she must seem and hating herself for it, but at the same time completely unable to do anything else.

  Of all the times to have a ladylike moment. She tried to steady her breathing. Simon’s arm was still wrapped firmly around her. She could feel hard ridges of pectoral muscle through his white shirt. The distraction was definitely helping, and as distractions went—this one was undeniably enjoyable. She felt no immediate need to let go of him. ‘Is this the only way to Benoit’s office?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. For us, anyway. The idea was Adam Walsh’s. He had an open door policy established in the early days of Portal but everyone wanted five minutes of his time. He figured anyone who managed to come up here and make it across to his office must really have something important to talk to him about. Of course, he had a private lift built so he didn’t have to come this way himself. Quite a character, eh?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Louisa said, ‘a real character. Can any employee get up here? Benoit doesn’t strike me as an open door kind of guy.’

  ‘Well, you’re right. Most employees can’t access this floor without Benoit pre-assigning them a token. We can talk freely now. There aren’t any sense strips anywhere up here or in Benoit’s office. You can’t even connect to Portal without his authority. He values his privacy.’

  I bet he does. ‘Did you tell him I wanted to see him?’

  Simon shook his head. ‘I wasn’t sure how he would take it, so I decided to turn up unannounced. All senior execs have unrestricted access to his floor.’

  ‘How do you know he’s even up here?’

  ‘The Portal rollout is tomorrow. He’s managing it from his office.’

  The Portal expansion. Louisa had clean forgot about it. ‘Is it still going ahead? After the leak and the riots, I mean?’

  ‘As far as I know. As long as the investors are still on board. That’s why Benoit is personally running the show. The investor groups have been jittery since the leak. There were reports they might even pull out, but the credits giveaway seems to have calmed things down.’

  ‘The credits giveaway?’

  Simon raised his eyebrows. ‘You missed that? It’s what stopped the riots. Benoit authorised a one-off allocation of a thousand Portal credits to every profile.’

  ‘Free credits stopped the riots?’

  ‘It seems to have worked. And if it eases investor concerns until the rollout then it was a success. It was a pretty smart move, actually.’

  Free baubles. Kenneth Barry would have appreciated the move.

  ‘You met with White Hat then, at the research facility?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Are you planning on telling me who White Hat is?’

  I wish I could. Would Simon believe her if she told him? Or would he think she had gone completely round the bend? How could she tell him when she wasn’t sure herself who or what White Hat was? ‘I—I can’t, Simon. Not yet, anyway. I’m sorry.’

  Simon hesitated. ‘It was Benoit, wasn’t it? He’s the one behind what happened to Claire Harris. The mistreatment, I mean.’

  ‘Yes, I believe so.’

  ‘There’s something I need to tell you. About Benoit. It was back when Adam was still alive. There was a…girl. Benoit picked her up from somewhere and by the time Adam found out, she was in a bad way. Adam asked me for help. I drove her up north to a private medical clinic Adam owned. They threw enough cash at her to keep her quiet.’ Simon’s voice was hoarse. He cleared his throat. ‘I should have told you at the cottage, but I didn’t want to bring it up in front of Dietrich. I—’

  ‘It’s okay, Simon. I appreciate you telling me, I really do. But I know already.’

  ‘Oh…that’s good, I was—wait, how did you know?’

  ‘Someone told me. It doesn’t matter who.’ You’d never believe me, anyway.

  ‘But only Dietrich, Adam and I knew. Did Dietrich tell you?’

  ‘I’ll fill you in later. Let’s get this over with. All right?’

  ‘Sure, okay. We’ll take it slow. Keep your eyes on the end of the walkway. That’s how I managed it my first time.’

  They took a few small steps together and then they were out onto the walkway, the wind whipping around them. The floor flexed alarmingly as it took their weight. Louisa kept her eyes open, determined regain at least a small measure of self respect. The walkway had waist high walls but they did little to reassure her. She tried not to think about how thin and delicate they looked, knowing the floor appeared equally fragile. One misstep and they might crash through it, plummeting to the lobby in a windmill of flailing arms and legs. Louisa shuddered at the thought but kept on going.

  After what seemed like an age, they finally made it across to the ledge on the other side. Simon opened the lift doors and they stepped inside. The floor of the second lift was reassuringly opaque.

  Louisa realised then that Simon was still holding her. She could feel his chest rise and fall and the solid thump of his heartbeat. For a moment she didn’t want to look at him, knowing he’d break away as soon as she did. It felt secure, there in his arms, like she was drawing strength for what lay ahead. God knows I might need it. Then she felt him stir and looked up into his eyes.

  He started to
pull away. ‘Are you—’

  She cut off his question with her lips, reaching to pull his head down towards her, pressing herself against him. He froze for a brief moment, then responded in kind, a hand cradling the small of her back, crushing her to him while he gently cupped her cheek.

  The stresses of the last few days slipped loose from the tangle her mind had formed around them, leaving her almost physically lighter, floating free, yet at the same time held tightly in Simon’s embrace. She didn’t want it to stop. Louisa hadn’t kissed someone with such passion since the early days of her marriage. But after that thought, images of John, then the kids, then Jess lying in hospital burned through her mind, bringing her back to reality with a wallop. Regretfully, she broke the embrace and turned away, reluctant to look at Simon, an irrational fear manifesting that he might be wearing a mocking smile, smug at his conquest.

  When she gathered the courage to turn around, she found his face serious, his eyes unreadable. ‘Thank you,’ Louisa said, then felt herself flush in embarrassment. ‘For your help, I mean.’ She cringed at how lame she sounded in her head.

  Simon smiled. Not mocking, but truly genuine. ‘Any time. You can count on me, Louisa.’

  She could count on him, she realised. Any lingering doubts about Simon faded away as she stared into his eyes.

  The standard Portal office decor greeted them as they exited the lift. They were in a small room facing a set of misted double doors.

  Benoit’s office.

  Simon nodded towards the doors. ‘I don’t suppose you want to tell me your plans before we head in?’