Normally, this message would have been invisible. Not even her deep-search tools would find it. The only reason they did is because Joanna’s auto has permanent authorisation to use encrypted communications. She uses GIUK4445, or any of the two dozen nodes like it, all the time.
It’s shocked her a great deal, considering it probably shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Her assumption has always been that someone in her agency is being given backhanders to look the other way. Maybe ignore evidence. Maybe not pass on information to the police. But this is far bigger than she expected. Someone in Global Investigations is actually...
Revisions to CORECODE
approved.
...what? Helping to fix the problem with the dodgy BBX servers? Yes, that sounds likely. Or perhaps helping to find some valuable information from years ago? Gaining access to Macroverse’s secure archives? Something like that. Much more than just looking the other way.
“Okay, so who is this?” Greg had asked. “Who in Global might have sent this message?”
They have no names. Neither sender nor recipient. All they know is that it came from a member of staff at Global Investigations. Someone with access to their internal network. That’s over 500 people, from any of four offices in London, Manchester and Cardiff.
About halfway through the afternoon, Joanna finds herself standing outside Gordon’s office door. It’s open, as always. She can hear him inside, chatting with two other people, making them laugh. Considering he’s head of the Investigative Operations department, Gordon’s always been amazingly unsecretive and transparent with his staff. But it’s well known that when it comes to surveillance technology, he’s a genius. A veteran of the industry. Joanna has a lot to thank him for, her skills wouldn’t be half as good without his tutelage.
She hovers in the corridor, paralysed by the temptation to just... blab. Tell him everything. Confess what she’s been doing. Gordon can help her to crack this! He could probably get to the bottom of it in a single day!
Unless it’s...
Oh God. Unless he’s the one who...
The idea makes her short of breath. The idea that coils tightly around her chest, until she’s struggling to suck in air.
It’s Gordon.
Her boss.
He’s the one.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she mutters. (It is though.) “Don’t be so bloody ridiculous.” (Who else could it be?) “You’re talking shite now, you stupid cow.” (But who else has got the skills? The authority? The connections? The know-how? The – ) “Shut up!”
She spins, strides back to her office. Angry with herself. She’s been right about everything so far, but she can’t be right about this too. There’s no way. It feels too wrong.
And assuming she is wrong... well, telling Gordon everything would mean the end of her career. He always plays by the book. He’d have no choice but to suspend her, and maybe get CDCU involved too.
She can imagine the look on his face as she admits she’s been going behind his back, stealing company resources, concealing evidence, breaking the law. The disappointment.
No. She’s on her own. Can’t trust anyone but Greg. No matter how hollow that makes her feel right now.
At her desk, Joanna can’t concentrate on anything. All she can think about is the message. Finally, at 4pm on the dot, she puts her headset on and joins a conference call with the Manchester office. Some junior analysts are arranging a site visit to London next week, and Joanna has agreed to babysit them.
This is what she’s been waiting for. Her personal work log will confirm that she was on a conference call. The perfect alibi, to draw attention from what she’ll actually be doing.
“Hi guys, Joanna here. Okay, let’s run through your itinerary and make sure we’re all in sync...”
The second she starts talking, Joanna glances over her shoulder – good, nobody nearby – and logs into the communications hub as an administrator.
She isn’t an administrator. She shouldn’t have these login details. But then Andrew Green, Gordon’s equivalent in the logistics department, should have better security on his internal profile, shouldn’t he?
Access granted
Non-transparent proxy node
GIUK4445
Data packet search: 63,882
Running...
Joanna talks to her colleagues without hearing her own voice. She’s on automatic. The sort of dull office conversation she has to blag her way through every single day, while her thoughts focus on what really matters.
The encrypted message is displayed. She almost swears aloud when she sees that the sender details have been fully redacted. Impossible to trace now. But the recipient details are still there:
[email protected]
Please be genuine. Please be genuine. Please be genuine. Joanna’s heart is hammering as her fingers type this new name into her console’s airboard.
Search complete.
Companies House... 1
match.
European Business
Register... no match.
International Company
Registry... 1 match.
Google Business Search... 1
match.
See all records for Katuke
Exports Ltd.
It’s there. It’s there!
She silently punches the air. No fake company this time. Perhaps the legitimate one behind all the fakes? At last!
“Okay, look forward to seeing you all next week,” snaps Joanna. “Bye!” Terminate call. She needs the whole of her brain now.
Hungrily, she absorbs all the details about Katuke Exports Ltd. As the name suggests, it’s a foreign company, based in Rarotonga in the Cook Islands – literally the other side of the world. The company is only a year old, registered in October 2021, and has no trading data or financial statements available yet.
When she gets to the section about industry categories, Joanna’s heart beats even faster. Guess what they do? They export computer systems and technology from Oceanic countries to the UK and Europe. Oh really, like what? Auto servers, by any chance?
The corporate records state that Katuke Exports Ltd has a total of 53 staff, and is co-owned and managed by three CEOs:
Ngaropi Mapumai
Jonathan Marsters
Eanga Tepaki
And that’s it.
Joanna stares at her screen, breathing rapidly. There’s got to be more. There’s got to be!
