Coding Isis (33 page)

The traffic was light as Ben turned on to Annapoli and headed towards Martin Luther King Jr. Highway. He started to pick up more traffic leaving the Springdale area and heading in towards the city. He approached the traffic lights at the intersection and slowed to a stop. He looked around and noticed a bum living by the underpass. He’d been a cop for too long now not to see the world through cop’s eyes. He couldn’t wait at an intersection without glancing around looking for drug dealers, hookers, or anything that looked out of place. In this case there was nothing unusual about a vagrant trying to get a dry place to sleep, although he was pretty sure the guy would be moved on before the next night. It wasn’t a good look for the nation’s capital, home to many visiting public figures to be seen to be filled with so many homeless, and yet, like every major city in the world there were homeless people, beggars, hookers, and other undesirables.

The lights changed and Ben pulled away from the stop sign and time seemed to slow, as from the corner of his vision he noticed a semi-truck and trailer thundering through the intersection at high speed. He felt his heart quicken and adrenaline pumped through his blood, seemingly giving him lightning-fast reactions. He stomped his foot down hard on the brake pedal and his car tires screeched in protest as they shed their outer layer across the asphalt. In reality the whole moment lasted a few fractions of a second, but in the adrenaline-filled brain it stretched out across what seemed like minutes. The ’65 Buick slowed to a stop and the large truck sped past with what must have been inches to spare. The force of the wall of air the truck was pushing before it made Ben’s car rock from side to side on its soggy suspension.

In a few seconds it had played out and now it was over and for Ben’s body it was payback time. The extra performance that had been borrowed by the surge of hormones had caused an oxygen deficiency in his muscles, his heart and even his brain. Ben felt his heart pounding inside his chest and he let out a deep breath.

‘Shit,’ he said. Ben had often thought that no matter what kind of drama came into his life, or that of any number of people he had seen go through dramatic situations, that one single word always seemed the most appropriate thing to say. A loud beep from behind helped him to snap out of his state of shock and he realized that his life’s small drama had passed and he was back to the reality of a frustrated driver angrily beeping in order to get him to move through the junction now that the lights had turned green. He carefully glanced right and left and then pulled off through the intersection.

Chris managed to get away from work at a reasonable time and he was pleased with how things were going. It had been another successful day. His programming work was going well and his teammates seemed amazed at what he was able to produce in such a short period of time. He liked the whiz kid status he seemed to have at this place. He parked in the Ballston Common shopping center’s car park and walked along to the Union Jacks bar. He’d been to this place a few times in the past, he should probably take Wyn to it. It had all the things he looked for in life: fried food, good beer, and attractive barmaids.

He walked in to the place and found it nearly deserted as bars often were at this time of day. It seemed strange to leave the early evening sunshine and enter the dark building with its wall-lighting and neon sign hung over the bar. A TV was mounted on a bracket so it could be seen from the bar and on it was a game of cricket, the sound was turned way down. The barmaid smiled as he walked up to the bar.

‘Hello love,’ she said. ‘What can I get you?’

Chris couldn’t work out if she really was a Londoner or if this was part of the theme for the pub. He looked at his watch, Ben should be here soon.

He ordered a pint of London Pride and the barmaid took a pint glass from beneath the bar and let the golden ale pour slowly into the glass. He hadn’t noticed when he first saw her that she was quite short, about five feet, the bottom of the tap was level with her eye line and she had to reach up slightly to pull on the pump. She looked up and smiled at Chris.

‘You sound like you’re from England,’ she said. ‘Are you here on holiday?’

‘I am from England but I’ve been over here for nearly ten years now. I work over at George Washington University, or rather I used to, I’ve just moved to a new building.’

‘What do you do?’

Chris thought of telling her that if he told her he would have to kill her, but then he realized that this was probably a little too close to the truth.

‘I’m a computer programmer.’

And there it was. The four words that were almost guaranteed to stop any conversation in its tracks. He waited for the glazed look, or the strange comment about her computer that had contracted whatever the latest virus happened to be but neither came.

‘I’ve done a bit of programming myself, mostly Java,’ she said as she placed the pint on the bar top. ‘That will be six dollars love.’

Chris was shocked and the barmaid clearly enjoyed his reaction.

‘So how come you’re working as a barmaid?’ he asked.

‘What’s wrong with being a barmaid?’

‘Nothing, I guess, it’s just, well, you know.’

‘So you think that serving pints is a menial job and that I should be sitting in an office hacking code all day long do you?’

‘Something like that, yes.’

Chris didn’t want to insult this lady, but at the end of the day, if she was qualified to work as a programmer, he couldn’t see why she would possibly be doing this.

‘I work in a bar because I like it,’ she said. ‘I get to meet people, I have a laugh, I make enough money to pay the bills. You may think that you can’t be successful doing a job like this, but how do you measure success? I think that having a place to live, food to eat, clothes to wear and waking up every morning feeling happy is as good as it gets. Do you feel happy when you wake up every morning?’

‘I guess not,’ said Chris. ‘But I am happy.’

He looked up at the TV, then looked at his watch. It was twenty past seven. Where the hell was Ben?

‘Are you expecting someone?’ asked the barmaid.

Chris nodded. ‘Yes, he was supposed to meet me here at seven. Has anyone been in or called.’

‘No, it’s been dead like this all day. I expect he’s caught in traffic. Do you want to see the menu?’

Chris declined the offer, he was pretty sure that Ben would be here any minute.

Ben continued his drive along the beltway, it had been a long day and he was feeling tired. He pulled into the exit lane and took his foot off the gas to slow a little. He watched as the needle dropped gradually from fifty-five to forty as the car swept around the cloverleaf.

