by Stan Mason
The area leading down to St. Katherine’s Dock comprise a maze of ancient warehouses. The area was dingy and dirty and the air was polluted with wisps of wool imported from New Zealand which had been stacked in many of the warehouses. There was a strong smell of coffee as well as the delicate aroma of musk, peppers and a whole host of other spices. I read the address on the sheet of paper Davina had given me. It was a warehouse down one of the narrow lanes leading to the docks. The door of the place was slightly open when I arrived there and I peered inside. When my eyes became accustomed to the darkness, I entered.
‘Is anyone there?’ I called out foolishly, for if this was a trap I had walked straight into it with my eyes wide open. ‘Jan... can you hear me?’ My words echoed vacantly through the warehouse. ‘Jan... are you there?’ I sat down on a large sack which appeared to contain sugar and waited for a while but nothing happened. Eventually, I got to my feet and was about to leave when I noticed a long table near to a tiny barred window at the end of the room. I walked towards it hesitantly, interested to find out what was laying there. It appeared to be a body covered with a dirty sheet. I touched it with horror believing it to be Jan only to discover that it was her coat filled with bundles of straw to make me believe that it was her corpse. Someone was playing a very sick game! Unfortunately, such antics did little to help me find my wife. Where was she... in England... in Israel? I could only hope that she was not suffering!
I sat on the table with my back against the wall for a while in anticipation that someone might turn up to find out whether or not I had discovered the mock corpse but no one did. Then fatigue overcame me and I fell asleep. I was probably affected by jet-lag from the flight. When I awoke, I glanced at my watch to discover that over an hour-and-a-half had passed. I hurried out of the docks area to keep the appointment with Penny. When I got to Leyton underground station she was waiting patiently for me.
‘It’s not far from here,’ she informed me, walking on so that I was forced to follow her. ‘I met Chris Devon about six years ago at evening classes. I got as far as word-processing; Chris went on to better things.
‘Or worse things if you take into account that he spent three years in prison,’ I corrected.
‘Maybe,’ she responded, ‘but no one can take his talent away from him. He is an expert in the true sense of the word.’
I shrugged my shoulders as we arrived at a terraced house in a seedy part of London. For a moment it reminded me of the time when we stood outside Menel’s hovel in Jaffa. Penny lifted the large knocker on the front door and brought it down three times. We waited patiently and shortly there was the sound of footsteps clattering on the stairs inside before the door was opened. Chris Devon was a person to whom I took an instant dislike. He was as thin as a rake and looked like a scarecrow. He had a gummy smile because all his front teeth had eroded. His long black hair was tied behind in a pony tail and he sported an ugly beard which had grown completely out of shape. In the lobes of each ear were three silver ear-rings while a mock diamond pin had been pierced through his nostril. He wore a dirty shirt and very stained trousers and I was not enchanted by the foul odour that seemed to follow him around wherever he went.
‘Come upstairs!’ he invited casually. ‘Hope you don’t mind the mess. Wasn’t expecting you.’
We followed him up the narrow staircase and I struck my head on the well of the stairs which hung particularly low. ‘By the way,’ he called out belatedly. ‘Mind your head!’
We entered a small room which sported a profusion of television monitors, computers, computer screens, and shelves of computer books. As Penny had told me, Devon lived and breathed computers. The only evidence of normal life were a tiny table, a skinny wooden chair, a tin kettle on a single gas-ring, a bottle of milk and half a loaf of bread.
‘So you’re the computer expert,’ I offered in a contemptuous manner.
‘Sorry there’s no other chairs, ‘ he told us as though I hadn’t spoken to him at all. ‘Never need them. Don’t get any visitors normally.’ He turned to me sombrely. ‘Er... there’s a half bottle of beer here somewhere if you can find it.’ He pressed a button on one of the computers and a video game appeared.
‘It’s all right,’ said Penny warmly. ‘We’re not staying long. We have something that might interest you.’
