Coding Isis (31 page)

‘Is everything OK?’ he asked.

She didn’t really know. Was everything OK? ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘I was just thinking we should be getting back.’

‘Thank you for showing me around today Michelle, I’ve really enjoyed it. I think as a treat we should all go out to dinner tonight. Chris can pay.’

Michelle laughed. She hadn’t laughed so much in a long time. She wondered when her life had gotten so serious. She punched Wyn on the arm. ‘I really don’t know why Chris puts up with you,’ she said.

Wyn pretended to be hurt and rubbed his arm. They walked to the nearest Metro stop and waited for the train.

‘Who was on the phone?’ asked Wyn.

Isn’t that just like him
, thought Michelle, he seems to spend all his time acting a fool, but then he said something that made him sound like a mind reader.

‘Someone I didn’t want to speak to,’ she said.

Joshua returned to his office to find Maynard waiting for him. He walked to the drinks cabinet and dropped ice cubes into a cut crystal glass, he looked up to Maynard.

‘Whiskey?’

Maynard nodded and Joshua made drinks for them both. Kilbeggan, finest Irish whiskey, poured over ice. He raised a glass and studied it, turning the glass slightly letting the ice crystals catch the light.

‘I think our boy’s doing well,’ he said as he handed a tumbler to Maynard.

Maynard held his glass up to Joshua and then took a sip of the whiskey.

‘He’s done some incredible things, I’ll give you that,’ said Maynard.’

‘But? You have concerns.’

‘Some.’ Maynard pulled a cable from his pocket and threw it over to Joshua.

Joshua snatched it from the air and examined it.

‘Key logger?’ he asked.

Maynard nodded as he took another sip of whiskey. ‘He tried to bring it in today. Said it was an extension cable for his keyboard.’

Joshua smiled, he seemed to approve. ‘You’ve got to hand it to him, he’s certainly resourceful. He can’t hurt us, you know. He’s playing with the big boys now and the NSA has forgotten more about computer hacking than he’ll ever know.’

‘I just think we need to be careful with him,’ said Maynard.

Joshua returned to the drinks cabinet and fixed himself another drink, he looked to Maynard who shook his head and held up his glass, still half full. Joshua had discovered from one of Maynard’s co-workers, over a year ago, that Maynard hated whiskey, but he always offered it and, to his amusement, Maynard always accepted. Joshua had made a big deal about importing this special whiskey from Ireland, in reality he was setting Maynard up. Trying to see how he would react when offered something he would feel obliged to take and enjoy, that in reality he would find nauseating. Now it had become a ritual, his favorite ongoing social-experiment. Was he trying to curry favor with his boss by sharing a drink with him, even though he detested it?

Joshua watched Maynard take another little sip of his whiskey and he smiled.

‘I’m worried about what he’s going to do when he finds out the truth,’ said Maynard.

‘He’s not going to find out. How could he?’

Maynard shrugged.

‘Besides, we’ll deal with that if it happens. It won’t be difficult to get rid of him, will it?’

‘I guess not. There’s something else. You know the data he’s been collecting to build the enhancements to the facial recognition system?’

Joshua raised an eyebrow.

‘He pulled a lot of data from your camera.’

Joshua nearly spat his drink. ‘How the hell did he do that?’

‘We never thought to shut him out. Anyway, he’s built a model of you, we think he might be trying to use your profile to extend his access into the system.’

‘Interesting. Revoke my security privileges back to his level. Set a flag so if my account is used to try to access anything above his clearance, we get an alert. If Chris wants to pretend to be me, let’s make sure it doesn’t get him anywhere—even if he manages to sign in as me, which I seriously doubt he’ll manage, all he’ll do is tell us he can’t be trusted. Anything else?’

‘We’ve intercepted some calls to his cell phone. That detective has been trying to get hold of him. He didn’t leave a message.’

‘Damn, that’s all we need. Set up a level-three surveillance on the cop. I want to know who he’s talking to. And get that second stage prototype running. There are too many loose ends; I think we have some tidying up to do.’

Chris collected his things from the drop locker before exiting the building. He looked at the key logger and smiled. It had been one hell of a day. He’d been so naïve to think he could crack their security using such a simplistic device. Sure it had been a tough day, but a good day too. He felt tired. Drained from the mental activity.

He looked at his phone and saw he had twenty-five missed calls. It was a real problem not being able to take his cell phone into the facility, but he understood why they kept such tight control over security. He’d have to let people know not to call him during the day on his cell, maybe he could change his voicemail message, or maybe Maynard could route his calls through to his work phone. He couldn’t face going through that many missed calls, and so he dropped his phone in his pocket and set off home.

When Chris entered the house, he heard the TV from the lounge and a faint sound of a shower running, he walked through and saw Wyn laying on the sofa watching baseball, the Nationals were playing the Red Socks.

‘Do you actually understand this game?’ asked Wyn.

‘Sure, what’s not to understand? It’s not as bad as cricket. How was your day?’

‘Good. Michelle’s a great tour guide, you’re a lucky guy.’

I
am
a lucky guy
, thought Chris. ‘Where is she?’

‘She went to get ready, you’re taking us out to dinner to celebrate your new job.’

‘Oh I am am I? Don’t tell me, this was your idea?’

