No Direction Home (6 page)

‘Why?' Vinter asked bluntly.

‘That information is classified, sir.'

‘Even from me? What level are we talking about?'

‘Even from you, sir. I'm sorry, sir, but I have my orders.'

‘It's OK, Inspector,' Ilona said, rising to her feet, but Vinter caught her momentary anxious expression.

‘You're sure?'

She nodded. ‘Really it is, sir.'

Making one last attempt, Vinter nodded at her plate. ‘You haven't finished your meal.'

‘The matter
is
extremely urgent, Inspector,' the lieutenant interrupted.

‘Yes, I'm sure it is,' Vinter said thoughtfully, rising to his feet in turn as Ilona left, giving him a half-hearted smile. As they moved away from him, the officer said something to her that Vinter could not catch; she seemed startled, then nodded slowly, as if in resignation. As they went out of the door leading to Section One, she glanced back at him momentarily, but, before he could make out her expression, she had gone.

*****

‘Ferreira, what the hell is going on in Section One Delta that is so secret that not even I can get in there?'

Ferreira glared up at him from his seated position behind his desk, then sighed exaggeratedly. ‘It's normal courtesy to knock first, Inspector.'

‘It's normal courtesy to let a Security Head know what the hell's going on in a section that is actually part of his area of responsibility. Your men won't even let me enter the bloody place. Said they were your orders.'

Ferreira nodded. ‘They were,' he said bluntly. ‘If you want to make it official, then I can sign orders relieving you of your security duties for Section One Delta and re-assigning them to the Peacekeeping Unit. Would you rather I did that – did it by the rules? I get the impression that it would not exactly fit in with your past record – going by the rules, that is, but we can do it that way, if you wish. The problem with that is that it would draw attention to Section One Delta and that is the last thing I want.'

‘OK, so why all the secrecy about reviving the Peacekeepers?'

‘Isn't that obvious? If we have a source aboard reporting to Stalker, then I do not want them telling Stalker that we do indeed have a Peacekeeping Unit that we are reviving. I'm afraid that I don't share your belief that Stalker will necessarily be aware that we have those troops on board and, although I know that you want the source to break cover, I do not want them passing on any genuine information before we catch them – certainly not of this significance. Of course, if you were to do your job properly, then all this secrecy would indeed be unnecessary, but, as it is, please allow me to carry out
my
job as I see fit.

‘Now, unless you have anything else to say, I am actually very busy – I'm sure you are as well.'

*****

Bastard…
‘If you were to do your job properly' – what the hell did he think they were doing, making paper aeroplanes or something? And why hadn't Ferreira simply passed on the information that they were taking over the security duties for Section One Delta?
Bastard…

Vinter stormed into his quarters, still in a towering rage, and tried to slam the door behind him… It hissed gently closed, its momentum deadened by the hydraulic hinge mechanism; he found himself smiling reluctantly at the anti-climax.
Not how it would have happened in a vid…

Oh, what the hell… let it go. He was only irritated because Ferreira had cut him out of the loop – and it was hardly a big deal, when all was said and done. OK, with an infiltration agent potentially on the loose, it made sense from Ferreira's point of view to keep the Peacekeepers secret for as long as possible, even if Vinter still felt that Stalker would either know all about them, or would draw up plans on the assumption of their being aboard anyway.

No, what had angered Vinter had been the jibe about doing his job properly. They'd fed a false story about problems with the manoeuvring jets into Astronautics and now all they could do was sit back and see if anyone rose to the bait – and if that didn't work, they'd have to try another department; Vinter's own estimate was that they might well have to work their way through several departments before they provoked a reaction – on the other hand, they might already have struck gold. The point was that Ferreira didn't realise that most counter-intelligence was an exercise in patience, always prolonged by the need to accumulate information – and, so far, there wasn't any. And, yes, part of Vinter's own reaction was frustration – he knew damn well it could take weeks, if not months – and they just did not have that time.

Vinter poured himself a drink, then found himself staring down at his glass as a sudden conviction came into his head.

Ferreira's hiding something.

