When they were back in the volcano and heading to their separate sleeping quarters, it was only Biceps who accompanied MM.
She turned to him. ‘Keep an eye on Techno. If he knew my real reasons for the kidnap, he might stop working for us.’ Biceps emitted a grunt and stared menacingly at the thin retreating back with a shock of red hair. Biceps had never liked Techno. He was too clever by half. If he could hurt him, it would be an act of enormous pleasure.
Chapter 6
Daggers without cloaks
24 hours is only 1440 minutes, but if you maximise the time by not sleeping, that effectively increases it by 440 minutes. No one from the MI6 team in Somerset House had slept, nor in the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square, where a CIA team had also been wide-awake. So a lot can be achieved by the brightest brains in the Intelligence Services, even in such short a time. Each operative had a specific task.
Sybil, MI6’s head of counter-intelligence had contacted her counterparts as far afield as the DCRI, The Direction Centrale du Renseignement Intérieur in Paris, France to the Kempeitai
in Tokyo, Japan. Agents of the greatest Intelligence Services across the globe had been asked two specific questions. ‘Who in their country, had been buying large numbers of computer servers or associated hardware like UPS’s – Uninterrupted Power Supplies and could the purchases be linked together on the national level? Her team then took this data and merged it on an international level to find the source of the purchases.
Matthews took a more physical approach. He asked each British double agent working within numerous foreign governments to investigate who had been recruiting some muscle. ‘How many men, for what job and how were they were being armed?’ This was extremely dangerous in case the agent’s cover was blown but the PM had sanctioned action at all costs. It was only later that the unexplained deaths of two double agents were attributed to this specific investigation.
Smith, the MI6 moneyman, called in favours from the top financial experts in the major markets of the world. The CAC in France, The DAX in Germany and fifty others. They were all asked the same questions. ‘Could they explain the blips in the Share and Money markets on the four specific days identified by the CIA’s analysis and were these blips accidental or contrived? The subsidiary question was obvious. If the latter...was it deliberate?’
Morrison, the agent with languages, was thinking laterally. International terrorism crossed borders and the most common languages in the world are English, closely followed by Mandarin - Chinese. He set up a trawl of known websites, which were linked to terrorism, and asked his team to report on any instances, in both languages, for the use of three words linked in any format. “Finance, stability and computer.”
Brett had gone back to Grosvenor House and created a shadow team to ask exactly the same questions as the MI6 operatives but in order to widen the search, the shadows had asked those governments not contacted by the Brits. This was a trickier task as the CIA had to talk to the smaller countries, leaving the bigger ones to MI6. These smaller countries bordered on anarchy and revolution with unstable finances and dodgy dictators. However, politicians in such countries were more open to bribes to extract secrets and the CIA spent $10 million in 24 hours. That showed how important they considered the matter. It was the same amount given by Facebook in January 2012 to small American businesses as free Facebook advertising in the form of ad credits. Facebook had been trying to boost jobs and promote themselves, the CIA were trying to find people without jobs and were equally happy to promote their interests worldwide.
Wolf did only what Wolf would do as Wolf was unique. Firstly, he went to the local multiplex cinema to watch Transformers seven – “Departure of the machines”. He loved every minute of the film and sat smiling in the dark, with with his full fat coke and salted popcorn. He then went home to bed and slept soundly until lunchtime the next day before wandering lethargically back into the office at 4 pm. This gave him exactly half the time to find something pertinent to the case. But that was how Wolf worked. By switching his mind off, by indulging in pleasure, he allowed it to think without any thinking! It was a clever move adopted by only a few clever people, because 90 per cent of human decision-making and thoughts surrounding those decisions occur deep within the subconscious.
He sat down in front of the three computer screens on his desk and logged into the central systems three times to give him three sessions running in parallel. Then he brought up the search index for SPAM on each screen. His latest software allowed all three SPAM programs to integrate in a giant neural network. Three versions of a problem were input and the three sets of answers would be cross-referenced. He input the three questions and then went home to sleep some more as the Cray computers in the basement of Somerset house did their work.
