A Damned Serious Business

by Gerald Seymour

  ‘Thank you.’

  They walked and a chain of cigarettes was lit, then tossed. Boot typed, one finger, and the detail was committed to the tablet’s memory. Every few sentences the sergeant would peer at the screen, back to the satellite image and magnify a portion of it, suck hard on his cigarette, then speak again. He rapped with a gnarled finger.

  ‘It’s where I’d go, and how I’d do it, and nothing is guaranteed.’

  ‘I think I know that,’ Boot said.

  ‘It’s plenty that you ask of him.’

  ‘I know that too.’

  ‘And the way in is as good a way out, and tell him to come back alone, in charge of his own destiny. No passengers. Perhaps, when he’s back – think on the bright side – bring him down. I’d like to meet him, after the talk-up you’ve given him.’

  ‘Perhaps I will.’

  The Major called an O Group meeting for the afternoon.

  Then sat at his desk and drank water and ate a sandwich, spiced pork and pickled gherkin, that Julia had made. Wiped the crumbs from the desk top and spread out the files. There was still a generation in the Big House – the Major among them – who harboured basic mistrust of the computer, preferred paper and demanded photographs.

  His wife, a sweetheart since childhood, would now be at the clinic where she met private patients on a Tuesday. Dermatology was now desirable to prominent St Petersburg players; the smoothness of complexions mattered, money was available, and she was gathering a nest egg for the day when he would write his resignation letter. They would then return to the countryside north of Minsk – ignoring the rampaging corruption in his country’s governing élite of Belarus – and he would take a small boat out on the lakes in summer and fish for big pike, and in the winter he would sledge and ski with her, and with their son. A dream but attainable . . . First, the work of the day.

  Nobody in the Big House could fault his efforts to ensure the laws of the country were observed. The Judicial Codes covered ‘dissent’. He tracked the young men and women who breached the law. Had no hatred of them, nor did he admire them. The Major thought the girl on the periphery of the group was the most interesting. When she had sat opposite him before, in an interrogation room, he had weighed her anger against her intelligence, decided that together they put her in a different league to the men in the group who talked and planned, but acted feebly. He thought he could exploit her, learn more from her; and she had an anger that he had found moderately attractive, and an innocence. A second imperative governed the arrest of the girl – her brother. The Major did not directly infringe on the areas of Organised Crime, but if an investigation, properly mounted, created awkwardness or wrong-footed his superiors then it was welcomed. He started to draft his briefing.

  Dunc had the Brains Trust’s last offering, reckoned he followed hard acts. Thought that those who had tasked the Brains Trust were uninterested in arguments other than the striking of a blow against their opponents.

  ‘Forget the politics and the military, just look at the theft. We estimate the annual cost of cyber crime has reached an excess of four hundred billion dollars a year. Credit card details sell in the black quarter for some four dollars each, but they have extracted millions of them. The information regarding a good savings account in middle Britain or Germany or the Eastern Seaboard, codes and passwords, that holds one hundred thousand dollars will be bought for as little as three hundred dollars. The man at the top of the FBI Most Wanted took one hundred million from accounts on a botnet scheme. A gang did a crypto lock and shut down a whole range of accounts, and companies, then asked seven hundred and fifty dollars from each victim to “open the door”. A company refuses, loses the originals and it costs them seventy thousand to replace the files. A US police department was more street-wise and paid up, did a transfer of seven hundred and fifty in notes. That’s the big and the small. Who does it? There is a cyberpunk ideology. The characteristics are rebellion, anarchy, hatred of authority. Stereotypes are applicable – we have them where we operate and pay them big money – and they leave a trail of half-eaten fast-food, set off the smoke alarms with their fags, and they have utter belief in their own brilliance. The “script kiddie” is arrogant, conceited, intelligent, and moves freely between state-sponsored and Organised Crime. In Russia, he is part of an élite and more useful than a Special Forces regiment. By the age of twenty-eight, he is on a garbage heap, his skills are blunted, and another teenager will kick his butt and shift him out. The best will have been sighted, tracked by the Eighth Directorate of FSB, and will be guided into the arms of the gang bosses who cooperate. A big part of the attraction that goes with the work is the knowledge that we are hunting, chasing, screaming frustration, coming after him, but he is ahead. We say cyber defence is DLPI – Delta Lima Papa India. That’s Denial Luck Prayer Ignorance. By the way, the script kids think we’re rubbish, seriously second rate. I’d like to think of them suffering severe shock, thrown off balance, but that won’t happen if we only fry a few laptops. Has to be heavy . . . obvious. We should get all this typed up for the customer.’

