Blackout (22 page)

Jack looked back to the screens.

‘Why couldn’t we bring Hector here this time?’ Wren said.

‘We’ve been through this,’ Jack said, irritated. ‘We’re not showing him the bunker.’

‘But why not?’

Jack went to respond but stopped himself. It was pointless to keep having the same argument with them. ‘Now’s not a good time,’ he said. ‘Hector’s got a job to do.’ He looked at the others but they didn’t seem convinced by his response.

‘What happens if they get him?’ Wren said.

‘Who?’

‘Del Sarto’s henchmen.’

‘He’s with Slink,’ Jack said. ‘They’ll be fine.’

‘But they’re after the same thing as us,’ Obi said. ‘They want the virus too.’

‘We don’t know that for sure,’ Jack said, though Connor and his cronies had been strangely quiet lately. He looked at Obi. ‘Send Slink a message, if you want. Warn him to keep an eye out.’

Obi typed a quick message and hit Send.

‘Satisfied?’ Jack said to Wren.

She crossed her arms.

Jack refocused on the image of the corridor in the Nexus facility. This was going to be a challenge for Charlie to overcome.

Later, outside Highgate Cemetery, Slink and Hector were waiting for Jack, Charlie and Wren.

‘How was your shopping trip?’ Charlie asked them. ‘Did you get what you needed?’

Hector grinned. ‘No problems.’

‘Piece of cake,’ Slink said.

‘OK,’ Jack said. ‘This is Charlie’s mission.’

Charlie looked at the others. ‘Everyone clear on what we have to do?’

They all nodded.

Slink opened the gate and they walked through.

The graveyard was no less creepy the second time around. The sky was cloudy now and, without the moon, the only light came from their torches, which cast strange shadows over ancient stonework, monuments and gravestones.

They reached the ground above the target tomb and Jack and Hector crouched down. Slink lay flat on his stomach in between them and pulled himself over the stone lip, into the circular pathway of tombs. Hector and Jack grabbed his legs, stopping him from falling head first. Slink was now hanging upside down behind the camera trained on the entrance to the tomb.

‘Can you see it?’ Charlie whispered.

Slink pointed at a crack in the stonework at just the place Jack had worked it out to be. ‘It’s a wireless camera,’ he whispered. ‘I can see the antenna.’

Charlie leant over and handed him a small digital camera.

‘Can’t see how it’s getting its power though,’ Slink said.

‘It doesn’t matter.’ Charlie pulled a device with two antennae from her bag, put it on the ground and switched it on.

‘What’s that?’ Wren whispered.

‘Signal booster.’ Charlie opened her netbook and pressed a finger to her ear. ‘Obi, are you connected?’

‘Yes.’

‘Now you should be able to stay in contact with us when we go in.’ She opened a window on the netbook and the display divided in two. On the left-hand side was the guard’s view from inside the security room. He was still playing a game on his phone, with his feet up on the desk, while the other guard read a book.

Good, neither of them had noticed the camera on his cap
.

Slink got the digital pocket camera as close to the CCTV camera as he dared and, watching its angle, pressed the button and took a picture.

He then passed the pocket camera back up to Charlie.

Charlie checked the image against the feed from the guards’ room. She shook her head. ‘Angle’s off.’ She passed the camera back to Slink. ‘The centre line was OK though,’ she whispered. ‘Just need to aim it down a fraction.’

‘Remind me why we can’t just screen grab it from the guards’ camera view?’ Slink said, grunting and shifting his weight.

‘They’d notice a huge drop in the quality of the image,’ Charlie said. ‘We need a high-res picture to fool them.’

Slink took a breath, raised the camera and took another picture. He handed it back to Charlie and she checked it against the security feed. The two images looked identical.

Charlie quickly hooked up the camera to the netbook and uploaded the image Slink had taken. When it was done, she pulled a black cylinder, five centimetres long, with a button one end, from her pocket and connected it to the spare port on the netbook.

Charlie uploaded the static image and checked it, before finally disconnecting the cylinder again and handing it to Slink. ‘Should be good to go.’

Slink jammed the cylinder into the crack in the stonework above the CCTV camera.

He pulled back for a moment.

The cylinder was one of Charlie inventions. It had a powerful transmitter inside that would override the CCTV camera’s signal and replace it with the static image she’d just uploaded.

The only problem was that once Slink activated it, there was likely to be a flicker on the guards’ monitor.

Slink took a few deep pulls of air, preparing himself. ‘Tell me when,’ he said.

Everyone watched the display on the netbook.

The first guard was still playing on his phone and the second one was reading his book, but both monitors were clearly in their line of sight.

Charlie went to give Slink the thumbs up but stopped herself. ‘Wait.’

The first guard lowered his phone and glanced over the monitors, then he returned his attention to the game.

‘
Now
.’

Slink reached up and flicked the switch on the cylinder. The monitor in front of the guards flickered as it changed images.

Jack held his breath as the first guard’s phone lowered.

For several long agonising seconds, he didn’t move, then the phone lifted back to his face.

Jack relaxed. Charlie and Slink had done it.

The image on the guards’ monitor was now just a static picture.

Jack and Hector hauled Slink back above the tomb and stood up.

‘Phase one, complete,’ Charlie said, handing Jack the netbook. ‘Now for the next part.’ She looked at the others. ‘Let’s get in position.’

They walked to the edge of the circular path. Jack, Slink and Hector made their way to the centre circle of grass under the cedar tree and lay down on their stomachs opposite the tomb, while Wren and Charlie went right and disappeared into the darkness.