The conviction struck him almost forcibly; he had no evidence for it, but he was convinced that this was the truth. Something that he knew about Stalker, perhaps – was that why he was so convinced it was EarthCorp? Because if he
did
know something, he damn well ought to be sharing it with his Security Chief, even if they didn't exactly hit it off… The methods used by the security services of EarthCorp and New Dawn were subtly different and if he knew who he was dealing with, it would help him focus on specific lines of enquiry.

Oh yeah… like what? All you've got is the disinformation ploy and you know it – it won't matter a damn which one you're dealing with for that.

OK, so it
was
just sour grapes… but Ferreira
was
hiding something. How did he know? Was it simply that he did not like the other man, or was it just a hunch – some sort of intuition?

Don't knock intuition – any police or security officer will tell you not to ignore it. It won't ever provide evidence that will stand up in court, not by itself, but it often puts you on the right path to securing that cast-iron case in the end…

Very true, he acknowledged, raising the glass to his lips, but then hesitated again.

Because he had the strangest feeling that somewhere, some time, someone had said those exact same words about intuition to him.

And, not for the first time, he couldn't for the life of him remember who it had been…

*****

Vinter looked up at the knock on the door, welcoming the break from ploughing through yet more files – the ‘legwork' he had blithely said he would take on. ‘Come in.'

To his surprise, it was Adebayo and Mendis; he motioned them to sit down. Adebayo took the chair in front of the desk, while Mendis pulled one over from the corner. Vinter eyed both of them speculatively, then said, ‘What did you want to tell me that you didn't want to go through comms?'

Adabayo nodded gravely. ‘That's exactly it, sir. It looks as if the main comms system has been compromised. Someone's hacked into it.'

‘Bloody hell… You're sure? No, cancel that – of course you are.'

It was Mendis who spoke next. ‘Someone's got a firewalled line into the system – it may have been there all the time, or it may have been set up recently, but it's there, covered by fake IDs and domains. It enables whoever has access to it to eavesdrop on
all
communications – internal and external.'

‘That's all we damn well need… So it could be picking up these signals from Stalker?'

‘Undoubtedly. As far as we can tell, it hasn't been used yet for any replies, but it could be with no trouble at all – and there would be no trace of it going through the system. We could pick up any signal once it was broadcast, but, until we detected this channel, there would have been no way of tracing the signal back to its source.'

‘But now there is.'

‘Yes.' Adebayo again. ‘We know who the mole is.' The statement was made without any inflexion at all; it was this lack of emotion that made Vinter sit up in his own seat, suddenly uneasy.

‘And?'

‘It's one of ours – an UNSEC officer.'

‘Oh, terrific…' Vinter said slowly. This time, he bit back the inevitable question:
You're sure?
‘Who?'

‘Fernando Teixeira.' Mendis said quietly. ‘One of my team.'

‘Which is why you wanted to report in person, rather than use Comms,' Vinter said heavily, nodding.

‘Exactly, sir.'

‘Right. I take it nobody else knows apart from we three?'
When shall we three meet again?
Another memory flash out of nowhere; this was getting to be irritating…

‘Just the three of us, yes, sir.'

‘Hold on just a minute… Teixeira has only just been revived, right?'

‘Well, he reported for duty ten days ago, but…' Mendis' voice tailed off as he saw where Vinter was going.

‘So has he had time to set all this up?'

The other two exchanged glances, then Mendis shrugged. ‘It's possible – he's a top-grade computer tech – but… I doubt it, to be honest.'

‘So it could have been set up already, then?'

‘It could have been, yes.'

‘Great… In that case, we're not just talking about a single agent then, are we?' Vinter mused, staring down at his desk before he shook his head impatiently. ‘OK, we'll have to come back to that – for the moment, he's the only lead we've got. So… what do we do with him?' The normal approach would be to place first him, then his contacts under surveillance, so that you could then round up the entire cell, but the problem here was that Ferreira wanted results
now
and while, normally, that would not influence Vinter's decision one jot, he had to say that, on this occasion at least, he was inclined to agree with Ferreira. At the moment, they had no information at all about Teixeira or his mission – for all they knew, he might be a suicide bomber, primed to blow himself up and take the
Terra Nova
with him. There was also the consideration that there was no way of knowing how much information Teixeira had collected that could be sent on to Stalker – he was in Mendis' team, which meant that he had been given total access to the ship's security system for the last ten days.
Total
access… the biggest risk now was that he would pass all that on to Stalker… ‘We pick him up,' he said bluntly, answering his own question.