‘Oh yeh!’ His mind was a million miles away as he started to play the video game. ‘What’s it all about?’
‘Hold it there for a minute!’ I shouted angrily. ‘Just hold it there!’
He stopped the game and stared at me non-plussed. ‘Did I miss something. I thought I got all the invaders.’
‘Not the game, you idiot!’ I ranted. ‘We’ve come here to offer you a job. A very important job! I’m not going to talk to you while you’re playing a damned computer game!’
‘Man,’ he explained in simple terms. ‘You don’t understand. I’m a multi-player. I can do more than two things at once. I can listen to you and still play the game.’
‘Not while I’m talking to you!’ I told him point-blank. ‘When I talk you listen. Is that clear? Otherwise we’ll look somewhere else to take on the job.’
Reluctantly, he stopped the game and closed it down. ‘Okay, man. What’s on your mind?’
‘Before we discuss the matter, I want you to swear to secrecy. No one must ever know what we are planning. I want you to swear to secrecy. Do you understand what I’m saying?’
Devon looked towards Penny with an old-fashioned expression on his face. ‘Is this guy for real? I mean who’s he with... the CIA or something? Swear to secrecy! That’s rich! I ‘aint a priest or a doctor!’
‘I’m serious,’ I went on. ‘You cannot reveal anything that we say to another individual otherwise we shall all be in trouble. You cannot tell anyone... not even your mother!’
‘I don’t have a mother,’ he returned calmly.
I threw my hands in the air and turned to Penny. ‘Is this the best we can do? Is it really the best?’
‘He’s the right man for the job,’ she insisted adamantly, trying to hide the smile on her face in relation to the personality clash.
I looked directly into Devon’s eyes. ‘This conversation must be kept entirely confidential. Is that understood?’
‘If you say so, man,’ he replied casually. ‘You know, this is getting’ to be boring. Isn’t it time you cut to the chase and told me what it’s all about?’ He moved away slightly and sneezed ostensibly into his beard.
‘The target is an international company making military weapons,’ I told him.
‘Oh... Dandy Advanced Electronics,’ he returned without even blinking, cutting across my diplomatic approach like a hot knife through butter.
‘What makes you think it’s them?’ I demanded, irked that he should come to the right conclusion so quickly.
‘Well there’s only two major companies in the field and you wouldn’t dare to try to break into their computer systems. Anyway, Miss Smith works for Dandy. She told me so.’
‘All right,’ I continued with irritation. ‘You know it’s Dandy. I need some information from their computer but I don’t know how to do it.’
‘No sweat, man,’ he responded casually. ‘Lead me to the system and I’ll crack it. When do you wanna go?’
‘It’s not as easy as that. We have to break into the plant to get to the computer system. You can’t just walk in there as though you have the front door key.’
‘The other problem,’ cut in Penny, ‘is that the information is access barred and there are two passwords required to get into the system.’
Devon shrugged his shoulders aimlessly. ‘It takes a bit longer, that’s all.’
‘I’ll come clean with you,’ I confessed reluctantly. ‘The weaponry division runs off a separate computer system. We would have to get past a number of security checks befor
e we even got to it.’
‘What information are you lookin’ for, man?’
‘Why do you have to know that now?’
‘Are we searchin’ hundreds of files or is it somethin’ simple... like a set of plans. It would help if I knew.’
The computer expert had an alarming way of reducing important matters to mere trivia. ‘It’s a set of plans. Will you help us get them?’
He smiled in an ugly fashion at Penny. ‘For this lady, I’d do anything... anything. Just say when you need me and I’ll come runnin’. I presume there’s a fat fee in all this. I mean I’ve just done three years in jug. If I get caught they’ll put me away for ever.’
‘Just leave that to me,’ related my secretary firmly. ‘You’ll be contacted within the next few days.’
