The Last Hack

by Christopher Brookmyre

  It is as he walks around the enclosure that he sees a distinct single door on the opposite wall. It is made of steel, as is its frame. From its position in the building, Parlabane estimates that it is quite shallow, maybe only ten feet from the thick stone of the exterior wall. It is possible that he is not merely seeing a steel doorframe, but an embedded steel chamber. A small laminated sign above the handle and lock mechanism states ‘Strictly No Admittance’. Not ‘No Unauthorised Access’; Strictly No Admittance.

  Whoever you are, you know you have no access. So fuck right off.

  As he walks back towards Cruz, he stops to let a woman pass. She is carrying a tray of circuitry components that looks like someone went mad with a hammer in Dixons.

  ‘Can you get the door for me, Charlotte?’ she asks a nearby colleague.

  Parlabane watches as Charlotte obliges, reaching for the handle of a nearby door marked ‘Secure Disposal’. He notices that unlike all the others, this one is controlled by a keypad, into which Charlotte punches a four-digit PIN. He doesn’t see the numbers clearly, but he is sure that his spy cameras will have picked them up, as well as recording the audible confirmatory touch tones.

  It’s on the same side as the vault, abutting the outside wall, and it’s where they take their refuse. That’s got to be worth something.

  ‘Can I quote you on the RBA thing?’ Parlabane asks, catching up to Cruz once more.

  There is that twinkle in his eye again. Of course he can quote it.

  ‘I never said I was off the record, did I?’

  And this is where Parlabane understands the real talent Cruz brought to market once upon a time. He is a consummate salesman, for here he is selling Parlabane a mere shadow of an idea.

  ‘Jack, I’d like you to meet someone.’

  Cruz is standing beside the woman who had beckoned to him earlier. ‘This is Jane Dunwoodie, our head of R&D. Jane this is Jack Parlabane, who is writing an article about us for Broadwave.’

  Dunwoodie looks late twenties, early thirties, an intensity about her that fits with such seniority at a comparatively young age. There is a professional and determined air about her, right up until the point Cruz mentions why Parlabane is there.

  She removes her latex gloves to shake his hand. Must be for anti-static protection, he reasons. He has spotted a couple of boxes of them around the workbenches.

  She gives him a polite smile but she seems uncomfortable about potentially being put on the spot. It’s a reaction Parlabane has seen plenty of times before. Perhaps Cruz forgets that not everybody enjoys media attention, though maybe she’s just very busy right now and could do without the interruption.

  ‘It must be exciting to be in the vanguard of a new development,’ Parlabane suggests.

  She seems caught in the headlights. She looks at Cruz rather than at Parlabane, which is when he understands her panicky discomfort. She isn’t sure how much she’s allowed to say.

  ‘It’s a tremendous opportunity,’ she manages, glancing at Cruz again before she has even finished speaking, like she needs affirmation that she did okay. Parlabane recognises somebody happier tinkering in the lab than dealing with other people.

  ‘Jane, have those new diagnostics come back, by the way?’ Cruz asks.

  ‘I’ve sent them through to you. Do you want to see them now?’

  ‘While I remember.’

  He guesses there is no reason Cruz can’t wait until he’s back at his office to see whatever she sent, and surmises that this is a wee bit of theatre for Parlabane’s benefit: Cruz as the hands-on boss.

  Cruz then walks him back towards the security cubicle to pick up his phone. As they turn the corner, way up ahead he can see the visiting execs at the end of their tour. They are being scanned in turn by the security guard, running that wand thing up and down them from head to toe and back again.

  ‘What’s going on there?’ Parlabane asks.

  ‘Can’t be too careful. It’s in the non-disclosure agreement and a condition of getting a look-see. We always scan visitors on the way out. Again, I forgot to mention it.’

  ‘What’s he scanning for? Is it in case they’ve pocketed a circuit board?’

  ‘No, it’s to detect any hidden recording devices. You’d be amazed how tiny a video camera can be these days.’

  DATA CACHE

  Parlabane feels a wave of something cold pulse through him. He never agreed to any conditions, but there’s still no way of making this look good.

