Wreckoning

by Lee Harding

  Alana warmed to him immediately. He was the opposite of her in many ways; calm and unemotional about anything bar his work. During that first semester she acted like an unfettered wild-child. Finally free from a difficult family situation, she ignited whilst arriving at uni. Parties, clubs, and much, much too alcohol soon got her noticed and Professor Phillip felt the need to take her aside one day before the mid-term break.

  “Alana, I recognize talent when I see it and young lady you have it in droves,” he said.

  “Why do I feel there’s a but coming, Phillip?” She strained to keep her eyes open.

  “But your choices in life are undermining that and I don’t want to see you fail.”

  “You sound like my father.”

  “Well I ought to, after all he studied under me.”

  “You taught Victor?”

  “No, not your step-father. I taught Cameron Faith. Your real father.”

  Gobsmacked. Stunned. Stupefied. She couldn’t begin to choose an appropriate adjective.

  “If I recall he began in the same hazardous way on his life’s journey as you are now.”

  “My father drank?”

  “I often wondered if he ever stopped. Many times he was in a stupor as I waffled on at the front of the lecture hall. In the beginning it didn’t seem to affect his grades which probably gave him a false sense of security. But when those papers came back failed I knew he was ready for a chat.”

  Alana listened, her hangover forgotten.

  “After that he curtailed his late nights and knuckled down. He was an exceptionally bright and talented young man who I believe had a successful career.”

  It was true. When Alana was in her final year at secondary school she decided to investigate the man that had dipped in and out of her life more times that she could count. No one knew where he disappeared to and her mother feigned ignorance. Paula was worried and urged her sister to find him.

  She searched for his name online. A series of links appeared including a Wikipedia entry. She read that her father began a computer game company, partnering with a friend from his university class. They focussed on making puzzle games and soon had a major hit with an app called Block It where the player had to spin the cubes to solve the clues. Then a few years later after Alana was born and her mother was pregnant with Paula, the business suddenly went bust and both men were never heard of again.

  The other links were to pirated copies of her father’s games and also to the now defunct website of The Unbiased Reporter. Alana had felt the need to write a short obituary for the man she barely knew. Some articles also still existed of the tragic boating accident that took his life two years prior. He was fishing in a hired boat a mile off the coast of Devon when a freak wave keeled him overboard. All the coastguard found were his rod, waterproofs, and thermos. A body was never recovered which they assumed was washed along the English Channel. Paula was devastated and demanded a funeral service to take place. As the empty coffin lowered into the furnace, all Alana could see were the fishes feasting on her father’s bloated corpse. And it didn’t bother her one bit.

  Victor White was introduced to the sisters when Alana was fourteen, Paula twelve. Her mother had been on a few dates with a man from her church and decided to bring him home. Alana distrusted him immediately. She was always wary of men especially those close to her mother. Victor was a stranger and didn’t stand a chance. Paula always tripped over any semblance of a father-figure and hugged him when he walked through the door. Victor was her Sunday School teacher, not that Alana bothered with religion anymore.

  As the weeks and months went by, Victor became a more permanent fixture in their lives until one day Alana’s mum dangled out her left hand. Weighing down her finger was a diamond-encrusted ring with a yellow-gold band. They announced the wedding for the following summer. Alana did not take the news well. The head teacher of her school telephoned. Truancy, verbal assault, and smoking on school premises were some of the many matters raised. It took a firm stand one night between the two before anything would change.

  “I’m going out.”

  “No you’re not, Alana. You’re this close to being expelled,” Deborah said, squeezing her thumb and forefinger almost together.

  “I don’t care about school. It’s such a waste of time.”

  “Education is never a waste of time.”

  “Like it did you any good. You’ve an honours degree and yet here you are; a failed marriage and no job.”

  Deborah was seething. “I left my job to raise you and your sister. Do you think that was easy for me?”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t have kicked your husband out then.”

  Alana shied away as her mother raised an open palm. It hung in the air as tears trickled down Deborah’s cheeks.

  “After what he did he deserved to go. I was left alone to care for the two of you. I tried my best to deal with the mess your father left us in. I did it all for you and Paula.” She let her hand fall by her side. “I’ve obviously failed.”

  Alana wasn’t accustomed to seeing her mother cry. On the rare occasion she would catch her weeping in her bedroom while she prayed on her knees. She was usually so strong and resilient but that night Alana witnessed a broken woman.

  “Mum, you didn’t fail, I’ve failed you. I should have never said those things and I’m sorry.”

  She wrapped her arms around her mother’s shoulders. Deborah was shaking as she held her, the gush of tears blotting her t-shirt. She whispered, “I will try harder in school, I promise. And I’ll give Victor a chance too.”

  Alana, now ten years older, sat staring at her laptop as her mind focused on the present. A cup of coffee sat steaming beside her. She took a sip and opened her private email service. This address was originally set up in university and she shared it with a select group of friends. There was one unread message.

  Sent From: al@n.a

  Perhaps this is Professor Phillip’s idea of a prank, she thought and tapped to open the email. It had been sent a few days earlier and contained four simple words.