A cold chill passed through my body as her words echoed in my mind. I had already witnessed how Penny Smith took care of people... often it was effected by a bullet in the head or in the heart. At other times, she ran them down in a motor car as she had done on the Jaffa dockside. She appeared to have no conscience about her actions whatsoever. In my opinion, Chris Devon should have been far more concerned about my secretary than he was about his probation.
Believing that the conversation with us had ended, he switched on his computer again manipulating the buttons on the console. ‘Is there anythin’ else you wanna know, man,’ he asked finally.
‘Just one thing before we go,’ I added. ‘I’ve been told how good you are but how good are you really. I mean our future lives are on the line here. I don’t want anything to go wrong.’
‘Man,’ he retorted without moving his eyes from the screen in front of him, ‘I’m the best!’ He paused for a moment before continuing. ‘You know I can get to level eight in this game with no sweat.’
‘If you’re so good how come you spent three years in jail?’ The words were fired at him like an arrow from a crossbow.
He stopped playing the video to look at me. ‘That’s the reason why I’m the best, man. You see I’m the only person in the world who broke through the scrambler telephone system. No one else could do it. In case you don’t know what it is, a scrambler system is one where people can talk secretly over the telephone and no one else can listen in. It’s unbreakable... security efficient. But I found a way to break in.’
My mind sought an answer to his boast. Who could it have been... a government department, MI5, a military establishment... perhaps the Bank of England? It had to be someone elevated for him to be sent to prison for three years. ‘And who’s telephone conversation did you unscramble?’ I attacked fiercely, trying to make him out to be a fool.
He paused for a moment while he eradicated a number of invaders falling out of the sky on the video. ‘It was stupid,’ he explained briefly. ‘I knew I shouldn’t have done it but it did wonders for my ego. I tapped into a conversation between the President of the United States and the President of Iraq.’
‘Did the conversation have anything to do with the Gulf War?’
‘Don’t ask me, man. I’m not interested in politics. Only computers. But they were talkin’ together like real buddies.’
My mind was reeling when we left him. He had opened the window to world politics I never knew existed. People often believed that treachery occurred at high levels. Even the media was kept in the dark. Now I understood why governments placed limitation on the release of information claiming to reveal that it was against the public interest for anyone to know. Eventually, the details came to light some fifty years on, after which it is too late to do anything about them and most of the perpetrators had probably gone to their maker. Of one thing I was certain... the quicker I obtained the information from the data banks of the computer in Dandy Advanced Electronics, the faster I would be free from danger. In addition, I would never have to face that awful person, Chris Devon, again!
Chapter Eight
Penny and I arrived at the offices of Dandy Advanced Electronics at nine o’clock the next morning. I had no fear of the threat presented by Primar that a letter had been sent to the Chairman concerned the false fact that I had stolen money from the company’s funds. I had no intention of starting work but wasted no time in putting a call in to John Packman, the director of the weaponry division. He wasn’t there at the time so I left a message for him to return the call. It was almost an hour when he came back to me.
‘Sorry, Jason,’ he apologised. ‘I had a meeting with the Chief Executive. We had a few problems over the weekend. Someone tried to break into the complex. Every time that happens we have to have a review on security and tighten it up. What can I do for you?’
Tighten the security! I could have cheerfully throttled the fool who tried to break in. He hadn’t helped my cause one little bit! ‘Someone’s come up with an idea for laser welding to improve domestic computer production,’ I lied. ‘I’m pretty naïve about lasers and I thought you might be able to fill in the gaps if I came to look at the equipment in your division.’
‘We have lasers,’ he replied reluctantly, ‘but our research relates to military capability.’
‘I’ve never seen one at work so it might be useful for me to get a worm’s eye view. Anyway, it’s about time I visited your division to find out what’s going on there.’
He hesitated for a few moments weighing up the pros and cons. ‘Very well,’ he said eventually. ‘If you want to come over you’d better do it right away. I’ll have to get Personnel Division to transmit your photograph and curriculum vitae to our computer terminal in the security block otherwise you won’t be able to gain access to the complex. We have one of the best security systems in the country, you know.’