Jack watched the netbook display of the guard’s view. Now would be a perfect time for him to come outside for a cigarette, but that was hoping for too much.

The seconds dragged like minutes, the minutes like hours, and still the guard didn’t move.

Maybe he wasn’t a heavy smoker. Perhaps he’d only just had a cigarette. Or maybe he wasn’t going to have another?

Twenty minutes later, the guard stood up and walked to the door.

‘We’re up,’ Jack whispered into his microphone. His pulse quickened. They only had one shot at this.
One
shot. It had to run perfectly.

He looked up as the guard emerged from the tomb, glanced around, then pulled a lighter from his pocket and lit a cigarette.

‘Obi,’ Jack whispered into his mic. ‘Bring up the other cameras.’

Two more views appeared on the netbook’s screen. One was from Wren’s shoulder cam and the other was from Charlie’s.

‘Go, Wren,’ Charlie whispered.

Wren circled the tombs and, keeping low, crept around the corner, just far enough to see the guard.

She scooped up a stone from the ground and tossed it at the tomb door.

The guard spun, grabbed his torch, flicked it on and shone it in Wren’s direction, but she kept back in the shadows.

The beam of the guard’s torch swept from left to right.

Wren grabbed another stone and threw it.

The guard’s eyes snapped in that direction and he took several steps away from the door, searching for the source of the noise.

Charlie sneaked silently around the corner and darted into the tomb behind him.

Wren stayed back, still hidden, out of reach of the guard’s torch as he continued to look around.

Jack watched the view from Charlie’s shoulder cam as she hurried over to the keypad and pulled an exact replica of the keypad and camera she’d made. The only difference was her device was a fraction bigger.

Charlie clipped the fake keypad over the top of the original and switched it on. It glowed blue and, as far as Jack could tell, there was no way you’d easily spot the difference.

Charlie then pulled a smartphone out of her pocket and checked the screen. ‘No way,’ she muttered.

‘What?’ Jack said.

‘The camera on the modified keyboard isn’t working.’

Obi brought up a new pop-up box on the netbook and, sure enough, it showed a black square where the image was supposed to be.

Charlie stepped forward and switched the overlay device on and off again.

From Wren’s camera view, the guard had now given up the search and was walking away from her, back towards the tomb’s entrance.

Jack swore. ‘Charlie,’ he whispered. ‘The guard’s coming.’

‘I’m going as fast as I can,’ she hissed. Charlie tapped the side of the overlay but the camera image stayed black. ‘Stupid thing.’ Charlie lifted it off and checked the wires on the back. ‘It was working. I checked it like a million times.’

Jack looked to his left. The guard was coming around the corner. ‘Not enough time, Charlie,’ he whispered into the mic. ‘Get out of there.’

‘Wait, I’ve almost got it.’ Charlie pushed a wire and the camera sprang to life.

Jack could now see the image on the netbook screen.

Charlie quickly slid the device back over the keypad and grabbed her bag from the floor.

The guard’s torch beam bounced off the tomb door and Jack knew Charlie wouldn’t be able to get out unseen.

Charlie had obviously realised this too because she was turning on the spot, searching for somewhere to hide.

There were three coffins stacked on top of each other on the right and the same on the left. They were pushed right up against the wall so there was nowhere for her to hide behind them.

Suddenly, Hector sprang to his feet and ran off.

‘Great,’ Jack whispered. ‘He’s just abandoned us.’

Charlie squatted down in the corner of the tomb and switched off her torch, but it wouldn’t be enough. The guard would easily spot her. The best she could do was try to make a break for it.

Jack cocked his head to the side and was about to tell her to get out of there when there was a snapping sound.

Jack froze.

So did the guard. He shone his torch at the cedar tree.

Jack didn’t waste a second. ‘Get out of there, Charlie,’ he breathed.

There was another snapping sound – this time further away – and the beam of the guard’s torch moved in the direction of the noise.

Charlie peered around the door, then silently slipped out and ran the opposite way to the guard.

From the guard’s camera view, Jack watched as he stepped inside the tomb and closed the door behind him.

Hector reappeared.

‘That was you?’ Jack said.

He nodded.

‘Thanks.’

‘No problem.’

The guard typed in the six-digit security code and leant into the camera. His eye filled the window on the netbook display.

There was a short pause, then the LED turned green.

The door slid aside and the guard walked down the steps.

A minute later, Jack, Charlie, Hector, Slink and Wren were standing outside the door to the tomb.

‘Obi, keep us updated,’ Charlie whispered into her headset.

‘Will do. The guard is back in the room with the other one. All is quiet.’

Charlie opened the door to the tomb and they went inside.

She unclipped the overlay device she’d made and connected it to her smartphone. ‘I’m checking the code he typed first. It’s seven, seven, three, five, nine, two.’

Jack typed in the numbers.

Now for the really clever part
.

The camera in the overlay had captured an image of the guard’s eye. Charlie brought it up on her smartphone and held it in front of the keypad.

The LED changed to green and the door slid open.

‘Hurry,’ Charlie said to the others, and they stepped on to the metal landing. She pointed up at the camera. It was panning from left to right, but didn’t reach the part they were standing on.

Because the camera was moving, they couldn’t fix it with a static image and an alarm would sound if they tampered with the camera’s cables. So, Charlie had come up with a unique idea to solve the problem.

She looked at Slink. ‘All yours.’

Slink stepped on to the handrail and pulled himself up, using the pipes that ran along the ceiling. Hanging upside down, with his arms wrapped around the pipes in a bear hug, he inched his way along.