Sleeper Cell

by Alan Porter

  ‘I guess he don’t live nowhere like this.’ Bones took another drag and let the smoke drift up out of his mouth. ‘A hit’s going to be tough in a nice white street.’

  ‘I told you, this is not a hit. If you’re not interested, tell me. I’m way past playing games.’

  ‘Tell me where we can find him.’

  ‘Out Greenwich way somewhere. I can get you the address if you can do something.’

  ‘I know people.’

  ‘I can’t pay you much.’ She took the roll of bank notes from her back pocket and flicked through them. ‘Two hundred pounds. Obviously I can’t put it through on expenses.’

  ‘There’s no charge,’ Bones said.

  ‘Really? Why would you want to help me? You’ve done more than you needed to already.’

  ‘I heard you on the phone.’ He snuffed out the joint. ‘You didn’t need to do anything for Phillip either, but you make sure he’s looked after, I’ll make sure you’re OK for tonight.’

  Leila took the pile of notes and folded them.

  ‘I didn’t say I don’t want it,’ Bones said, placing his hand on hers. ‘I said I don’t need paying. Two ton’s going to be used for supplies.’

  ‘Do I want to know?’

  ‘No. But your man’ll be well out of the way for the next few days.’

  ‘Unharmed.’

  ‘Unharmed. We won’t even see him.’

  ‘Thank you. I’ll get the address.’

  37

  Leila sat on the edge of the bed behind Phillip. He’d got her Mark Ross’s home address from the police central server as if it had been on his own desktop. He assured her that no one, even Ross himself, would be able to tell.

  ‘Phillip, there’s one more thing I want to ask you, but this one could be almost impossible.’

  ‘You want me to get you into Mapleton House.’

  She laughed. ‘Yes, that was what I had in mind.’

  ‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘I’ve already had a look. It’s good; the overlaps make it almost unhackable.’

  ‘Not a problem.’ Actually a very big problem, but there was always going to be a point beyond which even Phillip could not go.

  ‘This connection isn’t fast enough to fool the SHIELD switching,’ he said.

  ‘It’s OK. Like I said: not a problem.’

  He continued to type. She couldn’t see his face but she could tell he was smiling. It was in his voice. Bones sauntered into the room and sat on the windowsill. The sun through his dreadlocks gave him a curiously messianic look.

  ‘What aren’t you telling me?’ she said.

  ‘I said I can’t get you in,’ Phillip said. ‘I didn’t say you can’t get in.

  ‘What’s the difference?’

  ‘Can you get me full access to the Police National Computer?’

  ‘I’ve got clearance. Why?’

  ‘The central server that houses HOLMES should be fast enough to let me get inside SHIELD. I can send commands from here, but the hard work is beyond this machine or this connection. I need your log-in and password. I can move more freely if I’m there legitimately.’

  ‘You can hack HOLMES to make it work for you? Really? Just like that?’

  ‘An eight-year-old could do it. HOLMES is based on Windows, so basically it’s crap. But the computer that runs it isn’t. Nor are its connections.’

  ‘This is the only way? Isn’t it going to leave my fingerprints all over it?’

  ‘It’s the only way if you’re in a hurry. If I can interrupt the SHIELD protocols as they switch, I could give you a few seconds of dead time.’

  ‘Long enough to get in?’

  ‘Let me take a look. What’s your access?’

  Leila took her wallet out of her back pocket and pulled out a small piece of card. On it were hundreds of random characters: only she knew which constituted her password for the highest level of the Met’s central computer. She dictated her details and in seconds Phillip was inside the mainframe at the Hendon Data Centre. Full access this time; not just the researcher privileges granted by Lawrence.

  After five minutes he turned to her.

  ‘Got it. The programmer wasn’t very good, but the software is. I’m holding a door open that will give me access to the system running the fence, but once I activate it we’ve got very little time before I’m discovered.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘About ten seconds at seven or thirty-seven minutes past the hour. Maybe best to say five. I don’t really know.’

