The Saint Jude Rules (Cal Winter Book 3)

by Dominic Adler

  “Slumming it, I see,” I said.

  The boardroom was decorated with scenes of famous battles. Two flat-screens dominated the walls, sofas arranged in a U-shape in front of them. Oz opened a drinks cabinet, the contents of which would do a five-star hotel proud. Juliet fell back on a sofa, smiling a check-this-place-out smile. She sat under a painting, David Shepherd’s famous scene of the Bridge at Arnhem.

  Being British, I love a heroic disaster. “What is this place?” I asked, sitting next to her.

  “I told you. It’s The Harbour.”

  “More like the Tardis,” Oz sniffed. “What’s it for?”

  “I like to think of it as more of a Bat Cave,” Juliet replied. “We use it for ops management, briefing and emergency decompression.”

  “What happens now?” said Oz.

  Juliet walked to the window, framed by hazy London light. “The Harbour is yours for the duration. Eight bedrooms, secure comms, garaging for six vehicles, vaulted storage and a forensic IT suite. Do with it what you will. Nobody knows it’s here except our most trusted staff.”

  “Thanks,” I said quietly. “It beats our lock-up.”

  Juliet and I shared a look. Well, I thought we did. I went to say thanks, but she tilted her head slightly and stood up.

  “Is there a hot-tub?” said Oz.

  Juliet rolled her eyes. I took in her tailored suit, manicured nails, a man’s Rolex glinting at her wrist. She still looked as beautiful as I remembered, just a different sort of beautiful. “There’s a power shower. Will that do?”

  “I suppose so,” said Oz, faux-irritated.

  I joined her at the window. Tourist boats chugged towards Westminster. “I still don’t understand. Why involve yourself? Offering Hugh’s help was more than enough.”

  “It’s a favour repaid,” she said, steel in her voice. “I still owe you, for Zambute.”

  “You want to watch that whole honour thing, Jools,” said Oz, giving me a look. “In my experience, it has a tendency to come back and bite you. Right, I’m off to explore.”

  I looked at Juliet, then at my feet. “How’s Guy?”

  Juliet nodded, a tired smile creasing her face. “He’s up and down, I saw him at the weekend. He’s been sick a long time.” Guy was Juliet’s younger brother, her only living relative. He had cerebral palsy. Last time I’d seen Juliet, she’d just bought him a specially adapted house. It was a cottage near Winchester, with an extension for a live-in nurse. That cost money of the sort an MI6 officer could only dream of making.

  She took a step close. “Cal, I still wish we hadn’t taken that… stuff.”

  In Zambute we’d come across a hoard of conflict diamonds. If we hadn’t taken them, the local warlords would. “I know it doesn’t sit well with you, Juliet. But Guy’s got a new place, and some Zambutan general is down a couple of gold-plated limousines. It’s not a problem.”

  “I know,” she said. “So why do I feel so bloody bad about it?”

  I smiled. “Sometimes we do the wrong thing to do the right thing.”

  “The right thing?” she replied. “Why, have you given it a try lately?”

  I laughed and fished in my pocket for a cigar. “I’m working on it. I want to be the better man.”

  “That’s very noble of you.” Juliet produced a steel Zippo and gave me a light, “let me know when you get there.”

  “I will. Just don’t hold your breath.”

  Juliet laughed gently.

  “You need to laugh more often, I reckon,” I said.

  She looked out across the Thames. “I agree. But it’s not that sort of world, is it?”

  I remembered a place in Zambute, called The Red House. Juliet had been beaten black-and-blue. We fought a desperate battle, lost good people. The war in Zambute didn’t end, just spawned a new load of combatants. “No, it isn’t.”

  We shared a quiet moment, gazing at the river. I looked at her hand, pressed against the glass. I thought about holding it.

  “Okay, let’s work,” said Juliet. Walking over to a desk, she pulled out a briefcase. Inside was a satellite phone, still wrapped in thick plastic. “That’s encrypted. Use it to contact me, nobody else.”

  “OK,” I said, accepting the phone. “We’ve got a couple of waifs and strays. Can we hide them here?”

  “Of course.” Juliet walked towards the door. “There’s a key fob with the phone and a password list for the ops room.”

  “Thanks…”

  “No more thanks.” Juliet put a finger to my lips, “I’ll be back with Hugh later.”

