The Exphoria Code

by Antony Johnston

  She was an analyst, a hacker, made to sit in front of a computer and use her brain. Not a doorkicker like Adrian Radović or the hundreds of OITs like him SIS sent all over the world, to skulk in the shadows ‘with gun and guile’, as a senior ops director had once put it to her. Coming to terms with that would be a challenge, she knew. It was like she was admitting some kind of defeat. But this was one loss she was pretty sure she could live with.

  She took a deliberately circuitous route to the CTA office, to ensure there was no chance she’d bump into Giles if he was in early. She even passed on her usual coffee from the floor kitchen, just in case.

  Ciaran was at his desk, sifting through the overnights from GCHQ. “Morning, morning,” he said, holding out his Captain Picard mug without looking away from his screen. “If you’re making a coffee, I’ll take one.”

  She hung up her coat and kicked her gym bag into the corner. “Not right now. I’m seeing Giles in ten.”

  Ciaran tore himself away from his monitor, peering out from behind it with a look of concern. “You make it sound like being called into the headmaster’s office. Something up?”

  Bridge shrugged and smiled. “Sort of, but it’s OK. Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.”

  Monica flung the door open and strode into the room, snorting impatiently. “Morning.”

  “Delays?” asked Ciaran, turning back to his screen as Monica threw her bag and coat under her desk.

  “Didn’t you see the news? They pulled some poor bastard out of the river. Turns out he lived at the end of my road, it took me fifteen minutes to walk a hundred yards thanks to the cops. I missed my train.” Bridge winced in sympathy. Monica was a creature of punctual habit, and missing her usual morning train would sour her for the rest of the day.

  She picked up the remote control and jabbed it at the office’s wall-mounted TV. The remote practically lived on her desk anyway; nobody else wanted to delve into the mess they found there, so they just left it to Bridge to operate. The screen blinked into life, eternally tuned to BBC 24 hour news.

  “Now, more on the body found floating in the Thames in the early hours of the morning. Police haven’t yet released the man’s identity, but gave us this statement:”

  The feed cut to the banks of the Isle of Dogs, where a police Inspector spoke to reporters while officers and paramedics circled in the background. “At oh-six-hundred this morning, we received an emergency call alerting us to the presence of a body in the water,” said the Inspector. “Upon investigation, we confirmed the body to be that of a fifty-year-old man, who was then pronounced dead at the scene.”

  “Do you suspect foul play?” asked a reporter.

  “At this time we’re not prepared to speculate on the cause of death, but we would ask anyone who was in the area of Docklands either last night or this morning, and may have witnessed any suspicious or abnormal activity, to come forward and speak to us in confidence.”

  “Have you identified the man? Did he have a criminal record?”

  “We have made a preliminary identification, but until we confirm it we’re not releasing that information at this time. We currently have no reason to believe the man was known to police.”

  The feed returned to the studio, and the newsreader moved on to the next story. Bridge muted the volume and turned to Monica. “He might say that, but if the cops were on your street, they must be pretty confident about that prelim ID.”

  Monica nodded. “Yeah, they had the house cordoned off and everything. No way they don’t know exactly who he is.”

  “Did you?” asked Ciaran. “Know him, I mean.”

  Monica rolled her eyes. “It’s Catford, not St Mary Mead. Why would I know some middle-aged bloke who lives at the end of the street? Anyway, we’ll hear all about it later. They don’t roll out that kind of police presence just for someone who threw himself off Blackfriars, do they?”

  Bridge checked the clock in the corner of her computer screen and took a deep breath. Time to see Giles.

  15

  “I’m not going to Zurich.”

  Giles stroked his beard, releasing a fresh wave of hazelnut scent from his grooming oil. She wondered if he’d known all along that she’d turn it down.

  “Furthermore, I’d like you to take me off the OIT waiting list, or spreadsheet, or whatever. I’m going to stay behind my desk. It’s where I can do the most good.”