  ‘Well that really makes me feel better. Seven or thirty-seven minutes past the hour? I’ve got to choose?’

  ‘I can only do it once. I use the PNC to send out an interrupt while the protocols are switching. It’ll cause a glitch. The master machine at Mapleton will reconfigure, sending new protocols out to the three slaves. It’s their weak-spot. I guess whoever designed it knew that only top-end proprietory machines would be fast enough to make the hack.’ Phillip grinned at her. ‘Good job you had one.’

  ‘Are you sure about this?’

  ‘Do you want me to explain it all?’

  ‘Not really. Question is: will anyone know the system’s been tampered with from outside?’

  ‘I won’t have been. The down command will appear to have come from within SHIELD itself. Even if anyone looks at the screen at that exact moment, they can’t do anything until the reconfigure has completed, and by then I’ll be out. All they’ll see is a glitch that the computer sorted out itself. They happen all the time. The operators don’t look for them; they only look for the results of them, and in this case, there won’t be any.’

  ‘And that’s when I move…’

  ‘You’ve got five seconds before the system resets. No way back in through the same door, and I can’t see another one.’

  ‘OK.’ Leila adjusted her watch to the time on the screen.

  ‘Five seconds,’ she said.

  ‘Five seconds, max. But you’ll need to figure out where the doppler fence is. I can’t tell you that from here.’

  ‘Can’t SHIELD tell you?’

  ‘It could, but if I get out of the system that’s running the alarms now I probably won’t be able to get back in. I can tell you where the fence is, or I can turn it off. Your choice.’

  ‘Turn it off. I’ll figure the rest out.’

  ‘That ain’t gonna work, you know?’ Bones said.

  ‘I trust Phillip. Even if there isn’t much hope, it’s the only hope I’ve got.’

  ‘Then you’re screwed. I know something about breaking into posh people’s houses, and I bet they’re nothing compared to this place. You can get into the grounds, but how you gonna get into the house? Your man said everyone on the security roster’s been background checked for weeks.’

  ‘Damn it. ’

  ‘Just get on the roster,’ Phillip said.

  ‘I can’t, there’s no time. And technically I’ve been kicked off the investigation anyway.’

  ‘Then I’ll get you on it. Are the police running the operation?’

  ‘No. MI5 are in charge on the ground. Uniformed officers and some CTC are working it, but we’re not in charge.’

  ‘Any police in the house?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so, but as long as they’ve got the right clearance, it’s perfectly possible.’

  ‘I’ll get you on the roster and log your biometrics with the internal security system.’

  ‘I don’t have any biometric data on me.’

  ‘I do. I had a look at you in the central database. Your current dental records, showing the recent loss of your upper-16 molar, are lodged with Myson Partners in Highgate, you have a tattoo of a blue butterfly on your upper left thigh, you…’

  ‘OK, enough. That’s just visual ID, anyway. The biometrics are…’

  ‘Computerised. Of course. I downloaded those too.’

  ‘Bloody hell, Phillip, I’m so glad you’re on our side. Yes, OK, log me in, but do it after you’ve opened SHIEL
D. I don’t want to show up on any last-minute checks.’

  ‘I’ll open a port. Don’t talk to anyone for two minutes after you’re into the grounds.’

  He returned to his screen and Bones stood up.

  ‘If Phillip can get you on the roster,’ he said, ‘why not do it five minutes earlier so you won’t have to risk going over the fence?’

  ‘Wouldn’t work,’ Leila said. ‘Inside and outside are isolated from each other, for security. Standard procedure. It means no one outside the perimeter knows who’s working inside. No chance of corruption or extortion, unless you can bribe the Home Secretary. Plus, gate security is being run by the Met, so if I show up there, with or without being on Phillip’s roster, I am, as you so poetically put it, screwed.’

  Bones nodded. ‘Is there anything else you need?’ he said. Leila thought for a moment.

  ‘Mark Ross is taken care of?’ she said.

