Cyber Terror (7 page)

When Jordan saw what had happened to Captain Lazenby, he turned aside, unable to concentrate on the code for unlocking the car door.

Behind him, a man muttered, “It must be built like a tank. Hardly a scratch but... No seat belt. He’s all over the windscreen.”

“It’s awful,” said the woman standing next to him. “Poor man.”

“I wonder who he is. He’s in a uniform of some sort.”

The policeman spread out his left arm and pleaded with the nosy onlookers. “Back off. Give him a bit of privacy, please. And leave room for the ambulance.”

The sightseers shuffled away, but only by a few metres. They seemed to be transfixed by the tragedy.

Jordan forced himself to look back into the car. It was clear that, when the car had come to a sudden stop, Phil’s body had kept going. The airbag hadn’t activated. The passenger
hadn’t stood a chance.

Finally, Jordan summoned the strength and concentration to transmit the code and the doors unlocked. He couldn’t hear the quiet click because an ambulance was screaming up Prince’s
Street. It stopped in the middle of the road.

When the crew turned off the siren, the town seemed morbidly quiet. Two paramedics rushed to the side of Jordan’s car. Leaning in from opposite sides, they reached the same conclusion at
once. They went through the usual tests, but they already knew the outcome. When they stood up straight, they both shook their heads.

The officer showed them his badge. “You can’t do anything for him?”

“Sorry.”

The policeman let out a long weary breath. “Don’t move him. It’s probably a crime scene. But you can do something for me. I need someone to fix my arm. It’s fractured, I
think. First...” Seeing a patrol car drawing up, he added, “Let me brief the uniformed guys and call for reinforcements.” He turned to Jordan and asked, “Are you
okay?”

Jordan took his phone and said, “I’ve got an emergency number. I guess it’s time to use it.”

The officer nodded sympathetically. “You do that. I’ll get rid of the crowd. And send someone to the Town Hall when we’ve got enough people to deal with this.”

Jordan stared into the car where three crumpled photographs lay on the bloodied seat beside the pilot’s body. He would never know if Phil Lazenby had recognized the faces.

It was Angel who answered the Unit Red crisis number. Jordan tried to give his boss a clear account of what had occurred, but it wasn’t easy when his brain was blunted by numbness.

“All right, Jordan,” Angel said. “I sort of get the picture. Kate’s gone home and I don’t know where Raven is, but she’s not here. I’ll get myself
helicoptered over to you. Won’t be long.”

It was late. Very late. Jordan and Angel were the only customers in an all-night café. Force-feeding Jordan strong coffee, Angel stressed, “It wasn’t your
fault. It wasn’t as if you left the handbrake off on a hill. You just provided the car. Someone else was driving – remotely – and crashed it deliberately. It’s called sudden
unintended acceleration. I think we know who’s got the right bag of tricks to take control of the on-board computer. He used your car as a murder weapon.”

“But I left the captain there. If I hadn’t locked the doors...”

Angel interrupted. “You put him in what you thought was the most secure place.”

“I bet another agent...”

“Would have done the same.”

“But...”

“Everything’s easy with hindsight. You did a good job with the information you had at the time.” Angel lowered his voice in the empty café. “Anyway, I can’t
criticize. I said Short Circuit wouldn’t attack Lazenby again because that’d tell us too much about him.”

Jordan liked to think the head of Unit Red was infallible but, right now, he felt strangely comforted to know that even Angel could make a mistake.

“He was here, wasn’t he?” said Jordan. “Short Circuit, I mean.”

Angel nodded. “Planes take off from predictable places at predictable times. Even if they’re delayed, he can find out when to attack by looking at a departure board live on the
internet. He might not have to be anywhere near. Tonight was different. Lazenby getting into your car wasn’t predictable. Short Circuit would’ve had to be here in Ipswich to know. I
don’t suppose you saw anyone loitering around where you parked?”

“No.”

“He must have thought it was his lucky day,” Angel whispered. “No doubt, he came to see – or stop – Lazenby getting his award, found the Town Hall in complete
darkness and spotted his victim sitting in a car full of microchips. A gift.” He spread his arms in a gesture of helplessness. “You weren’t to know. It’s a worrying
development, though.”

“How do you mean?”

