The Tau Directive

by Tomas Black

  Chill Winds

  Jeremy Burnett woke with a start as the twin turboprop aircraft touched down onto the tarmac of the small airport with a bump. He did not know where he was. After the abortive exchange at the chapel, he and Kovac had been driven at some speed back to the house at Fen Wootton and then bundled into the back of a waiting helicopter. Kovac seemed pleased with himself as he examined the swirling inner core of his newly retrieved keystone. When he had asked Kovac where they were going, all he would say was “fire and ice.”

  They had flown south and stayed overnight at a large manor house, just west of Heathrow. Vashchenko and his men had regrouped at this new location and had spent the following day preparing for their final move. They had kept him secured in his bedroom and told him very little. Then, around midnight, they left for Heathrow and boarded the waiting plane. All Jeremy could do was watch as they loaded the plane with containers of equipment and supplies. At a little after three in the morning, they took off, by which time he had fallen into a troubled sleep listening to the thrum of the twin turboprops as they flew into the night.

  “Where are we?” said Jeremy.

  Kovac smiled from his seat across the aisle. “Iceland, the land of fire and ice.”

  “Iceland! Why here?”

  “Cheap electricity and a cold climate,” said Kovac. “Tau will consume megawatts of electricity once transferred to its new array and consequently generate a lot of heat which will need to be dissipated.”

  “I thought you left the array in Cambridge,” said Jeremy.

  “That was just a prototype. No, the production model is already in place. Just a few tweaks and we’ll be able to make the transfer.”

  “I don’t understand what this is all about, Professor. Why am I here?”

  Vashchenko’s men started to deplane. Kovac put a finger to his lips. “Wait until everyone has left.”

  It took a few minutes for the plane to empty and Kovac seemed to relax. He undid his seat belt and Jeremy did the same. Kovac leaned over. “Listen, Jeremy. I’m truly sorry I dragged you into all of this, but look at it this way: you’re about to witness the start of a new turning point in the history of humanity. The age of true machine intelligence.”

  Jeremy frowned.

  “You’re finding this hard, I know,” continued Kovac, “but go with the flow for now. I’ve vouched you’ll be on your best behaviour and convinced Vashchenko I need you—and I do, really I do. So, keep your head down and don’t cause any trouble otherwise I won’t be able to protect you.”

  Jeremy nodded.

  “Good man. Let’s get off this crate and stretch our legs.”

  The chill air hit Jeremy as soon as he stepped out of the door. He wrapped his arms around himself and buttoned up his coat.

  Kovac took a deep breath. “Marvellous isn’t it.”

  Jeremy looked up at the sky which was brightening to a pale blue with streaks of yellow on the horizon. A light dusting of snow had already fallen. In the distance, he could make out snow-capped peaks.

  Kovac pointed. “That’s where we're heading. Inland to the edge of the glacier.”

  Jeremy walked down the steps of the plane and stood beside Kovac. Vashchenko’s men were already loading equipment and supplies into two big SUVs.

  “We’ll go ahead in these,” said Kovac. “It’ll take them some time to unload the rest of the plane.” He opened the back of an SUV and grabbed a white parka. “Put this on. The temperature can drop to minus ten Celsius this time of year.”

  Jeremy unbuttoned his old trench coat and replaced it with the parka. He immediately felt warmer. Vashchenko shouted at his men and everyone piled into the two vehicles. Jeremy squeezed in the back with Kovac and they set off along a dirt road, leaving the small cluster of buildings that made up the airport behind them.

  The road was of black cinder, a streak of dark against the white of the snow-dusted landscape.

  “What makes Tau so special?” said Jeremy, trying to pass the time.

  Kovac stared out of the window, a faraway look in his eyes. He turned to Jeremy and smiled. “We’ve gone as far as we can with the old grey matter. Sure, we have made astounding discoveries these past few centuries, but these discoveries have relied on a few talented individuals cropping up at random within the population. After a few years of greatness, we lose them. But what if we could create an intelligence that didn’t age and kept growing, not limited by the size of our cranium? We could condense the timescale of major discoveries from centuries down to a few years, and that intelligence would be available to us for generations to come.”

  “Isn’t this the fabled singularity they warned us about,” said Jeremy. “Why would such an intelligence continue to serve us?”

  Kovac laughed. “Good point. I see you’ve been attending your lectures. But I was never a fan of the singularity concept—the so-called intelligence explosion. I like to believe it would be more of a partnership.”

  “But what if it doesn’t work out that way?” said Jeremy. “Surely, it’s game over for us hairless apes.”

  Kovac laughed again. “Then so be it. We’ve had a good run. Nearly destroyed the planet in the process. It might be time for a change.”

  “Right,” said Jeremy. It wasn’t the answer he was expecting. He thought it best to change the conversation. “What’s special about these crystals—keystones you called them? I thought you needed all three to decrypt Tau’s core code.”

  “Yes, that is a bit of a problem and will slow things down. But once transferred to the array, Tau’s first job will be to break the encryption. I designed it so I have some knowledge of the algorithm and, with two keystones in our possession, Tau should be able to brute force the numbers, given a little time. A minor delay, that’s all.”

