by Tomson Cobb
‘I know that. I’ll return the compliment if I can. You only have to ask,’ Jago said. He was reminded as always of the spiky nature of his colleague, which was a common attribute right across their particular sector of the journalistic world, if he was honest.
‘Deal. What’s on your mind?’ said Dan.
‘Know anything about a crowd called Real World Analysis?’ said Jago.
‘Sure. They’re geopolitical research consultants. Which means in jargon-free English that they provide risk analysis for multinationals. It’s said they also work for the government on the side.’
‘Is that so? It’s that well known in the trade then?’
‘Of course. They’ve had closet agreements with various departments for years. They may take a commission from a commercial operation like a multinational chemicals company, for example. The report goes to the appropriate minister then the company pays for the work and charges it back to HMG. The government outsources a lot of this stuff. You know that already, Jags.’
‘Of course. Sounds to me like this chemical company exists though?’ Jago decided to change the subject.
‘That’s for me to know and you to wonder about, my old mate. I’m a freelance as well you know. The difference is I don’t have your money, so I have to chase my own stories to put food on the table for my poor family. Sorry Jago.’
‘Fair point, Dan. I can’t argue with that. So help me here. Who are the key players in that outfit? If you’re not already commissioned for a piece about them yourself of course.’
‘I’m not. I have too much on my plate as it is. What with this case here and my own little exclusive as mentioned. Two main characters. James Worsley is the CEO. Young guy, went to Oxford. Bloody brilliant geek. Came up with the idea of designing an algorithm to look for investment opportunities across the world in dangerous places you wouldn’t normally think of. The multinationals loved it. Some of them took a stake in the business.’
‘Any I would know?’
‘Troncore Enterprises is one you should look at. But you won’t find them on a shareholders list. Their stake is held by a shell company registered in the Bahamas.’
‘I knew you would be the man in the know, Dan. Any others you can tell me of?’
‘Kruger Europe. The EMEA end of the latest US hotshot businessman turned politician.’
‘Who?’ Jago played dumb.
‘You must know about him. He’s a potential presidential candidate. Are you pulling one on me?’
‘Okay, okay. Yeah, I’ve heard about him now you mention. I didn’t know he had an operation here in Europe though, although it makes sense now I think about it.’
Jago noticed a commotion in the room. He felt rather than saw the Clerk of the Court with his eyes on them both, a look of annoyance creasing his bearded face. Jago realised that even their muted conversation had been noticed by the powers that be. He nodded back at the clerk and put up an apologetic palm just as the gavel sounded to announce the arrival of the judge. They both stood. As they sat again, Dan returned to typing furiously, head down. He hadn’t seen the clerk’s frown so Jago lowered his voice and whispered.
‘Dan. You said two characters?’ His friend looked up in alarm at the other officials across the room, who now had their attention fixed on the two hacks.
The arrival of Justice Oldfield had silenced the press and public galleries, which meant their whispers were noticed immediately by the sharp-witted QC as he swept into the courtroom. Then he spotted Jago. They had crossed swords before.
‘Mr Hale, I see. To what do we owe your gracious presence today I wonder? I’m sure this fraud trial is way beneath your usual level of interest, however for the rest of us it’s quite the contrary. This may be an uncharacteristic show of patience on my part but I won’t repeat it. Do I make myself clear?’
Jago felt all eyes turned towards him. He stood.
‘I’m sorry, My Lord. I hadn’t realised I had disturbed the court.’
‘Thank you. I appreciate you will now allow the Crown to continue its case. Bailiff, call in the jury,’ Oldfield added as Jago sat down again.
Dan decided discretion was the better part of valour, so he pulled out his large notepad to scribble his answer to Jago’s question in Teeline. This was a problem, as Jago had never finished his course in the shorthand method designed for journalists, so translating his colleague’s scratches proved difficult. He eventually made out the gist of the text.
Jeremy Catesby. Or Lord Catesby of Stalham as you might know him.
‘That’s all you’ll get from me Jago. I have work to do. If I get kicked out of here now, I’ll get the boot from the Journal,’ whispered Dan from the corner of his mouth.
To keep the peace and not get his friend into any more trouble, Jago decided to leave at that point, before the prosecuting barrister started his submission. He whispered his thanks to Dan, bowed to the bench then made a diplomatic exit.
He was halfway across London Bridge when the call came from his accountant. He paused to look down the murky river towards Tower Bridge as Nigel gave him his overview report on the task he’d been set by Jago. It took several minutes with Jago’s limited interjections, mainly to ask about dates or names.
‘That’s useful, Nigel. Can you put them onto a memory stick and cab them over to me? No, better still, I’ll call in to collect it myself tonight. If you go out, could you leave it with Mary?’ He listened with patience to the accountant as he described his itinerary for that night. ‘Great. I’ve got another couple of companies I need you to check out as well. Troncore Enterprises, plus Kruger Europe. I’ll see you tonight. Many thanks, Nige.’
Jago continued across the bridge as he digested the information he’d just received. The pieces had begun to come together with a realisation that Shapiro’s fears were not big enough.
