by Joe Craig
“What about Viggo?” asked Coates, with a grimace.
“He’s finished,” replied Miss Bennett. “He lost. He’ll never be a threat to Neo-democracy again.” She ran a finger over the desktop and checked it for dust. “So we’ll kill him anyway.”
*
It took Jimmy only a few minutes to post a message for Eva online. He double-checked the puzzles in the back of the newspaper, placing the Sudoku squares over the crossword puzzle clues and holding them up to the light. Only two words were clearly outlined by empty boxes: ‘Maltese’ and ‘illusion’. Jimmy searched for them online, just as he had done every hour since that day’s papers had come out, and found the same message board. He just hoped Eva wouldn’t have already moved on somewhere else – the next day’s papers must have been rolling off the presses and on to the street already.
“We should leave it in code,” Felix suggested, and the others had murmured their agreement.
“No time,” Jimmy insisted, already typing a message. The blue tips of his fingers flashed across the keyboard. “Eva’s system is safe enough. It has to be. We can’t make it harder for her with a code when we need her answer right now. Anyway, I’m not going to sign the message or anything like that, and we can delete it as soon as she’s read it.”
They decided together to ask Eva three things. First, they needed to know the location of the central computer that had supposedly counted the votes and given out the result. Second, they needed to know where the Head UN Inspector was going to be for the rest of the day. Finally, but most important, they asked whether Eva could find evidence somewhere in NJ7 HQ or government files that the election had been rigged and get it to them.
“She must be able to uncover something,” Georgie thought aloud as Jimmy typed. “I mean, she’s working directly for Miss Bennett.”
“That doesn’t mean she can find solid evidence,” Saffron pointed out. “We know how crafty Miss Bennett can be.”
Crafty? Jimmy thought. What about cruel, violent, power-hungry and evil? He kept his head down and refocused on the computer screen.
“And even if she can find it,” Helen pointed out, “it might take her longer than it would take us. She has to be discreet. Once we know where the central vote-counting system is housed, we can go straight in there and get what we want.”
Jimmy was excited to hear his mum talking with such determination, even though they all knew it wouldn’t be that easy.
“OK,” he announced, and clicked ‘post message’. “Now we wait.”
“No,” Saffron declared. “We get moving.”
“What?”
“She’s right,” Helen agreed. “We know the votes were sent to a facility somewhere near Milton Keynes. The UN Inspector announced that on TV. So let’s set off in that direction and check for messages on the way.” She went to a laptop on one of the desks, ripped out the leads and tucked it under her arm. “Let’s go. But you two stay here.” She pointed firmly at Georgie and Felix.
“What?” Felix moaned.
“Mum,” Georgie protested. “That’s not fair. How many times do we have to show you how useful we can be?”
Helen was about to explain, but Saffron took her arm.
“I think you should stay here with them,” she said, gently. The two women looked at each other for a few seconds, but Jimmy couldn’t work out what they were thinking. “Three of us are trained,” Saffron explained, glancing at Jimmy. He realised how strange it must be for her to describe him as ‘trained’ when all the skills he’d developed had come to him naturally. His ‘training’ took place while he slept, with electrical impulses hurtling through his muscles.
“So we’re the three who should go,” said Helen. “I trust Georgie and Felix to look after themselves.”
“But we need someone who’s trained to be in London to track the movements of the UN Inspector. Otherwise once we’ve got the evidence, what good will it be?”
“She’s right,” Jimmy cut in. “Two teams. It’s more efficient.” He could feel the urge to command the others bubbling up inside him. Take control, it seemed to whisper. Use them. Jimmy forced the voice away.
“Should I go with Jimmy?” said Helen, “You track the UN Inspector with Georgie and Felix.”
“I can’t let you do that,” said Saffron.
“Why not?”
“You’re his mother.”
There was a long silence, but Jimmy knew exactly what Saffron was going to say.
