Within a few years, the CTA’s score card had amassed enough gold stars according to its original remit, including direct prevention of at least four home-target terror attacks that Bridge knew of, to satisfy Whitehall and ensure its continued existence for the time being.
But Giles’ timing turned out to be fortuitous. Digital communications rapidly became the global norm and intelligence channels were increasingly filled with ‘OC’, or Obscured Chatter; communications that were either encrypted, encoded, or both. Then came the Stuxnet worm that targeted Iran’s nuclear centrifuges, the South Korean banks hack, the Refahiye pipeline explosion triggered by online attack, the cyber assault on government computers in Estonia, the Mirai botnet that took half the internet offline for almost twenty-four hours, and more and more every week. As the world was increasingly managed through computers, so those computers increasingly came under attack, and the same old actors came into play. The UK, the USA, Russia, China — instead of messing about with nuclear missiles, now they attacked one another with endless waves of network assault, while spies on the ground exploited the same technology on physical operations. The new cold war was digital, and every bit as dangerous. As Giles had argued to the Prime Minister, with the nuclear threat of Mutually Assured Destruction the end result was horrifying, but simple; complete global annihilation. A cyberapocalypse, on the other hand, was no less horrifying but much more complex. It left everyone alive to suffer, starve, and perish through the total collapse of society, government, and infrastructure. Was one really better than the other?
Thus, as digital warfare progressed, CTA’s remit expanded accordingly. Now the unit also tracked cybersecurity developments, the latest breakthroughs in viruses, trojans, and other exploits, while also keeping a close eye on the ‘black hat’ international hacking community. Ciaran likened it to a game of whack-a-mole, except there were ten thousand moles, the mallet was operated via a remote control with sticking buttons and failing batteries, and the game never ended.
The CTA came across many items that had no real foreign component beyond communications, which were simply passed on to MI5. Others were foreign, but not international, and those were passed to the appropriate local agencies, with SIS maintaining an interest in case circumstances changed. But some items crossed borders, or threatened the UK, and those the CTA investigated itself. If a threat was purely online, they were authorised to mount their own counter-attacks where possible. If a problem spilled over into the real world, they could advise other SIS departments on the most effective deployment of officers, where to focus exploitation of local agents, and ultimately how best to take preventive action.
Not all of the cases concerned terrorists directly, but many of them used the cover of war and terror to hide their criminal enterprises. Money laundering and racketeering in the face of upheaval was common, and made up some items the CTA regularly passed on to other authorities. Undesirable arms sales were another regular feature, and an area where SIS often took a hands-on interest, sometimes to the extent of sending OITs to frustrate or redirect the vendor. The most disturbing case Bridge had seen was a sex slavery ring in Libya that used the chaos of the civil war following Qadaffi’s death to abduct, hold, and exploit children as young as two. She could live without ever trawling through a sewer quite that foul again, but nevertheless it had been necessary. If that was what Giles had in store for her, so be it.
As a final thought, she wondered if he’d called this unusual meeting to suggest she move department. The CTA was his baby, and he naturally had a soft spot for it, but he also oversaw several other departments and active response groups.
“Try me,” she said. How bad could it be?
Giles shifted in his seat. “I want you to infiltrate a startup. We suspect someone there is using foreign skillbase recruitment as a cover to bring radicals into the EU and naturalise them.”
“That’s Five’s area,” Bridge shrugged.
“Not this one. The startup is based in Zurich. You’d go in as a French native.”
She was about to ask What makes you think they’d hire me anyway, when she realised what Giles was truly proposing. Field work. A return to OIT. “Haven’t you spoken to Dr Nayar yet?”
“Mahima briefed me immediately before I came to find you, and said the same as before. You’re ready, you just don’t know it.”
“I told her to take me off the bloody list altogether.”
“So she said. But, as I reminded you before, the final decision is mine.”
Bridge looked away, trying to hide her annoyance.
“You’re not the first officer to experience trauma, you know. Mahima, me, everyone here has seen it in plenty of officers. Some of our most valued OITs have been through what you’re experiencing, but they came out the other side by easing back into the field with quiet jobs like this. It’ll restore your confidence, have you going full speed before you know it.”
“Why?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Why are you so keen to get me back on OIT? I’m an analyst, Giles. Your man tapped me at uni because I know one end of PGP from the other, not to be Jane Bloody Bond.”
Giles spread his hands. “Your overall Loch score was above average, and certainly better than anything Ciaran or Monica managed. Plus, Hard Man tells me you’ve kept up your CQC.”
“In a gym, but I haven’t sparred in months. Anyway, Dr Nayar advised I keep it up as complementary therapy.”
“Bloody good advice it was, too. Look, I wouldn’t have put you on OIT in the first place if I didn’t think you had potential as a field asset. And this Zurich job is strictly no-contact, pure obbo. Get in, figure out if they’re dodgy, then we pull you out.”
Bridge’s first instinct was to immediately say no, before she let herself think about it too much. But at the back of her mind, the woman who accepted the job offer from SIS to begin with — the woman who wanted to make a difference, to put her skills to good use, to feel like she’d done something positive with her life before she wound up as worm food — that woman was preaching reason, urging her to think positively and conquer her fears.