Chapter 22
Camden wasn’t Jago’s favourite part of London so he preferred to ignore the seedier side of the borough to focus on its better elements. The Royal Veterinary College had looked after his dog on numerous occasions, though the last one had proved to be the most important.
‘Hello Jago. How was your trip?’ The chief vet’s demeanour was as dour as usual, his words delivered in monotone as Jago was reintroduced to his loyal four-legged friend, who’d followed the clinician into the examination room without fuss.
‘Very good thanks, Justin. How was the patient?’ Jago asked. The dog appeared as relaxed as usual, settling herself into the corner almost as if to listen to the discussion that was about to take place.
‘Fine. We’ve done all the tests we wanted to do and she came through with flying colours. This is one tough animal I have to say.’
‘That’s reassured me no end. Look mate, I really appreciate that you kept her in here while I was away.’
‘That’s okay, Jago. I wanted to run a thorough check up on her anyway after your unfortunate firearms incident. On this occasion you won’t have to pay for it because we just got delivery of the scanner you donated. That’s a lot of money you’ve shelled out for us once again, which all the team here really appreciate. The board of trustees asked me to thank you on their behalf as well.’
‘I’m not concerned about that. I just owe you guys immensely – once again.’
‘Don’t mention it. She’s been fine. We put her in the basement with the other overnighters. The night shift let her wander around to some degree. She was brilliant, showed a talent you didn’t know about. We had a nervous dog recuperating after a serious op that had started to disturb all the others with her continual barks. One of the nurses went out for a few minutes and when she came back, your friend here was laid out in front of his cage with her nose pressed against the glass and had calmed him down. The others were quiet as well. She must have some telepathic facility,’ Justin said.
‘She does indeed. It unnerves me what she does sometimes.’
‘I can believe it now after this incident. Well, you can take her away today
. You won’t need to bring her back till next year’s annual check-up.’
‘Thanks Justin. Come on Chob, time for us to go home again.’
He felt more than saw the dog’s eyes as they stared at him. Maybe she was a reincarnation of someone he knew in another life, which could mean he was under constant observation by another spirit. That’s what they say about animals. Too many senses with most undiscovered, while he struggled with the standard human ones.
When they got back to the mews, Nik was already stood outside the house, dressed in an old-fashioned belted trench coat, slouched against the wall like a louche detective waiting for an errant husband to make his escape from an assignation with his secretary.
‘You look as if you’ve been watching too many Bogart films, Nik.’
‘That obvious, hey? I thought I’d try to blend into your world.’
‘Not quite. Sorry we’re a bit later than planned. Been delayed at the vet’s.’
‘No problem, Jago. I’ve got some news for you on our lady friend.’ Nik knelt to rough up the dog’s ears. ‘Hello Chob. You look as good as new.’ She took the approach without reaction, apart from an irritated shake of the head, as if to suggest that time was being wasted.
‘She’s back to normal according to the vet. Come on in.’ Jago led him and the dog through the outer door, locked it, then opened the second one from the courtyard to the hallway. When he’d made them both a mug of coffee in the kitchen, Nik opened up.
‘Your idea of a list of La Polpo names came up trumps. We now think she uses an online name generator app called Nameonly. Get it?’
‘Yes Nik. I got it first time,’ said Jago with a sigh. ‘Why do you think she’s used it?’
‘After I spoke to you, I called a mate in NCSC. He fed all the names she’d used before into a program they have there that looks for patterns, then relates them to other suggested sources or links. It led us to this website. After that, when we fed in criteria that our programs suggest she might have used, it came up with an almost identical list of names.’
‘Wow. Impressive. I won’t ask what other uses you put it to. So what’s the relevance?’
‘You wouldn’t get an answer from me if you did. The relevance is that we now have a shot of a geolocation on her searches.’
‘You mean you’ve asked the company to help you, or NCSC has a back door access to the Nameonly software?’
‘I couldn’t possibly comment on that either. Just take it from me that we’ll try to find where she made the searches. It’s a step forward, though we have no results to show yet.’
‘So why are you here to tell me that? You could have called me with the information.’
‘You remember I had that little gizmo attached to Chomsky’s motor when you had the confrontation with him in the art gallery?’ Nik’s smile was like a cat who’d just finished off a fledgling sparrow fallen from a tree while its mother watched helplessly from a branch above.
‘You’re about to tell me you know who the traitor is?’
‘Not quite. But we’ve worked hard on the recording we got of his voice when Chomsky reported to the guy after your little contretemps. It had been put through distortion software but we’ve got another bit of new AI kit that’s able to deconstruct voice-changing programs. It’s still in beta and starting to provide some results. We don’t want this advertised of course.’
‘I’ll ignore that,’ said Jago with an air of indignation.
‘I didn’t suggest you’d write about it if that’s what you mean, Jags. I just have to mention the importance of security. We don’t want the bad guys to know we can reconstruct their real voice before they used their voice encryption software. It’s a bit like the Bletchley team when they broke the Enigma and Lorenz ciphers. They didn’t want to let the krauts know we’d broken their codes because they wanted to listen in to their radio chatter. They deliberately didn’t act on some pieces of intelligence, just to throw Berlin off the scent, so it maintained the Nazis’ confidence in their military communications without any need for change. We want to do that with this program.’