The questions were:
Number one machine – The application linking the most people on the internet on December 14th, 2012. This was when blip one occurred in the world markets.
Number two machine – The application linking the most people on the internet January 6th, 2013. This was the blip two date.
Number three machine – The World Wide Web application that linked the most people on these two days based on searches by all the major search engines i.e. yahoo.com, bing.com, ask.com, google.com, and finally dogpile.com.
In effect, Wolf had created a massive search across the two blip dates and all the major search engines involved in a neural link between all three SPAM searches. It was so complicated, only Wolf could have entered the code, devised the programs and thought of the questions.
At 2 am in the morning, he came back to his desk and scribbled a few notes in his scrawled writing on a yellow postit note. He didn’t work hard, he thought hard, and the answers were astonishing even for Wolf.
* * *
J was already sat in the meeting room at 3.50 am. He had poured himself a black coffee, and hoped the caffeine would stimulate his tired brain. He was still in his black dinner suit with a white shirt and black bow tie as he had come straight back to the office from The Palace. The Queen had hosted a reception for the Emperor of Japan and all of the London heads of Intelligence from the countries of the world had been present. They were all classed as attaches at the various embassies spread across London but everyone knew they were the top spies. J had carefully sounded out each one to make sure there was full cooperation for his team in their quest. There was no dissent as global terrorism affected all of their countries. This was an unprecedented event and he was pleased with their enthusiastic response. Even the Iranians wanted to help. The last person he spoke to was Culver who was the head of the CIA in London. They had known each other for many years but contact had always been restricted to warning each other off a particular project when either of the secret services had stepped on each other’s toes. This time both men pledged to be 100 per cent transparent in everything appertaining to newly named “Project Conman”. The “special relationship” between the Brits and Yanks was working again after years of insults between the two countries.
The ElectronicA team started to assemble in the operations meeting room. J watched their faces, looking for a sign of hope but all he saw was fatigue and frustration and then Wolf bounced into the room as fresh as a daisy. He was shaved and showered, his eyes were bright and alert and his clean clothes didn’t need the Lynx “I am the one” spray to hide any hidden smells. J smiled inwardly. The kid was an exceptional operative and he thanked God his friend in Manchester had pushed the reprobate his way.
Leaning forward, J placed his hands flat on the table. ‘Sybil, if you would like to update us first please?’
She coughed nervously before opening her folder to a single summary sheet.
‘I won’t bore anyone with the details but please know that my summary has been verified by two other agencies apart from my opposite number in Brett’s team.’ She paused and looked around for effect. ‘We found no national or international links, no patterns on purchases of com
puter servers or UPS’s over the last three years. Absolutely nothing gentlemen.’
The team were horrified, surely it must be a mistake. She could see their doubts. ‘But we didn’t stop there, although we need more time sir.’ She looked around at the quiet faces. ‘When you make a server, there is one key component, namely the mother board. And, when you make your own servers you want a common type of mother board.’ Now she smiled. ‘There was no national pattern but when we looked at all purchases of the Intel 666 RX extra chipset we found an International pattern. Odd orders in fifty countries of the world by 150 purchasers came back to a single global enterprise. “Handblack Inc” based in Miami, Florida.’
Brett gave the answer they were all looking for. ‘Even this business was daisy-chained through other international businesses but the ultimate owner is Madame Musseine, the ex mafia queen in Marseille who went underground ten years ago. The bad news is we can’t physically find her. We know her bank accounts, we know her businesses, but everything is controlled by a bean counter,’ he corrected himself, ‘an accountant as you say here.’
It was Matthews turn to add another piece of the jigsaw. ‘But we do have two alternatives where she may be hiding. Our double agents have pinpointed Japan and Tanzania as countries of extreme activity, which has been detected by the intelligence agencies of many other countries. Arms shipments that were stolen or bought have disappeared or been transhipped in Tokyo, Japan and Dar Es Salaam, the major port of Tanzania. Top mercenaries from around the world have heard rumours about the assembly of a deadly task force.’ Matthews nodded at Brett to chip in.
