Tag - A Technothriller (34 page)

“Joan Johnson, CNNI. Sir Thomas, can you tell us how many of these Hawks are out there and how long have they been in existence?”

Sir Thomas nodded, his almost bald head shining bright with sweat under the lights in the room, even though the temperature of the room was ambient for all.

“The Hawks originate in the traditional criminal gangs that existed in the early twentieth century and in some cases before that. We believe their number to be in the tens of thousands, however the leadership is only a couple of thousand at most. They operate in distributed cells so that it is hard to trace one gang of Hawks to another. The leaders are also a cell, and recently we contained one of the ring leaders. It was his escape that provided us with the ability to track down these other ring leaders and once we cut the head off the snake, the body will die.”

This comment caused a flurry of hands to go up, but Stephanie calmly picked her choices.

“Andy?”

“Yes. Andy McDowel, GNC. The criminal that escaped from New Singapore, has he been arrested yet?”

Sir Thomas smiled his tight little smile with his hands clasped together on the table. The smile disappeared and he said, “I am not at liberty to discuss the current operations against the Hawks as that would endanger UNPOL personnel in the field. We are making solid progress in the case and have identified a number of individuals that we would like to interview. However our initial focus will be the elements inside UNPOL that have been obstructing the course of justice. What I can disclose to you is that the criminal who escaped was not called Jibril Muraz. His real name is Gabriel Zumar and he is a high-level Hawk. As such he is extremely dangerous and believed to be armed at all times. If you are a member of the public do not attempt to approach this man but do inform an UNPOL officer as soon as possible without placing yourself at risk.”

Stephanie stood up on her toes and pointed to a man at the rear of the room with his hand up waving at her. “Yes, sir. What is your question?”

“Mr Secretary General, I, er, sorry, Malcom Nkose of the New African Centinal. Mr Secretary General, martial law has not been imposed since the post-war food riots. Isn’t this response too extreme?”

“No. Martial law will be restricted to any area where a bomb goes off. This is simply to control the movement of people in that area who are performing the acts of terror. Each is a localized incident but orchestrated on a global level, therefore our response is to treat it as such. The measure of martial law is only imposed on a relatively small local area, while our efforts to track and identify the Hawks are global.”

“Marjorie?”

“Majorie Hemmings, New Washington Post. Sir Thomas, I gather from your statement that you have subversive elements within UNPOL that are Hawks. Have you identified who these UNPOL staff are?”

Sir Thomas cleared his throat, took a swallow of water, and pulled his chair closer to the table until his stomach was pressed against it. Leaning forward, he spoke. “Again, I am not at liberty to discuss current operations, however what I can say is that progress is ongoing and we are confident that with this latest bombing, the forensics will provide us with the final evidence we need to expose the most senior subversive elements.”

Stephanie brought her hands together as if in prayer and said, “One last question and we must allow the honorable gentlemen to get back to their contribution. Yes, Steven”

“Steven Haines, GNBC. Sir Thomas, did UNPOL allow Gabriel Zumar to escape so that you could track his movements?”

Sir Thomas glared at the journalist with a blank expression and shook his head from side to side. “No, we did not. Gabriel Zumar is an enterprising and utterly ruthless criminal who will stop at nothing to maintain his freedom in order to continue his criminal activities.”

“Sorry, Sir Thomas, one last question. Is Gabriel Zumar any relation to Philip Zumar, Bo Vinh’s confidante and friend?”

Sir Thomas lowered his head slightly and shook it softly then looking across at Deng turned to face the journalist from GNBC. Sir Thomas brought his clasped hands up from the table and placed them under his chin, looking down at the journalist.

“We believe, sadly, that he is Philip Zumar’s son. Our information is that his father was murdered by those criminal elements responsible for Bo Vinh’s assassination and that they kidnapped and brought up this Gabriel Zumar in their criminal ways.”

Sir Thomas turned in his seat and smiled at Deng. The two men rose together to walk off the stage and through the door that was opened by an UNPOL guard, standing at attention beside it.