  Giles sighed. “Thank you for at least making a quick decision. I’ll have to find someone else who can bluff their way through it, though God only knows where. But I’m absolutely not taking you off the list. Perhaps you just need more time.”

  “This isn’t a question of time. I’m not up to it.”

  “So you say. Mahima disagrees, and so do I.”

  “You’re not the ones who have to get out there and play spy, though, are you?”

  Bridge didn’t hear his reply, because his muted TV had caught her attention. The news was going over the drowned man story again, only now they’d chased down the dead man’s house, and a reporter was standing in the street at Catford while the police searched it. Evidently the cops had decided to release the man’s identity after all, and a passport photo filled half the screen. A middle-aged man, fairly regular-looking, with grey hair and a goatee beard. He had blue eyes that Bridge figured were probably attractive in real life, but in the over-lit passport photo made him look like a psychopath. An almost completely average man, the only really unusual feature being a necklace he wore. Well, more like a pendant —

  “Bridge?”

  An upside-down Celtic cross —

  “Brigitte, are you listening to me?”

  She ignored Giles, fumbling for the TV remote as the room lurched sideways and her stomach dropped into freefall. She found the remote and unmuted the news, never taking her eyes from the photo on the screen.

  “…Fifty-year-old computer programmer Declan O’Riordan, an Irish citizen who’s been living in London for the past thirty years. Police haven’t commented on the events of his death, except to say they’re not ruling out foul play. We’ll bring you more on this story as it develops. In other news…”

  “Definitely not a young Bowie,” Bridge murmured, then jumped as Giles touched her shoulder. She hadn’t noticed him get up to stand behind her.

  “What’s up?” he asked. “Did you know him?”

  “Maybe? I think so. I’m not a hundred per cent…” Her mind raced, tracing back events, chat logs, connections, seeing if it all fit together. Computer programmer. Living in London for thirty years. The Celtic cross. Killed last night. After possibly meeting someone by the river?

  “I need to go to that house.”

  Giles shook his head. “If that man was a friend of yours, I’m truly sorry. But this is a police matter, a domestic incident. I can ask someone at Five to keep an eye on it, if you like?”

  Bridge snorted. “Oh sure, and of course they’d tell us straight away if they found anything. Shit, this is hard to explain.”

  “Try me,” said Giles, returning to his seat and waiting patiently.

  She took a deep breath, and began. She explained her history with Tenebrae_Z, their chats and hacks (leaving out the part about Telehouse for now), the ASCII art puzzle, his mysterious arrangement to meet whoever was sending the messages, Bridge’s failure to check in with him the night before. The more she related the story, the more certain she became that this really was what it looked like.

  “Wait,” said Giles, “I’m confused. You said this was just a game, a puzzle?”

  “No, we assumed it was. But we had no real idea, or at least, I didn’t. He wouldn’t tell me what else he found in the message he decoded, or how many he decoded.”

  Giles shook his head. “This is all very strange, Bridge. How can you be friends with someone for so long and not know what they look like?”

&
nbsp; “It’s the internet, Giles, do try and keep up. And is that really all you’re taking away from this? What if the posts are some kind of criminal code? They’re obviously worth killing for, whatever they are. You’ve got to let me in there.”

  “Easy, girl. Even if you’re right, it’s still a domestic case.”

  “Then we’ll pass it on, like we’ve done hundreds of times in the past. But what if it isn’t? I mean, the newsgroup’s French. What if the source is, say, Tunisian?”

  “I am not sending you to Tunisia on a hunch.”

  “So let me find out if I’m right. Give me authorisation to seize his computers, check his records.”

  “And if Mr O’Riordan turns out to be a random person, rather than your cyber friend?”

  “That’s why you should let me in there instead of going yourself,” she said, smiling. “If I’m wrong, you don’t get egg on your face.”

  “I’m not sure you fully understand the implications of our command structure,” said Giles, dialling his desk phone.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Calling Andrea Thomson, across the river. If you think I’m letting you trample all over a domestic crime scene by yourself, you’re less sane than I thought.”

