“Thank you, Nicholas. I will let the home secretary know you’re working on this for us. Better to have someone from the outside, since we’re not sure who we can trust in-house.”
Nicholas and Adam got to work, sweeping through the servers and into the individual terminals—of which there were thousands of possibilities.
Adam said, “I wrote a program that looks for the vulnerability. I thought you could piggyback on it with a variation that looks for those strange numbers, four-zero-eight, in Radulov’s base code.”
“That’s an excellent idea. Let’s get to it. You install your program, and I’ll work on a secondary sweep. When we disengage the code, we can upload our own, and we should have a fully encrypted communications system back online.”
Adam started typing furiously. A few minutes later, he said, “Uploaded. Ready for your code.”
Nicholas wasn’t quite ready, held up a finger to say wait, and Adam grinned at him. “Getting slow in your old age?”
“You know I can have you arrested, don’t you? I’m trying to understand the base code without the usual markers from our normal computer languages. It is genius, isn’t it?”
“It is. To develop a new system is advanced stuff, to rewrite the world of code is another level entirely. I can’t say I understand it all yet, though I can admire its architecture.”
“Ready,” Nicholas said, pressing the button that would launch his code to follow Adam’s into the system.
The terminal blinked, then went black.
“What’s this?” Adam looked at his screen.
They could hear voices in the hallways, people shouting. Nicholas went to the door, opened it, as Adam shouted after him, “A kill switch. They have a kill switch, and we triggered it. It’s melting down the entire system here. Oh, man. We are in serious trouble.”
And the lights went out at MI5.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
The peregrine, wrote W. Kenneth Richmond, is a bird of “perfect proportions and finely cut features, daring and intelligence, spectacular performance in the air and matchless execution in the chase—a natural aristocrat.”
—Helen Macdonald, Falcon
The Old Garden
Twickenham
Richmond upon Thames, London
Roman was in Radu’s suite looking at the computers when he saw the black spot start to filter through the Internet.
Radu poked his fist in the air. “Roman, they’ve activated the kill switch.”
“Good. That one’s for you, Drummond. That should keep you busy for quite some time.”
“But we are rendered blind, as well, now,” Radu said. “And they are aware of how we’ve killed. They know MATRIX is compromised. I’m afraid, Roman. After they figure out how to turn things back on, they’ll figure it out and they’ll come.”
Roman saw his twin’s fear, his face pale, his restless hands wringing in his lap, and set himself to soothe. “They will have no idea we’re involved, Radu. I’ve taken care of it all. When—if—they manage to get the systems back, everything will be wiped. There will be nothing to lead them to us. And the install I did will confuse them.”
Radu was shaking his head, his oily hair slapping his face. “Nothing seems to be going right, Roman. How can you simply sit here doing nothing and hope the FBI and Scotland Yard and MI5 look elsewhere?”
“I’m not doing nothing. On the contrary, they’ll be looking elsewhere very soon now. And while they do, I’m going to secure the lost pages for us. Then, Brother, we will have the means to cure you. It’s the only thing that matters to me. I am happy to let Radulov burn to the ground if it means your blood will be clean.”
Radu saw it—Roman slipped a microdose into his mouth.
“How much of that are you taking?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m in control. I’m always in control. I need a new batch made, by the way, with your special formula.”
“Roman. That’s two weeks’ worth of LSD you’ve consumed in two days. Even with the alterations I made in the formulation, you can’t keep this up. If you’re dead or in jail, having a cure won’t matter.”
Roman reached to touch his brother’s arm, stopped when Radu pulled away.
Roman turned and punched a number into his mobile. “Cyrus, it’s time. Yes. Yes, that’s right.”
He punched off, saw Radu was shaking his head.
“What do you have Cyrus doing? I don’t like him. He thinks I’m crazy, but I’m not. Roman, we don’t need him.”