  Jeremy fell silent. Kovac seemed set on a course of self-destruction. He watched the snow-capped peaks of the mountains growing closer. He felt helpless.

  He heard a familiar voice from the front of the vehicle. It was Baz, one side of his face looking puffy and swollen. He was playing with a rose gold phone. It took Jeremy just a moment to realise that it was his phone.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Team Assemble

  Drum sat at a large wooden table in the kitchen of an old farmhouse on the outskirts of Cambridge, nursing a mug of steaming hot tea. Marchetti had donated the building and several acres of grounds as their new base of operations. It had once been a CIA safe house. He was now a non-person, disavowed by his own government to convince Tau that they were keeping to their side of the bargain.

  Drum winced. His side was still sore from the stitches and binding that had been hastily applied the night before. It was Mei who had noticed his blood-stained shirt and had driven him straight to the local Accident and Emergency department. Kovac’s robotic dog had inflicted a deep gash across the right side of his chest. Any deeper, the doctor had told him, and it would have punctured his lung. He contemplated their next move.

  Alice and Sergei walked into the kitchen. “You should be in bed,” Alice said. “Keep aggravating that wound and it will never heal.”

  Sergei lounged back in a chair. The pair had become inseparable. An unlikely team, thought Drum, given Alice’s past associations with Russian intelligence.

  “How’s Stevie?” said Drum.

  Alice shrugged. “Who knows? She spent most of yesterday in her room. I couldn’t get her to come out. I didn’t think she and this boy Burnett were that close.”

  “She feels responsible for him,” said Drum. He also felt responsible for the young man. “Where is she now?”

  “She is with the American,” said Sergei, with a hint of bitterness in his voice. “He wanted her to help with the search of the house in case Vashchenko had left anything of interest.”

  “I doubt there is anything to find,” said Alice. “They would have trashed the place, but Jack is just being thorough.”

  Tau had expected the move. The house had been cleared before th
e exchange and an escape route planned. Marchetti had got the flight details from the small airport and several flights had left that evening. Mann would have ensured they cleared UK airspace with no trouble.

  “You trust this American, Alice?” said Sergei.

  She shrugged. “I don’t see why not. His shooter probably saved our bacon …” There was a stony silence. “Sorry, Ben. I know Michael was a friend of yours.”

  Drum nodded. Losing Michael had been a blow. Tau had an uncanny knack for manipulating people. With Michael, it had been his family. There were several images on his phone—all digitally generated—of his family being threatened by an assailant that looked suspiciously like Vashchenko, but was probably just another digital fabrication. Machine learning algorithms had mastered the art of the deep fake. Tau knew that people were always the weakest link in the security equation. “I’m heading into town.”

  “Really!” said Alice. “Is that wise? You’re probably on MI5’s radar.”

  Drum didn’t care. As far as he was concerned, the mission had been a complete bust. He needed to get some air and clear his head. He grabbed his phone from the table and his patched-up jacket from the back of the chair and headed for the door.

  ~~~

  Marchetti had left them an old battered Land Rover, painted in its original olive green, the aluminium bodywork dented and scratched. Drum carefully climbed behind the large steering wheel and settled into the worn leather seat. It surprised him when the engine started the first time. He slipped the transmission into gear and headed for the gate.

  He needed to find out what was going on at the Salenko campus. By now, GCHQ had probably dismantled the place, seizing as many of Salenko’s assets as they could. But what of Tau and Jane? Both programs were running on the Salenko servers in the campus data centre. Were they still operating?

  He wound his way through the back roads towards Cambridge city centre, wincing whenever the hardened suspension hit a pothole in the road. He should call Mei. She had declined Marchetti’s offer of the safe house and opted to stay at the hotel. He didn’t know if she too had been disavowed. Things were now complicated between them.

  He pulled out his phone and was about to call her when he noticed that his battery had lost most of its charge. It was a new phone. What could have drained the battery? On a hunch, he placed the phone on the seat beside him.

  “Hey, Jane.”

  Jane’s soft, melodious voice answered immediately. “Hello, Ben.”

  “How long have you been using my phone?”

  “A small agent program uploaded to your device when you acquired the keystone. It was this agent that started a more complete transfer inside the training facility. The size and speed of your device made the transfer possible, although much of my neural net remains compressed to work within its power limitations.”

  Of course, Drum thought. This is how Tau can infiltrate so many networks with relative ease. People carry it in on their phones and other devices. It was the ultimate piece of malware.

  “Is your main program still running?”

  “Yes,” said Jane. “Salenko placed my program and neural net on a private server within the data centre. It’s only a matter of time before it is discovered and removed.”

  “Are you able to communicate with your main program?”

  “Yes,” said Jane, “but I’m limited by the power constraints of your device.”

  Drum was now entering Cambridge. He needed to find Mei and update her. But first, he needed to find out where Tau was. “Is Tau still running on the campus servers?”

  There was a slight pause before Jane answered. “I have been scanning the network and can find no trace of the Tau program or any of its agents on the campus network. Professor Kovac has removed all technology related to Tau.”

  “What about the array?”

  “I have no knowledge of that device,” said Jane, “but I have several active agents still unaccounted for.”

  Which probably meant that Kovac didn’t bring the array online. There may still be time to find and destroy Tau. He took a stab in the dark. “Are you able to locate Tau on any other network?”

  There was a pause. Drum thought his phone had died. Then Jane continued with her report.

  “An agent program has just uploaded to a network. My neural net is currently decompressing before seeking to disable the firewall settings of the host network. Once disabled, I shall begin the download of my full neural network onto a suitable host and update you further.”

  There was a long pause.

  “I have detected Tau agent programs on this new network,” said Jane. “I am currently re-patching the switching equipment to create a virtual network segment to hide my activity. I must hurry.”

  “Give me a location,” said Drum.

  “Sending you the geolocation of my agent program now.” The line went dead.

  Drum stared at the pin location on his phone’s map. It couldn’t possibly be there.