***

Marty, laying on her sleeper with her arms crossed behind her bed, said, “Devscreen off.” She had watched as Sir Thomas had left the room with Deng. She sighed. Tomorrow perhaps, even this morning, the stolen Devstick would be found among the debris in the club and she would be identified and contained as a Hawk. She looked at the time on the Devstick on the table beside her sleeper. 10:20pm. She had to go rogue. She was bone tired but knew that she had to move. Do it now or it was over. Move and there’s a chance. A slim chance, but a chance.

Her mind went back to the meeting that had led to this moment. Governor Tilling, Flederson and her, just over three months ago, after the seminar ‘Enterprise Level Commercial Crime’. Governor Tilling saying that an eyewitness to a murder allegedly committed by Sir Thomas had come forward but there was no evidence. Flederson – ‘Mother’ – asking her to go undercover and dig for evidence. And now he was in a coma and Tilling was dead. Sir Thomas had outsmarted them all and acted swiftly and ruthlessly. She was sure of it, but she couldn’t prove it. Or was it Cochran? She didn’t know and now was not the time to spend brooding about it.

She puffed her cheeks and blew out her breath, unfolding her hands from behind her head and swinging her legs over the side of the sleeper. She rubbed her face vigorously with her fingers trying to coax energy out of her body. Fuck it, she thought, and reached to the handle of the table drawer beside the sleeper. Pulling it open, she took out a small capsule that looked like a tube of lipstick. She lifted her bum and pulled her bottom outers down, spreading her knees. Taking the capsule in one hand she pressed one end against her inner thigh. A little green light flashed several times and she pressed the top of the capsule. Marty hated stimulants but she just didn’t have the energy to run. While she sat waiting for the drug to hit her system, she took a deep breath in and held it. The stimulant hit. She felt it coursing through her veins.

She put the capsule in her pocket and pulled her outers over her bum again. Time to run.

Chapter 29

The Naked Truth

Jonah and Mariko’s Beach House, Sisik Beach, Malaysian Geographic

MONDAY 6 JANUARY 2110, 7:13AM +8 UTC

I felt hopelessly out of my depth.

The sun climbing over the horizon seemed to be moving faster than usual, forcing its influence on the colors in front of me. The news over the weekend had shown me that I was outnumbered, outwitted and had little chance of success. The odds were stacked too high. How could I possibly convince people that a man sitting with the Secretary General of the United Nation could be a murderer and genocidal?

Although I had crafted Sir Thomas’s speech at the the UNPOL press conference, Sir Thomas had told me to include the Hawks name. That puzzled me at first. Why bring them into the spotlight? But then the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Pre-emptively naming the Hawks as the terrorists was a smart move. Now, if anyone claimed that the real Hawks were a small cadre of highly placed officials in positions of power, the claim would automatically be rejected as propaganda from the terrorists. The opinion polls focusing on the Tag Law told its own story. The number of those for adoption of the Tag had increased to over sixty-five percent. Gabriel’s image was everywhere. On every feed and broadcast Devscreen in every city around the Globe.

Where are you my brother? I sighed.

“Hey, why so solemn?”

I jumped and spilled my coffee on the railing of the deck. Mariko laughed.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Yes you did,” I said, smiling back at her and reaching out with my arm, pulling her in close to me. I put my mouth close to her ear.

“I don’t think we can stop them,” I whispered. Mariko pulled my head down and put her mouth next to my ear.

“Let’s go for a swim. Bring your Devstick,” she whispered. It was high tide and the underwater cave entrance would be hidden. I smiled at her and went inside to get my swimmers and the Devstick. When I came back out onto the deck, she was already stroking hard for the point off the headland where the cave was. I ran down the beach, putting the Devstick in a side pocket of my swimmers, running into the surf as far I could before diving in.

The tide was still coming in and I had to swim hard through a choppy swell. I didn’t hurt as much from the running now and my times had improved every day. I was thankful for the training - if I’d had to swim in this swell a week ago I would have been exhausted by now. About fifteen meters from the headland, I dived and swum down till my eardrums hurt with the pressure and then aimed for the mouth of the cave. I surfaced in the darkness and swam to the wall with the ledge where we had sat before, reaching out my hand, feeling for it in the dark.

