The African Diamond Trilogy Box Set

by Christopher Lowery

  Ilona thought about his words for a moment. ‘For once, Hugh, I don’t appreciate your lateral thinking. If everyone who drives a vehicle has the idea of using it as a lethal weapon, the world will be in even worse shape that it presently is.’

  ‘Precisely.’ He stood up. ‘In any event, I hadn’t forgotten my appointment, although I rather wish I had. You know how much I dislike these left-wing journalists and their rose-tinted views of a utopian socialist world.’

  ‘I’ve sent you a couple of messages that I need an answer to, can you quickly look at them before the poor man arrives?’

  Middleton went into his office and opened his laptop. Amongst the several messages, he spotted an email from Billy Chillicott, with the subject ‘Elodie’ and an attached photo. He double-clicked on the photo, looked at the enlarged likeness of the attractive woman on the screen and froze at his desk.

  Dubai, United Arab Emirates

  When Ed left him, Daniel Oberhart called his father back to tell him about the probable A2 attack. It was not an enjoyable call.

  FIFTY

  Dubai, United Arab Emirates

  Friday, 16 July 2017

  ‘We haven’t been able to find anything on the hub ID. Sharif and I’ve taken the download data to pieces and there’s no clue there. Daniel’s here and he’s been working with us. I’ve told him everything and he wants to help us screw Shen and his conspiracy.’ Ed was in Tom Connor’s office, on the phone with Leo. Sharif and the CEO were listening, as were Abby and Coetzee.

  ‘Hi Daniel, glad to have you on board. I guess you’re a bit shaken up by what was going on?’

  The Swiss man appeared calm and collected, despite the overwhelming evidence of Shen’s duplicity shown to him by Ed, but behind the controlled facade he was seething with rage and shock. He was furious to have been taken for a fool by someone he trusted, and even angrier to find XPC involved in a potentially catastrophic global cyber-attack. He’d already shared the news with his father at MicroCentral, knowing it could ruin their three years of planning and work, but he hid his feelings and said simply, ‘You’ve been through a really crappy time, Leo, so don’t shed any tears on my account. What exactly are we trying to do here?’

  ‘We’re trying to find an access to the Lee-Win hub, so we can somehow block the trigger download when Shen tries to send it. We’ve had no joy on that, but thanks to Billy Chillicott we’ve found the cell instructions.’ Leo explained about Tsunami and the contents of the Russian-named file.

  ‘First it’s Chinese, now it’s Russian? What’s Shen got to do with Russia?’ Ed was getting lost in the ever-changing events. ‘Does it mean anything to you, Tom?’

  ‘I’ve never heard of any Russian connection. Nothing at all. He was appointed to the Lee-Win board in Shanghai in 2012, after the company changed hands, and then he came down here just before we opened in 2014. That’s all I know about him.’

  ‘Chillicott said something about a possible connection with the Russian Secret Service, but I don’t think it’s a proven theory at the minute.’ Leo shook his head in exasperation. ‘OK, let’s concentrate on the job in hand. Abby’s people are working on changing the trigger code. But we need the hub coordinates. Come on, guys, there has to be a way to get them. Any thoughts, Daniel?’

  ‘Shen sent the package from his laptop on Tuesday, with copies to no one, and he’s taken it with him.’ Daniel was quiet for a moment, then, ‘He would have to send it from his XPC address and not his personal account. It’s a highly valuable package of confidential software from XPC to its parent, so he’d have to present it correctly, otherwise the Lee-Win people would find it strange. If that’s the case, we’ve got it right here on the company server. Everything he’s ever officially sent to Shanghai or received from them. It’s all there in the Cloud, the great big filing cabinet in the sky!’

  Marbella, Spain

  ‘Patrice, it’s good to hear back from you. How is Madame Lee-Win?’ Jenny had been dozing on the settee when her mobile rang.

  ‘She’s in fine form today, less tired. I think she felt more comfortable with Junjie, her eldest son, being there. He went through her old files and found a copy of the Sale & Purchase Agreement for the business in October 2012, and the bank statement with the payments received by her. It was a huge deal, $2.4 billion, in six payments, although Junjie says his mother reduced the price because she was so concerned about her family’s safety. I won’t waste your time on the phone, I’ll scan extracts with the main items to you right now and you can go through them yourself. You know just as much as I do about such transactions nowadays.’

