The Last Hack
Page 37
‘Syne could have all kinds of access to the computer system,’ Parlabane argues. ‘He could have set up an ID for his paid assailant. He could have an invisible login.’
‘No, that’s just it. When I suddenly got control of the CCTV system, it was because whoever was controlling it had logged out. Why would they do that then, when the job wasn’t finished? It’s because there was only one person involved: Syne. He couldn’t be in two places at once, monitoring the computers and mugging you for the prototype. He had to log out and clear his cyber tracks before he could go dump you in the big freezer then exit the building.’
‘I suppose it would fit with the electroshock device,’ Parlabane admits. ‘I’ve no idea how old this photo is. Syne could be in his seventies for all we know.’
‘He’s on his own, Jack, I’m sure of it. Syne has got Lilly, he’s going to bring her to Paddington – and feds or no feds, I’m going to be there.’
Parlabane meets her gaze poker-faced, masking the fact that he isn’t convinced. He is getting a strong impression that she needs to believe this, which is a dangerous state of mind.
There are too many unanswered questions for him to feel comfortable making any assumptions, and the biggest hole in the picture is the exact dimensions of a certain metal object he could hold in the palm of his hand.
‘Why would Syne abduct Lilly in order to trade her for his own prototype?’ he asks.
‘I don’t know. Maybe because the prototype itself is stolen and he hasn’t been able to copy the original yet. Or maybe because it’s built from stolen blueprints and he’s worried if it goes public the real developers will recognise the design. Does it matter? If he’s prepared to trade Lilly for it, then that’s how it’s going to be.’
A light is blinking on Parlabane’s phone. He’s got new email but he doesn’t need to read it. Like every other message he’s received in the last hour, it will be from someone asking why he isn’t answering his phone. That said, he can’t think there’s anybody left in his address book who wouldn’t be aware of the very obvious answer to that by now.
Except maybe a guy who sleeps most of the day, practically lives in his recording studio and pays almost no attention to the news, on the grounds that it’s ‘mostly shite’.
Parlabane wakes the phone, verifies his deduction and hits dial.
‘Spammy? It’s Jack.’
‘Awright, mate? What’s the script? You fuckin’ trollin’ me or what?’
‘No, my phone got stolen: that’s why I didn’t answer.’
‘I’m not talking about that. I mean this Synergis Dimension pish you’ve asked me to take a look at.’
‘What about it?’
‘It’s the fuckin’ Underpants Gnomes, so it is.’
‘I don’t follow.’
This was a phrase Parlabane found himself using at some point in most conversations with Spammy.
‘You know, from South Park. They had a three-stage plan on a blackboard. Step one was collect underpants. Step three was profit.’
‘What was step two?’
‘That’s the point: they only had question marks. They didn’t know. You see what I’m saying?’
‘Eh, not quite.’
‘These docs, man. I’m seeing blueprints for a few components and circuits, and I’m seeing artwork for the finished product, but how you get from stage one to stage three is anybody’s guess.’
Parlabane looks to Sam.
‘Is it possible any files were missing from the RBA stuff?’ he asks her.
‘Absolutely not. I triple-checked that I had everything, and I verified the integrity of all files. Nothing was missing and nothing was corrupted.’
‘Sam says everything that should be there is there,’ he relays.
‘Well, in that case it’s a useless load of shite.’
‘The plans are incomplete?’
‘That’s one way of putting it, aye. Kind of in the same way that if you’d sent me blueprints for the chassis of a Nissan Micra and a photo of the Millennium Falcon, you could say those plans were incomplete as well.’
MARKET FORCES
The rain still does not let up, but its sound is so constant that it never becomes white noise. I’m permanently conscious of it drumming the roof and lashing the windows. I’m grateful to be inside the car but at the same time I can’t help feeling trapped in here too.
‘It’s a pump and dump,’ Jack says. ‘That’s all it’s ever been, from the start.’
He speaks excitedly, sometimes tripping over his words as he thinks aloud, his tongue struggling to keep up with his over-heated brain. Between us we’ve worked out what’s going on, but the problem is that it hasn’t changed anything, and there is only one implication I care about.
‘I should have seen it. This is why Cruz wouldn’t let me leave.’
‘When wouldn’t he let you leave? What’s a pump and dump?’
‘It’s a stock market scam. You pump up the share price artificially, then dump your stock when it hits a high. Cruz played me. He played everybody.’
‘Not quite everybody,’ I remind him.
‘Sure, but the point is he and Syne were in this together all along: I just don’t know how far back the plan goes. Cruz bought back Synergis for a song, and everybody assumed he was going to break up the company and sell off its assets. Instead he confounded expectations by pumping money in and attracting fresh investment. It was all to give the impression he was building for the future.’
‘Very much assisted by a profile piece on Broadwave,’ I suggest, to let him know I’m keeping up.