I felt my knees go weak at his revelation as I replaced the receiver into its cradle. As far as it went, so far so good! Within a short while I would be inside the weaponry division familiarising myself with the layout and the kind of security in operation.
‘Well don!’ commended Penny when I told her the news. ‘Stage One is now operational.’
‘Operational,’ I grunted solemnly. ‘I don’t think that’s the right word. I can’t seem to get the spectre of your computer expert out of my mind. I’m sure he’s bad news.’
‘Then you’ll be surprised to find out how good he is when the time for action arrives,’ she countered with a confident smile.
I left the building and drove out of the city. Before long the car was cruising across a derelict suburban area. The establishment of the weaponry division was easily recognised, surrounded by stout concrete posts with strong wire netting in between, safeguarded by miles of ominous-looking barbed wire. Large signs alerted visitors to the fact that the fencing was electrified. It was further protected by two groups of uniformed guards, some carrying rifles while others handled savage Alsatian dogs on short leashes. I approached the cubicle at the front gate pressing a red button below the window which slid downwards to show the face of yet another security guard.
‘Your identification, sir,’ he requested politely.
I showed him my company card bearing my photograph which he scanned for information. Then he tapped in the information into a computer to check that the details were correct. Shortly, he handed the card back to me.
‘Mr. Packman has granted you authorisation for this visit,’ he told me, ‘but before I allow you inside I must ask you to open all the doors of your vehicle as well as the boot and the bonnet. We need to inspect it thoroughly.’
I held my breath for a moment. Security in this complex was the highest I had ever seen. It would be easier to get into the Pentagon or Fort Knox than into Dandy Advanced Electronics weaponry division.
In due course, he raised the barrier and I cruised into the complex stopping in front of a dismal building with a sign that stated ‘Reception’. Outside was an armed guard and I walked past him uneasily until I reached the Reception Are
a. An elderly officer, dressed in army uniform bearing the badges of the rank of Brigadier, sat behind a large desk. As I arrived, he put down his pen and looked up at me with a bland expression on his face. ‘I presume you’re Mr. Jason Scott.’ he greeted.
‘That’s right.’ I responded. ‘I must admit I’m impressed with your security here.’
‘There’s a triple check on everyone who visits, Mr. Scott. Mr. Packman sent a message directly to our computer terminal alerting us that you were coming. The front gate confirmed your arrival via a computer message and I’ve just checked that you are the same person. We have to be on the alert for intruders twenty-four hours of the day and night.’
‘Do you keep the same number of guards both day and night?’ I asked, keeping my voice at a casual level with vested interest as to the answer.
‘Not as many. The alarm equipment assists at night time. We tend to rely on electronic sensors. But they can’t be used during the day or we’d be tripping over them all the time setting off the alarms.’ He stood up, picking up a baton and a peaked cap, starting out of the building. ‘Follow me!’ he ordered sharply.
I charged after him and we climbed into a waiting jeep. He drove to a building about a mile south passing a number of tanks spaced at regular intervals to represent a conventional theatre of war. I presumed that the tests on the laser gun took place here where no visitors were allowed to come. We entered the porch way of the building and stopped at a computer terminal.
‘I prepared this card for you when the Director told me your were coming,’ he said gruffly. He handed me a plastic card before placing a similar one into the machine. A door opened which closed swiftly behind him after he had passed through. I ignored the machine and tried to push the door open by force but it was made of solid steel and refused to budge. I had to retreat and emulate the action of my guide in order to join him inside.
‘You can’t get past that machine without identification,’ he told me flatly. ‘The bad news for any intruder is that the card can be inserted in this computer terminal only once in each twenty-four hours. It’s done to ensure maximum security. The good news is that you don’t need a card to get out of this place. Ah... here’s Mr. Packman himself.’ The Brigadier saluted the Director as he approached us.