  ‘You won’t be seeing him for a while. But he’s still got all his teeth.’

  ‘Good. I will need an untraceable phone and a car,’ she said. ‘Something mid-range, anonymous but credible.’

  ‘What happened to yours?’

  ‘Fuck knows. I left it somewhere. It’ll be in the police lock-up by now.’

  ‘We got a Beemer,’ Bones said, ‘six-year-old 3-series.’

  ‘Pimped?’

  ‘No. Tinted windows, small reg plates, all legal.’

  ‘No good. There’ll be road-blocks. No traffic police would believe a fellow officer would drive something even that modded. Especially the windows.’

  ‘Then you’re on the bus.’

  ‘Come on, there must be something else. At a push I could even drive a stolen car in there. No one’s going to report a vehicle missing on a night like this.’

  ‘You giving us permission to jack a car for you?’

  ‘I’m saying this is important. Greater good and all that. If I can’t get a car, I can’t get to Mapleton. If I can’t get there, I can’t stop whatever’s about to happen.’

  ‘Give me five minutes.’

  Bones left the flat and double-locked the door behind him. Phillip continued to type in silence, the soft click of the keys interrupted for a few seconds now and then as he read incoming messages on the screen.

  ‘You sure you want to do this?’ Leila said quietly.

  Still with his back to her, Phillip said, ‘I’ve got nothing else to do. I can’t go home. My family is dead. Steven says I’ll be safe here; they’ll look after me.’

  ‘Steven?’

  ‘You call him Scaz Bones. His name is Steven.’

  ‘We can take you into protective custody. There are things we can do to help you.’

  ‘There are things I can do to help you. But I have to be here.’

  ‘OK, when this is over, I’ll make sure you’re looked after. And we will get whoever hurt your mum and sister.’

  Phillip stopped typing for a moment. ‘Did he hurt them?’ he said.

  ‘No, I think they were killed very quickly. They didn’t suffer. It was a figure of speech.’

  Phillip nodded without much conviction.

  The locks in the front door clicked. Bones walked into the bedroom a few seconds later and held a phone and a key out to Leila.

  ‘Phone’s pre-paid. Never been used. Car’s under Martlesham; dark red Mazda 3. Bucket of shit, but it’ll get you in and out unnoticed.’

  ‘Bucket of shit,’ Phillip whispered. His shoulders hitched a little as if he was laughing, then his attention was once more absorbed by what he was doing.

  ‘I take it you didn’t steal it.’ Leila waved the key in the air.

  ‘Friend of a friend. It’s not red flagged on the ANPR Database so your friends won’t notice it. All legal. But you break it, you buy us another one.’

  ‘It’ll come back just fine. Thanks.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘It’s a little after six thirty now. I should be at Mapleton in about an hour and a half, allowing for roadblocks and finding a suitable place to cross the fence. Let’s aim to get the fence off at 8.37.’

  ‘How will I know you’re there?’ Phillip said.

  ‘Send a blank text message,’ Bones said. ‘Just a full stop. The fence will be off at the next switch after we get your message.’ He took the phone back and added his own number to the directory. ‘You get picked up, you lose the phone. Nothing traces back to me. You get stopped in the car, we’ll swear it was stolen this afternoon. Phillip can falsify the crime report log. Got it?’

  ‘Fine. All I ask is you get the fence turned off. Then you’re out of this.’

  38

  There were police vehicle checks at three and two miles out from Mapleton House. There had been a high-profile presence on the motorway bridges and A-road laybys too. At the three mile checkpoint Leila was waved through. By two miles out security was tighter. She was flagged down and came to a stop behind an elderly couple in a Nissan Micra.

  It had taken her almost an hour and a half to drive from Phillip’s hide-out at Broadwater Farm due south to Mapleton. Already the streets were busy and she had been forced to take numerous detours around gangs of people – youths mostly, but plenty of older people who should have known better too – out waiting for the balloon to go up and the night’s festivities to start.