‘Then we got real lucky. The Chinese had placed a spy in the Japanese Intelligence service, the Kempeitai, to monitor their nuclear program and hopefully steal some technological secrets about nuclear fusion.’
J shook his head as he commented, ‘but nuclear fusion is theoretical Smart.’
‘Not anymore sir. The Japanese have cracked the problem of controlling the mini nuclear explosion by spreading it out around the ten kilometre circumference of an underground torus.’
J queried. ‘A torus?’
‘Yes sir, like CERN in Switzerland, a set of magnets every 50 metres in a giant particle accelerator, except in the Japs case, they use it to decelerate the outplosion of nuclear fusion.’ Brett sat back smugly.
J clapped his hands together in mock appreciation as he spoke. ‘Bravo for the Japanese, it could change humanity. Or it could be the deadliest weapon ever developed. How ironic after Hiroshima.’ He sighed heavily, it was 5 am after all. ‘But this is all to the credit of the CIA. I hazard a guess that you “found” this spy in Beijing and persuaded him to join you in the States?’
‘Yes sir, he was turned very easily after we had pointed out that his father had been imprisoned and tortured to death by the Chinese government following the Tiananmen Square uprising.’
J spoke again. ‘Back to the plot Smart. What else did the Chinese spy tell the CIA?’
‘Well after we promised the second million dollars, he told us that small numbers of Japanese ninja used extensively by the Kempeitai for “black ops” had gone walk about.’
Matthews rejoined the conversation. ‘”Walk about”, meaning definitely left Japan. So now we know all about the Japanese link, it must by default leave Madam Musseine somewhere in deepest Africa.’
Brett added. ‘Doing god knows what.’
Morrison confirmed the news. ‘You don’t need to ask God, Smart. Our trawl of dubious terrorist linked websites for the keywords “finance, stability and computer” gave us two hits. One in English and one in Mandarin. Both were vague and unsubstantiated actions that have taken place in the last two years in Northern Tanzania and Dar Es Salaam.
The room was silent for a few minutes. Everyone waited expectantly for J to speak as the chairman. ‘Claypole came with me to the Palace earlier to talk to a few economists. He has confirmed that at least four other G8 members think the blips were deliberate and contrived. Like us 24 hours ago, they know nothing, but have committed to help us in any way we need. That leaves us with one fresh, confident young man at the end of the table who isn’t paying attention.’ J banged hard on the table with the flat of his hand. ‘Wolf, would you kindly turn off your IPod and tell us why you are so cocky?’
‘Sorry J, I did listen to what the others said.’ J sighed but didn’t complain, he thought he knew the boy was going to come up trumps. ‘So a lady called Madame Musseine might be in Africa with a load of computers. She probably has a small and highly trained army with the latest weaponry from around the world except from the Brit’s and the Yank’s as we refuse to sell our technology. Is that correct?’ Everyone around the table nodded yes. ‘We also know that they want to deflate the shares and money markets and must have a motive. Correct?’ They all nodded again. He stood and went to the front of the meeting room to lower the LG screen. Picking up the wire-free keyboard from the top of the drinks cabinet, he wandered slowly back to his chair. Wolf tapped a few dozen keys and within seconds his three questions appeared on the giant TV.
He commented on the images as they were presented. ‘I am now in the heart of SPAM. The neural network program has answered my three questions together and also in isolation. That is a first, lady and gentlemen! Usually we have single answers to solitary questions direct from SPAM. These are the answers.’ The screen flickered.
‘One – The application linking the most people on the internet December 14th, 2012 was Facebook.
Two – The application linking the most people on the internet January 6th, 2013 was Facebook.’ He looked at the attentive audience. ‘And please don’t tell me that is impossible, that a social networking site cannot affect commercial operations in the world’s financial markets because I do know that!’ He looked around defiantly before continuing.