  They broke, separated, began to hammer at their laptops and tried to make something coherent from their knowledge. Dunc thought he might insert the statistic of the east European gang, who had never been to the southern hemisphere but who had stolen 500,000 Australian credit cards, with a face value in terms of spending limits of 400 million sterling, then had sold them off and pocketed a profit the equivalent of 16 million sterling. They would keep their joint report simple, not confuse the Director, or Boot.

  Boot came back into London.

  Seemed to see, not the traffic in front of him, but men in columns coming from the ferry boats and disembarking in the port of Antwerp, bowed under the weight of their knapsacks and carrying long-barrelled and muzzle-loaded Baker flintlock rifles. The horses struggling to clamber on to the quayside, and the heavy cranes hoisting the cannon. And, with a shrug, the Duke would have said – because many were raw and untrained in European warfare, and the best of the army were in Spain or in Canada and could not return in time, ‘We have what we have’. And seemed not to hear the shouts and horns and screeches of brakes around him, but heard the yells of the quartermasters and the drawl of the officers as their precious personal baggage was brought ashore, and the creak of the ropes and the curses of the troops who were off to war. Must have faith in their leader, in his plan . . . His leadership, Boot’s, and the young man’s. Faith, the great commodity in Boot’s world, and in the Duke’s.

  He walked towards the building and nodded to Arthur and Roy and could have sworn that he was greeted with a fractional wink from Arthur, like sharing a confidence. Went inside, hurried to find the Maid and track what he had learned.

  She drove him over the bridge and he had the chance to gaze at the building. She said nothing and Merc had nothing to ask her. It seemed vast, ugly enough for the sense of strength to be enhanced. She had been on the tarmac to meet him and the plane had taxied towards her car, and the steps had been lowered. Neither of the stewards had wished him well but one of the pilots had opened the cockpit door and had nodded to him, might have been a small gesture of respect. He had not seen her for more than a year and a half and thought she looked well. She had given him a passport and they had gone through brief formalities, the pages not looked at, and the Customs section was closed and they had gone back to the car and headed towards London. He had felt an idiot wearing combat fatigues. She’d looked at him a couple of times as if to query whether he wanted to talk, then decided on silence, and the traffic had been a bastard and it was good that she concentrated.

  Over the bridge and past the entrance to the building, she had taken a side street then had parked outside a modern block. She’d fished in her bag for keys and had told him about a service flat, second floor, then had seemed to eye him over, like she undressed him – the same look she’d given him when he had met her beside the pool in the embassy’s part of the Green Zone. She said there was a s
treet market in Kennington and she’d go and pick up some clothes for him. Almost the first time she had spoken, except for swearing at other drivers, and greeting him on the apron. How was he? He was all right. She had not required a bulletin, nor a sit.rep. on a battle for a forward fire position she would not have heard of. And she had not briefed on the mission he was required for, nor why he warranted the evacuation from Hill 425. She said when she would be back with the clothes, and told him that the brief would follow and who would give it – a name that Merc had heard, no more . . . and told him not to get too comfortable because he would be moving on that evening. He’d shrugged, and did his smile, the trademark, and asked if she could get him the latest Auto Trader and also an Exchange and Mart. She was a good-looking girl but . . . there had been blood on the floor of the emergency area and breathing becoming irregular and pallor settling.