  ‘Well, certainly not at that level, but the principles are the same. That’s great, Patrice, many, many thanks. I’ll keep you informed of our progress, assuming we can make any in this complicated business.’

  ‘Is everything OK in Spain, Jenny? You sound a little tired.’

  ‘I’m fine, thanks. Just didn’t sleep well and it’s unbearably hot here. Don’t worry.’

  He rang off and Jenny immediately called Leo. ‘Patrice has received the documents concerning the Lee-Win sale. I’ll forward whatever seems relevant as soon as I get them.’

  ‘Great, tell Patrice I was wrong about him. Things are looking up, Aunt Jenny. We’re working on a counter-measure for the next upload aimed at that cell, and they’re searching for the Lee-Win hub coordinates on the XPC server. Marius says hi, and thanks.’

  Dubai, United Arab Emirates

  ‘There’s a call for you on line one, Mr Connor.’

  ‘I’m tied up right now, Nora. Who’s calling?’

  Ed Muir was with the CEO in his office. They were trying to decipher the conflicting information they’d found on the server concerning Shen Fu Liáng.

  ‘It’s Lee-Win, in Shanghai, Mr Han Wang Tāng.’

  Connor looked at Ed, his eyes raised. What next? ‘Put him through, please.’

  After exchanging the usual polite Chinese introductions, the Lee-Win MD and Head of Development said, ‘Tom Connor, I am calling you at the request of our chairman, Mr Bohai Cheong, who is listening on the loudspeaker.’

  Tom had only met the chairman once, when he’d taken the job, and knew he wasn’t comfortable in English. ‘It’s an honour to have you on this call, Mr Chairman. How can I help you, Han?’

  ‘You have already helped us more than we can acknowledge, Tom. As I said to Shen Fu Liáng this morning, your XPC team in Dubai has done a wonderful job. The new software is now in billions of our processors all over the world and the customer reaction is incredibly positive. Mr Cheong and I are aware that you have experienced several unfortunate events during the last few months, but you have overcome those problems and reinforced our global reputation once again. Thanks to you and your colleagues from everyone here at Lee-Win. Thank you, Tom.’

  Connor was trying to find the right words to respond when the Chinaman went on, ‘As you know, we sent out the upload at eleven o’clock this morning to respect the sixty-fifth birthday of our sadly deceased founder, Chongkun Lee-Win. Before leaving for his flight, Shen joined us for two minutes of silence at the celebration, and he advised us that your staff did the same thing in Dubai. Mr Cheong and I wish to thank you and your team members personally for your great endeavours, and for the respect and honour you have shown to the great Lee-Win tradition.’

  Ed wrote on a sheet of paper, Shen’s gone? Where? Celebration?

  Tom shrugged and said, ‘Han, Bohai, on behalf of our great team here at XPC, I thank you. Your call has given me enormous pleasure and I’ll be sure to share your remarks with all of them.’

  Han continued, ‘We want you to share more than just our praise with your team. Next week you will receive a special bonus amount to distribute to everyone according to your own judgement. This is a more tangible way of showing our appreciation and gratitude.’

  Ed wrote, These guys may be clean??

  Tom managed to continue, ‘I am so overwhelmed, I cannot find the words to express mysel
f. With your permission, I’ll call you back tomorrow when I have had time to appreciate this moment.’

  The call ended in mutual thanks and congratulations, and he put the phone down. ‘What the hell is going on?’

  ‘You’re learning how to be Chinese, that’s what’s going on. Well done, you gave nothing away. Now we have to work out what it all means. We still don’t know who we can trust.’

  ‘Where has Shen gone? I’m sure he’s not returning to Dubai, he wouldn’t dare.’

  ‘Who was he flying with?’

  ‘Probably Emirates. Company policy, best prices. I’ll check with Nora.’ Connor called his PA. ‘He had an open return with them.’

  ‘Let me take a look on your system.’ Ed went online on Tom’s laptop. ‘If he left shortly after eleven, he would have had a flight in the early afternoon. All the Dubai flights leave in the early morning, that’s out.’ He kept checking, then looked at Tom. ‘There’s a flight to Moscow at one o’clock.’