‘Okay. I get it. So, what have you found?’
‘That it’s for sure a male voice, age fifty to sixty, well educated. At present, it can’t reproduce the real voice, it can just come up with suggestions. We’ll get there, except not for a while.’
‘Fabulous. That cuts it down to about a quarter of the population.’
‘Hang on. It’s a bit more than that, Jags. We’re pretty sure that he uses RP. You know, Received Pronunciation.’ Nik’s smile had started to grate on Jago.
‘Yes. I know about RP. Go on then, Nik. I’m all ears.’
‘RP is an accent, not a dialect, so all RP speakers use Standard English. In other words, they use standard grammatical constructions rather than localised dialects. That drops it to two per cent of the population. It also isn’t used in the other UK nations, so the guy is English without a doubt. RP is in competition with General American when taught as a foreign language.’
‘Correct. You can trace it back to public schools here. It used to be called BBC English. Now it’s only used by what you or I would call the social elite. That is useful, I give you that. So we know which group he belongs to, but how do we narrow it down further? Ah. I have a suspicion from the look on your face that you’ve done that already?’ Jago was now intrigued.
‘Correct. The bug stayed in the wheel arch of the car for a couple of days before it got dislodged. We know that because it also had a movement sensor with GPS facility so we picked it up in the road when it fell off. Can’t let a member of the public take it home can we?’
‘Get to the point, Nik. I have work to do.’ Jago glanced at the dog, who continued to stare, now at their visitor instead of her usual companion. ‘Chob needs her walk, among other critical jobs I have to do.’
‘Okay. Okay. Chomsky called Hordiyenko the day after your argument. He told him he’d had another call from His Lordship.’
‘I see. Do we take that literally? A member of the House of Lords. If so, how would he know? Chomsky always got his instructions via the voice-changing software, didn’t he? He couldn’t have met the guy, surely?’
‘We doubt that in the office. At the same time, Chomsky wasn’t stupid, so maybe he put two and two together and got the Eton Boating Song. Who knows?’
‘If he really is a lord. What number does that reduce it down to?’ Jago said.
‘If we take out the bishops, around five hundred and fifty. If we then discount the old codgers who are there just for their daily allowance to sleep through the debates because it’s warmer than a day at their care home, two hundred or so. Then if we lose the ones who have leave of absence, are disqualified, not privy councillors or don’t have any connection with government departments, we end up with about a hundred.’
‘Hmm. From that you could discount any with no possible contact with the military or SIS?’ Jago said. ‘What does that leave?’
‘About fifteen, we reckon. However, we still can’t be sure it wasn’t just a figure of speech by Chomsky.’
‘It’s worth consideration anyhow. Can you keep your focus on that fifteen? Look for any links with other governments or with private companies that do business with hostile nations?’
‘Will do.’
It’s not always what you know, thought Jago. Your contacts are often much more important, as was the situation in this case. The fog was becoming a little clearer.
Chapter 23
Jago had seen Nik off the premises before he put in the call to his forensic accountant, as he liked to call him. He was now eager to accelerate the research. His fingers drummed a beat on the kitchen worktop as he looked out of the window. He must have counted the number of stones in the garden outside more than a dozen times as he pondered his options, his patience strained to the limit as he waited for Nigel to arrive.
‘Nigel. Have you found any dirt on Real World Consulting?’ The small rotund accountant
barely had time to accept the welcome from Chobi before Jago was into his interrogation.
‘I have indeed, Mr Hale.’
‘Nigel. Please don’t call me Mister. You know I hate all that formality. I always ask you, yet you still do it.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry Mr Hale. It’s just the way I was trained. I can’t kick the habit. I’ll try harder, I promise.’
‘Sorry Nigel. I’m a little on edge today. I shouldn’t have bitten you off like that. I apologise.’
Jago had now started to tap his feet like a retired rock drummer while he waited for the coffee to settle in the cafetière. He knew he didn’t need any more stimulus although all habits are hard to change, good or bad. He forgave himself with a silent promise to change his libation of choice and poured the hot black fluid into two mugs before he slid into a seat at the table opposite the accountant. Nigel had produced four pages of foolscap from his bag which were now placed strategically in front of Jago as he put the mugs down alongside them.
‘It’s a UK company, Jago. Set up six years ago by a young computer expert named James Worsley. He got a PhD in Computer Science at Oxford. Did all sorts of clever research there into machine learning, or artificial intelligence as it’s called nowadays. The term was coined in the 1950s but it’s only in the last few years that it’s become a meme. It’s also only recently that the sector has received huge amounts of research funds which allowed people like Worsley to get their businesses off the ground.’
‘So this whizz kid came up with a good idea for a new computer program. Is that correct?’
‘That’s right. He decided to focus on one area, geopolitical analysis. He figured that the company could create a niche business that could provide high-quality in-depth reports for big business. Also for governments. The company’s slogan is: We help corporates identify and mitigate security risks to their people, property and financial interests globally.’
‘Snappy. The usual corporate crap. Aren’t there a few of this type of operation out there already? What was his USP?’