  Who was Cameron Faith?

  Her dead father’s name took her by surprise. This was definitely not written by the professor. She tentatively hit the reply button.

  Who are you?

  She clicked SEND. A few seconds later a new email arrived. Same format as before: no subject and sent from that odd address: al@n.a. The message was identical.

  Who was Cameron Faith?

  Usually this type of thing would be thrown into her Spam folder but the name of her father and her own name disguised as an email address unnerved her.

  Stop fooling around. Who are you? Why do you want to know about Cameron Faith?

  The email was sent. Almost instantly a reply came like the responder was waiting.

  Who was Cameron Faith?

  Alana slammed the laptop shut. She was shaking. Her first instinct was to contact Michael. But what if it’s someone playing a joke? she thought. I’ll look like a fool.

  The solution was simple. It had been two years since she last visited but Alana decided to go and see her old professor in person at Upton University.

  Chapter 11

  13th November 23:55

  Michael raised his arms and interlocked his fingers to form a bow in his spine. A snap of his vertebrae was followed by sweet relief through his aching muscles. He followed that by cracking his fingers then bent his neck to the left, then to the right, each twist accompanied by a crunch.

  It was his typical midnight routine to loosen up his joints for another hour’s work. He always assumed cracking his joints was one more brick that built the wall dividing him and his ex-wife. Michelle was forever scolding him when he popped his knuckles. Near the end he ensured she was within earshot when he did. It countered her constant nagging about needing more money. She had maxed out three credit cards yet demanded he buy a new Persian rug to match the silk curtains.

  Michael knew Michelle would be high maintenance from the mo
ment he set eyes on those luscious legs. They met while on holiday in the south coast of France on one of his rare sabbaticals. She was perched cross-legged by the bar wearing only a teal sarong and a black, two-piece bikini. Her long sandy hair fell braided to the nape of her pert derriere. Her thighs were taut and lean like she played tennis daily. He later discovered that she did.

  He was enraptured with the blonde goddess and walked to take the seat beside her without hesitation. He introduced himself and asked her if she would like a drink. A martini with a twist of lemon. Hard and bitter, he thought many years later, just like the woman herself.

  They found they had several things in common. He graduated from Cambridge as had Michelle’s father. She on the other hand left uni with dreams of becoming a fashion designer. They both moved to London in their late teens. Michael travelled the world as a soldier’s son and Michelle as a barrister’s daughter so their parents were professional people. Michelle enjoyed sailing, tennis, and swimming; Michael, rugby and athletics. They shared a passion for old movies and later that night over champagne and garlic oysters, Michael listened and laughed as Michelle recounted a hilarious scene from a Jerry Lewis film, the original Nutty Professor. She contorted her body like the comedy legend which made him bark with hysterics. Beautiful and funny; she was his dream woman. They swapped phone numbers and as soon as he flew home he sent a text.

  A whirlwind romance led to a dizzyingly fast wedding. He didn’t get to meet her parents who were strangely absent from the ceremony. Only his mother remained alive and kept her thoughts to herself regarding his stunning new bride.

  The cracks soon began to appear. After returning from their honeymoon in Manila which Michael had paid for by refinancing his home, Michelle set to work on remodelling the house. At first he was eager for his wife to feel at ease in her new home. After all she needed to stamp her seal on a place reserved for a bachelor who used it as a bed and breakfast. He returned from the Yard one day to find all the floor boards piled in a skip. Michelle had decided to replace them with ash which would better suit the new furniture.

  “But I only put them down a few years ago,” he argued, wondering what on earth had possessed her to do something so expensive without consulting him first.

  “You’re always at work and I’m stuck here. I have to live, you know.”

  Michael knew little of her family and she rarely mentioned them. He was aware they were wealthy and that Michelle was accustomed to a certain lifestyle. She never did pursue her career choice and instead concentrated on playing tennis and visiting the five-star gym with a personnel fitness instructor called Rufus. When she wasn’t sweating away his income she was burning it on the tanning beds. In any case, his meagre bank balance couldn’t keep pace and he managed to corner her one day as she was leaving in her pink spandex and the latest Nike trainers.

  “Michelle, we need to talk.”

  “Sorry babe, I’m late for Rufus. Bum and tum today.”

  “No, Michelle, not today. In fact, no more sessions with Rufus. No more tanning and salons. We can’t afford it.”

  Michael remembered the look on her face, like she had been slapped.

  “But your job–”

  “I’m a detective, Michelle,” he interrupted. “Not even an Inspector. Do you know how much I earn?” Her silence told him she did not and that it had never crossed her mind. “Not enough to cover the credit cards. We can’t afford to keep spending money we don’t have.”

  He wanted to tell her that regardless of the possessions he still loved her and if they became paupers living out of a bin he would be there for her. He wanted to but for the first time since Marseille his eyes were open and all he saw was a gold-digger. Unsurprisingly she didn’t say those things to him either and within a week they separated. Michelle left to live with a girlfriend in a luxury apartment in Mayfair and Michael remained in the house bequeathed to him in his father’s will. From match to dispatch the marriage lasted a paltry three years.

