Andy McNab - Payback

‘I’ll stitch the wound up when we’ve got more time,’ Fergus said as Danny helped him to stand on his good leg. ‘Now let’s go meet our chauffeur.’

He put one arm over Danny’s shoulders so that most of his weight was being taken by his grandson and then nodded that he was ready to move. ‘It’s a good plan, Danny,’ he breathed. ‘You’ve done brilliant the last couple of days.’

Danny said nothing as they edged slowly over the damp ground. But he smiled; he wasn’t used to being praised by his grandfather.

Elena gasped as she saw them emerge from the trees. Even from some way away she could see that Fergus looked awful. He was pale and grimacing in pain as he hobbled towards the car. He seemed to have aged ten years since the last time she had seen him. She threw open the door and rushed over to help.

Joey was just behind her. ‘Take it easy, old timer,’ he said, grabbing Fergus’s other arm and pulling it over his own shoulder so that he and Danny could take the injured man’s full weight. ‘And don’t you worry, Grandpa, we’ll soon have you out of here.’

Despite the pain, Fergus turned his head and glared at Joey. ‘It’s Fergus,’ he growled. ‘Just get me in the car.’

The rain was falling heavily and the windscreen wipers were going at full speed as Joey headed east from Wales into England and towards London. And Joey was doing a lot of thinking.

His three passengers remained mostly silent for the first couple of hours, warding off their driver’s clumsy attempts at questioning them.

They reached the motorway in darkness, with the rain bouncing off the vehicle, and at the first service area Joey pulled off the road to take a rest. He parked the car, switched off the engine and turned in his seat to face Fergus. ‘So tell me, Fergus,’ he said deliberately. ‘What exactly is going down here?’

Fergus was ready to draw Elena’s father into his plan. ‘Nothing for you to worry about,’ he said deliberately, ensuring that Joey would want to know more. ‘Or get involved in.’

Joey grinned. ‘But I am involved. And I know this for sure: you and Danny ain’t been climbing no mountains, and whatever’s wrong with your leg, it didn’t happen tripping over no stone.’

Danny and Elena waited for Fergus to speak, both of them wondering what he could say that would go even part way to satisfying Joey’s curiosity.

‘You’re right,’ he said at last, looking directly at Joey. ‘It wasn’t an accident. I’ve been shot.’

Danny and Elena stared; the last thing either of them had expected to hear was the truth.

‘I’m going to have to trust you, Joey,’ Fergus continued. ‘Can I do that?’

Elena couldn’t believe what she was hearing. ‘Trust him? Of course you can’t trust him. This is my dad you’re talking to!’

Fergus managed a slight smile. He knew they were in big trouble: his wound was bad and there was no way he could just get out of the car and walk away when they reached London. They needed Joey’s help, and while Fergus had no intention of taking Elena’s untrustworthy and unreliable dad totally into his confidence, he wanted to give him the impression that he would.

A white van pulled into a parking space a few metres away and Fergus waited until the driver got out and ran through the rain towards the lights of the service area.

‘You two go and get yourselves a cup of tea,’ he said to Danny and Elena. ‘I need to have a little chat with Joey.’

For a moment Joey’s eyes widened in alarm. ‘Wait a minute! You’re not carrying a gun, are you?’

‘You’ve got nothing to worry about, I’m completely unarmed.’ Fergus didn’t bother mentioning the PE and detonators nestling in his jacket pockets. He turned to Danny. ‘Give us a while and bring me back some tea, plenty of sugar. And some food. And watch out for the CCTV.’

Elena grabbed her laptop bag as she got out. ‘I’d better check my e-mail, see if there’s anything from our friend. And I must call Jane to tell her I’m OK.’

The rain was still falling heavily. Danny and Elena pulled down the baseball caps they were wearing low over their eyes and ran through the puddles towards the shop and fast food area.

‘He’s not really gonna trust him, is he?’ asked Elena as they reached the shelter of the buildings.

Danny laughed. ‘My granddad doesn’t trust anyone. He must be planning to do some sort of deal.’

Elena frowned. ‘Deals with my dad don’t usually work out too well. Come on, I’m hungry.’

They bought tea and sandwiches and a one-hour access card for the service area’s hotzone and took them to a quiet corner. Elena made her call to Foxcroft and then checked her e-mail; there was a brief message:

Your friends are missing. Have they contacted you? Report.

‘Don’t reply,’ said Danny. ‘We’d better check with my granddad first.’

‘Take them some tea and sandwiches, and ask him what he wants me to do. But don’t be long.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I’m going into the Deep Web. Don’t want to miss it, do you?’

Danny hurried away and Elena spoofed her ID, calling herself Gola, the name she had used on her previous journeys into the Deep Web.

She began hitting the websites she had used before to gain access to the Intelligence Service’s internal computer system and George Fincham’s personal e-mails. That time she had been helped by a hacker using the name Black Star, who was surfing the dark corners of the Deep Web.

Elena was good at hacking, but compared to the experts who dwelt down in the Deep Web she was still a novice, a script kiddie. She keyed in a name and hit the site where hackers receive credits for their exploits, and where Black Star had first popped up on her screen.

Just like last time, Elena knew she would need a script written by an experienced hacker to get her past the firewalls protecting the Northwood mainframe. Just like real fire doors, firewalls are sometimes left open; if she could get through them, Northwood would be hers and she could go wherever she wanted.

Danny came back and sat down next to Elena. ‘My granddad says don’t reply to the e-mail. How’s it going?’

‘Takes time, Danny,’ said Elena without looking away from the screen. ‘But at least I know the way now.’

She bounced further down into the Deep Web, asking on the websites for any scripts that could help her. It was like being in an ever-expanding universe that seemed to stretch away into infinity.

The sandwiches were long finished and the half-drunk tea was stone cold when a pop-up suddenly appeared on the screen.

HELLO AGAIN GOLA. REMEMBER ME? I’VE BEEN LOOKING FOR YOU. YOU HAVEN’T BEEN HERE IN THE DARKNESS FOR QUITE A WHILE. WANNA READ WHAT BLACK STAR HAS FOR YOU? I CAN GET YOU IN THERE. Y OR N?

Elena smiled. ‘This guy must live on the Deep Web.’

‘You sure it’s Black Star?’

Elena pressed the Y key. ‘We’re just about to find out.’

I KNEW YOU WOULD. ROOT ACCESS GONNA BE PRETTY HARD TO GET, EVEN

I’LL NEED HELP. MAYBE BLACK STAR AND GOLA CAN WORK TOGETHER? IT’LL BE

THE ULTIMATE EXPLOIT. Y OR N?

Soon they were reading Black Star’s proposal. It said that Black Star would send two scripts to give root access. One script would run from Gola’s laptop and would tunnel its way into the Northwood system.

That was the good news; the bad news was that the second script had to be burned onto a CD and then someone would have to put that CD into a computer inside Northwood.

Danny was staring at the screen. ‘How are we gonna get in there? It’ll be guarded like the Crown Jewels. And if we do ever manage it, we know who that someone will be, don’t we?’