‘That’s why he was so cooperative, so keen to give me the tour. And then at the end of my visit, he kept hanging around despite otherwise making out he was a hectically busy man. He talked about an epiphany and then left it hanging, inviting the question. He kept saying things like “Is there anything else you want to ask?” He wasn’t going to let me leave until he had dropped the hint that Syne was back with a revolutionary new idea, but he wanted it to seem like I was the one who wheedled it out of him.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s a bigger story if it appears they were trying to keep it under wraps. We all fell for it. The story of Syne’s return went viral and Synergis’s profile was as high as it’s been since the beginning.’
The inside of the car is briefly illuminated by the headlights of a passing vehicle, the first I’ve seen in a while.
‘Then comes the really big play,’ Jack says. ‘Staging a break-in so that everyone believes Synergis has a new product its rivals would go to extreme lengths to obtain. And the story is even bigger because there’s a murder involved.’
‘I’m guessing Cruz didn’t sign up for that part.’
‘It worked, though. Because of the murder, and Synergis’s “reluctant” decision to release information about the Dimension, they’ve got worldwide advertising for their game-changing product. And those conveniently incomplete blueprints will be going viral too.’ It’s as he says this that I am able to make sense of something else that was chafing in the back of my mind:
‘That Tanya woman said that the stolen design documents were already being offered on the black market, but at that point, Lansing had forwarded them at most a few minutes earlier. That statement must have been written before anyone else had downloaded the files; plus the documents are worthless, as they don’t really contain any design secrets. It was all to make people believe the Dimension is legit, sending the share price through the roof.’
‘Which is when the dump part comes into play,” Jack says. “Syne and whoever else is in on this will offload their stock and be counting the profit as the house of cards collapses.’
‘Whoever else. Do you reckon Winter?’
‘It fits. Winter’s role might have been to dangle the bait in front of the Chinese: tempt them into acquiring stock in a hurry, rather than with the due diligence of a formal buy-out. They snap up as much Synergis stock as they can, thinking the
y’re getting in on the ground floor, only to find their holding worthless when the truth emerges.’
‘What happens to Synergis then?’
‘Exactly what everyone thought would happen when Cruz bought it back. It will fold and be broken up. Everybody who’s been working away in good faith, maybe even taking stock options in part lieu of salary, will be out of a job.’
‘But won’t the feds come after Syne for fraud?’
‘They’ll have the same problem as us: they’ll have to find him first. But it’s my bet that his official stock holding will be pretty small and he’ll be able to demonstrate that he never sold it. The same will turn out to be true of Cruz, who made great play of being determined not to sell Synergis. It was all a front. If we look into who currently owns Synergis stock, I’m certain we’ll find that the largest shareholder won’t be an individual – it will be a company; maybe even a host of companies. The trail will be labyrinthine, shell companies within shell companies, but the stock will ultimately be owned by Syne and Cruz.’
Jack starts searching stock ownership databases, opening several in different tabs and keying Synergis into all the search fields. The reception is getting patchy, all of the sites showing blank pages and spinning wheels. I can’t see that it matters.
‘It still leaves us exactly where we were though, doesn’t it?’ I ask. ‘Except that maybe the cops will be more prepared to hear us out if we can pull the plug on a multi-million-pound fraud. We meet Syne at Paddington like he said, except this time he’s the one who gets a nasty surprise.’
‘No,’ Jack says, his expression grim in the glow from his laptop. ‘We can’t go to Paddington. That’s absolutely the last thing we should do.’
‘What are you talking about? We can’t negotiate with this guy. He’s got my sister.’
‘You remember I asked you why Syne would want to trade Lilly for his own prototype? Ask yourself the question again now that you know the prototype is a sham.’
I ask, but I can’t bring myself to admit the answer.
Jack is less reticent.
‘He’s using Lilly as bait, but he’s got no intention of showing up with her.’
‘He has to,’ I insist. ‘I’ll message him on IRC, tell him if we don’t see her at Paddington, we walk away.’
‘We’ll never get that far, that’s the point. Syne will tip off the cops that we’re coming: that’s been his plan since he abducted Lilly. He doesn’t need to go anywhere near the place, let alone bring his hostage. As soon as we show our faces, we get arrested, and to nail down the lid on our guilt, we’ll be in possession of the stolen prototype. The cops then hand the Dimension back to its rightful owner and we go down for murder and robbery.’
My mouth dry with dread because I already know the answer, I manage to croak out my question.
Jack knows the answer too, but I need him to hear me ask this.
‘And what happens to Lilly?’
Jack swallows.
‘We have to find Syne. We have to get to him before the police get to us. It’s our only course of action.’
‘Find out where he lives, you mean?’
‘Well, that would be a start, but no journalist was ever able to trace him back in the nineties.’
No journalist had my kind of resources back in the nineties, I think to myself. I will find this bastard even if I have to post naked selfies on 4Chan to get the info.
I wake my laptop but the first thing I notice is the power.
‘Shit. I’m almost out of juice on this thing.’
‘Why didn’t you charge it at the hotel?’ Jack asks, like that helps.