‘Three – The application linking the most people on the top search engines, namely yahoo.com, bing.com, ask.com, google.com, and dogpile.com was Facebook.’
He fell silent allowing J to ask the obvious question. ‘And the neural network answer linking all three SPAM results?’
Wolf had an ironic smile on his handsome face. ‘I came in at 2 am and saw the three results and thought – no way, that is impossible. So I tweaked the neural network program to review all social networking sites from Friends Reunited and Wordpress to Tumblr and Blogger. The result was astonishing...it identified an App on Facebook called “world domination”.’ At least three mouths gaped in shock or possibly admiration. ‘Yes, a mere game ladies and gentlemen. A social networking game that is played by hundreds of thousands of children age 9 to 16 years old, across every country in the world.’
Brett threw his tired head into his hands and rubbed his eyes before he wearily replied. ‘I can’t believe that anyone could be so clever. A game, open to everyone on Facebook, that is hiding the biggest hacking scandal in IS history. I really need to get some sleep.’
J stood up. ‘So now you have the strategic answers. We know their objective – at some time they will attack the world markets and make them plummet. No doubt they will hedge the futures markets and take billions of pounds in profit as the markets fall. Then they control a proportion of every asset, in every country around the entire globe.’
He paused and continued in a grave tone. ‘This is the cleverest and most diabolical plot ever conceived in the history of terrorism.’ He said this more to himself than the others, who were sat speechless in the darkened room. ‘Claypole, when would be the best time for them to attack the markets?’
‘Late September would be my guess. The markets start to function post the summer blues. The political conferences are out of the way and The American President will be trying for re-election. It’s a prime time, one serious coordinated blip, one e-commerce attack and the world stock and money markets will experience hell on earth.’
J asked for a guess. ‘What do you think would be the maximum percentage fall in a single day?’
Claypole rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘40 to 60 per cent. By the end of the day, banks would start to fold and the gold reserves of the G8 countries won’t be enough to guarantee the key currencies like the dollar and euro. They would have to inject cash they don’t have into the markets to stabilise the situation. As I said sir, it would be hell on earth – a complete meltdown.’
J stood up and leaned forward on the table. ‘In that case, we have a maximum of three months to stop this happening. Stand your teams down and give them two days holiday. They need to be fresh when you reconvene because you have to put the details into project Conman. By the end of August, I want to know everything about Madam Musseine and her ambitious plan. Goodnight.’ He walked out of the door to telephone the PM. It was 5 am.
Brett followed Wolf down the corridor towards the exit from Somerset House. He clasped the younger man’s muscular shoulder as they reached the door.
‘Thank you Wolf. I never judge a man by what he looks like, I judge him by what he does and this morning, I sure am impressed.’ Brett turned to stroll ten metres to the black Chrysler Jeep with the waiting driver. Now it was up to Wolf to cement their relationship. The two men would be working together to tackle the potential cyber attack and at some stage, lives would depend on their leadership.
* * *
Throughout a glorious August, Kate, Jack, Timmo and Roger gradually regained their freedom. The Place was forgotten by parents concentrating on work and summer childcare arrangements and in the case of the dad’s, also on the cricket. England beat the Aussies to retain The Ashes for the third time in a row and maintain their number one spot in the world rankings. The Christleton village team struggled along at the bottom of the league, watched by the four friends each Sunday that the team were playing at home. The children built dams across the stream behind Roger’s house to create deep pools, where they could strip to their underpants and dive in. Kate always left her T-shirt on, as she blossomed into womanhood but the boys were still oblivious to her, preferring to look at the freshwater crayfish that blended into the crystal-clear water. The four friends were forever climbing ropes, making tree houses and racing their BMX’s around tracks they had created in the woods above Jack’s house. Part of the fun was to modify their bikes in Jonathan’s shed, using parts from a variety of old bikes found at the council dump in Waverton.