  The traffic officer waved her forwards as the Micra continued its slow and halting journey up the narrow lane.

  Before he could speak, Leila showed her ID.

  ‘You expecting trouble?’ the officer said.

  ‘No. Just relieving a colleague. Gone down with food poisoning. Can I get straight in through the front gates?’

  ‘You not been briefed?’

  ‘Of course, but I was told to confirm with outer perimeter security before I got there.’

  He looked at her for a long moment.

  ‘You can drive through the concrete chicanes, but stop at least twenty metres from the main gate. They’ve got some high-tech invisible fence up there, runs right along the front wall, but it’s twitchy. Keep your distance until they’ve checked you out.’

  ‘Will do, thanks.’

  He waved her through and turned his attention to the rusting Ford Transit that had come to a stop behind her. She watched in the rear-view mirror until she had crested a low hill and the van was lost from sight. With luck that should keep the road behind her blocked for at least ten minutes, and keep the traffic officer busy long enough that he forgot all about her. She could do without him deciding to check her story with base.

  She drove past the turn-off that led up to the house and continued along an avenue of poplars that marked the edge of the estate. It was eight seventeen, still fully light, and with the car window down she could hear the Air Support Unit helicopter somewhere over to the south of the house. She needed to lose the car and make her way across the three hundred yards of no-man’s-land between the lane and the secure perimeter of Mapleton on foot.

  She pulled the car off the road beneath an ancient oak tree. It would be obvious to anyone driving past, but she thought it was unlikely that security would be doing regular sweeps of the outer lanes. Any locals who saw the car would think it was just someone out walking the dog. Most importantly, the car was not visible from the air. If it was spotted by ASU it would bring a lot of unwanted attention to this side of the estate.

  A hundred yards back towards the main drive a hedge cut up towards the house. As she walked, she sent Phillip a single full-stop text message indicating that she was ready. She had eighteen minutes to get to the fence. If she wasn’t in place then, it would only be because she had been discovered and arrested. If she was there, she just hoped Phillip was as good as he said he was.

  On one side of the hedge was a field of ripening wheat; on the other a field of cows. Leila took off her leather jacket and scrambled through the hawthorn hedge and the ditch beyond. With the jacket rolled up against her chest, she began to make her way through the rustling ears of wheat. They provided very little c
over against being seen from ground level, but should ASU make a pass overhead, she hoped her pale shirt would blend in enough not to be spotted easily. As it was still light, they would not yet be using thermal imaging against which there was very little defence.

  Ahead was a five-foot dry-stone wall topped with barbed wire. Beyond, some two hundred yards away, was the house. Since she had not tripped the SHIELD alarms yet, this wall must be the boundary.

  She checked her watch. Six minutes until the switch.

  She crouched by the foot of the wall and waited.

  The minutes went by agonisingly slowly. If Phillip had been wrong, if there was another layer of security that he knew nothing about, she was a sitting duck. There could be snipers outside the perimeter, external patrols, sniffer dogs. She could do nothing but wait and watch the seconds tick by.

  At eight thirty-seven precisely she took a deep breath. Counted: one… two… threw her jacket over the line of barbed wire, scrambled onto a protruding stone, committed…three. She dived over, hooked her jacket free and rolled into the long grass at the foot of the wall.

  No alarms sounded, no screaming sirens or running feet.

  She counted ten seconds and glanced up towards the woods. All was quiet. Two uniformed officers were chatting in the distance. As they parted, she ran the fifteen yards to a huge beech tree and again crouched, scanning the ground ahead. An MI5 man crunched along the gravel path a fifty yards away.

  She’d been inside the perimeter for forty seconds now. It could be over a minute before Phillip would have her on the roster, but she couldn’t stay here.

  When the MI5 man was out of sight, she stood up and began to walk towards the house. She knew she would have been spotted after no more than a twenty paces but no one paid her any attention. Even the ASU helicopter was now up at a thousand feet, making slow passes down-wind of the building so as not to disturb the dining guests.