“Your first instinct will always be to keep Jimmy safe,” she explained at last. Helen didn’t protest. “On a mission like this,” Saffron went on, “I’ll obviously try to protect my partner, but I won’t be afraid to let him take care of himself, either.”
Jimmy’s mum was about to say something, but stopped herself. It was obvious the agent in her could see that Saffron was right, despite her instincts as a mother.
“It’s OK, Mum,” said Jimmy. “Saffron will make sure I’m safe.”
“But I won’t jeopardise the mission by worrying about my partner,” Saffron added. “And if necessary…”
“If necessary what?” Helen asked. Saffron hesitated, so Jimmy replied for her.
“If it’s necessary for the mission,” he said, “she’ll abandon me and save herself.”
Nobody had an answer to that.
Jimmy noticed immediately that Saffron drove just like Viggo: fast, and never in a straight line for more than a minute at a time. They were even in the same car that Viggo always drove – the racing-green Bentley Arnage T that he’d taken in a hurry years before in his first escape from NJ7.
Jimmy and Saffron were hurtling through the morning traffic roughly northwest from London, towards Milton Keynes. There was something almost aggressive about the way Saffron gripped the wheel in her fists, while Jimmy looked on from the passenger seat, the laptop perched on his knee.
Before they were forty kilometres out of London, there was a reply from Eva on the message board.
“Got it,” Jimmy announced. “Chisley Hall. Eva says that’s where the HERMES central computer is.” It took him less than a minute to find directions online and tell Saffron where to go. As soon as they were confident they were heading the right way, Jimmy flicked back to Eva’s message.
“She doesn’t know anything about the election being rigged,” he said through gritted teeth. “She’s says she’ll try and find something.”
“That’s just what we thought,” said Saffron. “It’ll take her time.”
We don’t have time, Jimmy wanted to say, but Saffron’s voice was soft and soothing, and he could hear the strength beneath the surface. He knew there could be nobody more determined than her to expose the truth about the election. Not only could it free the country from this dictatorship, it would save her boyfriend’s life.
“Does she have the UN Inspector’s schedule?” Saffron asked.
“According to this he’s at the Langley Georgian Hotel at Heathrow airport and he’s flying out at 5.15 this afternoon.”
“We have to catch up with him before then.” With every thought, Saffron seemed to press harder on the accelerator. “Text all the information to your mum. She needs to hold him there until we can get to him.”
Jimmy took Saffron’s mobile phone from his pocket. It was a cheap prepay phone, but decent enough for them to have been using it to connect to the internet on their journey. They’d bought a matching pair before they set off, and Helen Coates had the other one. As far as the Secret Service was concerned, the numbers would be anonymous and as long as Jimmy didn’t use any dangerous keywords, his text messages wouldn’t be flagged up by government computers.
Jimmy sent the text then turned back to Eva’s message.
“She’s put up a link.” He clicked it, and found himself on the website of a company called Janua Systems. At first he couldn’t work out why Eva had wanted him to see it, but finally he realised. “This is perfect,” he said.
“What?”
“Eva found the website of the company that the UN used to make the HERMES voting system.”
“To make it?” Saffron asked. “What do you mean?”
“Design it… build it… whatever.” Jimmy was frantically clicking through the pages. “It’s all here. Eva – thank you!” He clenched his fists in triumph. A flood of gratitude washed through him. For a long time he’d been amazed by Eva’s bravery. Now he saw how smart she was as well. It had never even crossed his mind that information about the design of HERMES would be online.
What’s more, he’d assumed that if the UN had created a new voting system, it would have been built in Switzerland or Germany or somewhere else, and its secrets would have been locked overseas, or at best on a foreign website that the British Government would have blocked. But here it all was, and now Jimmy started to understand why: the Government promoted British industry and businesses as much as they could, and excluded anything foreign. So they must have forced the UN into some kind of compromise: if there was going to be a voting system used in Britain, the UN could oversee it or even design it, but the Government would have insisted that it was British-built.