  Merc took the keys and went through swing doors, and the place stank of fragrance sprays, and there was a pain in his shoulder from the bruising of the recoil. He wondered if he would ask ‘Why did you come for me, why not one of the other guys, must be a thousand of them?’ Wondered if he would. And wondered when the ‘sometime’ would be, the ‘sometime’ when he walked away, or whether it was too far beyond the horizon.

  In the flat, Merc stripped, folded his clothes, sat naked in an easy chair, and waited for her.

  Chapter 5

  She brought the clothes.

  He had dozed, might have slept, naked and uncovered. Daff had not knocked, not called out. She had said that her name was still Daff. She had used her own key to the flat, and she had stood in front of him, carrying the clothes. Not a semblance of a blush.

  Merc did not do personal modesty so did not hide himself. She laid the clothes on the bed, turning her back on him, and described what she had purchased: all High Street stuff, remaindered to the market. Merc stood, grunted his thanks, and she passed him a docket and he scrawled a signature: could have been his name, or Brad’s or Rob’s, or that of any of the girls and guys from the trench, or of the young woman who had bled so badly and who had no time for him. He went to the bathroom, and stood under the shower; first cold water, then warm and then scalding . . . Had been a time when she might have joined him, under the shower, or on the evening after the meeting by the pool, or when she had been in a hotel in Qatar or Dubai and done the debrief after the Afghan period. Hadn’t then, didn’t now. He towelled himself and shaved, using the plastic razor beside the basin. He chucked the towel on the floor and came out.

  Merc wondered who had last been there, and where they had been headed or where they had come from, and who might follow him tomorrow, whether they would sit in the chair and let time pass, shiver and care about the day, ‘sometime’, when they’d called time on it . . . Saw the big fellow who was caught in the wire, and saw the grenade that had bounced and then wobbled and then lain still on the trench floor, remembered when he had lost sight of it under the boy’s body, and remembered the jam on the belt, and the flag that flew above them marking Hill 425. Remembered the feeling of her rump when he had smacked it and told her to keep her head down . . . Daff sat on the bed and used nail scissors to cut away every label in the clothing. Merc dressed.

  How was he? ‘I’m fine.’

  Had it been spectacular? ‘The “air” coming in? Made a good show.’

  Was there much time to spare? ‘Not as you’d notice. They were near to taking us down. Ammunition was low. Came when it was needed.’

  She grimaced, touched his arm momentarily. He supposed he told it – the fast jets coming over them with their ordnance – as if the matter were no more serious than going short of milk. He thought she was trying to read him, and hoped she failed.

  Daff said he looked good. ‘If that matters then I’m pleased.’

  Time to go, and his gear would be taken care of. Then a little grin, like she’d brought sweets. In her big shoulder-bag were the magazines, and his face lit up and the smile cracked open and he almost gave her a snappy kiss on the cheek. She would have known his gratitude. She told him they would go and eat something, then he’d meet Boot, hear what made it worth flying him from a shit-awful combat zone, and learn where he was going. He’d shrugged. He said what he would like to eat and what he would not: no burgers and no fries, some fish and some salad, and maybe an apple, and juice to drink. Was he not impatient to know what was wanted of him, where? His grandmother used to say that watching a kettle did not make it boil faster. He said he was not impatient.

  They went down the stairs and into the dull light of the early afternoon. She had brought him a conventional anorak, rain threatened, and she tucked her arm into his, and they hurried together. He thought she was an alone person – as he was. And that was the trait of the people they wanted. Always the best, they said, going into a place of danger, if you were unencumbered with emotion, unburdened by a relationship.

  ‘It must have been an oversight.’

  ‘Must it?’ Not a chance of snow in Hades that Boot would have permitted Plimsoll – Antony Plimsoll – into his outer office, let alone the inner sanctum. The query was curt, on the edge of rudeness, and with a tone that indicated the intrusion interrupted important work.

