‘The files are full of code all right,’ William said. ‘But it’s not encryption, it’s genetic code, gene sequences. The letters represent the four amino acids that make up RNA, the genetic code of certain types of virus. Best we get them to the Defence Labs as soon as. They should be able to make some sense of them.’
‘As good as done. Then I’ll get cracking with that other thing for you.’ Ollie smiled to himself, but the pun was wasted.
‘Good. Let me know as soon you have something.’ William thanked Ollie and headed for the exit.
At the door, William thought of something else, he stopped and turned. ‘What do you make of Pinkerton?’ he asked.
‘Pinkerton? The old man? He’s all right I suppose. I never really have much to do with those at his level. Keeps himself to himself, very strategic, not really a hands on kind of guy. But he is a bit, what’s the word, status conscious. Been here forever it seems. Supposedly he’s turned down many a cushy little number in the private sector. Loves it I guess, or maybe he’s waiting for his knighthood before he moves on.’
William thanked his new friend again and returned to his office.
*
When William entered the briefing room on his floor, Pinkerton and a young woman were in the midst of a meeting. They sat opposite each other at a long wooden table in the middle of the room. The woman had short auburn hair, and her freckled face, though not beautiful, was noble. Pinkerton sucked on the end of his reading glasses while the woman sifted through some documents that were spread across the table. A presentation was projected onto a white screen on the wall.
‘May I join you?’ William asked.
They both looked up at him. The woman smiled welcomingly at him.
‘Agent Temple. Come in, please take a seat,’ Pinkerton said holding out his hand and gesturing to the seat opposite him. ‘We have just been doing a bit of research on your friend, the professor. This is Sarah Jackman, one of our top analysts.’
William recognised Sarah from his orientation day. She was a civilian intelligence analyst who worked in the operations support office. Her role was to run around for the field agents doing the valuable research work that supported their investigations.
‘We’ve found out rather a lot about the man, but nothing that takes us anywhere,’ Pinkerton added.
‘I’ve just been with TSU, sir. The chip contains files of genetic code. It’s Greek to me but it’s on its way to the Defence Labs as we speak,’ William explained. He frowned when he noticed a flicker of anger in Pinkerton’s eyes.
Pinkerton slammed his fist on the table. ‘What did I say about information leaving these walls?’
‘Sorry sir, but I thought it was best to get it across as quickly as possible given the circumstances.’
‘What circumstances?’ Pinkerton held out the palms of his hands and frowned questioningly at William. ‘Look, from now on everything goes through me. Do you understand what that means? You get the information, I process it into intelligence and disseminate it accordingly.’
‘Of course, sir. It won’t happen again.’
Sarah remained silent and kept her head down, she pretended to read one of the documents that lay on the table.
William tried to recover the situation. He was beginning to tire of Pinkerton’s outbursts. ‘The phone I recovered from the assassin in Vienna may well provide some actionable intelligence, sir,’ he reassured. ‘TSU will call me as soon as they have something, they’re working on it as a priority.’
‘Good, let’s hope it produces something useful. The police in Vienna are investigating the deaths, but I won’t hold my breath for any quick resolution. By the time they complete their paperwork this will be old news.’
Neither William nor Pinkerton were great fans of the justice system in any country. Bureaucratic judicial processes generally required black and white facts: evidence. It was far too slow a process for the intelligence game. Pinkerton had made some hard decisions based on the loosest of information. He never assumed that he always got it right.
‘Agreed,’ William added.
Pinkerton turned to Sarah. ‘Show Agent Temple the research so far,’ he ordered.
Sarah clicked the mouse a few times and her briefing slides appeared on the projector. Her work was thorough and highly detailed. After all, she had access to virtually every database that was of any intelligence use: all government owned records; banking data; flight bookings; phone records – the list was huge. The information that could be gathered on a person, literally at the touch of a button, was staggering.