“This is just what we need,” Jimmy said with confidence, finding the pages about HERMES. The company was obviously proud enough of its achievement to publicise it on the website, and presumably the Government was keen to allow a British business the chance to show off.
“It says here,” Jimmy explained, his eyes flashing across the laptop screen, rapidly pulling out all the information, “that people’s votes are transmitted straight from the voting kiosks to the central computer, which keeps track of everything, counts the votes and stores everything securely. But then for added security and accuracy, the kiosks themselves are brought back to the central hub and the data is uploaded directly into the HERMES mainframe from the kiosk hard drives.”
“So you mean it double-checks everything?”
“Something like that.” Jimmy was aware of so much information flying through his head at once he could almost feel his brain vibrating.
“So that’s all we need to do,” Saffron announced. “We compare the two sets of data.” She powered the car forward, twisting along the minor roads that shadowed the motorway. “You find one of the voting machines and pull the raw data. I’ll go straight to the central computer and find the numbers for that particular machine.”
“Genius,” said Jimmy. “If anybody’s rigged the system, the votes cast on the kiosk won’t match the votes in the central computer for that kiosk.”
Jimmy understood the plan, and was already trying to work out a way to get past security. He concentrated on every sliver of doubt that crept through him. He had to trust that they could get inside, then find the right machinery and operate the system.
Finally Saffron slowed the Bentley to a crawl, pulling up to the hedge by the side of the road.
“There it is,” she said softly, nodding through the branches. Jimmy’s doubts suddenly doubled. On the other side of a large field he could see the top of Chisley Hall, its flagpole poking up above a high perimeter wall of old red brick. Even at this distance and with the wall blocking the view, the place was obviously huge. It had originally been a stately home, but now it served as the perfect fortress. The wall was at least twelve metres high, and curls of barbed wire had been added along the top.
They circled the roads around the estate, but all they learned was that there was no opportunity for a covert approach – the perimeter wall was separated from the roads by open fields, apart from one corner that backed on to a patch of trees that was far too thin to provide any cover. Even the wrought iron gate at the main entrance was set back at the end of a fifty metre driveway, with a longer stretch on the other side of the wall before they would reach the house itself.
“There’ll be cameras,” Jimmy muttered, half to himself.
“Of course,” replied Saffron. She was studying what they could see of the place as intently as Jimmy. “And guards and guns and dogs and…” She turned with a smile. “…all kinds of fun.”
Jimmy smiled back, then glanced up at the sky. For the first time he could remember, there wasn’t a cloud in it – a perfectly clear, crisp autumn morning.
“It’s not exactly dark,” he said, his programming rumbling around inside him, throwing out a million reasons why this whole mission was a bad idea.
“It’ll be too late by tonight,” said Saffron.
“Then I guess we’ll have to find some shadows,” Jimmy replied, nodding slowly. “Or make them.”
Jimmy crouched in the bushes, his eyes scanning the fields around Chisley Hall. He was wrapped in a big waterproof coat with the collar turned up against the wind. Saffron had gone to buy a few items. Jimmy had given her a list that included ten more prepay mobile phones with old handsets, a large saw, some elastic bands, some paperclips, three Cornettos and as many fireworks as she could find. It wouldn’t be hard, Jimmy thought. Fireworks day was coming up in a few weeks and every corner shop was already well stocked up.
Saffron had quickly worked out some of what Jimmy had planned and left him to continue circling Chisley Hall on foot, staking it out. In fact, he’d done more than that. He’d jogged round the entire area, found the nearest houses and overturned the rubbish bins from alternate homes, spreading the contents haphazardly across the street. Then he’d found a public phone box and put in a call to the local council.
“There’s been a fox attack on the area,” he said quickly, his voice distorting itself naturally into the deep tones of a fully-grown man. “Or teenage vandals. You need to send a rubbish truck to clear this up immediately!”