Giles was watching her intently. She said, “My entire thought process is written all over my face, isn’t it?”
“On the contrary,” he smiled, “you look like you’re bored and thinking about what to have for dinner. Give yourself some credit, and sleep on it. Then come see me tomorrow morning.”
10
“For heaven’s sake, Bridge, how many times? Don’t call me Izzy in front of the kids.”
“You just called me Bridge.”
“You’re not their mother.”
“Can you two stop it for one night? Look, our table’s ready.”
Bridge pursed her lips, clamping down a frustrated response. Then she noticed Izzy (Isabelle, whatever) was doing the same, so Bridge looked away as their waitress led Karen and Julia into the main room of the restaurant.
“Go in front of me, Stéphanie,” Izzy said to her daughter. Stéphanie walked dutifully ahead of her mother, without a word. She was four years old now, but Bridge had often remarked on how remarkably self-composed she was, even as an infant. The current infant, Hugo, was rather different. Bridge made wide-eyed smiles at him as he struggled to escape Izzy’s arms and clamber over her shoulder, and he gurgled back.
There were two high chairs waiting at the table, but Izzy turned to the waitress and said, “We won’t need those.”
“Your children are so young, madam,” replied the waitress in a southeast European accent that Bridge identified as Slovenian. “Don’t you think they would be more comfortable?”
“My daughter is perfectly capable of sitting in a chair, and my son will stay on my lap. Take these away and bring us a booster cushion.”
Some nearby diners cast sideways glances at the fuss, but before Bridge could intervene, Karen spoke quietly to the wa
itress. “This is our last meal together for a few months, so quite frankly, we’re going to spend a lot of money. Do as you’re told.”
“Not quite how I would have put it,” said Bridge, sitting down.
Karen shrugged. “I’m in here three times a week with clients. They can bloody well shove it.” She and Julia were more Izzy’s friends than Bridge’s, but she’d always had a soft spot for Karen. The eldest of the group by several years, Karen had worked her entire life in the City, and was now a ‘wealth manager’ for the sort of people she’d once sarcastically described as “too busy being rich to worry about their money, too busy being paranoid not to worry about it.” Julia, meanwhile, had read English at the same university as Izzy, and worked her way up through the media to become a TV producer in Soho. She and Karen normally took it in turns to pick the restaurant for these get-togethers, with Izzy occasionally pitching in when she’d heard about somewhere new and fashionable.
Bridge was the baby of the group, four years her sister’s junior, and if they’d asked her to suggest a restaurant, most of the good ones she knew were either places Karen or Julia had taken them to in the first place, or vegetarian. She couldn’t really picture Karen licking her lips at a black bean and avocado wrap.
A waiter removed the high chairs, while the waitress returned with a booster cushion for Stéphanie, who thanked her, placed it on her seat, and climbed up on to it. Bridge smiled and nodded approvingly, and Stéphanie beamed back at her with pride.
“I pity her husband,” laughed Julia, nodding at Steph. “She’s going to be a right handful.”
The young girl smiled back, “I’m going to marry a socialist.”
Karen laughed and wagged a finger at Izzy. “Your Fred’s got a lot to answer for. Why isn’t he looking after the kids tonight, anyway?”
“Loads of admin to finish up before we go to the farm,” said Izzy. “There’s no internet or anything there.”
“God, what a blessing,” Julia laughed. “If I went off-grid for more than six hours, my PA wouldn’t know how to tie her own shoelaces.”
As if to prove her point, Julia’s purse buzzed, making the table vibrate. She rolled her eyes and pulled her iPhone out, apologising. “See? You watch, I’ll put it on do not disturb, and she’ll be calling the police to say I’ve been kidnapped. Tell you what, Izz, you should rent your farm out with a big sign, ‘No Mobile Signal’. You’d make a fortune.”
There were two things Karen and Julia didn’t know about Bridge and her sister. First, Izzy’s name was really Édith. Isabelle was her middle name, but for as long as Bridge could remember, she’d insisted everyone call her by it. She’d even considered legally changing her name to swap them round, but Bridge had talked her out of it. Édith was their late grandmother’s name, and while Izzy’s relationship with their Mamie had been strained — she was a strict old matriarch who tutted at every move the young Édith made, while letting ‘petite Brigitte’ get away with murder — Bridge maintained she should carry it with a sense of lineage.
The second thing they didn’t know was that Izzy’s husband Fréderic hated Bridge. It was partly a simple clash of personalities. Fréderic was a dour and serious man, with no discernible sense of humour. He and Izzy had met while they were both doing charity aid work in East Africa, and over the years Fred had risen up through the ranks of do-gooders to his current position as a logistics manager for Médecins Sans Frontières. He was practically a Marxist.
And that was the other reason he disliked Bridge; because of her job. Or rather, the job everyone at the table thought she had.