‘Professor John Barry, codenamed Asclepius, was a British citizen who worked as Head of Viral Research at the University of Strasbourg in France.’ Sarah’s voice was soft, but she spoke with confidence directly and clearly to her small audience. ‘According to their Dean he’s been missing for about three months. They never reported it though, thought it was due to the pressure of his recent divorce, and compounded by his lack of progress on his research. It seemed he was on the verge of losing his funding and with it his reputation.’
‘He said the research was going well,’ William interjected.
‘So much for your debriefing skills,’ Pinkerton chided shaking his head.
William opened his mouth to fight back. He was beginning to despise the man. But Sarah quickly resumed her briefing.
‘No criminal records, no known criminal or terrorist associates. Finances appeared to be fine, no obvious debts other than a modest mortgage, but he stood to lose a lot in the divorce and even more if he lost funding for his work. More interestingly, he has travelled a lot recently. Especially so in the last three months. To the UK, France, South Africa, Croatia, Egypt and Moscow.’
‘Moscow, where he made the call?’ William asked.
Sarah rarely left any stone unturned. She smiled knowingly. ‘Yes, the dates match up.’
‘Have you cross-referenced the flights?’ William stopped and smiled appreciatively when he saw Sarah’s face light up again. He knew she was a step ahead. Another talented asset.
From under a pile of papers on the table Sarah picked up a printout and handed it William. ‘A man called, Abdul Haqq, was on five of the same flights as our professor. The final one was from Paris International to Vienna.’
‘Unlikely to be a coincidence,’ William stated looking over the document. ‘Anything on him?’
Sarah picked up another printout, a photo from CCTV at Paris Charles de Gaulle International airport. It was a good quality shot from passport control, a close up of the man’s face. ‘This is him,’ she said and slid the photo over to William.
William scrutinised the image. He’d never forget the man’s desperate look of disbelief in the brief moment just before he squeezed the trigger. ‘It’s him, I’m pretty sure,’ he said.
‘Pretty sure?’ Pinkerton challenged.
‘It’s him,’ William affirmed looking Pinkerton in the eye. ‘So, who is he?’
Sarah held her tongue and looked to Pinkerton.
‘Servant of the Truth,’ Pinkerton said. He looked at William and narrowed his eyes.
William shrugged his shoulders.
‘That’s what the man’s name means in Arabic,’ Pinkerton explained. ‘And he’s dead.’
‘I’m aware of that, sir. I was there when I shot him,’ William said with little regard for his obvious flippancy. He noticed Sarah suppress a smile.
Pinkerton was less than amused. He leaned forward and sneered. ‘What I mean, Agent Temple,’ he said sternly, ‘is that the original Abdul Haqq is dead and has been for some time. Whoever that man is,’ he pointed to the photo, ‘had stolen the dead man’s identity. So we’re none the wiser of who he really is, are we? A great job this is turning out to be.’ Forcefully, he sat back in his chair and sucked on the arm of glasses.
‘Do you have the passport pictures of everyone on the same flight as the professor and Haqq?’ William asked Sarah.
‘I can get them,’ she replied
and held William’s gaze for a moment. ‘You think the waitress who served you will be there too?’ Sarah smiled; it pleased her to work with such exceptionally bright field operators. It was a rare thing in her experience.
‘That’s what I’m hoping for.’
To finish off her briefing, Sarah projected an intelligence map of the case onto the wall. She walked over to it with a laser pointer in one hand. The projection showed little icons that represented all the known people involved so far, thin lines connected them to all the relevant information she had found. She had added the contacts from the suspect’s Skype application. Bit by bit an intelligence picture was built up.
Cases often acquired literally thousands of pieces of information: suspects, addresses, phone calls, money transfers, bank accounts and credit cards, flights, associates, computers. Every piece of information available was researched and logged. An electronic mind map showed all the data and all the links between them making it easy to see connections that would have been impossible to find in paper records that were feet thick.
Sarah spotted something that she hadn’t seen before and pointed to the map with the laser. ‘See the codenames from the phone contacts? Morpheus, Hades, Asclepius, Nike and Erebus,’ she said.