  16

  The expression on the Inspector’s face was something Bridge had never quite seen before.

  It seemed to be a mixture of suspicion and fear, and she couldn’t really blame him. This was the same policeman who’d spoken on the news earlier, but now he looked much less self-assured. Here he was, overseeing what looked like a simple homicide case, when out of nowhere two strange women rocked up and demanded to be given access as a matter of national security. One was a fortysomething diminutive Scots terrier of a woman, all severe haircut, shoulderpads, and cheekbones to match. The other was younger, a full head taller and pale-faced, with a long black fringe and baggy black cardigan. The Inspector probably thought he’d stumbled into a comedy of errors — until Andrea and Bridge flashed their service IDs, at which point she was worried the poor man might have a cardiac.

  “Should I be calling the bomb squad?” he asked warily.

  “No,” said Andrea. “At least, not yet.”

  “How comforting,” said the Inspector. “Do try and give us some notice if that changes, won’t you?”

  Bridge and Andrea had slipped disposable forensic booties over their footwear — Bridge’s block-heeled boots, Andrea’s very sensible flats — so as not to leave any conflicting trace evidence at the scene. Now they both pulled on latex gloves, as the Inspector stood aside to let them pass and enter Declan O’Riordan’s house.

  She’d met Andrea Thomson twice before. The first time was at a COBRA briefing on Libya, where Giles had taken Bridge along as technical backup when the questions turned to whether Egypt’s cyberwarfare division were taking an interest in Tripoli. They were, of course — every cyber warfare division, in every government around the world, takes an interest in every other government. But the Cyber Threat Analytics unit was still relatively new, and Giles wanted Bridge there to demonstrate how useful it could be. Andrea had sat across the table from Giles, part of Five’s briefing team, as they discussed monitoring Libyan nationals in the UK. The Scot had taken copious notes, but said little, and at the time Bridge wondered if she was perhaps too timid to interrupt her male colleagues.

  That notion was firmly put to rest the second time they met, at an inter-agency meeting with the Joint Intelligence Committee to address the government’s options over Iran’s nuclear programme. Bridge was there to explain Stuxnet, the mysterious worm creating havoc by infecting and destroying Iran’s nuclear centrifuges. It was an open secret that Stuxnet had been built by Israel with American support, but Grosvenor House would admit nothing, despite backchannel assurances of discretion. The Oval Office might leak like a sieve these days, but the NSA remained tight-lipped as ever.

  MI5, meanwhile, had been concerned with the possible leakage of information from Britain’s own strategic nuclear commands to native British people suspected of being Iranian agents. And in contrast to the previous occasion, this time Andrea spent much of the meeting not only interrupting but actively contradicting Giles, C, Honourable Members of the committee, GCHQ representatives, and anyone else who stood between her and the extra resources Five was arguing for. Bridge noticed how Andrea’s male colleagues were happy to sit back and let her go on the offensive, but couldn’t decide if that was because they knew she’d get the job done, or simply to let her take all the heat if things went off the rails.

  So it wasn’t unexpected when Andrea greeted her by name outside Catford station. After all, Giles had called and asked her to accompany Bridge to the crime scene. When Andrea referenced both of their prior meetings, though, she was surprised. Andrea was more senior than she was, both in age and office, and Bridge hadn’t realised she’d made an impression. “I’m surprised you remember,” she said.

  Andrea smiled. “What I remember is you patiently explaining to the Minister how, if we could get into Tripoli’s servers, so could the Egyptians. I hear a lot of rubbish about ‘golden keys’ these days from people who should know better, and I’ve nicked some of what you said in there for my own meetings.”

  She wasn’t sure how to respond to that. “I’m…flattered?”

  “You should be. Now, let’s go and see if Declan O’Riordan really was a terrorist.”

  Bridge was shocked. “Why would you think that? The news didn’t say anything about terrorism.”

