Coding Isis (32 page)

‘We know who killed her, it was an accident.’

‘He sounded worried, listen to the voicemail.’

Chris dialed the number and listened to the message. He ended the call and passed the phone back to Michelle.

‘It’s probably nothing,’ said Chris. ‘He’s managed to find out about Jasmine and has somehow tied that in to Joshua. He’s worried I’m getting into trouble, that’s all. I’ll give him a call when we get back. Let him know everything’s OK.’

Michelle seemed to accept this but Wyn wore his puzzled expression, the one that usually preceded a statement of something quite profound.

‘What if?’ said Wyn as he chewed on a rib. ‘What if, it wasn’t an accident? What if your new boss really is a psychotic murdering bastard?’

‘I can’t see that, Wyn. They’re good guys. It was an accident.’

‘Yeh, but what if it wasn’t?’

‘Then I’m going to hit Joshua like an angry bird on a pig.’

Wyn and Michelle both stared at Chris.

‘It’s a game,’ Chris said. ‘Never mind.’

‘Seriously,’ said Wyn. ‘You need to spend less time with computers.’

They got back to the house and Wyn said he wanted an early night. Chris figured he was probably trying hard not to wear out his welcome. He thought that now would be a good time to make that call to Detective Naylor. He pulled his phone from his pocket and remembered the large number of missed calls he had. They were all from the same number, and he guessed that it was the detective’s cell phone. He hit the button to call the number. The phone was answered after only two rings.

‘Where the hell have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you all day.’

‘I’ve been working. At my new job, they don’t let me take my phone into the office. It’s a security risk.’

‘We need to talk.’

‘We’re talking now.’

‘I mean face to face, I don’t trust these damned phones.’

Chris thought about his employer and how they liked to eavesdrop on phone calls. Naylor was probably right.

‘What’s this about?’ said Chris.

There was a pause. When Naylor’s voice came back it was quieter, almost a whisper.

‘Not on the phone, OK? When can we meet?’

‘How about we meet up after work tomorrow. I try to leave around six. We could meet for coffee, or a beer?’

‘Do you know Union Jacks on North Glebe?’

‘Sure I do. Do they still do London Pride on tap?’

‘Sounds like you really do know the place. Meet me there at seven.’

Chris walked back into the lounge and found Michelle nursing a whiskey, curled up on the sofa. Chris grabbed a drink for himself and sat next to her. Michelle leaned over and lay her head against his chest. She smelled good, and he kissed her on the top of her head. She made approving noises and rubbed her hand across his chest.

‘What did he want?’ she asked.

‘He wouldn’t say. He wants to meet up.’

‘And you’re going to meet him?’

‘Why not?’

‘Why not? The last time that asshole got involved with our lives, you ended up in prison.’

‘That wasn’t his fault. He was just doing his job.’

Michelle sat up again and set her drink down on the low table. She shifted in her seat so she could look Chris in the face.

‘He said on the phone he thought you might be in danger. What was that about?’

‘It’s nothing to worry about. I think he was just trying to get my attention. Now how about you come over here again?’

Michelle leaned back in to Chris and he let his hand fall to her breast. She turned her head and looked at him and he kissed her. But the kiss didn’t turn into anything else and Michelle seemed somehow removed from the situation. Chris looked at her and studied her features trying hard to see what she was thinking. Maybe he
had
been neglecting her. That would be a first, taking marital advice from Wyn.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.

‘Nothing. I’m just tired,’ she said. She was lying of course. Ten years of marriage had meant a couple shared many things and amongst them was a certain ability to tell when your loved one was upset, or worried. Chris topped up his glass of whiskey and waited for Michelle to open up.

‘How much do you really know about the work you’re doing?’ Michelle asked.

‘I’m not supposed to talk about it.’

‘Oh come on, don’t give me that national security horseshit.’

Michelle set her glass on the table and moved to one side of the sofa so she could look at Chris; her arms folded across her chest.

‘No, I’m just saying, I’m not really supposed to talk about it, but I’ll tell you what I know, which isn’t a lot after one day, believe me. I work for a branch of the NSA. It’s a research and development project run by a man called Joshua Tully. They’re building new technology to help to protect the country from terrorists.’

‘How is this linked to you? And what about what happened to Jasmine?’

‘Their project is called Horus, it’s named after the Egyptian god of the sky, god of war, and the god of protection. They’ve used the facial recognition software that Jasmine and I built and have created UAV snipers. UAV is military jargon for unmanned aerial vehicle. You’ve heard of drones right?’

‘You mean they have robots flying around shooting at people?’

‘You make it sound worse than it is. The project is at a prototype stage, but yes they have small drone vehicles that use powerful camera and imaging equipment to track targets. They then use what is essentially a computer controlled sniper rifle to neutralize the target.’

‘Is that what happened to Jasmine? Was she neutralized?’

Chris took a long swallow of his whiskey. Michelle was slowly picking away at a scab that had managed to cover up his feelings for what had happened to Jasmine. She was uncovering a part of Chris’s life that he would rather remain concealed.

