“Even if Dmitri did want to double-cross you, he's dead now - and you already have Dream-Zone - so what do you want from me?” she asked, wishing she had a hand free to rub her leg.
“Because it's locked!” he yelled. “I tell him put encryption on Dream-Zone for one-time demonstration. If Wong like it, he pay me and we give password. If not, I sell to competitors.”
“So Wong hasn't seen it?” asked Nadia, confused.
“Wong see demonstration and like it. He pay money – lots of money - and I send him password - but now password no good. Bastard try double-cross me!”
Nadia was beginning to feel a posthumous fondness for the poor Dmitri. It all sounded rather too clever for the man she had known, but it at least meant that Dream-Zone would be safely inaccessible for the immediate future.
“I swear I had nothing to do with that.”
“Maybe not, but now you do!”
“What do you mean?”
Markov pulled Nadia's phone from his pocket and pointed the camera lens at her. The loud synthesised click-clack of an old-fashioned camera shutter rung round the shed and a pleased expression appeared on his face. “Look!” he said, turning the screen towards her. She looked a mess. A dark purple bruise was blossoming across her chin, onto which a surprising quantity of blood had leaked from the jagged gash in her cheek. The skin around her mouth was specked with red from where the tape had been wrenched off, and the smudged make-up, combined with dirt from the sack, exacerbated the whole sorry state.
“It's not the best portrait I've ever had!” said Nadia, wondering where this was all leading.
Markov looked at the photo again and sneered. “You think this is bad? You better wish your friend Richards can send clean Dream-Zone file in next twenty-four hour or you never look this good again.”
“What makes you think he'll do that? He knows that I worked for you, you know – that I lied to him.”
“I see you two come out of police station - I see how he look at you - I know that look. When I send this, he do anything I want.”
“Okay, even if he does want to save me, what makes you think he'll be able to break Dmitri's code?”
“Then he make new Dream-Zone file – just like stupid Indian friend.”
Nadia thought hard. This was not going well. She was fairly sure Doug would try his best, but twenty-four hours was not very long and Markov was looking desperate enough to do just about anything. In fact, she had never seen him so desperate. “You know it's only a matter of time before the police catch up with you for killing Dmitri,” she said, spotting a flicker of uncertainty on his face.
“Quiet!” he shouted, slapping her again, but this time not so hard.
“He was a regular at the club,” she continued, “there's even a photo of you and him on his Facebook profile.” This was a guess, but it seemed plausible, and judging by the increasing tension in Markov's posture, he had bought it. “Surely you don't want to add kidnapping to manslaughter! Whatever Wong has paid you, it isn't worth that. Just apologise and give him back the money. I'll pay you the ten grand back and more if you'll just let me go. It'll give you time to buy yourself a decent alibi.”
Markov was staring at her intently, deep in thought.
“It's not as simple as that – not anymore,” he muttered in Russian. “Your boyfriend has twenty-four hours! Now – you stay quiet or I get more tape?”
She shook her head in defeat.
Alone again in the cold, smothering darkness, Nadia’s thoughts returned to the one person in the world she hoped still cared about her, and to her surprise, found herself overwhelmed by deep and comforting feelings of love. Channelling this unexpected emotion, she sent a silent, heart-felt plea out into the night.
CHAPTER 21
“I seriously think you should stay away from that Cindy – Nadia - whatever her name is,” said Brian, placing two new pints on the already crowded table between them. “She has friends who kill people with their bare hands for Christ's sake!”
“He's not her friend, she just ... made some bad decisions in the past,” said Doug, not entirely convinced.
“You're thinking with your cock again,” said Brian.
Doug ignored the comment and took a long swig of beer. He was tired and still shaken from the sight of Dmitri earlier that day. He was also concerned at his inability to reach Nadia since she had dropped him off. Her mobile seemed still to be switched on, and he was certain she wouldn't ignore him again – not now – not after what they had been through. Maybe she had left it in the car, or was just taking a long bath or something. The image of the Russian's face returned to haunt him. He pulled out his phone and checked for messages:
Peter Sawyer has just started following you on Twitter.
“Ha!” said Doug, “What's the old fart up to now?” From his phone, he logged into his Twitter account, and clicked the link to add himself to Peter's list of followers – a list, as it turned out, of one. It had been Kal who had persuaded him to register for the micro-blogging service some weeks earlier, waxing lyrical about its ability to “wire-tap the collective consciousness” as he had put it. Doug had played with it a couple of times at the beginning, but had not logged in since Kal's death. He read a couple of Peter's latest tweets.
“He's off his rocker!”
“Who's that?” asked Brian, staring disapprovingly at Doug's phone. “You know in some cultures, it's considered rude to invite one's friends to the bar and then ignore them while checking email.”
“It's Peter. You remember – the guy who came to Kal's funeral – the brother of the guy Kal was emailing.”
“Oh yeah – what does he want?”
“He's just got himself a Twitter account and he's blurting out all kinds of gibberish – one here looks to be about quantum physics – another one just says 'sewage treatment!' and this ...” Doug frowned.
“What is it?”