“He didn’t just knock out electrical components this time. Far more sophisticated than what he did with the planes. He got enough control over the circuits to start the Jag and
accelerate. That’s electromagnetic interference with the electronic throttle, I imagine. He wouldn’t need anything else, like steering or braking.”

“Does that mean he could...?” Jordan pointed to the side of his head.

“No. He couldn’t make you do things you don’t want to do. He might be able to take over your brain implants, but they don’t control you, so he can’t either. They
just help you to live. You’re a human being. You have free will.”

Jordan sighed and sipped more coffee.

“According to the local force,” Angel added, “one witness was a driving instructor, so we can probably trust his judgement. He said the car was doing about eighty kilometres an
hour and still speeding up when it hit the wall. That means Short Circuit disabled the airbag as well. He wouldn’t have hung around after that. He would’ve slipped away.”

Jordan asked, “What happens now?”

“I supply a story to the press. No mention of you and your car. A gagging order will take care of any witnesses who say something different.” He took a moment to think.
“Lazenby had a bit too much champagne at the reception and had to leave. Maybe he was called away unexpectedly to some emergency. He jumped into his car and drove on too much alcohol. No one
else involved.”

“Can’t you do it without blaming him?”

“I know it’s a pity to sully a hero, but... No choice, I’m afraid.” Angel finished his coffee. “A lorry’s coming over to take the Jag back. I’ll put
every engineer we’ve got on it. New chips from a different source – so they can’t have Trojans in them. Bigger, better security – harder to hack. Then we need a way forward.
You can put all this behind you by cracking on with the case.”

“I suppose.”

“Any ideas?”

“I’m not really in the mood.”

Angel nodded. “You have proved a link, you know. You were right. Picking on Phil Lazenby twice can’t be a coincidence. It looks like Short Circuit’s after specific people in
Suffolk, even if we don’t know why.”

“Or who’s next,” Jordan replied.

“Come on,” Angel said, getting to his feet. “There’s a chopper waiting for us.”

Jordan couldn’t sleep. His brain replayed the evening’s events over and over again. He tried to clear his mind, or think about something else, but, before long, he
was talking once more to Phil Lazenby in Ipswich and deciding to leave him in the Jaguar before returning to the Town Hall. The playback skipped. He was staring at the smeared stain on the
windscreen and the body that had been thrown forward at high speed before slumping back onto the seat and falling sideways.

Jordan was damp with sweat and he felt queasy. Some unseen torturer seemed to have placed a belt around his stomach and was pulling it tighter and tighter. Another imaginary band was squeezing
his skull.

Just as his bedroom curtain began to glow with morning sunshine, Jordan finally drifted into uneasy sleep. His internal clock woke him long before his body had refreshed itself. He felt groggy
and grumpy as he dressed. He had no choice but to get up, though. It was Sunday and he was due to meet Angel and Raven in the bunker.

They’d hardly begun to talk when Kate Stelfox called from the workshop above them. “I think you’d better come up,” she said. “There’s something you should
see.”

The three of them darted to the lift, went up to ground level and rushed into the garage.

Jordan noticed straight away that the engineers had cleaned the inside of his car thoroughly. The awful stains had vanished completely. Anyone examining the Jaguar would not find a trace of what
had happened to the passenger.

One engineer was delving under the bonnet, like a pathologist examining a dead body. An IT specialist was conducting a post-mortem on the car’s computer and black-box recorder.

Kate was holding three pieces of creased and tainted paper. “The photos you gave him, Jordan. Did you write anything on the back?”

“No.”

“Check out Paige Ottaway’s picture.”

Jordan took it in his artificial hand and avoided touching the brown bloodstain. He turned the photograph over while Angel and Raven, standing either side of him, watched eagerly. He caught his
breath when he realized that Phil Lazenby had jotted something on the reverse. He had written in clear block capitals:
FOREW
.

“Forew? Why did he do that? What does it mean?”

“Maybe it’s an acronym,” Angel said. “We’ll find out back in the bunker.”

“Is it a word?” Jordan asked.

“Not that I’m aware of,” Angel replied. “It might not be complete. Perhaps he was interrupted when the car took off. Apparently, he had a pen in his hand when he
died.”

Kate said, “Was he dyslexic or anything? Maybe terrible at spelling?”