  After Juliet left, I went to find Oz. He took me on a tour of The Harbour. There was a galley kitchen with a well-stocked fridge. Upstairs were the bedrooms, basic but clean. Finally we took an elevator to the basement. It opened into an operations room, the walls covered in flat-screens and dry-boards. Two banks of computers with dual monitors were covered in clear plastic dust-sheets. A map of the world covered the far wall.

  Oz nodded approvingly, “very Gucci.”

  “Not a bad place to run a war. I’m going to get Harry and Diana over here.”

  “I don’t trust ‘em,” said Oz.

  “Neither do I, but how long will it take The Firm to track them to that old farmhouse? We need Harry, and I reckon Diana could be useful.”

  “You’re going soft, Cal.”

  Maybe I was. Harry looked near-broken. Diana, beneath her insouciance, was scared. They faced execution. They deserved their fate as much as me. “Who are we to judge?”

  “We were going to kill them all.” Oz ran a hand over his scalp, “and we judged Bishop, didn’t we?”

  “Like you said, when the facts change so does the plan.” I pulled the external drive from Bishop’s laptop from my pack and booted up one of the computers. The Harbour’s desktops were equipped with forensic search utilities. I jacked the drive into one and tapped keywords into the keyword search tool, including names of the three car crash victims. It found nothing, except for a mention of ‘Lois’ in an email. That was almost a year old. It might, or might not have been Lois Baker, the American EVOCATI.

  “This is all very well,” Oz sniffed, “but we need Monty and some power tools. Then we’ll get answers.”

  “I’d have said the same thing until yesterday,” I shrugged. “Now I reckon they want us to find Monty.”

  “Then let them,” said Oz. “You know we’ve got more than one way to skin that cat.”

  I nodded. We had a contingency as far as Monty was concerned, a gambit to be played once and once only. “Too risky right now.”

  Pulling up a chair, we continued scanning Bishop’s deleted email. One was from an encrypted sneakymail account. It was a list of names linked to professional networking websites. I counted a dozen, mainly people in IT and financial services. “Potential recruits?” said Oz, “Monty’s email mentioned tech specialists.”

  “Or targets?”

  “Bishop wasn’t a SCRIVENER, was he?”

  Oz had a point. GROUNDSMEN performed support roles, compartmentalised from The Firm’s other functions. They were separate from SCRIVENER, which delivered intelligence and targeting. “Google a few of ‘em, let’s see.”

  First on the list was Raymond Chen, British-Korean with an MSc in network security from Birmingham University. His Facebook photo showed a cheerful, moon-faced kid with a wispy moustache. I googled Chen and discovered he was very, very dead. An article in The Evening Standard online reported he’d died of a heroin overdose. His parents were shocked – they swore Raymond didn’t smoke or drink.

  Oz whistled through his teeth. “This looks like amateur-hour, Cal. Why stage an overdose on a kid who looks like butter wouldn’t melt?”

  “Staged? Who says it was an assassination?”

  Oz raised an eyebrow. “He’s on Bishop’s laptop, ain’t he?”

  I entered another name – Amarjeet Rajian was thirty, a successful quantitative analyst in The City. His professional networking profile mentioned a mo
ved to New York and a job on Wall Street. The guy was good-looking, with glossy black hair and a dazzling smile. Googling his name, he’d made page six of the New York Post. Rajian died in a motorcycle accident six months ago. He’d been taking an early morning ride and hit a truck. The truck hadn’t stopped.

  “What’s a quantitative analyst?” said Oz.

  “I think they figure out investment models,” I replied, “and suddenly it’s the most dangerous job since bomb disposal.”

  I tapped my way through the list. Eight of the dozen were dead. New York, London and Zurich featured heavily. They’d died in accidents, except for a guy who’d been stabbed for his wallet in East Harlem. Apart from their work, the victims had little in common.

  Oz pulled a face. “What’s the link between the ones who are still alive?”

  “Maybe Hugh can help.” I printed off the list and put it in my pocket.

  By the time we’d unpacked our kit, showered and made coffee, Juliet returned. Hugh was with her, a cap pulled low over his face. He looked like a schoolkid playing spies, a mischievous look on his face.

  I closed the fortress-like door behind him. “How did you get on?”

  “I might have something,” he replied carefully.