‘What happened to Jasmine was an accident. She had found out that someone was hacking into our computer system and copying our code. This was Joshua’s team of course, but we didn’t know they were doing this. They could have had the damned code, they paid for it after all. Jasmine tried to prove that the programming code was her creation and in order to do this, she accidentally loaded an image of herself into the targeting system.’

‘Oh my God.’

‘I know.’

‘She killed herself? Couldn’t they have stopped it?’

‘They didn’t know. The system is a prototype, it had bugs in it. They’ve built safeguards into the system now to stop anything like that from happening again. I made sure of that as one of my first tasks.’

‘Why did they have live rounds in a prototype system? Surely these flying killing machines can’t just take off and kill people without anyone having any input to the process?’

Now that Chris thought about it, it didn’t seem so clear cut.

‘It’s not just about acquiring a target. There’re a lot of sophisticated calculations go into firing the shot. Calculations for wind speed, humidity, if the target is moving. All of these factors need to be combined to allow a shot that no human could pull off. I’m guessing they needed to verify that the bullet would definitely hit the target.’

‘This is bullshit Chris. They can’t just go around shooting at US citizens.’

‘It was an accident.’

Michelle did not look convinced and Chris wondered if he was really convinced either. Michelle seemed to be reading the doubt in his eyes.

‘Are you sure you’re doing the right thing?’ she asked.

And there it was, the question that had been nagging at Chris all day: was he doing the right thing? How did any one of us know we were doing the right thing?

‘What is the right thing Michelle?’ he said. ‘I’m not sure I know anymore. The world has changed. Sneaky little fuckers crash airplanes into office buildings. Is that right? Bombers get on to buses. These guys don’t play by our rules. They don’t care who gets hurt and we need to fight back, we need to stop these people from hurting us.’

‘But what about the constitution? What about being innocent until proven guilty? What about human rights?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said. If he was honest with himself he’d been asking these questions all day.

‘I’m just doing my job,’ he said. ‘If it wasn’t me, it would be some other guy. They have some good engineers there. I have a good job, I’m well paid. We should be happy.’

‘You said
we
should be happy. Are you having doubts Chris?’

‘I really don’t know. How did I get into this? I didn’t wake up one morning and decide that today would be a good day to work on killing terrorists. Things move slowly, little changes, a bit of programming here, an idea there. Before I knew it I was up to my neck in this shit, and do you know what? I can’t get out.’

‘Of course you can honey. What are they going to do?’

‘I don’t want to find out. I just want to keep us all safe until I figure a way out.’

‘Can’t you go to the authorities?’

‘They
are
the authorities.’

Maynard walked into Joshua’s office and waited for him to finish on his computer screen. He looked up and gestured for Maynard to take a seat.

‘We have a problem,’ said Maynard as he sat.

‘Why doesn’t that surprise me? What’s wrong?’

‘Do you want the good news or the bad news?’

Joshua smiled. ‘Surprise me,’ he said.

‘The good news is that we’ve found a way to get phase two online quickly, in fact we’re ready to trial it now.’

‘That is good news. And the bad news?’

‘I think we might need to use it tonight.’

‘
Need
to?’

‘Remember that cop that’s been calling Chris?’

‘Detective Naylor.’

‘We monitored his calls and he’s set up a meeting with Chris tonight. He said he has something vitally important to tell him. He didn’t want to talk about it on the phone.’

‘He’s smarter than he looks,’ said Joshua with a grin. ‘Do you think he knows?’

‘He has to. God knows how he found out, but he knows. We pulled Michelle’s voicemail and yesterday he called her and left a message. He said he thinks he knows who killed Jasmine Allan.’

‘How the hell did he figure that out?’

‘He’s a detective. I guess that’s what he does. He could be on the wrong track but if he knows and he tells Chris, this could get messy quickly.’

The smile fell from Joshua’s face.

‘Take care of it,’ he said. ‘But only get rid of the cop. I think Chris has a lot of use left in him.’

Maynard nodded and turned to leave the office.

‘Oh, and Maynard? Make it subtle.’

Ben hoped that Chris would have enough faith to take his warning seriously, even though he had no evidence to give him. Margot had said there
was
no evidence, only the recollections of some that had known Joshua at the time, he’d been careful to ensure there was no paper trail. She wouldn’t reveal the names of her sources, despite his best efforts at persuasion which included another expensive dinner out. It seemed that even after all these years people were still afraid of Joshua Tully.

Ben was worried for Chris’s safety, but he knew that he needed to keep his warning discrete and allow Chris to make up his own mind as to the seriousness of the threat. He walked out to his Buick and opened the door. He’d long ago dispensed with the formality of locking it; he knew that if anyone wanted to take his car, there was little he could do to prevent it. His best anti-theft device seemed to be a permanent array of garbage inside the car coupled with an exterior that would turn off even the most desperate of crack-heads.

He turned the key in the ignition and the v8 engine burst into life. His car maybe looked like trash but it started every time. Ben gunned the throttle a little and enjoyed the throaty growl. He checked his watch, he needed to get moving if he was to catch up with Chris on time.