‘Yes. We know who Asclepius was,’ Pinkerton pointlessly pointed out. ‘And Morpheus, we assume, was William’s sparring partner.’
‘No, I mean the names, sir. Aren’t they all Greek?’
‘Greek gods to be precise,’ William interjected seeing the link. ‘Hades was the King of the dead. Asclepius was the god of medicine and healing.’
‘Morpheus was the god of dreams,’ Pinkerton added to William’s surprise. ‘A black winged demon. And Nike was the goddess of victory.’
‘And Erebus?’ William asked, feeling somehow that Pinkerton would know the answer.
‘Erebus was the god of darkness and shadow, the son of Khaos. Where we get our word chaos from. In fact about a fifth of English words still in use today originally came from ancient Greek.’
‘Fascinating, sir. Isn’t it Sarah?’ William said sarcastically trying to get a rise from her.
Sarah smiled at William and raised an eyebrow.
Oblivious to the subtle teasing, Pinkerton continued. ‘Asclepius and Erebus were primordial deities, gods that ruled over the workings of nature. Whereas Hades was one of the twelve Olympian gods, the gods that ruled over the people. They controlled love, marriage, war, all the affairs and journeys of human life.’
‘So there’s a pattern. The codenames are Greek gods. And where there’s a pattern there’s a key,’ Sarah said. ‘An old codebreakers saying.’
‘I prefer, where there’s a pattern there’s a reason,’ Pinkerton added. ‘We need to find that reason.’
They all looked towards the mind map hoping the reason would jump out at them. William’s phone vibrated on the table, he looked at the caller name before answering it.
‘I’d better take this, sir,’ he said and pressed to answer.
Pinkerton glared at him disapprovingly, William pretended not to notice.
‘Yes, good. Well done Ollie, great work. Call me when he moves.’ He replaced the phone then picked up the photograph of his attacker and examined it.
‘And who was that?’ Pinkerton demanded irritably.
William looked up innocently. ‘TSU, sir. They’ve hacked the phone belonging to the contact called Hades.’ He over emphasised the Greek pronunciation for Pinkerton’s benefit. ‘No subscriber details, it’s a pay-as-you-go SIM, and the payment method can’t be traced either. Nothing to identify the owner of the phone. But they have the IMEI number and have already geo-located it from the masts.’ William paused for effect before delivering the shocking news. ‘It’s here in London, sir. Somewhere in the financial district.’
‘By Jingo!’ Pinkerton exclaimed, he pulled the arm of his glasses out of his mouth and sat bolt upright. ‘We need to find him, urgently, and identify who he is. Exactly what part of the city is he in?’
‘The phone has been located down to fifty square metres. It’s in or around the Gherkin at St Mary’s Axe. But that’s still too wide an area to search, there are literally tens of thousands of people there at this time, and he could of course just be visiting or passing through. But when it moves they’ll track it and call me with updates.’
‘Good. Follow it, but do not engage. Got that? Just house him, that’s all. We’ll do the research on everything about him and then plan our next move carefully,’ Pinkerton ordered.
‘Any chance of a surveillance team? Maybe a bike and a chopper?’ William asked, but he already knew the answer. Pinkerton just shook his head. Resources were sparse and a short notice job had no chance unless an immediate threat was known. ‘Or how about letting Sarah out to help me? She seems like a talented girl. I could use someone to watch my back.’
Sarah blushed slightly at the compliment, and couldn’t help feeling a little excited at the thought of going out on an operation. But when Pinkerton laughed heartily, Sarah’s smile vanished.
‘She has a job to do here, and an important one at that. I need her in the office.’
‘Do you want a report for the IMS?’ Sarah asked collecting her things together. The Intelligence Management System was a secure global network used to disseminate and collaborate on intelligence material. It was a key tool used by all of the major NATO intelligence and security agencies.
‘No,’ Pinkerton said. ‘I’ll handle that. Right, let’s not waste any time. Get to it everyone!’
Sarah picked up her things and left the room. William was about to follow her out.