“We do need him. Trust me. No one in MI5 and MI6 will be thinking about vulnerabilities in MATRIX—or us—after this. And Drummond will be elsewhere. It’s perfect.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Govan Shipyards
Glasgow, Scotland
Mike and Ben followed Chief Inspector Mackenzie to the far end of the shipyard to a huge building with no windows, no activity at all, and a brawny cop standing in front of the door, his hands behind his back.
He came to attention. “Sir. No one’s been around. The lock hasn’t been disturbed.”
Mackenzie said, “This is Inspector Lloyd Westcott. He and I will be handling this investigation. Caine and Houston, FBI.”
Westcott’s accent was thicker than Mackenzie’s, and he spoke quickly, so Mike had a hard time keeping up.
“Good to meet you. Chief, we’ve swept for booby traps, have put a camera under the door—all surreptitiously, though no one’s been around here. If they’re watching, it’s not obvious. Let’s go in, shall we?”
At Mackenzie’s nod, Westcott picked up a massive pair of bolt cutters. With a single powerful snap, he cut through the lock, catching it before it fell to the ground.
“In we go.”
And he lifted the latch.
It was pitch-black inside the warehouse. It smelled musty, with a thick overlay of oil. Nothing unusual for a shipyard warehouse.
Mackenzie raised a Maglite to shoulder level and thumbed it on.
Mike blinked. “All I can see are crates. There must be hundreds.”
“This warehouse is about sixteen thousand square feet. Not so big for the area, but big enough.” Mackenzie gestured to the first crate, and Westcott used a pry bar to wrench it open. It was packed with what looked like shredded cardboard.
“Oh-ho. What do we have here? Five guesses,” he said, pulling it aside, letting Mike and Ben look.
The crate was full of weapons. Automatics. Westcott moved things around carefully. “M4 carbines, twenty, twenty-five to a crate. I assume that’s not our only weaponry, considering we have variable-size crates in here.” He looked at his boss with a crooked smile. “Bugger me, mate. It would appear Paulina Vittorini was running guns right under the navy’s nose.”
* * *
They sat down with a pot of tea inside the Govan Shipyards offices. Mackenzie said, “The full assessment of the warehouse will take days, and we can start taking apart Vittorini’s books in the morning. I have a forensic accountant who is practically magic. If anything’s hiding in the company books, we’ll find it.” He shook his head. “I don’t want to believe this, I mean, Vittorini is a patriot, a local legend. I’ve always believed her above reproach. I can’t believe she’d be running guns to terrorists or countries that run counter to our beliefs.”
Mike asked, “Could she have been holding the guns for someone else? What we have to find out is where the guns were headed when they left the warehouse and who they were being sent to. When you find out, please notify us.”
“Yes, all right. When will you head back to London? Or are you going to stick around and lend a hand?”
Mike saluted him with her teacup. “As soon as we get confirmation of the poisoned needle and finish the tea, sir, we must be on our way back to London. We have to discover how Donovan, Hemmler, and Alexander fit with Vittorini.”
Ben said, “And we know they fit together. They all crossed the wrong person or people.” He started to pull his cell phone from his jacket, then sh
ook his head. “It’s very annoying not to be able to pick up a cell or the phone and call, update my team on what’s happening.”
Mackenzie laughed. “It’ll turn you youngsters into old-fashioned gumshoes, like I used to be.”
The phone rang, and Mackenzie, startled, answered it. He listened for a moment, then hung up.
“You can leave now, agents. The poison has been confirmed. As you said, the cause of death is the same as the other three. Tree frog venom, of all things.”
Mike finished her tea and rose, Ben following suit. “Thank you for your help, Mackenzie. We will be in touch.”
“Good. Let’s get you back to Prestwick and your plane.”
* * *
Clancy and Trident were waiting for them, but the jet’s engines weren’t running. Clancy said, “There’s a major power outage in London. We’re grounded temporarily. We can’t fly in. Air traffic control is in emergency-operations mode, trying to get the planes in the air onto the ground without proper communications. Even with generators, the entire airspace is messed up.”