‘I thought I was going to be there all night, didn’t I?’
‘You can use mine.’
‘No. I can’t do this using a mobile hotspot in the middle of a storm. I need a stable connection and I need my own kit.’
‘For what?’
PARKED OUTSIDE
Forty minutes later they are in the car park at Luton Airport. Sam suggested it was somewhere big and anonymous where she could plug in her laptop in a quiet corner and log into the Wi-Fi. Parlabane’s first thought was that it is also a place where there is a permanent police presence, but he kept that reservation to himself.
Sam climbs out of the Qashqai and stands motionless in the pouring rain. Parlabane watches her, willing her to proceed, fearing that she’s lost her nerve.
Before setting off from the lay-by, they had searched their belongings for anything that could be used as a disguise. The best they came up with was from a First Aid kit they found in the vehicle’s boot. Parlabane placed a gauze patch over Sam’s left eye and secured it in place with surgical tape. It obscured a large section of her face, and though the patch itself made her conspicuous, they were placing their trust in the effects of British politeness. Once anybody caught a glimpse of the eye patch, they would make a point of not staring.
She suggested she should go alone, and though Parlabane’s protective instinct urged against it, he couldn’t argue with her logic. They couldn’t go together because it would massively increase the chances of being recognised. Still, he doesn’t like the idea of being the one sitting here hidden in the relative safety of the car while she walks into a public place patrolled by armed cops.
He figures maybe she’s starting to see it that way too, then finally she makes a move, striding towards the airport building with that brisk gait of hers, a young woman who always seems to be going places in a hurry. He hopes that’s true for a long time to come.
The rain is coming down hard and cold as I step out of the car, big drops I can feel on my scalp. The sensation makes me think of a previous soaking: Lilly laughing as I came into the flat with my hair plastered flat to my head and my face.
‘You don’t look like you,’ she said.
I stay where I am and let it soak in for a few seconds, flattening the wet hair down with my hand so that I look nothing like the photo the media are using.
I walk into the airport clutching my laptop in its neoprene bag, keeping my head down, trying to avoid eye contact. This fails when I see two cops stride across the concourse in front of me with machine guns slung from shoulder straps. I can’t help it: some reflex makes me look at them to check if they’re looking at me. My heart speeds up as one of them glances back, but he looks away again, the two continuing on their way like they’re out for a leisurely evening stroll.
I make my way to a seating area and grab a spot by the wall. Jack was right about the eye patch. Nobody looks at me for longer than it takes to see the plaster and gauze. For the same reason, I’m betting nobody comes over to give me shit about plugging my laptop into their power supply.
One of the Wi-Fi hotspots is part of a national network I’ve got a hacked login for, so that saves me any registration bullshit. The signal is middling but stable. Better than a mobile network out in the wilds anyway. I launch my VPN then send up the bat signal and cross my fingers that the guy I’m looking for is online.
I wait, watching the tiny chat window while I scroll the BBC website in the background. The story has been updated but there’s nothing new on us: it’s all about the Dimension. It’s crazy to see everybody getting so excited by what I know to be a lie. They’re quoting tech and business experts from Wall Street to Silicon Valley, talking about the implications of the useless sliver of metal I’ve got tucked into the pocket of my jeans.
I stole it while Jack was out at the boot, rooting through the first aid kit. He’d left his jacket across the back seat, so I reached through and lifted the prototype from his pocket. I don’t like deceiving him, but when it comes to Lilly’s safety, I have only one priority.
I stare at the screen, willing text to appear on it.
Parlabane shifts restlessly in the driver’s seat, checking the dashboard clock and glancing in each of the mirrors once again. He watches buses arrive and disgorge their travellers, dragging rain-lashed suitcases towards the terminal. He looks at his phone, speed-rea
ding the latest updates, agonised that he is at the heart of the day’s hottest story and unable to file a solitary word on it.
This is the hardest kind of waiting. There is nothing to do but fret, helpless, useless. He sits there asking himself what’s keeping her, when he has no way of knowing the answer. He doesn’t know precisely what Sam has in mind, what its execution requires, what difficulties she might be encountering and most pointedly whether she has been recognised and already arrested.
He should never have let her go in there alone, he tells himself for maybe the fourth time, before conceding to his internal advocate that there was no choice. It still feels wrong though, instinct telling him he should never have let her out of his sight. He knows he’s her best hope, but that doesn’t mean Sam sees it that way. She’s scared, she’s tired and, because of Lilly, she’s desperate.
He sighs and slumps in his seat, reasoning he should try and get some rest while he can, even if it is only a matter of not moving, not driving, not reading, not typing. But even as the thought plays across his mind, he notices a coloured flickering and turns around to see flashing lights approach through the rear windscreen.
Something in me surges as I finally see activity in the chat window.
I know this isn’t just him being surprised. It’s a verification test. I tell him the exact time and date we met at Paddington. I describe what he was wearing, as much as I can remember it, and I mention the Rubik cube.