‘Listen mate,’ said Wyn, ‘you work too hard. You need to relax, spend some time with your friends and that lovely wife of yours. She’s proud of you, and I think she loves you, but I have no idea why. But she’s also a woman, a very attractive woman and, if you ask me, she’s lonely. I don’t know what you see in those computers that means you’d rather spend a night staring at a screen, than staring at her gorgeous ass.’

‘Whose gorgeous ass?’ said Michelle. She was stood in the doorway wearing a bathrobe, a towel, and a huge grin.

Wyn was right. Chris knew he had been spending too much time at work. He walked to Michelle and kissed her. She was warm from the shower, she kissed him back with passion and Chris was beginning to wish he didn’t have a visitor in the house.

‘Listen,’ said Wyn, ‘unless you guys are up for a three-way, I suggest we go out for dinner.’

Chris and Michelle both laughed and looked at each other, then they hugged.

‘Sorry Wyn,’ said Chris, ‘I don’t mind shouting you dinner and giving you a place to sleep, but that’s about as far as my generosity goes.’

Wyn turned his attention back to the baseball.

‘I’m going to get changed,’ said Chris. ‘Are you going to change for dinner Wyn?’

Wyn grunted.

Getting the high-frequency radio beam emitter fitted to the UAV was going to be a challenge. Maynard had switched focus to this task now that Joshua had demanded the deadlines move, and he had a brilliant team, some of the best engineers in the world. The engineering itself wasn’t too hard, but the time frame was difficult. He had originally estimated six months to get to field trials, but that included a lot of prototyping, and additional safety concerns. He didn’t want a highly experimental weapon dropping in someone’s backyard. Now the timeline had been brought forward, he would have to cut corners. The team had been working round the clock and progress was going well. The guys had started calling this the “death ray”, which was funny in a way. How typical for people to make fun of things that were so serious.

Maynard studied the schematics. The main problem would be power consumption for the beam. To generate a beam of high enough intensity to be effective from their required operational range would be more than could be supplied by the current electronics. A whole new power plant had to be fitted to the device and, even then, the mean time to rearm was estimated to be close to twenty minutes. Michael, a young, but brilliant engineer, came up to his table, he seemed somehow excited.

‘How’s it going?’ asked Maynard.

‘Good. Well better than good, great. We’ve had a bit of a break through.’

‘Go on.’

‘We’re looking at getting phase two operational as quickly as possible, right?’

‘Correct.’

‘Well, as you know, fitting the emitter in to the armament housing is no problem, it was designed to fit that space. The problem is the power generation. We’re just not anywhere near finishing the generator.’

Maynard tried not to let his impatience show. No matter how brilliant these guys were, getting to the point was never easy. He nodded and waited, hoping Michael would continue.

‘This is where we had the breakthrough. What if we charge the capacitors before we fly? It would mean we get one shot and then need to return to base, but would that be enough? We could be operational in forty-eight hours, maybe less.’

‘That’s incredible,’ said Maynard. ‘Start working on it. I’ll let Joshua know. Well done Michael.’

Alessandro’s was not what you would call a fine dining experience, but Chris had figured that for Wyn, it was close enough. After all, this was a man who thought fine dining meant eating from a plate, rather than a paper carton. Michelle and Wyn had clearly had a good day and they were in high spirits, and now they waited for their first course, each nursing a chilled bottle of beer.

‘So what plans for tomorrow?’ asked Chris.

‘Dunno,’ said Wyn, ‘you’d better ask the tour guide.’

Michelle smiled. ‘I’m going to take our visitor to the White House tomorrow.’

‘What, inside?’ asked Chris. ‘I thought you needed to book those weeks in advance.’

‘Yes, normally you do. Dad knows a guy, who knows a guy.’

‘Wow. Makes me wish I didn’t have to work.’

Wyn took a long pull on his beer. ‘Why don’t you take a sick day and come with us?’

‘Wyn, I work for the NSA, the countries information gathering agency. Do you really think I can pretend to be sick and then go on a tour of the White House without them finding out?’

‘Hmmm, guess not,’ said Wyn.

‘Besides, I’m really into what I’m doing. Getting away from the lecturing side and being able to concentrate on research and development is amazing. I made this incredible low-light facial recognition algorithm today.’

Wyn and Michelle looked at one another, then both dropped their heads and started snoring loudly.

‘Okay, okay,’ laughed Chris, ‘no more shop talk.’

Their food arrived, spare ribs in barbeque sauce, buffalo wings, and a seafood salad for Michelle.

Wyn took a bite from a rib and then waggled it at Chris as he spoke.

‘So it doesn’t bother you that you’re working for a bunch of psychotic murdering bastards?’

Chris looked at Michelle, but she didn’t seem to react. She probably put this down to Wyn’s strange sense of humor and little else.

‘Come on, Wyn, they’re not that bad. Besides, you know that what happened to Jasmine was an accident. I did have my doubts, but they’re a great bunch of guys, working for the common good.’

Michelle looked up and set her fork down, as though she had suddenly remembered something. She fished in her bag and pulled out her cell phone which she handed over to Chris.

‘I got a phone call today from our friend Detective Naylor.’

Chris stopped smiling as the memories of the last few days crashed back, knocking his lighter mood away like a car being rear-ended by a Mack truck.

‘What did he want?’

‘It was something about Jasmine. He said he thinks he knows who killed her.’