“There's one here that says 'Help Nadia!' - posted an hour ago.”
At that moment, the handset started to vibrate and bleep loudly. “Ah – speak of the devil! It's a picture message from Nadia. Thank God for that!”
“She sending you dirty pictures already?”
Doug smiled at the thought. “Hope so,” he said, waiting for the picture to download. The image started to build across the screen.
“What's up?” asked Brian. “You look white as a sheet!”
Doug passed the phone to him and took another drink.
“Oh fuck!” said Brian. “And there's a message: Check email – 24 hours or she dies!”
“Let me see!” said Doug grabbing the phone back and quickly switching to email. There was one new message from an unknown sender and it had a large attachment.
This Dream-Zone file is encrypted.
You have 24 hours to unlock it or create new one.
If you don't – next picture not so pretty!
Remember Dmitri!
Send file to this email!
And no police!
Doug got up to leave.
“What are you going to do?” asked Brian.
“I'm going to ask Peter what the fuck he knows about this and then I'm going to try and give Markov what he wants.”
“How can you be sure it's Markov?”
“Who else could it be? And for that matter, what difference does it make?”
“I think you should call the police.”
Doug looked at him a moment. “Not sure about that. What if Markov finds out?”
“This isn't the movies, Doug! The same guy we think just beat a man to death has now kidnapped Nadia. You have to report it. Let them do whatever it is they do.”
“And risk getting Nadia beaten to death – I don't think so.”
“And what about those thousands of Chinese gaming nerds?”
“I couldn't give a toss about those sad fucks right now. I just want Nadia back in one piece.”
“Come on Peter, pick up for Christ's sake!” muttered Doug, leav
ing the student union bar and walking briskly back towards the towers. The call was diverted to voicemail. “Peter, this is Doug. Call me back urgently. You need to tell me how you know about Nadia needing help. Also – have you combined the files yet? If you have, I desperately need a copy of the video.” He returned the phone to his pocket, paused, then took it out again and dialled Becky's number.
“Doug, what's up?” came Becky's voice.
“I need to talk to you urgently, can you come round?”
“Well – I – I suppose so – what is it?”
“I'll explain when you get here, please, it's important.”
“I'll be there in ten minutes.”
“Thanks, appreciate it.”
Becky sat on Doug's bed in stunned silence while he brought her up to speed on Dream-Zone, Markov and Nadia. “Without knowing the pass code, it's very unlikely we'll be able to decrypt this thing within twenty-four hours,” she said finally.
“Can't you hack the code or something?”
“The binary? You've got to be kidding, it'd take days to make sense of a file this size without access to the source code. We don't even know what language it was written in. If you ask me, I think you should go to the police.”
“Can't you at least try? I'm pretty sure it was Dmitri who wrote it. Perhaps it's written in the same programming language as the key-logger he installed on my laptop.”
“Not necessarily, most of those things are available as off-the-shelf malware - you just download the basic template and then customise it to your needs.” She paused. “It might give me some clues though. I'll give it a try.”
Doug forwarded Markov's email to Becky's address and showed her out. “I really appreciate this Becky, if there's anything you need, just let me know.”
“The key to the encryption would be nice!”
“Yeah right! Unfortunately that died along with ...” Doug stopped. “The key! The car key!”
“I don't follow,” said Becky.
“Dmitri, before he died, said the words 'car key'. I thought he meant the key to his car, but what if the key was his car – the word 'car'?”
“Unlikely to be a three-letter word from the dictionary – too easy to crack - but we can try it.”
They returned to the PC and ran the programme file. Once again it popped up a dialogue box requesting the passcode. She typed the word 'car'.
Passcode Invalid!
“Try Subaru Impreza,” said Doug excitedly.
Passcode Invalid!
They tried various other combinations using both upper and lower-case letters, but to no avail. Doug thought for a moment. “Nadia said it had a name – some female character from a video game.”
“There are hundreds of those – Lara Croft?”
“No, it began with 'K', Kylie or something like that.”
Becky ran a search. “There's a 'Kitana'! Seems to be the only one listed here under K. Let's see!”
Passcode Invalid!
“Shit!” said Doug with a sigh. “I was certain that was going to be it. Oh well – it was worth a try. Looks like we'll have to do it the hard way, unless I can get the raw video from Peter that is.”
He walked her to the lift and bid her good night. It was getting late and his body was ready for bed, though he doubted sleep would come. He lay on the duvet looking up at the ceiling and thought of Nadia. How the hell had Peter known she was in trouble. How did Peter even know who she was; he was certain he hadn't mentioned her to him. He grabbed his laptop and logged into Twitter again. Peter's tweets over the past few hours fell into two categories: physics and non-physics. Doug scribbled the non-physics ones onto the back of an envelope:
Help Nadia
White van
Sewage treatment!
Wooden shed
Pain
Nadia in trouble
As Doug looked through the list again to see whether he might have missed one, a new entry suddenly appeared:
Doug Help!
Suddenly Doug's mobile rang. “Peter! What the hell's going on?” cried Doug, seeing the caller ID.