  ‘I guess you have to take the threat of industrial espionage very seriously when you’re working on something new.’

  ‘Like you wouldn’t believe. When it comes to investors, truth is I need these people far more than I trust them. The only thing worse than having Synergis bought out from under me would be if someone ripped off the new project and beat me to market.’

  ‘Yeah, that would be a sickener,’ Parlabane agrees. ‘Hey, do you have a loo nearby that I could use? Coffee is catching up with me.’

  ‘Sure, just back there and around the corner. First on your right.’

  ‘Cheers.’

  He walks briskly to the toilets and locks himself inside a cubicle, contemplating his disposal options. Chucking the whole kit down the pan seems the most obvious solution, but there are wires and a miniature solid-state drive that might not flush. If someone retrieves the drive and looks at the files, it won’t take long to identify who brought it here. Then he looks above the pan, at the absence of a cistern. Instead there is a fibreglass panel, behind which the plumbing is kept out of sight.

  He takes a coin from his pocket and uses it to twist open the fastener on an access panel behind the u-bend. It comes away with a bit of a wrench, but that is good news, as it indicates that the hatch is not in regular use. He slips the spy cameras and the SSD down behind the kickplate and replaces the panel, trying not to think about all of the surveillance info he has just lost.

  On the bright side, maybe everything he has learned today might help convince Buzzkill that this is a suicide mission after all.

  Parlabane feels conspicuously furtive as he emerges from the toilets, realising how suspicious his sudden retreat may have looked. To cover this he decides to come out swinging by way of asking Cruz another question as soon as he catches up to him at the security doors.

  ‘So who are the investors? Are they venture capitalists? Other electronics firms?’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s confidential. They’re not the only ones covered by an NDA.’

  ‘I see.’

  The guard gives Parlabane back his phone and his keyring. He puts them in his pockets as Cruz holds the door open for him.

  ‘Did you get everything you came with?’ he asks.

  Parlabane rides out a queasy moment of wondering whether Cruz knows what he just did in the toilets. He realises it’s his paranoia being ramped up by seeing cameras and security measures everywhere, as well as the fear that his guilty intentions must be legible to his intended victim.

  ‘I’m good, yeah. Thanks for your time, and for the tour.’

  ‘My pleasure. I’ll take you downstairs myself. I’m heading outside anyway.’

  They stop off at Cruz’s office on the way, so that he can pick up his coat and quickly reply to a couple of emails. Parlabane waits out in the lobby area, the clicking of Cruz’s keyboard audible from where he stands next to the receptionist’s desk. He notices a handwritten list of names in front of her, like she’s been copying them from there into her computer.

  Parlabane takes out his phone and surreptitiously snaps a photo of the list while pretending to type. There is a possibility, however remote, that one of these people is behind what he and Buzzkill have been sucked into, and any lead he can find into that investigation is likely to be more valuable than whatever else he takes away from this expedition. He’s been here close to two hours now and the most he’s learned about Synergis’s potential vulnerabilities is that there don’t appear to be any.

  Cruz beckon
s him aboard the elevator and taps his ID to activate it: can’t even exit without valid credentials, Parlabane notes.

  ‘Was there anything else you wanted to ask before we wrap up?’ Cruz enquires.

  ‘Actually, now that you mention it, it occurs to me that you never told me what this epiphany actually was, because presumably it wasn’t to do with Reg Holdsworth. I’m guessing this had to be something more recent.’

  Cruz smiles rather wistfully, a hint of apology in there.

  ‘For reasons that will only become apparent in the future, I’m afraid I can’t be very specific about this. I realise it’s frustrating for me to be so evasive, but …’

  Something changes, like he’s had a change of heart, or maybe run out of patience with all the restrictions he has to abide by.

  ‘I’ve read up on you, Jack. Your past is almost as chequered as mine. Don’t worry, I’m not about to get moralistic. It would hardly suit me. But the thing is, it occurs to me that you’re probably a guy who understands what it is to be looking for a second chance, so what the hell, I’m going to take a risk. I can’t be specific, and I won’t confirm or deny, but I can give you an idea of where I’m coming from.’