  Emirates Airline Terminal 3, Dubai

  The Emirates flight attendant showed Elodie Delacroix to suite 1A, in the front of the Airbus A380, and placed her only piece of luggage, her wheelie bag, in the rack above. She’d been advised that morning that the software had been deployed successfully, so her job in the Emirates was over. She hadn’t packed anything from the apartment, she wanted to forget Dubai, Shen and the last five years. Elodie was a beautiful, intelligent and experienced thirty-five-year-old woman. It’s time for me to start a brand-new life, without any baggage and with a big bank balance, she said to herself. She settled down for the six-hour flight to Moscow with a glass of champagne. Cheers. Here’s to a well-earned five-year dividend.

  Dubai, United Arab Emirates

  ‘We could have saved a lot of time if I’d thought of this earlier.’ Ed was embarrassed he hadn’t remembered that all their email correspondence was stored in the XPC server. Tom and Sharif were listening to the loudspeaker.

  ‘We’re rushing about like mad ferrets, so it’s nobody’s fault. Did you find what we need?’

  ‘There’s a whole raft of information on the server. Our upgrades package that Shen sent on Tuesday went to the Shanghai hub and I’ve got those coordinates, I’m sending them to you right now. Between us and Chillicott, we might be able to find a way in there.’

  ‘That’s cool. We’ll get working on it right away.’

  ‘Hang on, Leo. There’s some weird stuff on there we can’t figure out. Tom and Sharif are here with me.’

  ‘We’re getting good at doing weird. What is it this time?’

  ‘First, as well as the official stuff Shen was sending to Han Wang Tāng, there were some encrypted messages to another address in China: hoi.wei@sina.com.’

  ‘The guy who we think wrote the A2 code.’

  ‘Exactly. Problem is, we can’t see what they’re about, the encryption is good, that’s maybe why he risked sending from the XPC address.’

  Coetzee said, ‘Or maybe he just got careless when he thought everything was going so well.’

  ‘Maybe, Marius, he’s arrogant and stupid enough. Anyway, we didn’t want to send them down to you, you’ve got enough on your plate.’

  ‘Send them over, and Rod can have a look at them.’ Leo added, ‘He wrote a bombardment programme the other day, we might get lucky. Anything else?’

  ‘This next piece is really weird. There’s a file with a Russian name sent by Shen containing two unencrypted sheets of code. One looks like an early effort, and the other seems to be a corrected version. They’re both marked up, not final, which might be why he didn’t encrypt them, in case they got corrupted.’

  ‘Did you translate the file name?’

  ‘Sure did. It’s called Hub Manager, but we haven’t had time to try to rewrite the code to see what it does.’

  ‘You think the guy at Lee-Win’s been sending code to Shen, and he’s been testing and correcting? I didn’t think he had the capability.’

  ‘It’s not clear who was doing what, but that’s not the point. The thing is, he didn’t send them to Shanghai.’

  ‘Where did they go to?’

  ‘An address in Russia: patch@rostelcom.ru.’

  Coetzee interjected again, ‘Another Russian connection, that makes sense. But why would he send messages like this from XPC and not his personal address?’

  ‘Marius, you know better than any of us that everybody makes a mistake some time or another, that’s how criminals get caught. Remember?’ Leo went on, ‘And I guess you’re right, Shen never expected anyone to catch on to him until it was too late.’

  ‘Let’s get back to the point, guys,’ Tom Connor said. ‘It looks like there’s a definite Russian connection here and I’ve got some news that might confirm that.’ He recounted his conversation with the Lee-Win senior management. ‘We’ve checked the flights and Shen wasn’t flying back to Dubai. My PA went around to their apartment and there’s nobody there, it looks like Elodie’s gone missing as well. Chances are they’re meeting up somewhere, and we reckon it might be Moscow.’

  Ed added, ‘And it sounds like Lee-Win might be in the clear on all this, he was still lying to them today. Maybe they’ve been kept in the dark just like we have.’

  ‘We’re still making too many guesses,’ Coetzee said. ‘Send us everything you’ve got and Abby’ll get the team working on it, see if we can find out anything more. We’ll try to make sense of it, then have another talk.’