“Do we have any way to communicate with Nicholas?”
“We can encrypt a call through the plane’s system and give it a try. Though if there’s no power, there’s no cell service, and the landlines will be out, too.”
“How did the power go out?”
“No idea. Radio traffic said it all went black, and—”
There was a squawk from inside the plane. “There’s good news. Someone’s trying to reach us.” They ran up the gangway, and Mike watched Clancy sit in the pilot’s seat and put on the headset.
“It’s Nicholas. He’s asking for you, Mike.”
He gave her the headset. “Hey, what’s going on?”
“Nothing much really, only a minor glitch. Adam and I may have melted down London’s grid, but we’re back up and running now.”
Mike burst out laughing. “You’re the reason London has no power? Why does this not surprise me? Those hoots and laughs you hear in the background is the team laughing at you.”
Nicholas called out, “All right, you baboons, why don’t one of you guys try to single-handedly—well, okay, double-handedly, since I have to include Adam—restore the Internet to a pristine state? Mike, I’ll explain it all when you get here. Our comms are now officially secure. We purged MATRIX off MI5’s servers entirely. Plug in your mobile and get back here right away.”
“If this is a secure line—”
“It is.”
“We found a massive cache of weapons. It appears Vittorini was running arms.”
“Was she now? My father will be interested in this news. Come on home. I’ll meet you at the house. We have all sorts of things to discuss.”
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
MI5 Headquarters, Home Office
Thames House
12 Millbank
Westminster, London
Harry Drummond was packing his briefcase to head to Clapton House, the flat he kept in Bayswater, when a knock sounded on his door, and an old friend’s face appeared.
“Harry, how are you? Do you have a moment?”
“Corry, I’m fine. How are you? How is June?”
“She’s bursting with health, as always. In Cornwall, at the manse. Mitzie?”
“At home, as well. Say, you look a bit peaked, are you coming down with something?”
“No, no, all’s well. What a few days. Terry Alexander, Chappy Donovan? Who would have thought they were capable of getting on the bad side of someone? Now Hemmler I never liked, he was a bad man, so I hear. But Alexander and Donovan? Ah, it’s scary times we live in, Harry.”
“And now Paulina Vittorini was killed up in Scotland, in Glasgow, at her shipyard—”
“What?”
Harry grabbed Corry Jones’s arm. “You hadn’t heard? So you knew her?”
“Yes, of course, most of us knew Paulina. This is horrible, Harry. Was it a drone, like the others?”
Harry still held his friend’s arm. “We believe so. Was she a friend of your family?”
Corinthian Jones, Lord Barstow, slowly shook his head. He made his hands tremble, his face pale. He wanted to send his fist to the heavens. Another down, another 150 million pounds for him. It was too easy manipulating Ardelean. He was so bloody predictable, so eager to kill when he believed he’d been betrayed.
Would Ardelean decide to cut his losses and kill him next? What if June were his next kill? No, he would decide how to get the drones to Africa, he would decide how to eliminate Ardelean before he figured out he’d been scammed. Maybe he would give Ardelean some of what he considered to be his own money, get him to turn over the drones, then he could kill him. He’d figure something out, something better. He always did. He thought again of his magnificent idea, an idea to make his ancestors proud, one to make him the most heroic, not to mention, the richest of them all.
He looked at his supposed friend, made his hands tremble a bit more, the older man so upset he couldn’t control himself. How he’d resented Harry Drummond all their lives, since they’d been boys at Eton. Smart, liked by everyone, the apple of his father’s eye, the sod. Tall, trim, good-looking, and holding up well.
Ah, remember what you’ve accomplished. You’re far more impressive than Harry Drummond. And smarter than the vaunted Roman Ardelean.
Barstow said finally, shaking his head, as if dazed, fully aware Harry Drummond was staring at him, “It’s simply too much, Harry, too much. I don’t know how much more of this insanity I can take. It’s simply so shocking. And all the terrorist attacks, the bombings, cars plowing into crowds, and now drones assassinating people—it doesn’t stop, doesn’t stop.” He fell silent, the picture of a man trying to pull himself together.