  Juliet put a hand on my shoulder and steered me towards the elevator. “Give the man a chance to sit down, Cal.”

  Hugh wore a laptop bag on each shoulder, loose shoelaces trailing across the floor. Unzipping a bag, he produced a chunky laptop and booted it up. One of the screens on the wall flickered into life.

  The words CIGARETTE SMOKING MAN appeared on screen in old-school digital font.

  “What’s this?” said Juliet.

  Hugh cleared his throat. “Well, for those of you unfamiliar with seminal 1990s Sci-Fi, the Cigarette Smoking Man was a key character from The X-Files.”

  “Mate, I’ve done a shit-load of tours,” said Oz, stretching out on a sofa. “Our squadron watched every episode of the X-Files on Op. TELIC 3.”

  “Must’ve been tough in the SBS,” I replied. “In the line infantry, we had to share a copy of Men Only and a transistor radio.”

  “You’ve gotta do something in-between bouts of awesomeness,” Oz grinned. “The Cigarette Smoking Man was a US Government agent. He worked for the Syndicate and fed tips to Mulder and Scully.”

  Hugh nodded approvingly. “That’s correct, Mister Osborne.”

  “I fancy Gillian Anderson, if that’s any help,” I said with a shrug. I like redheads, although to be honest I’m pretty keen on brunettes and blondes too.

  “Get on with it,” Juliet sighed.

  Hugh pushed his glasses back up his nose. “Cigarette Smoking Man, or CSM, is also the name of a private Darknet forum for elite hackers. Tropes of government secrecy and paranoia appeal to them greatly. Membership is exclusive. Some of the forumites have been active since the earliest days of the Web.”

  “How did you get into CSM?” I asked.

  Hugh wrinkled his nose at my cigar smoke. “I set the bastard thing up meself, back in ’97, when I was at GCHQ. It was an, er, hobby to begin with.”

  Juliet smiled on his behalf. “Hugh has a chequered past.”

  “I’ve never abused my position on CSM,” he said quickly. “In fact, many members simply believe in the purity of web privacy. Of course we’ve got shadier types, but those are the people I get the best information from. Take this afternoon, for example.” The big Yorkshireman flicked through screen-grabs from an online chat application.

  “Hugh’s work usually speaks for itself,” said Juliet fondly.

  Hugh beamed. “My username is Erlenmeyer. TrickorTreat is an American hacker. We’ve been friends online for, oooh, fifteen years. Trick is also the forum’s most notorious gossip.”

  ERLENMEYER: I’ve got a client in the automobile industry. He needs an expert to build a suite of secure engine management tools... any takers?

  TRICKORTREAT: Dude that’s so 2016. I’m hacking *airbuses* right now.

  ERLENMEYER: Hilarious. So Toyotas should be no problem.

  TRICKORTREAT: Just kidding. Let me see… the guy who loves that kinda shit is PanzerDragoon. He basically invented engine management hacks when he was at Boeing. Ain’t seen him for a while. Last I heard he was at Palmer-Locke.

  “PanzerDragoon?” said Oz.

  “It’s an old arcade game, based on a popular Japanese anime,” said Hugh. “Palmer-Locke, by the way, is a blue-chip American defence and intelligence contractor. They’re linked to the NSA.”

  ERLENMEYER: Yeah, he just dropped off the radar. What kind of stuff was he doing before Palmer-Locke?”

  TRICKORTREAT: He was with the crew down at Adelphi, military gig working on emergent systems, weaponised math and fifth gen warfare. Real Sith Dark Side shit.

  ERLENMEYER: That project folded right? He probably got fired. IIRC he was into that military-industrial paranoia groove in a big way. I’m amazed he even got the job. He’s a security clearance nightmare.

  TRICKORTREAT: True dat. He’s the next Saint Edward of Snowden.

  ERLENMEYER: What’s PanzerDragoon’s skillset? Need to sell this guy to my client.

  TRICKORTREAT: OK, he found automobile-sorcery too easy. He moved onto defence / aerospace, then figured out a sweet hack for the auto-turret on the T-14 Armata battle tank. He put it open-source, baby! I figure the FSB wanna kill him so mebbe that’s why he’s gone dark.

