“
No,” Digger murmured. “Harmony, get off the tree, use the ropes. They’re going to…”
A sudden orange flash and deafening explosion filled the forest. Thrust backwards by the force of the blast the sound of groaning and splintering wood sliced through the air. Harmony’s tree swayed for a few long seconds before crashing down in front of the army congregation.
Harmony. Oh fuck it, no, Harmony.
He looked down from his tree perch and into the swirling cloud of smoke hanging over the fallen tree. He couldn’t see her. He couldn’t see a thing. All he could see was more soldiers rushing into the smoke, punishing batons raised.
Digger’s eyes closed and he bowed his head as the dull thuds echoed through the trees.
To his left more branches began to sway and creak under pressure. Within seconds, Moley swung onto the lofty tree perch. Tying the rope around one of the sturdy branches he turned to Digger, his eyes wide with fear, brimming with angry tears.
“
Harmony……” he finally managed to blurt out.
“
I know,” Digger replied quietly. “The bastards killed her.”
“
Harmony,” Moley said again, shaking his head.
Digger placed a comforting arm around his shoulder. Moley wasn’t the most articulate of their group. But he was a damn good tunneler. Probably the best they had.
Digger looked into his stubbled face, his eyes wide with fear, his dreadlocks hanging limply around his chin. Behind the grimy exterior from days in the tunnels, was a frightened young boy.
It was easy to forget Moley was only 19. He’d been with them for four years now. A runaway and reformed intravenous drug user from the inner city of Birmingham. All he had wanted was to ‘Reclaim the World’ from a blood-sucking, poisonous establishment. Never mind all the ‘Fuck the Net’ bollocks. Their concern had always been the countryside.
Surveying the scene below, the fear he felt gave way to anger as his fists tightened once more, his scowl returning.
Behind him he could hear the startled voices of his friends amongst the trees. But what was in front of him concerned him more. Five teams of soldiers, all with the now familiar army rucksacks, were approaching the edge of the woods. And for the first time since he had chosen this life, he prayed.
Sebastian Tate and Vincent Trevellion sat in the soft leather seats of the black limousine. The sound of explosions and batons subduing the protestors, one by one, bounced gently off the reinforced glass.
They needed the land and the protesters were trespassing on purchased property. The most recent amendment to the Criminal Justice Act, which Dr Marcus McCoy had rapidly pushed through Parliament, gave validity to this punitive action should it ever come to light. Not that it would. They’d ensured the media hadn’t got a whiff of this particular ejection.
Tate gazed through the black-tinted windows protecting their identities and smiled. This wouldn’t take long he thought as another tree fell into the forest in a cloud of smoke.
“
How useful has the new data been?” he asked finally.
“
It’s been useful. Particularly one project the Robertson woman was working on. It’s filled in a few blanks in our own semantic web projects. I doubt she knew the full potential of what she had, all other things considered. SW Technologies probably envisaged it as some neat application for people too stupid to remember their passwords, online personal details and digital footprint. Instead, as we hoped, we’re looking at a far more powerful, next generation app. The possibilities are very promising.”
Tate smiled from behind the rimless glasses, always peering intently over the top when someone else was speaking. Straightening his black silk tie gently, he considered Trevellion’s information.
“
And Langley’s data?”
“
Interesting in places. Not too much that our own people didn’t know though. There are a few things which round off a few rough edges, one might say.”
“
Good. Now that Robertson and Langley have been dealt with, Phase I is complete. The sooner we get UKCitizensNet’s headquarters built and the entire operation transferred to here the better. My department has ensured maximum manpower is available for the construction work. I want you based here in three months.”
Trevellion nodded as Tate pulled out his mobile phone to deliver his update on the Green protesters back to Miles Winston in Whitehall.
Three months was plenty of time to have everything ready.
The driver of the black Volvo estate floored the accelerator and hastily pulled a dark green balaclava over his face. His passenger did the same before he removed a thick rubber baton from a canvas bag in his footwell.
The engine roared as the vehicle hurtled forward, lights purposely switched to full beam to dazzle, moments before it slammed into the back of the silver Citroen. The din of scraping metal and tyres screeching was joined by a fountain of orange sparks as the two cars momentarily melded together and then split apart as the Citroen veered into the right hand lane.
With the left hand lane now clear the Volvo quickly pulled up alongside the stricken Citroen, its bumper thudding noisily on the tarmac as it hung off the back of the dented chassis. Turning the wheel sharply the Volvo smashed into the back of the car again with the impact of a bullet from a 44 Magnum. The force of the collision into the backend caused the Citroen to flip round 180 degrees as it lost its grip on the road, rubber scorching the tarmac in a perfect arc.
For a split second the two men in balaclavas were face to face with the opposing driver, Morgan Jones, his eyes wide with panic, his arms a flailing blur as he wrestled the steering wheel in vain, unable to prevent the inevitable.
Pushing down hard on the brakes the Volvo ground to a halt on the quiet country road amidst the corridor of mature pine trees that lined it. The Citroen, still facing the wrong direction had slid off the road. Perched at a precarious angle in a ditch on the opposite side, the nose of the car pointed upwards, tangled metal from the rear was embedded in the muddy bog.
Morgan Jones fought to rid himself of his seatbelt as the doors to the Volvo flew open. With his heart pounding in his ears a burning pain coursed through his back and neck from the impact of the crash. When his seatbelt finally unlocked he knew what was coming.