As far as her friends and family were concerned, Brigitte Sharp was a junior civil servant for the British Government, currently working at the Department of Trade and Industry. Her job was intensely boring, with very average pay, and something she simply couldn’t talk about. Not that most people were dying to discuss paperwork at the DTI anyway, but on the rare occasions someone asked, they’d understand when she made excuses and said she wasn’t allowed to. It also gave her a reason to occasionally jet off somewhere, under the pretence of tagging along with a junior minister to a trade negotiation, or being forced to attend a dreadfully dull import/export dinner. Bridge worked hard to make her job sound so uninteresting that nobody would even contemplate asking her to talk about it.
In fact, she’d spent her day wrestling with whether or not to take the observation mission Giles had offered her in Zurich. She could see the sense in what he and Dr Nayar said. If she didn’t go back into the field soon, she might never return at all. But was it what she wanted? She’d spent so much time over the past three years working her way through a process of recovery with an ultimate aim of making her ready for OIT again, she’d hardly stopped to wonder if she was sighting up the wrong target.
She enjoyed her work. She liked the CTA unit, and her colleagues, though Ciaran and Monica exasperated her from time to time. There was an old saying, “You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family.” Bridge had often wondered why it never ended, “…or your work colleagues.” SIS was the only adult job she’d ever had, but she’d heard enough horror stories from friends to know it was the same in regular offices too, and that the occasional problems she had with other members of the CTA unit were relatively minor by comparison to some.
Her only longstanding issue was who truly ran the unit. Giles was in overall charge, but had other responsibilities besides the CTA. Officially they were all the same rank, but by default Giles gave his orders to Ciaran. That made sense to Bridge; Ciaran was the unit’s founding member, was older than both she and Monica, and had worked at SIS longer than either of them. But Monica didn’t like it. She regarded herself as more qualified than Ciaran and Bridge because of her prior experience in GCHQ, before she was headhunted for SIS. She had a point; her knowledge of electronic surveillance, digital countermeasures, and online security was deep and thorough. But as Giles often reminded them, this was a very different agency, and required a broader base of skills and resources. He’d brought Bridge into the unit because of her reputation as a hacker and zero-day aficionado, for example. And Ciaran was an excellent chatter analyst, able to dive into the gigabytes of surveillance data collected every week by GCHQ, along with his own bots that crawled chatrooms known to be frequented by suspected hostile actors, and surface with insight and meaning.
The three of them were pretty damned good together. Why mess with that? Why did Giles want to break that up, by making her the only OIT in the unit again? What on earth did he have in mind?
“Earth to Brigitte…come in, spacegirl, your time is up…”
Julia waved a hand in front of Bridge’s face, breaking her train of thought. She smiled. “Sorry, Jules, I was out there for a minute. Thinking about work.”
The wine arrived, something expensive that Karen had picked out. Julia handed Bridge a glass, laughing, “Well, we can’t have that. Get some drink down your neck, girl.” She pointed at the single women. “The trouble with you two is, you don’t appreciate how good it feels to get away from the couch potato once you land one. Cheers!”
They all drank, and Bridge pretended not to care. True, she and Karen were both single. But Karen had a new pinstriped suitor every other month; they just never stuck. “They all look at the mirror more than at me,” she once complained. Bridge had gently suggested she might have more luck dating men who didn’t work in the City, but Karen looked at her as if she’d grown an extra head.
“Like Bridge is ever going to make me an aunt,” said Izzy. “Can you imagine her in white?”
“Who says I need to get married to have kids? Anyway, you wore white.”
“Bridge, I’d grown out of my all-black stage while you were still at uni. You, on the other hand…”
Karen laughed. “She’s got you there, baby girl.”
Bridge opened her mouth to protest, but checked herself before saying a
nything, and realised Izzy was right. She’d come straight from work, and was wearing black jeans tucked into her black leather boots, a black cotton shirt, a cardigan, and her usual black leather jacket slung over the back of her chair. She could muster an argument that the cardigan was technically dark grey, not black, but that would only make things worse.
“Honestly, I wonder sometimes if you don’t work at the DTI at all,” said Karen, and Bridge tensed. Like everyone in the Service, her cover was watertight, but she still had a certain paranoia that nobody really believed it. She watched everything she said, every opinion she held, ever mindful of giving herself away, of letting the side down. But to her relief, Karen continued, “Getup like that seems more like something Julia’s lot would wear to the office.”
Julia frowned. “Leave her alone, she looks fine.”
“See?” laughed Karen. “Precisely my point, darling.”
Bridge sighed. “I’m not public facing most of the time, you know that. You should feel sorry for the poor men, not me. They can’t get away with anything except a suit, while nobody gives a toss what the women wear so long as we don’t look like bag ladies.”
“That’s because we’re invisible to them,” said Julia with a scowl. “Guys like that, you could parade up and down the street naked and they’d look right through you.”
“Papa sometimes comes out of the bathroom naked,” said Stéphanie, “but Maman shouts at him.”
Bridge and the others laughed, while Izzy blushed and scowled at the same time. “Yes, well, Maman has told him you’re a little old for that sort of thing, now.” She cleared her throat. “Can we please change the subject?”
The waitress took their order, and Bridge switched to orange juice. Karen rolled her eyes in disapproval, so Bridge said she needed a clear head for an important meeting in the morning. It wasn’t entirely untrue; she just left out the details, as always.
The Exphoria Code Page 4