‘Wait here a moment, Agent Temple,’ Pinkerton said. He waited until Sarah had left before continuing. ‘Something worries me about this. Assassins, suicide pills, Greek gods.’ He shook his head and released a long sigh. ‘There are no reports whatsoever on the IMS about a virus plot. I’ve checked with the Company, the Mossad too, even the Pakistanis. There is nothing like this on the radar anywhere else.’
‘Do you think we may have a new terrorist group? One that’s right here under our noses?’
‘Terrorist group, doomsday cult, organised crime gang. Who knows these days,’ Pinkerton shrugged.
This raised William’s eyebrows. ‘Doomsday cult?’ he questioned. ‘Our very own Aum Shinrikyo?’
‘I’m keeping an open mind at this stage.’ The arm of Pinkerton’s glasses was, once again, inserted into his mouth. ‘I’ll keep my ear to the ground. In the meantime just find who exactly this Hades is, our lord of the underworld. And William?’
‘Yes, sir?’
‘Don’t kill any more suspects. That’s an order.’
‘Yes, sir.’
But William didn’t like to make promises he couldn’t keep.
Chapter 6
1232hrs – Cambridge
Curled up on her bed with a large furry teddy bear, a young Ella clasped her hands tightly over her ears. Tears ran down her pale face. The arguing had gone on for what seemed like all evening, it had started long before dinner. For weeks the shouting had been getting worse. Every day there had been an argument between her mother and father. Plates had been broken, doors slammed. Ella wondered if it was because of her, maybe she had caused it. They must have been happy before she came along. She wished it would stop. Anything to make it stop.
A door slammed shut, and then her wish came true. Finally, there was silence.
Stairs creaked, someone slowly climbed them. They paused occasionally. Ella heard sobs and sniffs. Her bedroom door opened and her mother stood in the doorway with her head down. She was crying.
Confused and worried, Ella ran over into her mother’s open arms. She pulled Ella tightly into her chest.
‘He’s gone,’ her mother snivelled between breaths. ‘He’s left us for good.’
Ella held on so tightly that her arms hurt. And then she cried, and cried, and cried.
*
Ella awoke on her sofa in the
lounge of her flat. She had only lain down for a moment, and must have drifted off. She sat up and rubbed her heavy, wet eyes. It had been a long time since she had dreamt about the day her father left.
In the kitchen, she made herself a cup of tea and sat down at the table. The radio played quietly in the background. In front of her was the red letter from the lawyer. She found herself staring at it, it pulled her in. It would be so easy to just rip it up and burn it, she thought. It would certainly end the worry that consumed her. But she was curious. She took out her phone and called Darren.
‘It’s in front of me,’ she said, bursting into conversation before Darren could even say hello. ‘I’m tempted to burn the damn thing.’
‘Calm down,’ Darren said, he recognised the tension in her tone. ‘Think it through, there’s no rush. Shall I come round?’
‘How dare he do this to me,’ she spat. ‘And after all this time. To just assume that I would care. I don’t care. Who the hell was this man anyway?’
‘Ella, he was your father. You can’t blame him for putting you in his will. He might have left some answers. Look, you know that you’ve only ever heard one side of the story. It’s not for me to say, but there are always two sides.’
Wiping the tears from her face, she reached for the letter. Her hand shook slightly as she held it up. ‘Sorry to vent off on you, Darren,’ she said apologetically. ‘But I know exactly what I’m going to do.’
She hung up and walked over to the cooker with the letter. She turned on one of the hobs; there was a brief smell of gas before it exploded into a crisp blue flame. She lowered the letter towards it, slowly. The corner blackened and gave off a white smoke, and then it burst into a yellow flame.
A moment later she whipped it away and blew the flame out. Wisps of sweet smelling smoke dissipated around the kitchen. She turned off the gas and quickly ripped open the letter.
Inside was a single handwritten note written in blue ink. The handwriting was messy, and there were smudges all over it. But it was readable. She read it out to herself:
The Secret of Hades' Eden Page 6