  “The first coppers who checked the house said it’s packed to the rafters with computer paraphernalia. Naturally, they brought it to our attention.” Now it was her turn to be confused. “I assumed that was why you were here?”

  “Not exactly,” she said, and explained how and why she believed the dead man was her friend Tenebrae_Z. In return, Andrea told her what they knew so far about Declan O’Riordan. He’d been born in Dublin, but moved to the UK when he was 22 after gaining a degree in the then-early field of computer science. He worked for various technology companies, then internet-related businesses, before becoming a freelance consultant thirteen years ago. He had no family here in England; his father was dead, his mother had returned to her childhood home in west Ireland, and his younger sister remained in Dublin. For more than twenty years he’d lived here in Catford, alone, in the terraced house now surrounded by police and forensic teams.

  Bridge didn’t want it to be him. As they entered the house she wanted this to be her imagination running away with itself, a case of mistaken identity, for Ten to turn up on chat this evening and regale her with an amusing story about how last night he met a computer geek, a hacker like them, who bought Ten a pint for solving the ASCII puzzle.

  Per procedure, the house lights hadn’t been activated, and the Scenes of Crime Officers had instead erected lamps to illuminate the rooms. The lamps threw hard, harsh shadows over anything not within their light field, making it difficult to tread carefully. The floor was almost completely covered with O’Riordan’s belongings — books, newspapers, magazines, CDs, DVDs, bags, shoes, coats, candles, incense sticks, computer cables, portable hard drives, old computer games, new video games, even board games.

  She turned to a SOCO and asked, “Was there a struggle? Is this all from a fight?”

  “Not as far as we can tell, love.” The man fixed her with a lopsided smile. “Some people are just messy bastards.”

  “Not what you expected?” asked Andrea.

  Bridge stepped over a leather jacket on the floor, noting the Mission logo painted on the back, and peered into the lounge. “I’m not sure what I expected, to be honest. This gives my place a run for its money.”

  The lounge was the focus of the forensics team’s efforts, and she could see why. It was packed with stuff, bookshelves overflowing (and not just with books), barely a flat surface visible under the piles of papers
, magazines, and more books, walls covered in posters and cork boards…

  One cork board was covered in photos, a combination of printouts and real photographs, of goths. She peered at it, and quickly realised she recognised some of them — other members of uk.london.gothic-netizens, either people she’d met herself at club nights, or who had posted JPEGs of themselves to the group. “Shit,” she sighed, “it’s him.”

  “What makes you so sure?” asked Andrea.

  Bridge gestured around the room. “Everything.”

  The posters were all bands she knew Tenebrae_Z was into. The Mission, All About Eve, Faith and the Muse, Dream Disciples, and an old Joshua Tree era U2 poster. She’d never understood Ten’s love of U2, but then she hadn’t known he was Irish. Now she’d never know him at all, never chat with him again at two in the morning, never roll her eyes at his boyish pride in fitting a new exhaust to his latest sports car.

  And it was all her fault. If she hadn’t stayed subscribed to france.misc.binaries-random, if she hadn’t noticed the ASCII posts, if she hadn’t mentioned them to Ten, if she hadn’t spent weeks musing with him on what they might mean…none of this would have happened, and Declan O’Riordan would still be alive, making bad jokes, fixing cars, and listening to all the wrong bands.

  There was no way to make up for that. No way to turn back time, or undo the things she’d done. At that moment, she wanted nothing more than to be able to snap her fingers and make Ten live again. It was impossible. But finding whoever did this to him, and bringing them to justice? That was possible. That, she silently vowed to do, no matter how difficult it was or how long it took.

  “One hundred per cent bachelor pad,” said Andrea. “I expect he was a lonely soul.”

  That wasn’t true, but trying to explain online friendships, and the goth lifestyle, would take more time than Bridge had patience for right now. Instead she turned to the desk, noting an empty space, and called to the SOCOs, “Where’s his computer?”