The other two nodded agreement; they could see the danger as well as he could.

Vinter sighed. ‘OK. Can we disconnect Teixeira from Comms without his noticing?'

‘How long for?' Mendis asked.

‘Ten seconds?'

The other man nodded. ‘Should be able to. I take it you don't want him listening in to the arrest squad comms net?'

‘Exactly.'

‘No problem,' Mendis said confidently, then spoilt the effect by asking Adebayo, ‘You agree, Becky?'

‘No problem,' she echoed, but with more than a hint of irony.

‘Right. Let's get moving.'

*****

Vinter checked his watch, then nodded to the two uniformed officers next to him; they had their backs to a corridor wall just short of a corner, but Vinter was standing in the centre of the passageway. ‘Ready?' he asked Lawson, the corporal.

‘Ready.'

‘Sondgren?'

Her voice came through his in-ear comms device.
‘Ready.'

Vinter looked up at the internal cam above them in the corridor and held up his thumb; the light just above the lens winked out.

‘Go!' Vinter ordered Lawson. The corporal pivoted round, then sprinted along the corridor, followed by the second officer; the two men came to a halt on each side of a door with the number 17 stencilled on it. Lawson was holding a tazer in the ready position; he exchanged a glance with the other man, who nodded as Lawson typed in a rapid series of digits on the combination dial set in the wall. The green light above the dial flicked on then the second officer –
Strand?
– spun round, slamming his shoulder into the door, sending it crashing back on its hinges as Lawson leaped through the gap, followed instantly by Strand.

And that was when it all started to go wrong.

Vinter, following the two men, had still not reached the door when he heard a gunshot –
gunshot?
– and leaped forward, stifling a curse, although he already knew what he would find as he entered Teixeira's quarters.

‘Sir – he moved so fast. He'd already got the gun in his hand… I didn't have time…'

‘All right, Lawson. That's enough.' Vinter said curtly, then stepped slowly forward to look down at the body on the floor, a growing pool of blood around its head. Teixeira was lying on his back, but his head had turned to the left when it had hit the ground, so that Vinter could see that most of the back of his skull had been blown away, presumably by the gun that was still clutched in his right hand… ‘Sondgren?'

‘Here, sir – medics are on the way.'

Vinter sighed. ‘It's too late for that, by the looks of it. Better get Forensics prepped.'

Staring down at what was left of Teixeira, Vinter felt the tension beginning to drain out of him, to be replaced by a smouldering anger. Lawson:
He'd already got the gun in his hand…
Less than two seconds had passed between the door being slammed open and Lawson taking up a firing position for a tazer shot, yet, in that time, Teixeira had managed to grab a gun from somewhere and shoot himself?

Yeah, right…

Somebody – or something – had tipped him off, had told him he was about to be arrested.

Great. We've got more than one traitor in UNSEC…

‘OK, Naragama, what have you come up with?' Vinter asked, taking a seat next to the Japanese at the monitor console.

‘Evidence that Teixeira was indeed tipped off about the arrest – but not necessarily by any of us.'

‘Go on.'

‘This is the footage from Lawson's helmet cam,' Naragama said briskly, and pressed a key on the pad. It showed the door being slammed open, then a wild jumble of movement as Lawson leaped through the gap, swivelling round until he focused on Teixeira, standing in front of his computer unit, facing Lawson. Naragama froze the image: it showed Teixeira with his gun already in his mouth, held in both hands, his shoulders hunched slightly forward as if bracing himself against the impact of the bullet. ‘He
knew
who was coming through the door even before it was opened – this confirms it.'

Vinter nodded. ‘OK – but we guessed that from the speed of his reaction – he couldn't have reached a gun in that time.'

‘Agreed. But I know now how he was tipped off – it was us disabling the door cam several seconds earlier.'

‘Explain.'

Naragama touched another set of keys. ‘We retrieved these images from the web cam on his comp.' This time, a frozen image of Teixeira appeared on the screen, directly facing the camera, evidently seated at his computer typing at the keyboard.