She runs a search on Katuke Exports Ltd in the UK. Its premises, its customers, its sales. Nothing. She expands the search to Europe. Nothing.
She runs a more intelligent search looking for companies importing technological goods from the Cook Islands. Nothing.
She looks up the profiles of the three CEOs. Ngaropi Mapumai is currently working in Rarotonga, according to his profile status. So is Jonathan Marsters. Sweet Jesus, she isn’t going to have to fly all the way out to the Cook Islands, is she? Eanga Tepaki –
Ohhhhhhhh, yes!
4.21pm Friday 7 October
2022
Eanga Tepaki
Gender: Male
Age range: 41-45
Orientation: Straight
Relationship status:
Single/Available
Current location: Hilton
London Canary Wharf
Hotel, South Quay, London
E14 9SH
Status update: Hello to you!
My name is Eanga!
“Hello to you,” she whispers, “you little bastard. My name is Joanna.”
She zooms in on his face until it fills the monitor. Then leans forward and pokes him right between the eyes.
“And I’m coming to get you!”
*
Joanna watches as he walks past. Her eyes are wide, dragging in every detail.
He isn’t much taller than her but is very well built, filling out his bright yellow cotton short-sleeved shirt and beige chinos. His skin is a rich brown and his face is weather
ed-handsome, a man in his forties who has spent years being exposed to sun, sea and wind. His black hair is short and tightly-curled, with streaks of silver at both temples.
But what really makes him stand out are his tattoos. Polynesian symbols and markings curl up one muscular arm, while on the other, a turtle swims from wrist to bicep leaving a patterned wake of ink. Most striking of all are the intricate spiral designs tattooed along both sides of his jaw and lower chin. He would seem fierce and tribal if he wasn’t beaming a big white smile.
He nods and waves at someone. Probably the girl behind the hotel check-in desk. “Kia Orana!” he booms – his accent is rich and melodic. “The best of the day to you!” Brown leather shoes click loudly on the marble floor as he crosses the lobby, a big black overcoat carried under one arm. He has the air of a man heading outside and looking forward to it.
He looks and sounds foreign. Far too colourful, happy and exotic to be British. He stands out a mile.
Eanga Tepaki.
Greg: “That’s our man, right?”
“That’s him,” Joanna murmurs. She isn’t blinking as she watches him walk. Just one more hotel guest – there are a dozen milling around the lobby area. He heads through the glass revolving door and then he’s out in the afternoon sunshine. He makes a sharp turn and strides off along the pavement.
Joanna feels the urge to leap up and run after him. And would, if she was actually there.
She leans back into her chair, away from the smartscreen. It actually pains her to be reminded that she’s sitting in the spare room of her flat in Turnpike Lane, when she should be in the Executive Lounge of the Hilton London Canary Wharf Hotel.
With her boyfriend.
Greg: “I don’t believe it! He walked right past me! Didn’t have a clue! It’s a piece of piss, this spying thing. How much do you charge your clients again?”
“Shut up,” says Joanna, a bit snappier than she intended. She can’t help it. It should be her out there on the front line, not sitting safely in this cosy house with a mug of coffee, watching the live video-feed from a pair of Vades™. Her Vades™, on Greg’s stupid face!
Greg: “Come on, this is great. We’ve ID’d him, we can confirm he’s here. Job done. Mission accomplished!”
Yes, Joanna thinks sourly, but it should be my mission!
Last night, she had shared her discovery with Greg: the name of the man who received that message from someone in Global Investigations. The man running an international import company that is almost certainly bringing BBX4001 servers into the country. Assuming he is a genuine corporate CEO, it makes sense that he’s staying at a business hotel in London’s Docklands, not far from Canary Wharf. Katuke Exports Ltd don’t have a registered office in the UK, so instead, he is living somewhere with all the resources a business needs.
But that could all be bullshit. Is Eanga Tepaki his real name? Is he even an actual person? His profile could be fake, generated by a K8 program, like the one Larissa Brady used.
Discussing it into the night, Joanna and Greg agreed their next step was to confirm their findings. Reconnaissance mission. All they had to do was visually identify Eanga Tepaki. If they can prove this guy is real, and that he’s based in the Hilton hotel, then Joanna has enough to go to the police. She’ll call her contact at CDCU and ask them to probe him.
Him, and Global Investigations.
She’s dreading that. But it has to be done if they want to discover who Tepaki is working with. That will be a serious shitstorm, getting the police to investigate an investigations agency. She might even have to resign. But then again, it might gain her tremendous credit for exposing illegal activity within the agency.
Both of them had been ridiculously excited at how close they seemed to be getting. There hadn’t been much sleeping in Greg’s king-size bed last night.
Then in the morning, Greg had thrown her for a loop by saying “I think I should be the one to go, not you.”
Joanna had laughed, only stopping when he added “If this guy is working with someone in Global Investigations, he might recognise you straight away. Then the game’s up.”
She summoned all her arguments against this dumb idea: she is the trained operative who is experienced in the field, whereas he’s only a marketing manager with no idea about surveillance techniques… but then hesitated. Because Greg was right. This Tepaki guy obviously had connections inside her agency. If he is working with someone like Gordon (the idea still makes her feel sick), he’d definitely know who Joanna is, the second he lays eyes on her.
