Dominic Conlon - Silent Warpath

‘We don’t know. It’s only a suspicion at the moment — it’s impossible that they could know what the virus is actually supposed to do.’

‘Really’ muttered Clarke, puffing a cloud of smoke across the desk. ‘And why do you find it impossible to believe?’

Schaeffer considered his reply carefully. ‘Because it happened so fast — they wouldn’t have had the time to get into any detail. And in any case they have no access to the source code so they couldn’t even begin to guess what it was supposed to do.’

‘So what are you doing about it?’

‘Don’t worry, we will see to her. We know from the phone tapes she has a minor personality disorder — she’s depressive. So it should be easy enough to drive her away.’

‘I want her dealt with permanently. Nothing comes back to me.’

‘OK, I’ll sent a unit round to deal with her.’

‘Not the same bungling crew that failed to nail Campbell the first time?’

Schaeffer heard the alarm in the man’s voice and moved to placate him. ‘No sir. But don’t worry, I will see to her personally.’

‘Be sure that you do. Report back to me when you have finished.’

‘Morning’ said Stan. ‘I hope you don’t mind me saying this Natasha, but you look like you need a good night’s sleep.’

Natasha flopped into the seat opposite Stan’s desk.

‘I’ve had a lot on my mind, Stan.’ She glanced at him. ‘You know, having to arrange the funeral, the missing ships, not to mention all the turmoil at work..’.

Stan held up his hand. ‘I know, Nat. ‘I’m not saying that to criticise. I just think you need some time off, that’s all.’

‘Maybe you’re right Stan. I’ve got some leave owing. I might get away after the funeral.’

‘Good idea’ said Stan shuffling some papers. ‘Now what’s all this about a virus on Cetus?’

‘Stan, I think I know what happened out there. I’ve been checking through the upload logs, just before the Mosquito went off the air. One of the packs Louis transferred was much larger than the spec.’

Stan pursed his lips. ‘Could be some last minute changes Louis made. You know how it works — he makes some changes and then forgets to send back a copy.’

Natasha shook her head. ‘This was the Itinerary pack. It’s nearly 200 times larger than it should be. Louis couldn’t possibly have made that number of changes!’

‘Sounds like it might be a corrupted file to me. If there was some problem with the transmission the receiving end just keeps adding zeroes to the file until the glitch is resolved. The receiver picks up the end of the file so it looks like it finished the transfer correctly.’

Natasha shook her head. ‘I checked that. I looked through all of the binary code.’

Stan gave her an appraising look.

‘Really, I did Stan. I ran anti-virus over the whole file — nothing. I also ran some specific searches and none of that code has any padding in it at all.’

Stan was apologetic. ‘I’m sorry Nat, that still doesn’t prove a thing. Could be the transfer was over a noisy line. It doesn’t have to be padded with a long string of zeroes — it might be just random noise.’

Natasha sighed. ‘Then how do you explain what happened to those three ships?’

‘I can’t Natasha. Nobody knows what happened out there except the survivors. By the way, they were going to drop some communication packs for the lifeboats. I wonder if they’ve picked them up yet?’

They walked to the large communications room. Stan saw a technician wearing a pair of monitor headphones. ‘Any contact yet?’

The young man looked up, then leaned forward to flick a switch. Immediately the overhead speakers burst into life.

‘Hello SeaTek. Did you receive my last transmission?’

Stand reached for the mike. ‘Hello, this is Stan. Who are you and what’s your status?’

The speakers crackled. ‘Excuse me a minute, they’re retrieving a man from the water in the next lifeboat.’

Stan glanced at Natasha and they waited a minute.

‘Sorry about that — they’ve just pulled a man out of the water. Looks like he’s suffering from hypothermia — they’re using some of the survival gear the plane dropped earlier. When are we being picked up?’

‘A ship is on its way to you now.’ Stan glanced at his watch. ‘It should be there in the next hour.’

‘OK, thanks. We’re pretty exhausted out here. It’s nice to hear that someone will be with us soon.’

‘Can you give me your name?’ Stan asked.

‘Tod Frazier, comms team.’

‘Listen Tod, we’re very concerned about what’s happened. We need to understand how your ship came to sink. Can you tell me anything about that?’

The speakers were quiet for a minute, then a burst of static obscured the first words.

‘… peculiar. We all heard a kind of high pitched note. It got so loud you had to shut it out. Then the deck plates started to quiver. It was like the ship was shaking itself to death. The captain ordered us to abandon ship and that’s when we made for the lifeboats. The ship started to list and by the time we were hauling away the ship was going down.’

‘How many in the lifeboats Todd?’ Stan looked at Natasha.

‘Fifty four. We thought we’d lost one overboard a few minutes ago, but he’s back now.’

‘That’s pretty much everyone on the Mosquito’ muttered Stan.

Natasha mouthed the word ‘Arabesque’.

Stan keyed the mike again. ‘Any information about the Arabesque or the Tribune?’

‘None, sorry. We hoped that they would rescue us but there’s been no sign of them.’

The sadness in his voice was apparent from three thousand miles away.

‘We’ll call you again in fifteen minutes.’ Stan closed the mike.

‘You can’t argue with that Stan,’ Natasha said reproachfully.

‘No, you’re right. It does look like the weapon was activated and Cetus used it to sink its supply ships.’ Stan pushed his fingers through his hair. ‘But that doesn’t mean a virus caused it. It still could be just corrupted software.’

He looked at Natasha. ‘The alternative just doesn’t bear thinking about.’

The phone vibrated silently in Sean’s jacket pocket. It was Lomax.

‘Just got a call from DD. He says he has something for us.’

‘That’s quick — I wasn’t expecting a breakthrough so soon.’

‘Well maybe it’s not the breakthrough we’re looking for, but I believe he’s on to something.’

Sean thought for a moment. ‘I’ll pick you up on my way.’

Twenty minutes later they were at DD’s apartment. DD showed them into the bedroom. Sean looked at Lomax and received an understanding glance in return.

‘Well guys’ DD enthused, obviously pleased to meet them. ‘Wait ‘til you see what I have to show you!’

‘Before we get to that’ said Lomax grimly, ‘didn’t you have to pass a personal security and survival course?’

DD was taken aback. ‘Yes, I went on a week’s course. What of it?’

‘Didn’t they teach you to at least lock your door and use the chain?’

Sean put his hand on Lomax’s arm and spoke quietly. ‘We’re not playing games here DD. By not following the routine you’re putting your life in danger. If we were the opposition you would be dead by now.’

DD looked visibly paler. ‘I’m sorry, I just thought I would crack on with the job — you said it was urgent.’

Sean looked at DD steadily. ‘You can’t help us if you’re dead.’

DD held up his hands. ‘OK, OK, I get the message.’

‘Well just so that you do, after we’re done here you and I are going to go through and secure this place and I’m going to give you a quick refresher about security procedures.’