Ian Rankin - Westwind

‘Yes, here I am.’ Dreyfuss shook his head. ‘I still don’t understand, though. The ground crew, the technicians who worked on the Argos satellite, they must have known its purpose.’

‘Why should they?’ Villiers opened his arms for a second: not long enough for Dreyfuss to consider charging him, but enough to give him hope of a later opportunity. ‘They built to a military design. They didn’t need to know what that design’s intention ultimately was, and’ — Villiers stressed his final words — ‘they just followed orders, the way they’d been taught.’ He stared at the screens for a moment, then pointed to one. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘there’s your friend Hepton now. He’s in the control room.’

Dreyfuss looked. Hepton was seated at his console, unaware of the camera trained on his sector of the room.

‘Won’t be long now till Harry finds him,’ Villiers said. His face took on a glaze of sincerity. ‘But what you really must try to understand,’ he continued, ‘is that COFFIN is operating for the greater good. It’s defence we’re talking about.’

‘It’s more like murder we’re talking about,’ Dreyfuss growled.

Villiers’ gun hand twitched. ‘The greater good,’ he repeated, robotically. Dreyfuss remembered then what Parfit had said about Villiers: a cold-blooded killer with a history of instability. He tried to calm himself. The last thing he wanted to do right this second was die.

‘Well, if that’s what you believe,’ he said evenly.

‘We do , Major Dreyfuss. Believe me, we do.’ Villiers paused, seeming to drink in his own sense of power. ‘Any more questions?’ he asked. Dreyfuss shook his head. ‘Then if you’ll follow me, or rather, precede me through here...’ He lifted his left arm to unbolt another door.

Dreyfuss stood, taking a final look at the surveillance screen. He had no way of letting Hepton know Harry was on her way. ‘Where are we going?’ he asked.

‘I thought you wanted to find Miss Watson?’ said Villiers. ‘Besides, you haven’t seen half of what we’re doing here. Not nearly half.’

Then he pulled open the door to another world.

It had all gone smoothly at first. Hepton had done a spot of hacking in his time, and the process still intrigued and enthralled him. Once, he had found himself hacking into a company’s computer at the same time as another hacker. They had exchanged greetings before the other hacker identified himself as a member of the Chaos Club in West Germany; he was hacking from the Ruhr Valley into a computer system in Milton Keynes. Contact with the Chaos Club had taught Hepton much about hacking, and for a time he’d been hooked. But after a while, personnel records and medical files ceased to hold their one-time interest, and he’d given the sport up.

Like cycling, however, you never forgot the ‘how’. Having accessed the Zephyr onboard computer, he found that COFFIN 762 was the code to unlock the interface between the two satellites, or rather between their two computers. The code was simple enough: COFFIN hadn’t been expecting anyone to attempt an access, or to have the knowledge so to do. Otherwise they would not have been so unimaginative with the password, and they would surely have used a less simplistic numerical combination. Izzard’s black box had done its job, finding the number sequence in a space of minutes.

Nick Christopher was watching over Hepton’s shoulder, interested and excited but trying to look unimpressed so as not to draw undue attention to the console.

But meantime, Hepton was stuck. He’d got this far, but progressing any further seemed an impossibility, for there was a further code to be gleaned, and he had run out of ideas.

What is your name?

COFFIN

Thank you, COFFIN. Please wait.

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What is your identifier number?

762

Identifier number accepted. Welcome to interphase control at 19:45 hours. You have fifteen minutes online remaining before engagement of protection circuitry. Do you wish to access:

1. Classification?

2. Interlock?

3. Transmission?

4. Quit?

Hepton wasn’t sure, but had taken a chance on Interlock, pressing the number 2 on his keyboard.

Interlock control required. State access password.

And that was where he had so far drawn the blank. He was in, but he wasn’t in. He could speak to the damned computer, but it wouldn’t do what he wanted until he’d found the password. COFFIN had already been used, so it wouldn’t be anything similar. He had an idea.

ZEPHYR

Incorrect password. Please try again.

He sat there staring at the screen. If not ZEPHYR, then what?

‘Try Argos ,’ Nick Christopher suggested. Hepton typed in the letters.

Incorrect password. Please try again.

Hepton snarled, then typed in FUCK YOU and pressed the keyboard’s return button.

Fuck you too, 762 , came the onscreen reply.

‘I hate computers with an inbuilt sense of humour,’ Christopher commented. Then he touched Hepton’s shoulder. Hepton looked up and saw that a security guard had entered the room. The guard stopped and held a murmured conversation with one of the new controllers. Hepton didn’t like this one bit. He reached around the side of the computer screen and turned the brightness and contrast knobs as low as they would go, blacking out the screen. Then he turned to Christopher. The guard was looking in their direction now.

‘Does that guard know you?’ Hepton whispered.

‘I’ve seen him around,’ Nick said, trying hard not to sound nervous.

‘Yes, but has he seen you around?’

‘We’ve nodded to one another in the corridor.’

‘Does he know your name?’

Nick shrugged. ‘I don’t think so. We’re not that close.’

Hepton’s hand went to his trousers and unclipped the ID badge, slipping it into the pocket. ‘Do you have a name badge?’ he whispered. As well as the official ID, some of the staff owned larger, rectangular badges made from stiffened card and boasting name only. These had been given out at the beginning of the Zephyr project, a stopgap until the proper IDs had been made. But Nick had held onto his, finding its inverted mistake — CHRISTOPHER NICHOLAS — amusing. He reached into his shirt pocket now, brought out the badge and laid it in the palm of Hepton’s hand. Pretending to fuss with his keyboard, Hepton attached the badge prominently to his own shirt.

A moment later, the guard confronted them.

‘Yes?’ Hepton asked imperiously. The guard stared at the name tag, then at Nick, whose face he recognised. He seemed confused, shook his head.

‘Nothing, sorry,’ he said, moving away again. Hepton watched from the corner of his eye as the guard said a few reassuring words to the controller, then left the room. He sighed and turned the screen back on. He was still no further forward. He stared upwards, seeking inspiration, and found himself gazing into the single black lens of a video camera, angled into the room from one corner.

‘Shit!’ he said. ‘I forgot about that.’

‘About what?’

‘That camera.’ Its red light was on, too. There was no doubt about it: it was beaming his picture back to security. Perhaps he had even less time than he had thought. He stared around the room. Two controllers were laughing over a photo in the newspaper...

Newspaper!

‘Nick,’ he said, ‘do you still do those crosswords?’