  Since then he had been on the occasional date. Always a blonde, always long legs. He was a sucker and he knew it. That’s why he made sure a relationship never developed and stopped at the second outing, third at most. He insisted on telling them in person, usually a partial truth that he wasn’t ready for anything steady which wouldn’t be fair on them. Another reason was his job, especially since he had been promoted to head his own task force. He simply didn’t have the time to devote to further headaches.

  Headaches or heartaches?

  Michael shook his head to clear his thoughts and tried to focus on the computer. He utilized one of the house’s four bedrooms as a study and preferred a desktop set-up rather than a laptop to work on. The minimalistic theme had converged into this room also: mahogany wardrobe, curved L-shape mahogany desk, plain white walls with a print of Domencio di Michelino’s Dante with his Poems in a mahogany frame. It helped to centre the mind. Plus it was the polar opposite of Michelle’s choice of brash pinks and oranges, not that he cared to be so petty.

  He slugged down half a can of energy drink and wiped his mouth with a tissue. A report was due for the morning. Olsen had sequestered him and his Chief Constable was furious. The fat walrus was demanding to be kept in the loop which meant more emails to placate him. At least the meeting with Jonathon Brown proved successful. MI5 had intelligence relating to the hacker known as Mr Knox. Although they had no name or photo, he was able to give him a list of Knox’s previous online history.

  Michael connected securely to his office’s server. Soon his desktop morphed into the one from his work. He opened the files sent by Brown.

  Mr Knox, aka Terrarizin, is a well-known cyber terrorist with a string of reported attacks on high profile targets. Offences range from hacking the corporate website of Coca-Cola to the theft of over £10,000,000 from phishing scams.

  Michael read the full document for the second time that day pausing at the part of affiliates.

  Knox has been known to work in conjunction with @LOLz whose members were arrested in a raid last year. Unfortunately, Knox evaded capture.

  Below that were listed the names and aliases of the four-man hacking group and one sprang off the page.

  “Robbie Clarke,” he said out loud.

  Clarke was a suspect in one of CTU’s first investigations; an online identity fraud case. Michael pretended to be an on-the-run convict who through an informer contacted Clarke to arrange for a new passport. Clarke boasted he could crack the new biocryptic chip the Government introduced as a ‘sure-fire way to prevent terrorism’. But when they raided Clarke’s flat they found no trace of anything illegal and after twenty-four hours had no choice but to let him walk. It seems the fish was caught on another line, Michael thought.

  He noted the name of the prison Clarke was being held in then pulled the file on the Wreckoning video profile. A top psychologist called Dr Janus Merkel had done a remarkable job analysing the first video and was currently busy collating his report on the latest upload. It verified everything Michael had shared with Olsen; a group comprising of four to eight people with one chief at the top of the hierarchy. That person was the main driving force behind the attacks and had a deep-seated aversion to the current political structures. The attack had been planned for a long time which meant the triggering factor must have occurred several years prior.

  Dr Merkel agreed that the leader of Wreckoning had been damaged personally by the press and had lost something of value which he or she now intended to redress. Unbeknown to the psychologist at the time he suggested it had something to do with a court case that destroyed the person’s life or livelihood.

  But this was no ordinary criminal. The video made that clear by stating they weren’t thieves, or the leader wasn’t at least. Perhaps it wasn’t a criminal case that hit the headlines but something of a civil nature; a high profile divorce or being sued for millions. Another attack was certain, however. The country’s justice system would suffer the same end as its press.

  To
morrow Michael would arrange to meet the head of Hydra Security’s British division. They handled all the IT support contracts for the police and the courts. When that contract was initially privatised there was public outrage that such a vital service would be in the hands of an American corporation. Hydra Security was a global brand and operated the mainframes and networks of law enforcement agencies around the world. They boasted a one-hundred percent success rate in deflecting outside attacks.

  Still, Michael had his doubts and wanted to ensure that everything was being done to prevent a full system attack. There could not be another assault like Guy Fawkes Day.

  As regards the offices of solicitors, barristers, and the British Bar Association he would issue guidelines regarding online security. A support line was being set-up with a team of computer support professionals answering calls. He prayed that Wreckoning were exaggerating as to the extent of their proposed targets. The attack on the press did little to console him.

  Before logging off he opened a special folder called KEY. This contained all intelligence relating to the enchanting Miss Alana White. He noticed Charlie had added a new document.

  Details of Alana’s personal and professional life stretched back to her childhood. She had a younger sister, two surviving parents, two aunts, a grandmother and a nephew. He briefly skimmed her early school reports which characterized her as a bright yet precocious child. Then something caught his eye. Alana had been referred to a psychologist when she was fifteen years old. The records for that visit weren’t among the other files. He made a note for Charlie to investigate further.

  His gut said Alana was central to the cyber-attacks without being aware of it. If he could solve that puzzle perhaps the other mysteries would unravel themselves.