My hand touched Mariko’s leg and I felt her grab my wrist and pull me up onto to the ledge. I skirted my bum over and got a firm seat, taking the Devstick out of my pocket. I opened it and folded it out onto the ledge in between us. The light from the screen of the Devstick lit the cave. Mariko was squeezing the water out of her black hair, twisting it into a thick rope that reached to her belly button. She turned to look at me.

I sat back a bit farther on the ledge. All the warmth that she had shown on the deck had gone from her eyes. She looked the same as when she’d come out of my Env in Woodlands that day when we’d left to come to Sisik. I scrambled to think who she could have argued with.

“Mark. You can stop this defeatist bullshit right now.”

I started to speak, but she sharply held up the palm of her hand right in front of my nose. “No, not yet. I am going to say this once and once only because we don’t have time for another one of these kinds of talks. I called you Mark because that is your real name. That is what your parents named you. Your brother has not been captured and so far he’s run rings around Sir Thomas and his friends. And now he needs your help. Our help. This was never going to be easy and it was always for high stakes. The minute you opened that file on your Devstick you accepted this role. Let’s run our conversation from this morning in a different way. Let’s start with the premise that defeat is not an option. Now what do you have to say?”

I looked at her, feeling pretty low about myself. I looked into her eyes. They held no compromise. There was no easy way out there. I sucked power from those big green eyes of hers. Sucked it in deep. Deep in my belly, down by the base of my spine, the feeling grew. I breathed out heavily and drank in deep the salt air of the cave.

“All right. Defeat is not an option. However, it appears to me that the chance of success in stopping the Tag has been greatly diminished.”

“Agreed. Now what are we going to do to counter that?”

“The only thing I can see possible is to somehow figure out a way to block the Tag Law legally, but I haven’t come up with the anything yet.”

“Have you been researching that online?” she spat out with a horrified look on her face.

“Yes, but it’s OK. I sort of cleared it with Sir Thomas when we played golf. At least if I get asked why I am researching the law I can say it is to help him.”

Mariko blew out her cheeks. “Sheesh, don’t do that to me, please. Tell me more about this game of golf. What happened when you talked about the Tag Law?”

“I can do better than that. I can show you.”

“You recorded it?”

“No, Call did.”

“Who’s Call?”

“Call was the Devcaddy that Sir Thomas rented for me when we played golf. They can record your game so that you can study it later for improvement. I just asked him to keep recording at all times. Here, look.” I flipped the screen of the Devstick over so that she wouldn’t have to view it upside down.

She watched intently as I talked with Sir Thomas, the two of us sitting at the drinks stand. We were suddenly treated to a close up of the back of the wall of the stand until Call had emerged from the other side and refocused on Sir Thomas and I. The image zoomed in on the two of us and the sound was clear. Mariko nodded at me and I hit pause.

“Who’s this Annika Bardsdale?”

“I saw her on a newsfeed sometime ago. She was arguing, not very successfully, against the Tag Law on a panel discussion.”

“So you don’t know her at all?”

“No.”

“Perhaps you should. How about this for a short-term plan? You get together with your uncle again, as soon as possible, on the memoir. You’ve planted the seed of Annika Bardsdale so use that. What if you tell him that you’re planning to offer your services to her and you wanted to prepare him for the inevitable media fallout that will cause?”

“Why would I do that? I’ve already told him that I’m for the Tag Law.”

“So that you can betray their efforts at the last moment. You show Sir Thomas that you’re capable of doing that and he might just invite you into the Hawks.”

“OK, so that gets me next to someone who wants to stop the Tag Law but cannot, and into the Hawks. The only action that I can think of so far to discredit Sir Thomas is to expose myself as Mark Zumar. Suppose I had an independent DNA analysis done and requested, under a court order, that Sir Thomas had the same done, to compare. Even allowing for the fact that might take up to two years to get through the courts. He could easily corrupt the process somehow.”

“Yes, but Sir Thomas is an evil man. No matter how clever he might be, that fact pervades and touches everything he does. The fact is that your birth is registered in a hospital and your DNA is registered at that hospital. Gabriel substantiated that.”