“A pilot? Probably not. But we need to make sure.” Angel turned towards the door. “Come on. We’re going to look into the history of all four victims. That includes Phil
Lazenby’s writing skills.” Over his shoulder, he said, “Thanks, Kate. Carry on with the car.”

Back in the bunker, Raven soon completed a search. Scanning down the list of results, she said, “Forew’s a surname but it’s very uncommon. Mostly, the
internet thinks it’s short for foreword. That’s all. It’s not a known acronym. Hang on. I’ll double-check in a dictionary.” Her fingers flew across the keypad again.
“No,” she added a few moments later. “Nothing.”

“Okay,” Angel replied. “We’re not getting anywhere with it right now. We need a change of direction.”

“The Lemon Jelly song?” Raven suggested.

Angel groaned. “Now Short Circuit’s struck in Ipswich – not in the lyrics – the song’s probably irrelevant. A red herring. Let’s get to the point.
There’s got to be something common to Phil Lazenby, Victoria Truman, Carlton Reed and maybe Paige Ottaway as well.”

Trying to lighten the mood, Raven said, “Yes. He can’t just be killing the people of Suffolk for painting their houses that horrible pink colour.”

“He’s not doing it with an e-bomb either,” Angel said.

Raven nodded. “An electronic bomb would cripple Jordan’s car, not make it go. We’re down to hacking or a hardware Trojan. Although...”

“What?”

“If it was a Trojan, it was an advanced one that allows you to take control of a circuit board, not just kill it. I don’t know how, but rumour has it that they exist.”

Jordan shook his head. “I’m still trying to get used to the idea that it’s easier to down a great big plane than crash a car into a wall.”

“It’s not the size of the target that’s important,” Raven explained. “It’s the complexity of the electronic attack.”

“I guess so.” Surprising the other two, Jordan asked, “Is there a program called SetLink in my car?”

Angel didn’t know. He turned to Raven.

“SetLink?” she said. “Yes. It’s the industry standard for controlling systems, especially power.”

“Who makes it?”

“Why?”

“Because it’s been targeted by a hacker before. That’s how the power station in Edinburgh copped it.”

“How do you know?” Angel asked.

“I spoke to a cyber joyrider.”

He laughed. “Is that what they call themselves now?”

Raven finished reading a webpage and then gazed at Jordan. “You might have a point. It’s made by WT Gaming and Programming – a very small family business in Bury St.
Edmunds.”

“Suffolk?”

She nodded. “In one.”

“We were going to try HiSpec as well,” said Jordan.

“Home of a million microprocessors...”

“With a factory in Cambridge,” Jordan added.

Raven smiled. “I see where you’re going with this. It’s not far from Suffolk. It’d be easy to live in Suffolk and commute into Cambridge.”

For a moment, Angel paused. Then he turned towards Jordan. “I’ll find you another car, but it won’t be like the Jag. It’ll take time to replace all those microchips and
beef up its security, before you get the all-clear to drive it again. For now,” he said, “take the rest of the day off. It’s a weekend and you look terrible.”

WT Gaming and Programming was named after the joint owners: the Warner twins. Ian and Neil were wearing identical smart but casual clothes, identical spectacles and identical
heavily gelled hairstyles. They were obviously doing their best to confuse people. It also made them funny and sinister at the same time. Jordan could have been talking to one man standing next to
a full-length mirror, except that they seemed to take it in turns to speak.

“We don’t have a big crew,” Ian told him.

“Big isn’t necessary,” said Neil in an identical accent.

“Good is more important,” Ian continued. “We have few but good people.”

“But you did have a problem with SetLink,” Jordan said.

They nodded and glanced at each other. Ian replied, “When you phoned and said you’d got some information about a hacking incident, we were...”

“Intrigued,” Neil put in.

“Yes, intrigued. That’s why we agreed to see you.”

Both twins turned their uncanny gaze on him, as if they expected Jordan to tell them everything he knew. But he knew very little. He’d bluffed his way into WT Gaming and Programming.
“First, I want to ask you something,” Jordan said.

“Do you now?”

“Did you find out who hacked into Cockenzie’s SetLink?”

“Sort of,” Ian answered warily.

“He came to us,” Neil explained.