‘I didn't know you could do that,' Vinter commented.

‘We activated it several seconds before we disabled the corridor and door cams – we used the firewalled channel in reverse. It didn't connect the web cam to the network, but it stored the images onto Teixeira's comp. We couldn't watch them in real time, otherwise we might have been able to warn you, but we've studied the footage in detail since then, of course.'

‘And?'

Naragama touched a key and the image sprang into motion. After a second or so, Teixeira reached over to his right, standing up as he did so and turning to face the door, again to his right – only now he had the gun in his hand. In one movement, he brought it up to his mouth – and waited. The sound of the door being opened was suddenly audible – and, barely a second later, he squeezed the trigger, the sound of the gunshot all but overloading the comp's built in microphones as the back of Teixeira's head exploded in a red mist of blood, brains and bone. He reeled back, disappearing from the camera's view – but they could still hear the thud as his body hit the floor.

‘OK, what did I just see?' Vinter asked.

Naragama replayed the sequence in slow motion, but froze the image barely a second into the scene. ‘The comp warned him,' Naragama said succinctly. He gestured to a second screen, which showed a representation of an electronic spike. ‘That signal was transmitted by the computer just a tenth of a second after we disabled the corridor and door cams. It was subsonic in nature, but it would have been picked up by Teixeira's comms implant, which converted it into an audible signal – this, in fact.' He pressed another key and a momentary blast of what sounded like electronic white noise screamed out from the monitor's speakers. ‘And, no, it isn't white noise – it's a very rapid microburst digital signal, which was also broadcast on Teixeira's personal comm frequency, which is why it wasn't picked up by anyone else. It was meant just for him.'

‘And that was what warned him?'

‘Evidently.'

‘In a signal lasting less than a tenth of a second? How the hell would he understand that?'

‘He didn't. My guess is that it triggered a post-hypnotic suggestion.'

‘What, to blow his brains out?'

Naragama shook his head. ‘No – otherwise he'd have shot himself as soon as there was an ordinary power failure or glitch in the cam system. What it did, I suspect, was to prime him for the final stimulus – the UNSEC uniform, or a weapon being pointed at him.'

‘So he gets this subliminal warning from the comp, gets the gun ready and, as soon as he sees Lawson, pulls the trigger in order to avoid capture?'

‘That's about it, yes.'

‘What if he'd been further away from the gun when the initial alarm was sounded? In the shower, say?'

Naragama shrugged. ‘Maybe he always had it within reach, no matter where he was. He was an UNSEC officer, after all, so he would be entitled to have his weapon with him at all times – even in his quarters.'

‘He still reacted bloody quickly – there was no hesitation at all there.'

‘There wouldn't have to be if we're talking about post-hypnotic instructions. He wouldn't have any conscious choice in the matter – he would be programmed to do exactly what he did, whether he wanted to or not.'

Vinter stared thoughtfully at the screen that still showed Teixeira seated at the computer, in what was probably the last moment he ever had of being an independent individual, in control of his own destiny. ‘We're not talking about simple post-hypnotism here, are we? We're talking about military grade combat conditioning, by the sound of it. The kind that would have had him leaping out of bed within half a second even if he'd been fast asleep.'

Naragama nodded. ‘I would say so, yes.'

‘So… could he have done it to himself? He was a computer systems expert, after all. Or was it done to him before he even left Earth to ensure that if he
was
caught, he couldn't betray anyone?'

This time, Naragama shook his head. ‘I don't know. If it was combat conditioning, you'd need to talk to someone who knows a lot more about it than I do. Moreira, perhaps – he's the interrogation specialist. He might know how such matters work – it would be something that would be very useful in his line of work – deprogramming anyone who's been given it, for example.'

Vinter shook his head. ‘He'd probably know something about it, yes – but I'm pretty sure I can think of someone who'd know even more.'

*****

‘You wanted to see me, Vinter?' Ferreira said, his entire body language indicating that, whatever Vinter wanted, he'd better make it damn quick, because he, Ferreira, had far more important fish to fry.

