Adrian Magson - Tracers

An untidy car park at the front of the building added to its air of near invisibility, as did the plain front door and the heavily silvered windows throwing back a reflection of the road and surrounding scenery. Only the powerful security lights that gave the area a day-like clarity betrayed the fact that this building was not simply a backwater business selling office stationery.

Rik parked his Audi next to a battered Nissan and switched off the engine. ‘We’re not going to run into a bunch of armed jumpsuits, are we? I thought this would be all razor wire and cameras since Nine-eleven.’

Harry dropped the latest copy of the Telegraph to the floor. ‘Sandra says not. To the locals, it’s an archive library and processing unit. They don’t advertise what they do, so they don’t need heavy security.’ He levered himself out of his seat with a sarcastic grin. ‘Just stick with me, laddie — I’ll look out for big hairy men with Hecklers and flak jackets.’

He approached the door and thumbed a button on an intercom unit. A woman’s voice invited them to enter and the door clicked open. Under the lens of a camera they entered a small, musty lobby furnished with two stiff chairs against one wall, a dying pot plant and a battered steel-framed desk holding a single telephone. There was no receptionist, but a small sign asked visitors to wait to be dealt with.

A door opened to one side and a woman in a white coat appeared. She was in her thirties, slim, with her hair scraped back and held by a clip. It gave her the austere look of a headmistress.

‘You must be Tate and Ferris,’ she said in a soft Scottish burr. ‘Sandra Platt in Immigration said you needed help with some images.’ She produced two visitor passes from her coat pocket. ‘My name’s Karen. Keep these clipped to your jackets at all times while you’re here and surrender them before you leave. Otherwise I’ll have to send the security guard to shoot you dead.’ She gave a dry smile that softened her features. ‘Not kidding.’

‘You don’t need to see any ID?’ Rik smiled winningly at her but she appeared not to notice.

‘No need. Sandra emailed me a very accurate description of Harry. As far as I can tell you aren’t making him bring you here at gunpoint.’ She gestured up at the camera. ‘Anyway, we have you on tape for all eternity. You want to come this way?’ She turned and stopped at the door she had come through, briefly flapping the lapel of her white coat at a small black box on the wall. ‘RFID scanner,’ she explained, and turned the lapel over to show them a small plastic stud on the inside. ‘Anyone wearing one of these gets through the door, and is tracked and logged.’

‘Tracked?’ asked Harry.

‘Yes. We can’t even go to the loo without being monitored. Welcome to the free world.’

They were in a narrow corridor running right through to the rear of the building, with doors every few feet. It was standard government issue, with a dry, overheated smell and drab paintwork, the atmosphere silent and devoid of all signs of industry. Rik and Harry exchanged raised eyebrows and followed their guide.

‘There’s no one else on duty at the moment,’ Karen explained, ‘apart from me and Andy, the security guard. He’s on a fag break out back, but don’t tell anyone. The work here is strictly process-led, and nobody volunteers to spend longer here than they can manage. Besides, we’re pretty much on top of things — at least until we get demands for some visual evidence from Immigration, the Met or one of the security departments. Then it’s all hands to the pump. I gather you’re none of the above, though.’ It wasn’t a question.

‘In a loose kind of way,’ Harry supplied vaguely.

Karen stopped at another door and waved her lapel near the black box. ‘Don’t worry, I wasn’t asking. I trust Sandra not to send me a couple of potential terrorists. She’s very good like that. Anyway, what you see here wouldn’t help much if you were up to no good, believe me.’

‘Unless we wanted to erase something,’ suggested Rik.

She looked at him with a raised eyebrow. ‘Why? Is that a giant magnet in your pocket?’ She turned and stepped inside, leaving Rik flushed and confused.

The room was suffused with a dull light from discreet overhead panels, and smaller than they had expected. Four desks were crammed in the centre, each one bearing a large monitor and keyboard. The walls were lined with racks, one holding a bewildering array of DVD and CD machines, with the others holding editing equipment and printers, files, folders and tapes. A twisted spaghetti of wires bridged by rubber ramps curled across the floor between the various racks, and the immediate impression was of chaos threatening to spill over into a jungle. Yet the atmosphere was oddly calm, aided by rows of flickering display lights and a soothing electronic hum from an air-conditioning unit in one corner.

‘Cool,’ said Rik, but his face suggested he wasn’t that impressed. Harry had half expected him to be like a kid in a toy shop, with all manner of equipment to play with.

‘It’s a mess, I know,’ Karen said defensively. ‘But we can’t dig into the fabric, so we have to live with wires everywhere until somebody stumps up a decent budget for a purpose-built unit.’ She nodded at a couple of monitors and a stack of boxes piled on a side table. ‘Those are a mix of discs and hard drives from Terminal Two. Some of the areas still have old technology, but most have gone over to wireless.’ She shrugged. ‘It takes time and money, so they’re using a variety of systems depending on priorities.’ She pulled a face. ‘Pretty soon, they won’t need us any more; they’ll be able to feed and retrieve whatever they need. We’re setting up archives for retrieval and image management, but we’re the last of the steam age. I still think of this stuff as tape, but it isn’t.’

‘What’s the coverage of these cameras?’ asked Harry. He was wondering how they were going to get the information before anyone turned up and blew the whistle.

‘The entry points from airside, the various lounges and walkways, the routes down to the Arrivals door, where the meeters and greeters stand, and the concourse to the main exits. They’re all different, but if you tell me what you’re looking for, I’ll call up what I need. You’re after a passenger arriving off a flight, right?’

‘Yes. What about stairways and lifts?’

‘Stairways, lifts, side corridors and all links to the other terminals are covered. I’ve selected the recordings which run from the confirmed landing time of LH4736, to an hour after the last passengers should have come through.’ She went on, ‘Some passengers get taken short as soon as they land and head for the toilets. It’s not unknown for some to take their time coming out. If your man came through, you’ll see him sooner or later.’

Rik said, ‘There’s no way he could have avoided the cameras?’

‘Not unless he knew the location of every unit or changed his appearance between cameras.’

‘Could he have slipped out the back way?’

Karen gave him a doubtful look, but didn’t automatically dismiss the idea. ‘If he did,’ she said carefully, ‘he had inside help.’

‘Is that possible?’

‘In a place that size, anything’s possible, I suppose. Anyway, after September the eleventh, they resited a lot of the camera positions in the terminals and ran security exercises to double-check the coverage. They also increased the optical zooms and scope for clarity and control. So far nobody has managed to bypass them.’

She went over to the nearest machine and sat down, indicating that they should drag up two chairs and join her. She tapped a few keys and hit a button. Seconds later, an image flickered on to the monitor. It showed an interior shot of a terminal building, with a jumble of people standing around, apparently waiting.