The two men, dressed in black combat gear, emerged from the Volvo, their faces obscured by menacing balaclavas, their intent burning in their eyes as they hauled open his car door.
The larger of the two men instantly brought his baton down on Jones’ right arm with frightening force before he could move. Nausea welled up in him and for a brief moment everything went black as his body was engulfed with unspeakable pain.
“
On the fucking floor,” the man snarled, as Jones fell out of the car and into the wet, muddy ditch.
Prone on his back, too terrified to move, the two men stood above him, slowly circling their prey, deciding which bones to break first.
A heavy doc marten boot clattered into his ribs, causing him to roll onto his side, involuntarily adopting the foetal position, as if this would somehow protect him. Bile rose in the back of his throat and he was aware of one of the men bending down.
“
I’m disappointed in you,” the guttural, threatening voice said quietly. “I would have thought after our last visit you would have learnt your lesson and stopped poking your nose into things which are none of your fucking business. Was our last meeting in any way unclear?”
A second kick impacted on the same ribs as before, and Jones was sure they’d broken at least one.
“
You see, because you haven’t left it alone, we’re really going to have to hurt you this time. But don’t think we’re just going to leave it there. We know all about your wife Margaret, and the family and children of your partners. They’d better start looking over their shoulders, if you know what I mean.”
Despite the searing pain in his ribs Jones tried to sit up to protest, but was shoved roughly back to the ground.
“
Get this straight you dozy twat. This is your last warning. Either you leave well alone and keep your nose out of computers and the fucking internet, or being driven off the road will be the least of your worries. Do you understand me?”
Jones nodded, unable to speak from where he was pinned to the ground.
But as he looked into the eyes of his assailant through the narrow eyeslits of the balaclava he knew they weren’t finished with him. The eyes were still full of intent, sparkling with adrenaline, relishing the prospect of impending violence.
Jones watched, transfixed, as his attacker slipped his hand into the canvas bag his partner had been carrying. A long thin knife with a serrated edge that caught the early evening sun was paraded in front of his face, cutting the air as it moved slowly backwards and forwards in front of his eyes.
Without warning Jones’ arm was hauled upwards and his wrist was turned as if he was being restrained. The second man grinned through the ragged mouth hole of his balaclava and yanked Jones’ little finger outwards, almost dislocating it.
Jones’ gaze followed the knife which had now moved away from his face. The attacker holding the knife smiled maliciously.
“
Now this is going to hurt.”
Morgan Jones’ eyes shot open and the vicious memories slowly receded. Despite his tiredness, he couldn’t afford to go to sleep. Not tonight.
Hunched over his desk, a half-smoked cigarette hanging limply from his lips, he glanced at his computer’s clock. The time was 11.34pm.
Twenty-six minutes left.
Jones’ hand shook slightly as it hovered over his keyboard, throbbing from where the knife had sliced through his flesh, memories of all the pain he’d endured puncturing his thoughts. A severed finger, four broken ribs and a ruptured spleen wasn’t something you forgot too easily.
Most nights he’d wake up, his pulse racing, the darkness enveloping him, inducing the same sense of panic he’d felt when the men had restrained him before going to work on him.
Jones’ gaze flitted quickly from one part of the screen to another as he began to type on the command line, the screen filling with code as he hacked deeper into one of the many government servers.
The security on the system was appalling if you knew what you were doing and had the right software to breach the firewall. For people like him and his three colleagues, former software engineers and security analysts, breaching the firewall had taken only a matter of minutes. If things had turned out differently he would probably be working for them, advising them on weaknesses in their online security and how to beat the hackers. But not now.
To his right his three partners sat at individual machines, all typing rapidly, committing any useful data they found in their own searches to high-capacity flash drives. All four men were inside UKGovNet, the government’s internal network, accessing vulnerable document stores, servers, and individual computers still logged-on to the network, looking for anything that could prove the imminent arrival of UKCitizensNet was a sham.
On the desk in front of him lay a well-thumbed edition of that day’s Guardian newspaper, its headline as clear as it was stark:
“Internet shutdown to commence as UKCitizensNet comes online”.
Jones’s gaze moved back to the clock.
11.40
. Just over 20 minutes away from the demise of the internet and freedom of online access and expression.
How has it come to this?
Stubbing his cigarette out in an empty coffee mug Jones shivered, rubbing his arms firmly, attempting to rid his limbs of the cold and damp that seeped through the quiet, empty warehouse. A slight smell of solvents hung in the air, but the only thing it now contained were a dozen propane canisters, fastened together in the centre of the warehouse floor below them.
Looking up from his screen, he peered down through the office window. The four of them had organised the canisters when they’d arrived earlier that evening, all acutely aware tonight was the night they’d most likely need to use them. But that was for later.
Once UKCitizensNet was up and running, they’d never be able to hack into internet sites in the same way again. The newspaper article confirmed that more robust security encryption was promised, and as skilled as the four men were, none of them really knew just how long it would take them to breach the system in future.
Turning to the right a shorter, broader man in his early 40s was peering intently at his screen, also with a cigarette in his hand.
“
Have you found the money yet, Brown?” he asked seriously, one eye on his own screen as another directory downloaded its data.
John Brown frowned, taking a long drag on his cigarette before turning to face his colleague.
“
No. Our separate account is still frozen and the money’s been drained from it. Fuck knows how they knew it was us, there shouldn’t have been any link back to us. And, it’s too well encrypted for me to hack into in the time we’ve got left to free-up the money.”