Maynard was watching the detective’s car through the composite feed from the UAV’s cameras. The fidelity of the image was incredible and the new three-dimensional modeling that Chris had built meant that Maynard’s view of the detective in the driver’s seat was as clear and crisp as it would be if he was sitting on the bonnet of the car. The image of the detective’s face showed a cross-hair superimposed over his forehead and a blinking green indicator showed that the weapons system was online and the target was locked. There would be no recording of this test and Maynard was alone in the operations room. He lifted the safety cover and pressed the fire button. There was no ceremony and no second thoughts. He watched with interest, this was, after all, the first live field trial.

Ben’s expression didn’t change as the beam of ultra high frequency radio waves was targeted directly into his skull. The lack of reaction was consistent with some of the other tests Maynard had conducted; the victim didn’t feel any pain as there were no nerve endings in the brain. After only two seconds, Maynard watched on the monitor as Ben’s eyes rolled back and started to close. He noticed a trickle of blood appear from the detective’s nose and then his head slumped forward. Maynard knew that the next few seconds would be difficult to watch using the close-up image and so he switched to the long-view. The detective’s car tracked straight for a moment but appeared to be accelerating. As the road bent, the car did not steer and it hit the safety barrier at over fifty miles an hour. The car bounced from the barrier and skewed across the road to the other side, hitting that barrier and bouncing like a ball-bearing in a pinball machine. Maynard had wanted the car to flip, but he now realized that to get a car as heavy as that to turn over he would probably have needed a much higher speed and a road with fewer safety controls. The car skidded through 180 degrees and was now facing an oncoming stream of cars that had no chance to stop in time. The first car to hit the Buick was a large SUV which caused the front end to crumple and twist. The SUV deflected to one side which turned the detective’s car so that the driver’s side door received the full impact of the next car. Maynard grimaced when he saw the hit, although at the same time he felt the sort of thrill he got when watching a bone-crunching tackle in a football game. Maynard pulled back even further and saw the chaos spreading on the interstate as the accident spread further back along the road. He typed a command on the console that instructed the UAV to return to base. He was pleased with what had turned out to be another successful trial.

Chris had waited for nearly an hour before he reached the limit to his patience. More and more people had entered the bar and he had watched carefully, but there’d been no sign of Ben. He’d tried calling his mobile, but there was no answer. He’d returned his empty glass to the bar and thanked the barmaid, wishing her luck with her Zen-like existence. Maybe she
did
have it all figured out. He had more things to worry about. The drive back was quiet and he was looking forward to seeing Michelle again. He entered the house and heard the sound of the TV coming from the lounge. When he walked through he saw Wyn and Michelle sitting on the sofa. They were watching a news report of some cars piling up on the beltway.

Wyn looked at Chris and smiled.

‘You’re just in time mate,’ he said. ‘This is awesome. It’s total bloody carnage, just down the road.’

Michelle stood, and came over to Chris. She threw her arms around him and hugged him tight. She kissed him.

‘I was so worried,’ she said. ‘I’m pleased you’re OK.’

Chris was surprised and sat down on the sofa to watch the chaos that was filling the screen.

‘This happened in the last hour or so,’ said Michelle. ‘They’ve taken more than ten to hospital, and there are fatalities.’

The images were being filmed from a news helicopter hovering at the north-eastern end of the beltway. Chris sat and watched transfixed as the camera zoomed in to show the crumpled cars below and the firefighters working hard to free people from the wreckage. In an instant the camera showed what looked like a tan Buick that had been badly damaged and Chris felt dread when he saw it. He was pretty sure he recognized it as Ben Naylor’s car and that would explain why he hadn’t made their meeting today and why there had been no answer on his mobile phone.

Michelle looked concerned for Chris. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

‘I think I’ve just seen Ben’s car at the head of that pile-up. He didn’t show up for our meeting today. He said he didn’t want to talk over the phone and he believed I’m in danger.’

Chris stood and moved to the door. ‘Michelle, when I leave, deadbolt the door and don’t open it for anyone. Draw the blinds and keep away from the windows. I’ll be back in an hour. Wyn, look after Michelle.’

‘Chris, you’re scaring me,’ said Michelle.

Chris went to her and hugged her. ‘Don’t worry honey. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. At the moment I’m too valuable to these guys, but I’m guessing Ben wanted to tell me something they didn’t want me to hear.’

Chris turned to leave but Wyn stopped him and passed his phone over.

‘I think you should take my phone,’ said Wyn quietly, trying not to let Michelle hear. ‘Just in case someone is listening in on yours.’

Chris started his car but he didn’t know where he was headed. He couldn’t drive to the scene of the accident, that would be chaos and was likely to be gridlocked. He tried Ben’s mobile once more and still there was no reply. He called the main switchboard for the D.C. police and asked to speak to Ben, but was told that Detective Naylor could not be reached and he should leave a message. He didn’t want to leave a message.

He drove over to Stonghold figuring that Washington Hospital Center was the most likely place the casualties were being flown to. As he arrived at the hospital there was traffic everywhere. Ambulances were speeding in and out, he could hear the air ambulance helicopter’s rotors thumping the air as it took off from the roof and headed toward the north-east. He found a place to park the car but had to run a block and a half to get to the ER entrance. It was like walking into a war zone, or rather the aftermath of one. There were people sitting dazed, with cloths and bandages pressed to heads and limbs. They were the lucky ones, they must have been triaged and determined to be of low priority, the ones being landed on the roof were the ones that were clinging to what was left of their lives with whatever strength and willpower they could muster. There was a queue of people six deep at the desk waiting for their turn to check on their loved ones. Chris felt guilty now. He didn’t consider Ben to be a loved one, but he had a real interest in his wellbeing. If Ben had been killed, Chris needed to know as soon as possible because what he did with his life, how he kept Michelle safe would depend upon how quickly he could act.