  Delmas, Mpumalanga, South Africa

  ‘Marius, Jenny just sent me the Lee-Win bank extracts with a note about Patrice’s meeting with Mme Lee-Win. What do you want me to do with them?’

  ‘Print them out and we’ll have a look at them. And forward everything to General Chillicott, and to Ilona at Dr Middleton’s office.’

  Leo sent the files on, and while the documents were printing, he said, ‘What do think about Shen going AWOL, and this Russian address he was sending stuff to?’

  ‘I don’t know, but I’m not surprised. Since we found that file with the Russian name I’ve been expecting something like this to turn up, Billy was already suspicious. We need to talk to him and Ilona as soon as they’ve had a chance to look at those documents.’

  Abby came over. ‘We’ve been testing our idea for the modified cell instruction, and it works. We can reconfigure it if we can get to it. But…’

  ‘But? It sounds like there’s a problem.’

  ‘Not with that, it’s something else. Rod’s been hammering away at those email files Ed sent over, without much progress, but he’s managed to open one file that wasn’t properly encrypted. It’s a message in Chinese that Shen sent to the hoi.wei address on Wednesday.’

  ‘That’s when he left for Shanghai.’

  ‘Right. I think he must have sent it in a hurry. Either that or he thought he’d won and was just getting careless. The translation is, “Expected Sunday, 12 p.m.”’

  ‘And your interpretation is?’

  ‘We’re wondering if Shen’s communications with that Russian patch address and this guy Hoi in Shanghai are linked. If Shen’s now in Moscow, that Hub Manager code might mean the trigger will go out from Russia via Shanghai, on Sunday at midnight.’

  ‘Have you been able to run the code?’

  ‘It’s a mess, Leo. We have to reconstitute it to find out what it does, and we haven’t had the time yet.’

  Coetzee put his arm around her shoulders. ‘That’s a pretty clever theory, Abby. It fits the facts pretty well. Unfortunately, it’s just a theory, and we’ve no way of validating it without more information.’

  ‘That’s the whole problem.’ Leo shook his head. ‘There’s still so many unknowns, and we can’t be expected to work it all out without some professional help. I think it’s time Homeland Security got involved. We’ve got to improve our chances of success.’

  ‘Do you want us to try to sort out that code now?’

  ‘You’ve all been here since dawn, Rod and Julia must be exhausted. If yo
u’ve finished the work on the cell, send them home. We can start in the morning, fresh and alert.’ Coetzee stood up and stretched. ‘We’ll see what these printouts tell us, then call Billy. It’s time he got off the pot. If he can’t get the US intelligence machine cranked up over everything we’ve discovered, then the world’s a much less safe place than I’d like. Leo, can you send him an up-to-date summary so he gets up to speed? Then we’ll see if he can walk the walk.’ He gathered up the documents and went into his office.

  ‘How’s it going, Marius?’

  ‘It’s going well, Karen, thanks to these brilliant kids. The problem is, I don’t know where the hell it’s going to end up.’

  Marbella, Spain

  It was a scorching day and Jenny still wasn’t feeling well, which was unusual for her. She had a headache and was feeling tired and listless. The prospect of a cool, shady corner in her little garden in Ipswich beckoned, and she decided to return to England. There was nothing further she could do in Marbella. Patrice had done his bit to help Leo and Coetzee, she just hoped they could use the information to stop whatever it was Shen Fu Liáng was planning. And she decided to have a stern word with her nephew when she got the chance, she didn’t like his line of business.

  She went online and found a last-minute flight for London the following afternoon. Jenny was looking forward to getting home.

  FIFTY-ONE

  London, England

  Friday, 16 July 2017

  Ilona Tymoshenko called on the phone. ‘It’s General Chillicott on the line, with Mr Coetzee and Leo Stewart. Do you want to speak to them, or should I?’

  Hugh Middleton had managed to recover from the shock of seeing that face on his computer screen. His interview with the journalist had helped, he’d enjoyed the opportunity to refute the man’s basic premise, that the Internet was a government tool introduced by the Conservative Party to create a right-wing fascist dictatorship in the UK.