  ‘It must have been an oversight that you are drawing an expenses float in your name and for others in a team, and that notification of the personnel has gone to Human Resources, but required paperwork has not been submitted.’

  ‘Has it not?’ Boot let his gaze of indifference fall squarely on the individual whom he blocked at the outer door. Behind him the Maid was concentrating on her screen and the papers and maps that covered her desk, and Daff’s, and more photographs, aerial and high-definition were Sellotaped to the walls.

  ‘We have not received a risk assessment critique. It is compulsory, as you well know, to submit it after it has been signed off and . . .’

  He knew Plimsoll. One more of the Eternal Flames now populating the building. One of the ‘never went out’ brigade, never posted abroad, would not know a frontier fence with a fresh-laid minefield if it stood up and bit him. Of course, there should have been a risk assessment, and the Big Boss should have agreed it covered the necessary ground – and signed on the line . . . Time pressed, and he was due at the Gate. In his mind was what he had to say, and the points he must hammer home. There was no risk bloody assessment, nor would there be.

  ‘Short of time, apologies, rather busy.’

  A pulled face. An expression of sadness rather than frustration. An intimation that no good would come from the contravention of best practice. ‘Your application does not indicate where this unidentified operation will take place, the one that takes you away with a quite substantial sum of monies. We are, to put it mildly, light on detail.’

  ‘Where? East of Cromer, or Kings Lynn, or Skegness – excuse me, have a lot to be getting on with.’

  ‘I am doing my job to the best of my ability. As far as I’m aware, the days of ill-prepared cowboy jaunts are long gone. I understand you have verbal support from the seventh floor. My advice, don’t push the support too far.’ An edge was in Plimsoll’s voice, and he cracked his finger joints for effect, emboldened. ‘The advice – don’t cock it up. Just don’t, or you’ll be hanging in the wind, twisting in it – that’s good advice.’

  ‘Would that be hemp or woven silk, the rope they’ll use?’ Boot heard a quiet titter from the Maid.

  ‘Not just you, but plenty of others if it fails and there was no risk assessment submitted. The height of irresponsibility.’

  Their eyes met. Each despised the other. Two men facing each other across the chasm that divided an old world from a new one. The cold was at the back of his neck, and the constriction at his throat, at the truth of what he was told.

  He eased past. ‘Then we should all pedal harder – to see it doesn’t fail.’

  He knew the footsteps. Nikki heard the approach of Gorilla up the stairs from the Reception area, along the corridor, then into the work area
. Very few of the script kids were big men; most were wiry, small, skinny and with minimal muscle. Their status was based on their keyboard skill, not on squats and hoisting weights. Nikki thought Gorilla might have a degree of autism. Usually distant, harder to reach than any of them, but with an explosive turn of mood. Gorilla had a good relationship with HookNose, a better one with the Roofer, seemed easy with the GangMaster, and was generally tolerant of Nikki. Maybe poison had dripped in his ear. Early in the year, his temper tripped by a presumed snigger, Gorilla had belted two newer kids. One had suffered a split lip and the other had spat out a dislodged tooth. If it had not been for his skill on a keyboard and the angry persistence with which he followed entry routes into the better guarded companies” computing systems, he would have been sitting out on a bench in a park in the rain with a view of a railway line and tower blocks. A high moment the previous year had been Gorilla’s little squeal of pleasure – and they had come and taken turns to gaze over his shoulder and seen where his worm had reached: the Pentagon, a personnel section, a department dealing with the emoluments for senior ranking officers serving abroad, and a gush of email messages downloading. Not secrets at state level, but names and destinations and banks for salaries to be paid into, and confidential appraisals: the sort of material that GRU – military intelligence – drooled over, and that won the GangMaster praise and influence and further FSB protection, and Gorilla had taken them there. He could do as the fancy took him, would not be chastised.

  The fancy did take, and the toxic in his ear had gone deep. Nikki heard him approach, hesitate, then Nikki was flying. The chair had been tipped back, the wheels had lost traction and it was upended.