  ‘I’ll take whatever you’re offering.’

  ‘Truth is, my epiphany was that I missed my old self. I had turned into someone I didn’t like, and I hadn’t even realised I didn’t like that person until … Well, I had an encounter with someone else who had rediscovered his old self, and who remembered a different, better version of me. I realised that if he could recapture the spark he used to have, then together we might both be what we once were.’

  ‘I take it you can’t give me his name?’ Parlabane asks, though he barely needs to.

  Cruz merely smiles, saying nothing: telling him everything.

  After twenty years in obscurity, Aldous Syne had emerged from the shadows with another game-changing invention.

  CHALLENGE ACCEPTED

  I get off at Monument, swerving past a woman with a buggy so that I don’t get stuck behind her on the escalators. I slow my stride as I reach for my phone to check the time, and while I’m not walking so fast I take in my reflection in the glass of an advertising video screen.

  I look wired.

  I want to seem brighter – less, I dunno, batshit mental – to Jack, so he doesn’t regard me purely as a threat. I want him to see that this is a person he’s dealing with, and not some faceless entity like Zodiac. He’s always acted kind of standoffish, like he’s afraid of me, even when I’ve been helping him. I suppose the measures I was taking to protect my identity were never likely to put him at ease, and what’s happened recently isn’t going to improve things.

  It’s about ten past eight. I said I’d be there on the hour, but I was unlucky with the District Line. Lilly is round at her friend Cassie’s house this evening, so I’ve got until ten to get back there and pick her up. I realise I’m making it sound like it’s Lilly that wanted to go out, but actually it was me who asked a favour of Cassie’s mother. I’ve spoken to her a few times at the school gates. She knows about Mum and she lives pretty close. I told her I’ve got a late shift at Urban Picnic which I couldn’t get out of because I’m new. I hate lying to her and I’m kacking it in case she finds out, but Jack and I need to do this out of office hours, and we need to do it in the dark.

  I see him in the ticket hall, checking his phone. There’s a paranoid part of me waiting for the cops to come swooping in now that I’ve shown up, bundling me away in a van, then thanking him for his cooperation.

  He’s about the same age as my mum, I reckon, though I’m not always good at guessing. He’s roughly my height, but wiry and taut whereas I’m Miss Spaghetti Legs. I look like one of those toys that you press the bottom of their stand and they collapse. By contrast Jack looks coiled, as though he could spring up and haul himself across the overhanging beams.

  He’s got the kind of hair that probably looks untidy no matter what: unruly and a dusty mix of grey and blond. It’s the eyes you notice most, though. They go right through you. I reckon they’d sparkle when he smiles, but I haven’t seen that yet. Mostly it’s just been the x-ray treatment, and who could blame him.

  He notices me coming and I offer him a smile, feeling stupid and pathetic for doing so. It’s not like he’s going to be pleased to see me, is it? He looks resentful, and I realise how the smile must have played: like I’m milking the power I’ve got. He seems wary too, which makes me uncomfortable. I’m so unused to this. I’m usually the one shrinking away from people. How can anyone be scared of me, right?

  I want to say I’m sorry, but I don’t want to open the door to him trying to persuade me again to go to the police. That isn’t happening. Nuh-uh.

  I’m about to ask how it went today but I can already hear myself sounding all wet. Besides, we already talked on the phone briefly. I decide instead to act all business. He hates me anyway: I might as well make that work for me.

  ‘You said you lost the cameras. What happened there?’

  He gives me a glare, real Superman heat-vision stuff.

  ‘I didn’t lose them. I ditched them, and I thought I’d made it clear why. If I was already burned I’d be no good to you. What would you do then?’

  I decide not to respond, as I can see where this is going. It’s the flipside of my mutually assured destruction strategy: if I make good on my threat, there’s no reason for him not to give me up too.

  ‘You’re a reporter: you gotta have a good memory for detail. Why don’t you tell me what you saw, break it down for me.’