Her mouth had hung open, unable to refute his logic. “Who cares if he even spots me?” Greg had said brightly. “I’m no-one! In fact he might just assume I’m at the hotel ‘cos of some business thing with On Course Consulting. That’s good cover, I’ll set that as my status, it’ll work.”
But… “There’s no links on my timeline to you whatsoever, remember? I’m the perfect undercover agent for you!”
But… “It’s just recon, right? No big deal. Just in and out, take his picture, bang, done. Come on, let me have some fun for once!”
But… “Thanks Jo,” he said with a kiss.
The little shit.
So Joanna had taken on the backup role this time, settling herself in her home-made operations room while Greg drove across London in his silly sci-fi car. He’d called her when he got there: “Coming out of warp in the Docklands sector!”
Joanna knows Docklands well, especially the built-up Canary Wharf area, one of the financial hubs of London. She always found it weirdly out of place with the rest of the city. As if a chunk of Manhattan or Dubai had been sliced out, airlifted across the ocean and dropped into London like blocks in a colossal Tetris game.
Through her Vades™ – now linked to his auto rather than hers – she’d watched all the glass and steel buildings pass by, with the concrete track of the Docklands Light Railway threading between them, and the pyramid-capped One Canada Square towering over it all. He drove past the Hilton Hotel, an angular white building that looked like it was made out of children’s toy bricks. Their car park was for guests only, so Greg drove farther out until he found a space on one of the nearby streets.
When Greg sauntered into the Hilton’s lobby, Joanna had to admit (to herself, not out loud) that he was doing a much better job than she expected. He hadn’t crept in like a ninja, as she’d feared he might, but walked casually like he belonged there. He was wearing his navy blue suit, the same one he wore when they first walked past each other. There was a surprising number of equally smart types around, considering it was Saturday afternoon. Business hotels like this had meeting rooms and conference centres which were useful to small companies... such as Katuke Exports Ltd, perhaps.
Greg went straight to the girl at the reception desk and asked if Eanga Tepaki was staying at the hotel. Yes, she replied, he’s in Executive Suite 12C, would you like me to let him know you’re here? Joanna’s heart almost stopped – but Greg smoothly said there’s no need, he would meet Mr Tepaki later, until then he’d wait. Then he sat on one of the wide square chairs facing the elevators, picked up a mediasheet to hide behind, set it to stream the Financial Times newsfeed, and asked under his breath how he was doing.
“Like a pro,” Joanna told him warmly.
For the next two hours Greg had stayed put, blending in with all the other men and women relaxing, talking and meeting in the Executive Lounge. Many of them also had eyewear and were making phone calls through them, so it wasn’t odd that Greg kept chatting to Joanna. She had found it intolerable though, cooped up at home and watching from a distance. Joanna’s coffee maker got some serious use.
And now... Eanga Tepaki has walked right past Greg, and out of the hotel.
Greg: “Where do you think he’s going?”
“Hang on, his auto might update his... yes. Looks like he’s gone for lunch.”
1.31pm Saturday 8 October
2022
Eanga Tepaki is at
Cin
namon Restaurant,
Hilton London Canary
Wharf Hotel, South Quay,
London E14 9SH
Greg: “Right, then, this is our chance. Phase two?”
“No. Get out of there, Greg.”
Greg: “What? What for? This is the perfect opportunity, isn’t it?”
“He’s too close. That restaurant is right next door, he could come back at any minute. Look, you’ve done a great job, we know he’s real and he’s there. I’m going to call CDCU and let them know – ”
Greg: “The police’ll move a lot faster if you’ve got some hard evidence for them, Jo. You know that’s true. Come on, I can do this.”
Joanna heaves a deep breath, not liking this one bit. “Since when did you get so bossy?”
Greg: “Been hanging round with those gobby Oirish lasses too long. Right, stand by!”
The FT newsprint vanishes from the mediasheet’s memory plastic as Greg casts it aside and stands up. He strolls across the lobby towards the elevators, not looking over his shoulder, not acting suspiciously. He even shares a cheery hello with the two suited businessmen in the elevator with him, who get off on the fourth floor.
Joanna watches it all from his viewpoint, feeling a surge of pride. Her boy is doing so well!
Alone, he turns and looks at himself in the elevator’s glass wall. Joanna sees an endless line of Gregs, his reflection disappearing off into infinity, and they all have the same cocky smirk. A smug of Gregs, she thinks. A nob-end of Gregs.
Greg: “Another victory for the good guys. We make a pretty sexy team, don’t we?”
“Yes we do,” she smiles.
Greg: “I think we should go into long-term partnership properly.”
The elevator announces it has reached the twelfth floor. As he steps out, she feels like telling Greg to get back in there and explain what he meant. What sort of partnership is he talking about, what does he mean by long-term? And why is Joanna tingly and short of breath like a kid on a rollercoaster all of a sudden? Partnership, he said partnership, but what does that mean, what’s he thinking, what sort of long-term partnership exactly?
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