“Sorry, I only just realised it was to do with you,” came Peter's voice.
“What was?”
“Dream-Zone! The thoughts entering my head.”
“You have Dream-Zone? Why didn't you send it to me?”
“It's amazing, Doug. All knowledge is there – the theory of everything – it's all connected – I've written a paper – sent it to all the major scientific ...”
“Yeah – yeah – tell me about that later. How do you know about Nadia?”
“I don't know, I was in the Zone and these thoughts just jumped into my head. I don't know where they came from or how they got there, but I think I can read minds. I think we're all connected – it's the same thing you see - the extra dimensions of space-time are not just curled up into tiny little hyper-bundles, but...!”
“Peter! We don't have time. Nadia is my friend and she's in danger. Can you tell me where she is?”
“I don't know where she is.” Peter's voice sounded stilted and distant. “She was in a van – it was dark – countryside I think – and the smell – like sewage – like a sewage treatment plant – and she can't move – she's tied and it hurts.”
“And a wooden shed? Is that where she is now?” asked Doug.
“Yes – I think so.”
“I need you to send me a copy of the Dream-Zone video.”
“Yes, okay, I'll send it over. Sorry – it's just so incredible – all the laws of physics...”
“Please! Just send me the fucking file!”
“Yes, yes of course, sorry,” said Peter, still sounding distracted.
Doug waited impatiently at the laptop, clicking on the refresh button for his email. Eventually it came. He watched as the attachment downloaded. Could this one file really have caused so much trouble – three deaths and now a kidnapping?
Download Complete.
He hesitated for a moment. Although Peter did seem to have gone a little nuts, he was hardly suicidal. Elated was a more accurate description – euphoric even. Placing the cursor over the filename, he double-clicked. The media player opened and the familiar patterns of his evolving fractals started to dance across the screen. At the same time, Martin's strange music blared from the laptop's speakers, but something was different. He could hear the individual tones and structure of the sound in a way he had never before been able. Even the fractals lacked their former mesmerism. The whole experience was totally flat. It was interesting to watch and listen to – beautiful even - but completely devoid of any hypnotic power. It was less potent even than the individual audio and visual components from which it derived. He plugged in his headphones and tried again. There was no difference. He dialled Peter's number, but it went straight to voicemail. Whatever this file was, it was not delivering the experience that had so captured the minds of Martin, Kal and Peter. What was more, it would not save Nadia.
Without the encryption key, or a working version of the raw video, there was nothing left but to call the police. Markov's email would almost certainly be untraceable, but what about her mobile phone? In the movies, the authorities always seemed to be tracking people through their cell phones. Maybe even Becky would know how to do it. He dialled her number again.
“Becky, I'm sorry to call you so late,” he said, “but I was wondering if you knew how to trace someone's mobile.”
“Nice idea, but you would need access to it to set it up. There are several websites offering the service, but after you submit the phone number you want to track, it sends a text to the device asking their permission. So unless you have the person's phone at that precise moment – to provide a permission response and then delete the request - the person you're stalking is going to know.”
“You sound like you have personal experience of this,” said Doug with a nervous chuckle.
“Doug, I'm sorry to say this, but you're being an idiot! The police wouldn't have to get per
mission. Call them! Even if Nadia's mobile is switched off, they'll be able to determine its last position to within a few hundred yards. The sooner you do it, the better your chance of finding her.”
“But Markov told me no police!” said Doug, realising as the words came out, how pathetic they sounded.
“Of course he would say that, because he knows that the police would track him down and arrest him.”
She was right of course. As Brian had pointed out earlier, this was not a movie. This was not a world in which detectives of Sherlock Holmesian intellect were pitted against the insane genius of criminal masterminds. This was a world in which villains, usually of low to medium intelligence, made stupid mistakes and were eventually out-plodded by the persistent grunt-work of similarly gifted policemen.
Doug dialled Bullock's number, left a message, and waited. He was just deliberating whether to try emergency services as well, when the inspector returned his call. Twenty minutes later a squad car arrived at the foot of the tower to escort him to the local station. Bullock met him in the entrance and led him to a small office somewhere in the depths of the building. To Doug's surprise, the inspector already had a copy of the statements made in London that afternoon.
“To be honest with you,” said Bullock with a sigh, “I didn't believe your earlier stories about this 'Dream-Zone' computer file, but this latest turn of events does seem to corroborate it to at least some degree.”
“You thought I was just making it all up? Why would I do that?” asked Doug, affronted.
“Markov is known to us for his involvement in the sex and drug trades. With the current economic downturn, the bottom appears to have fallen out of the sex part – no pun intended – which just leaves drugs.”
“And you think students have enough money to pay for drugs?” said Doug.
“Drugs are different. If there's any correlation between usage and wealth, it's an inverse one; some of the heaviest users are among the poorest.” As he spoke, he was watching Doug's face intently as though looking for a reaction that might confirm his suspicion that all students are potheads. “Of course, economics does play a role. Since the financial collapse, we've seen less of the high-end stuff like heroin and cocaine, but to counter that, there's been an upsurge in cannabis.”
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