“We don’t do that, sir,” came the response. “We—”
“Don’t you know what facility is nearby?!” Jimmy raged. “Chisley Hall is a highly sensitive government building. All this rubbish is blocking the emergency access routes! It’s a security risk!”
He slammed the phone down and ran, his head pounding and his muscles aching. Now he was hoping Saffron would get back with enough time before the rubbish truck turned up. That was just phase one of his plan, and there were several more elements to be put in place. At last he heard the reassuring growl of the Bentley’s V8 engine.
“Any problems?” Jimmy asked when Saffron stepped out.
She shook her head and tossed him two black plastic sacks. “Everything you need,” she said. “I got it all from different stores in different towns. Nothing suspicious.”
“Good.” Jimmy was already tearing into one bag like he was opening presents on his birthday. He ripped open the boxes of mobile phones, stuffing the packaging back into the plastic sack, and he lined up the handsets on the grass verge.
“Better get a move on,” Saffron urged. “We’re not exactly inconspicuous here. We shouldn’t have come in the Bentley.”
“It’s OK,” Jimmy reassured her, kneeling over the selection of fireworks. “I’ve got alternative transport on the way.”
“I thought you might.” Without consulting him, she was ready with the toolkit from the back of the car. Jimmy took it from her with a rush of excitement. He could feel his nerves tingling, but his programming was converting any gram of anxiety into power, strength and confidence.
He programmed the numbers of the ten new phones into the phone he already had, but found as he was doing it that the information was sticking in his memory anyway. The digits seemed to lodge in his head, each one backing on to the next so there were no gaps, no blanks. When he was finished, he slipped his phone back into one of the deep pockets of his coat and looked over the other handsets, lined up on their fronts next to the pile of fireworks and a box of elastic bands. Time for phase two, he thought.
It was fairly simple to remove the casing from the phones and twist the paperclips to make new connections to the phone batteries. Jimmy didn’t really understand what his fingers were doing until after they had done it. His hands manipulated the screwdriver and the tiny phone parts without any hesitation.
Then he stripped the cardboard from the casing on several rockets and reassembled them to make nine tubes, delicately pouring in the powders from all the fireworks. Jimmy could feel his heart beating faster. How dangerous is this? he asked himself. He would never have been so stupid as to play with fireworks normally. But the assassin in him was executing a plan with total focus and determination.
In his head he could hear a roll call of chemicals as his assassin instinct picked up the scent of each one. It may as well have been an alien language to Jimmy, but somewhere inside him was an expert, revelling in the names of the explosive compounds: barium chloride, sodium nitrate, lithium carbonate…
In no time, Jimmy had nine highly explosive rockets. With amazing precision, he attached the fuses to the wiring of the mobile phones and held everything in place with the elastic bands. Now each device could be detonated remotely with a simple phone call.
“Looks like your ride is here,” said Saffron, glancing up the road. A rubbish truck was trundling in their direction, then it turned off towards the residential area where Jimmy had caused such a mess.
Without another word, Jimmy and Saffron gathered their tools and new devices into one of the plastic sacks and jumped into the Bentley. They caught up with the rubbish truck just as it turned into the first road. Faced with a street covered in rubbish, it slowed to a crawl. Saffron drew up alongside it and as soon as the passenger door of the truck opened, Jimmy burst into action.
He jumped out of the Bentley while it was still moving and ran round to the truck. The rubbish man was just climbing out of the cabin when Jimmy launched himself at him. He leapt up, caught the top of the open door and swung his feet into the centre of the man’s chest. Together they clattered back into the passenger seat and knocked the driver sideways. Both rubbish men cried out, but Jimmy immediately crushed their shouts with simultaneous jabs in the throat with the base of his palms. Both men choked for air. Jimmy knew it was only temporary. He’d struck with the precision of a surgeon and knew that they would pass out in fifteen to twenty seconds, then come round in another minute. That was all the time he needed.