Mike and Ben followed Mackenzie into the perimeter. The dead woman wasn’t beautiful, not anymore, but Mike could see she had been, high cheekbones, a straight nose, full lips, now drawn back in a rictus smile.
Mackenzie said, “Paulina was a popular lady around these parts, grew up in Glasgow, was passionate about the shipyards from the time she was a wee lass. She had great civic pride, was generous with her donations. But most of all, she gave jobs to those who might have gone without. She’s famous, you know, throughout the world. Word had it she was going to try a political run, try to reboot the Scottish independence vote, especially now we’ve seen the back end of Brexit. It’s a profound loss to us, a bitter loss, since it appears she was killed.”
Mike put on nitrile gloves, leaned down, and gently moved the scarf. She saw the tiny red puncture on Vittorini’s neck and the needle lying in a fold of the scarf.
Mike looked up. “We believe she’s been shot with a drug called epibatidine. Tree frog poison. We think the needle is the delivery mechanism.”
Ben said, “Did anyone around see or hear a drone flying overhead before or after the murder?”
“A drone? We’ll canvas the scene and see, but no one’s mentioned it. You mean someone flew in a drone with a poisoned needle, shot it into her neck, and killed her?”
“It’s how the last three murders were committed in London. Do you have an evidence bag for this needle?”
Mackenzie snapped his fingers, and a crime scene tech in a white Tyvek suit appeared.
“We’ll take care of it. Sorry, I can’t hand a murder weapon to the FBI and let you walk off with it.”
Mike grinned. “If you did, I’d report you to your boss. But we do need it sent for analysis immediately. Scotland Yard has the information. You can get in touch with Superintendent Hamish Penderley—he’s the head of London CID—and he’ll give your lab instructions.”
Mackenzie relayed this information, and the chain of custody was established so they could rush the needle to the lab. That done, he said, “Walk with me.”
He led them downriver twenty yards, back into the silence of the shipyard. When they stopped, Mike said, “If you’re about to tell us something important, you need to turn off your phone.”
Mackenzie didn’t hesitate, turned it off, and shoved it back in his pocket, then asked, “Why?”
Ben said, “Comms in London are compromised. We can’t take any chances that yours are, too.”
A dark eyebrow went up. “This sounds like a right proper cock-up. Now, given this is clear-cut murder, we had a look around. There’s a warehouse on the edge of the shipyard locked up tight. Ms. Coes told us no one was ever allowed in there but Mrs. Vittorini. I believe you should have a look.”
CHAPTER FORTY
MI5 Headquarters, Home Office
Thames House
12 Millbank
Westminster, London
We’ve swept everything again, sir, and there’s nothing else.”
Harry dismissed the aide and shut the door. As Nicholas watched, his father walked to the bar and poured a small finger of Scotch. Harry tipped the bottle at him in question. Nicholas wasn’t used to seeing his father drink during the day but was perfectly happy to join him. Adam had no choice but to agree. With three drinks poured, they took their spots at the table and sipped, Adam making faces as he sipped the Scotch.
Harry stuck out his glass. “Come on, lad, puts hair on your chest. Drink up.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Adam said, then brightened. “I wonder how Scotch tastes with Red Bull in it.” He poured the rest of his can in the glass while Nicholas and Harry looked on in horror.
Adam took another sip, and a big grin came across his face. “Much better.” He opened his laptop, “I’m going to keep working our patch so we can get comms up and running. I don’t like being blind, deaf, and dumb with the rest of the team.”
Nicholas nodded. “Mike and Ben should be in Scotland shortly. With luck, we’ll have things working by the time they’re ready to report in. Now, how did your people miss the bug earlier, Father? Was it different than the earlier listening devices?”
“It was. Much smaller. Ian told me it was a different technology. We weren’t equipped to find it. No excuse, I know.”
“Are there cameras in the office so we can see who might have placed it?”
“No. We’ve never spied on ourselves, which means we’ve created a perfect system for someone to infiltrate. They know they won’t be seen.” Harry rested his forehead in his hand for a brief moment. “Either way, I believe it’s time for me to report to the home secretary and explain our vulnerabilities. You’ll excuse me?”
“Certainly. Adam and I are going to do some more patching on your servers so we can be assured no one from the outside is looking in. With your permission, we’ll also begin looking terminal by terminal at possible breaches, uploads, and malware that could be responsible for the breach. The MATRIX software is powerful, but we have a few tricks up our sleeves. We might be able to put all of this to rest shortly.”
“Thank you, Nicholas. I will let the home secretary know you’re working on this for us. Better to have someone from the outside, since we’re not sure who we can trust in-house.”
Nicholas and Adam got to work, sweeping through the servers and into the individual terminals—of which there were thousands of possibilities.
Adam said, “I wrote a program that looks for the vulnerability. I thought you could piggyback on it with a variation that looks for those strange numbers, four-zero-eight, in Radulov’s base code.”
“That’s an excellent idea. Let’s get to it. You install your program, and I’ll work on a secondary sweep. When we disengage the code, we can upload our own, and we should have a fully encrypted communications system back online.”
Adam started typing furiously. A few minutes later, he said, “Uploaded. Ready for your code.”
Nicholas wasn’t quite ready, held up a finger to say wait, and Adam grinned at him. “Getting slow in your old age?”
“You know I can have you arrested, don’t you? I’m trying to understand the base code without the usual markers from our normal computer languages. It is genius, isn’t it?”
“It is. To develop a new system is advanced stuff, to rewrite the world of code is another level entirely. I can’t say I understand it all yet, though I can admire its architecture.”
“Ready,” Nicholas said, pressing the button that would launch his code to follow Adam’s into the system.
The terminal blinked, then went black.
“What’s this?” Adam looked at his screen.
They could hear voices in the hallways, people shouting. Nicholas went to the door, opened it, as Adam shouted after him, “A kill switch. They have a kill switch, and we triggered it. It’s melting down the entire system here. Oh, man. We are in serious trouble.”
And the lights went out at MI5.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
The peregrine, wrote W. Kenneth Richmond, is a bird of “perfect proportions and finely cut features, daring and intelligence, spectacular performance in the air and matchless execution in the chase—a natural aristocrat.”
—Helen Macdonald, Falcon
The Old Garden
Twickenham
Richmond upon Thames, London
Roman was in Radu’s suite looking at the computers when he saw the black spot start to filter through the Internet.
Radu poked his fist in the air. “Roman, they’ve activated the kill switch.”
“Good. That one’s for you, Drummond. That should keep you busy for quite some time.”
“But we are rendered blind, as well, now,” Radu said. “And they are aware of how we’ve killed. They know MATRIX is compromised. I’m afraid, Roman. After they figure out how to turn things back on, they’ll figure it out and they’ll come.”