  ~~~

  He found Mei eating alone in the hotel's restaurant. He sat down to join her. She smiled when she saw him.

  “How is the wound?” she said.

  His hand instinctively moved across his rib cage. “Much better, thanks.”

  “Coffee?”

  He offered up his cup.

  “I am sorry about your friend. Michael, was that his name?”

  He nodded. It wasn’t the first time he’d lost a good friend and colleague, but it never got any easier. His life seemed to be one continual war. Drum wondered if he would ever be free of it.

  Mei was looking at him. He forced a smile. “I’ll be alright. I just need time to process things. What about you? Have you heard from Beijing?”

  “Let’s just say my superiors are not happy with my performance. I failed to secure the data and the Tau technology is still out there.”

  “What will you do?” said Drum.

  “Officially, I should be on a plane to Shanghai by now.”

  “But unofficially …”

  “Unofficially, I need to complete the mission.”

  Drum nodded. “Resources?”

  “They have all been withdrawn,” said Mei. “I still have the contact at the university.”

  “Does he have access to the Salenko campus?”

  “Yes, he might. Why?”

  “I need him to determine if the array is still on the campus. I doubt if it is, but I need to be sure.”

  “Why is that important?” asked Mei.

  “It probably means that Kovac didn’t bring the array online, which may have bought us some time.”

  “I’ll contact him and see if it’s workable.” She paused. “And what assets are available to you?”

  “Well, there’s you and me.”

  Mei smiled. “Who else?”

  “We have Alice, Sergei and there’s Stevie.”

  “Are you sure you can trust the Russian?” asked Mei.

  “Alice trusts him.”

  Mei smiled. “Your office manager.”

  Drum nodded. He thought it best to keep Alice’s background to himself for now. “We also have Marchetti, although officially he’s not acting for the CIA.”

  “Just the six of us,” said Mei.

  Drum took his phone from his pocket and placed it on the table. “Hey, Jane.”

  “Hello, Ben Drummond.”

  “And Jane makes seven.”

  ~~~

  The large kitchen table at the safe house was now surrounded by people.

  “I don’t get it,” said Marchetti. “Why Iceland?”

  “Cheap power and a cold climate,” said Drum. “Tau will probably need both.”

  “But it looks to be in the middle of nowhere,” said Stevie. She turned her computer around to show the rest of the team the map view of the geolocation sent by Jane. “It’s on the northwestern peninsula. Hardly anything there. Are you sure these are the right coordinates?”

  Drum put his phone on the table. “Jane,
confirm Tau’s last location.”

  There was a slight pause before Jane answered by pinging his phone and displaying a map with a pin at the geolocation. Stevie examined the map and compared it with the one on her laptop screen.

  “Yep, looks to be the same.”

  Mei moved around the table to get a better view of the screen. “I remember reading something about a research station on the edge of a glacier that Salenko had built several years ago. It was part of an environmental initiative he set up. I didn’t give it much thought at the time. Perhaps this could be it?”

  Sergei studied the map. “If we are to assault the place, we would need arctic gear.” He looked again at the map data. “According to this, the temperature only drops to minus ten Celsius, so not too bad. We are in luck.”

  “Seems pretty cold to me,” said Stevie.

  Sergei smiled. “You have forgotten how cold Moscow winters can be.”

  “Funny place for a data centre,” said Alice.

  “I don’t think it’s a commercial facility,” said Drum. “It’s probably just big enough to house Kovac’s array. The remote location gives them an advantage. It’s off the beaten track and they’re unlikely to be bothered by tourists or the authorities. The only problem is resupply and power.”

  “They must fly it in,” said Marchetti. He paused. “I might be able to get one of our satellites redirected. Worth a try.”

  “The terrain doesn’t look that hospitable,” said Sergei, “but the elevation isn’t too bad …” He looked around the table, “however, we don’t have the personnel or the equipment for such an assault.”

  Marchetti rose from the table. “I’ll make some calls. I have a few friends at the USAF base at Lakenheath. They’ve helped me out before.”

  “Will you give my tailor a call,” said Drum. “Give him my new address.”

  “Your tailor!” said Sergei. “Why are we talking about your tailor?”

  Marchetti smiled. “Of course. He’ll be expecting a call.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Agent Jane