Harry cocked his head to one side. Certainly Corry was shocked, to be expected, but this? The look on his face, it was somehow too much. What was going on here?
Barstow drew a deep breath. “Well, I’ve worried you, I see. I was coming by simply to tell you I’ve put in for leave. I thought I’d take June to Italy. She’s been after me for months to take a break, says I’m working too hard.”
Harry nodded, searching his old friend’s face. “Perhaps she’s right. Perhaps a change of scene would be good for you. I know personally I’m working harder now as a consultant than I did as an employee of the Crown. It appears you are, as well.”
“I’d wondered why you came back, Harry.”
“The PM convinced me I was needed, supposedly to relieve some of the pressure on the home secretary, help with the fallout from Brexit and the new terror norms. But that has taken a back burner. Turns out our systems have all been hacked—”
“I wondered about the sudden blackout. You know what happened?”
Harry shook his head. “I know it’s fixed now, my son and one of his team, both computer geniuses, sorted it. There’s so much more, but it needn’t concern you. How are things in MI6 now?”
“As insane as they are here, of course. Speaking of, I should be on my way.” Barstow stopped at the doorway. “It’s good to see you, Harry. We should do lunch sometime soon. Or you could come out to Cornwall, bring Mitzie. She and June could rattle around, and we could go fishing. It’s been too long.”
“Yes, it has. When things calm down, I’ll be in touch.”
“Good, good.”
But he lingered, and Harry watched him for a few moments. He’d been pale, upset, but now he looked once again a man in charge. Barstow went out the door, his step quick and firm, shoulders straight, and disappeared into the hallway.
What was that all about? Harry’s phone began to ring. He recognized the extension. The home secretary.
“Drummond, there’s been a bombing in Kent. Near the Folkestone station. Apparently, the train had just left the station when the bomb went off.”
No, surely not— “It was heading into the Channel Tunnel?”
“We don’t know yet, still assessing, no way to get figures without someone on-site. I’ve acti
vated the emergency network. I trust you’ll know more shortly. The first responders are on site. Terrible few days.”
“Thank you for informing me. I’ll be in touch as soon as I know the extent of the attack. Is anyone claiming it?”
The home secretary sounded tired, harassed. “No one yet. I’m sure that will come soon enough.”
Harry punched off. What was happening? Vittorini murdered in Glasgow, and now a possible bomb on the Chunnel train?
He locked his safe, an automatic reflex, and ran out of his office, toward the command center. Barstow was by the elevator. “What’s happened?”
“Bombing in Kent. Eurostar train.”
Barstow stilled. “So much for leave—I’d best go check things out. Will let you know if I hear anything of use.”
Barstow stepped into the elevator, his brain screaming. Roman, who did you want dead now? Who? Or have you figured it out? Is this is your final warning? Next, it’s me if I don’t get you the money?
In his gut, Barstow knew it was Roman’s doing—and what if the train had exploded in the Chunnel? To have a bomb go off 150 feet underwater? Barstow shuddered at the thought. It was bad enough to have a Eurostar be blown up as it was leaving the station, but add to that the damage to the infrastructure. You deserve to die for this, Roman, you deserve it. Now I have to figure out how to make it happen.
Harry looked back once as the elevator closed on his friend Corinthian Jones. What was wrong with the man? No time to worry about it now. When he walked into the command center, images were flooding the wall screens. It was a nightmare scene, twisted metal and shattered glass, the train bent and on its side. Harry didn’t interrupt the frantic group of people to announce his presence. They knew what to do, had been well trained. He listened to the varied accounts as they came in, assembling a timeline in his head. Ian came to stand beside him, taking notes.
“First reports of injuries are coming in, sir. Miraculously, only a few people are injured, though two have been taken to hospital with burns and are listed in critical condition.”