  ‘Sure thing. I can break it down for you very simply: it can’t be done.’

  I draw my eyes off him, giving him the response Mum always gives me when she thinks I’m acting like a huffy teen. It’s an act though, so he doesn’t see how scared this makes me feel. If I can’t keep him onside, I can’t deliver what I promised to Zodiac, and I have no doubt Zodiac will deliver on what he promised to do if I fail.

  ‘Let’s take a walk down Tricorn House,’ I suggest. ‘And on the way there you can tell me why it can’t be done.’

  I start walking. I honestly don’t know what I’ll do if he doesn’t follow, but it doesn’t come to that.

  ‘Okay. I’ve got reason to believe that this prototype is a new invention from Aldous Syne, who has presumably been working on it in a cave somewhere for the past twenty years.’

  ‘He’s the geezer who invented the Synapse, right?’

  ‘Yes. Cruz hinted that this is another game-changer. Cruz is a hype-merchant, that’s his MO, but he’s clearly excited, and we know he’s not the only one. He seems aware of that too, so he’s paranoid about industrial espionage. To that end, I’m sure he’s keeping the prototype in a steel vault, to which I’m guessing only Syne, Cruz and maybe the head of R&D have access.’

  Jack talks quietly, like he’s afraid we’ll be overheard. There’s nobody else on the pavements, though.

  Jack gives a humourless laugh.

  ‘I mean, Christ, I enjoy a challenge,’ he says, ‘but the places I’ve broken into in the past, we’re talking about shinning up a drainpipe or abseiling down from a roof and wedging open a window. This isn’t just a different league. This is a different game. I don’t even know where to begin.’

  ‘I do. That’s why we’re here right now. You’re a climber, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yeah, but I think the guy you’re looking for is a cross between Peter Parker and Ethan Hunt.’

  I have to convince him otherwise, speak to him in terms he’ll understand.

  ‘Don’t be so down in the dumps. I’m not a climber but I’m guessing it can look pretty scary from the ground: maybe even impossible sometimes. You think: how will I ever get past that overhang, never mind reach the top. But then you find the tiniest bit of purchase somewhere, and it’s enough to get you a little higher. And from there, now you can see the next tiny foothold that’s going to get you up to the next ledge. It’s the same with a hack.’r />
  ‘So where is our first toe-hold?’

  ‘Down in the dumps.’

  We take a left down a narrow alley, wide enough for one vehicle. It traces an s-bend, ultimately curving to emerge around the back of Tricorn House, at a service bay for delivery vans and, more importantly, refuse disposal.

  We stop at the corner. There is a control barrier and a manned security booth monitoring vehicular access to the bay. Beyond that I can see an enclosure housing the waste hoppers. It is walled off, locked up and has a steel mesh over the top to prevent anybody climbing in.

  ‘Some toe-hold,’ Jack says. ‘Even the garbage here is locked up tight as a camel’s arse in a sandstorm. Doesn’t this tell you something?’

  ‘Yeah. It tells me that we turned up in the wrong clothes.’

  He splutters in exasperation. I have to remind myself that how I see the world and how a non-hacker sees it can be very different.

  ‘You don’t understand. This is good news.’

  ‘How can the fact that even their midden is access-controlled be good news?’

  ‘Because this suggests there’s more chance of finding treasure in the trash. People are very careful about what they throw away these days, in case somebody like us is planning to sift through it. But when they know – or when they think – their garbage and data disposal are secure, then they worry that bit less about what they’re chucking in there.’

  ‘But how are we meant to get near it if it’s secured and monitored?’ he asks.

  ‘Let me worry about that.’

  MAKE-BELIEVE

  ‘Hello, Tricorn House, how may I direct your call?’

  ‘Oh, hi there. I’m calling from DDS, that’s Data Disposal Solutions. I wonder if you could put me through to whoever handles secure waste management for your building?’

  ‘Certainly. That would be Nigel Holt, he’s in charge of Maintenance and Buildings Operations. I’ll just check if he’s in yet.’