  ERLENMEYER: LOL I saw that. It screwed up the May Day parade in Moscow. Didn’t know it was him. How do I get in touch? I could put serious $$$ his way. Send me his email.

  TRICKORTREAT: Hmmm. He might be pissed. He’s so fucking precious. Do I get an arrangement fee?

  ERLENMEYER: Naturally. It’s a seriously big client. German. Vorsprung Durch Technik. He’ll be more pissed if he found out he *didn’t* get the offer.

  TRICKORTREAT: I guess you’re right. I’ll sneakymail you contact details.

  ERLENMEYER: Thanks. Will send bitcoins.

  TRICKORTREAT: I think I love you.

  Hugh powered down the laptop. “I did some work on the email addresses TrickorTreat provided. Suffice to say, PanzerDragoon’s real identity is Kris Pilbeam. His employment history is consistent, too, including Boeing. He’s an American systems penetration and network security specialist. He worked on the Adelphi team, got sacked then contracted for Palmer-Locke until six months ago.”

  “You think this guy is capable of killing?” said Oz.

  “I don’t know him well enough to say,” Hugh shrugged. “I’d describe his online persona as bipolar – ranting and raving one day, relaxed the next.”

  I pulled the crumpled sheet of paper from my pocket, the email from Bishop’s laptop.

  “What’s that?” said Hugh.

  “It’s a list of tech specialists,” I replied. “People on my old employer’s radar. There were twelve of them alive a year ago. Now there are four.”

  “Pilbeam’s on there, isn’t he?” said Juliet.

  “Yes,” I replied, handing her the list. “I think he’s working for The Firm.”

  Chapter ten

  Kris Pilbeam, AKA PanzerDragoon, could code by the age of seven. By fifteen he’d won an internship at Microsoft but was soon fired – like many geniuses he was difficult to work with. He went on to test systems at the Pentagon and US Nuclear Security Administration, easily penetrating both. Then he went dark for a couple of years, reappearing on the classified US defence project run out of Adelphi. I knew some of the shadier hackers crossed the line and worked for Government if the price was right.

  I put down the report Hugh had prepared and stretched, tapping my finger on the last sentence. “What happened then?”

  “Pilbeam drops off the map,” said Hugh, “he hasn’t posted to Cigarette Smoking Man for a nearly a year.”

  I looked at the images Hugh had found, scraped from the recesses of the Google cache. One came from a dating site for geeks. Pilbeam had a beaky nose and curly hair. His eyes were dis
tinctive – wide spaced and dark. His mouth was set into what looked like a permanent scowl.

  “Can you locate him?” said Juliet.

  “Not unless he wants to be found,” the Yorkshireman shrugged.

  I tapped the list from Bishop’s computer. “Yet he shows his last job at Palmer-Locke.”

  “Palmer-Locke is a client of mine. I’m surprised they took him on,” said Juliet. She sat next to me, running a scarlet fingernail down my list of names. “I can put a call into their Washington DC office.”

  “Would it look suspicious?” I said.

  “No. I’ll say we’re looking for a freelancer and his name came up.”

  “Do it,” said Oz.

  Juliet scrolled through her iPhone. She paced the window overlooking the Thames, talking quietly to a guy called Fabio. She said hellos in English and Italian. “I’m after a systems penetration expert. Someone gave me the name of a guy called Pilbeam. He used to contract for you, right?”

  Juliet put the handset on speakerphone, projecting a gruff New York accented-voice. “Yeah, I remember the kid. Kris Pilbeam. He’s an asshole, Jools. Gets fired by every company he works for. Hey, don’t get me wrong, if you’ve got systems vulnerabilities he’ll find ‘em. But he’s arrogant and obnoxious. I’ve seen mild-mannered people turn into the Hulk after five minutes with the guy.”

  “Fabio, I’m not after a people-person, just a decent hacker.”

  “He ain’t on our books. In all good conscience I can’t recommend him. Last I heard he went to work for a hedge fund in London. Don’t sound much of a match for his skillset, but who cares? He’s outta my freakin’ hair. You know he worked for the Department of Defence? And you wonder why we end up with assholes like Snowden?”

  “Fabio, don’t mention Snowden. Think about your blood pressure.”

  “Hey, you’re right baby. I’m gonna have a drink and think about something else. Donald Trump maybe, he freaks me out less than Chris-fucking-Pilbeam.”