‘Yes, I did, sir.' Vinter sat down in front of Ferreira's desk, even though Ferreira had made no sign of inviting him to do so. ‘I need some information about combat conditioning.'

Now, Ferreira's look was more thoughtful. ‘Go on.'

Briefly, Vinter took Ferreira through Naragama's conclusions; so far, Ferreira had shown little interest in Teixeira's death once he had realised that there would be no interrogations to work with. If anything, he had implied that it had all been UNSEC's fault that the spy had evaded capture, as he saw it, but he seemed to grasp the implications immediately now.

‘So… you think Teixeira had been given combat conditioning?' he asked, once Vinter had finished.

‘It was more than simple post-hypnotic suggestion, sir – his reflexes were as fast as any Marine.'

‘With combat conditioning, you mean.'

‘From what I understand about it, yes.'

Ferreira thought for several seconds, as if wondering how much he could tell Vinter, before asking, ‘Does it make much difference whether he had been given it or not?'

‘It does, really. If it's post-hypnotic suggestion, then he could have been given it by a fairly wide range of individuals and techniques. If it's combat conditioning, that narrows down the field quite considerably. Maybe he was given it before he even left Earth, with just this situation in mind – suicide before capture. If that was the case, then he could be working completely alone. But if someone on
Terra Nova
carried it out, then we've got problems.'

‘I see what you mean. Very well. You understand that what I am about to tell you is Absolutely Restricted?'

‘I never assumed anything else.'

Ferreira paused for a moment, as if collecting his thoughts, then said, ‘Combat conditioning is not a straightforward process, by any means, nor is it used lightly. Yes, we can effectively condition military personnel into obeying orders instantly without hesitation or question, if they are given a specific trigger phrase. Even if obeying the order will inevitably mean their own death. They become physically incapable of disobeying that order, or even of hesitating for an instant. Give them a trigger phrase and they will attack even the strongest military position until either it is taken or they are all dead – retreat or withdrawal will not be an option.'

‘Even if it's the best military option in the circumstances?'

‘Even if it is the best option, yes. Unless they are given a countermanding trigger phrase releasing them from the original, they will actively disobey any order to retreat, no matter how senior the officer issuing it.'

‘Suicide squads, in other words –
kamikazes
.'

‘Yes. Naturally, this would only be used in specific situations – whatever you may think, even the military does not throw lives away willy-nilly – but it is an option that might be used, for example, if we needed a rearguard action or a diversionary attack. Situations where the troops are expendable, in other words. There are other scenarios, however, less drastic than that – like issuing orders that no prisoners are to be taken, for example, which would be implemented in, say, a commando raid, where taking prisoners would not be a realistic option, so any attempt to surrender would simply be ignored. Basically, we can order our troops to be as ruthless or as self-sacrificing as we require, depending on the tactical situation.'

‘Only they're not being self-sacrificing, are they? They don't have any choice in the matter – they're being sacrificed – by someone else… Do they even know they've had these orders pretty much hard-wired into them?'

‘It would make no difference whether they knew or not – they would still have to obey the orders.' Ferreira shrugged, almost apologetically. ‘But, no, it isn't exactly something we include in our recruiting campaigns, to be honest.'

‘I'm not surprised… Does the conditioning include orders to commit suicide to avoid capture?'

Ferreira nodded heavily. ‘Yes, it does – although, again, it would only be included if the soldier, or officer, had vital information to protect.' He nodded again. ‘So, yes – it appears more than likely that your agent
did
have Combat Conditioning.'

‘Not
my
agent. So – this trigger phrase. Presumably, it would be transmitted verbally?'

‘Yes. Either directly by a senior officer, or through their comm sets. It would normally take the form of a phrase consisting of random words grouped together.'

‘So they're not likely to be set off by accident?'

‘Exactly.'

‘And different ones for each scenario? One for no retreat, another for no prisoners?'

‘Yes. And different release trigger phrases, of course.'

‘Does it have to be verbal? Could it be in the form of an electronic signal?'

‘Yes. A specific sequence of digital pulses, for example.' Ferreira sighed. ‘As would appear to be the case in this instance.'

‘So… how does this conditioning work? How are these troops brainwashed?'

Ferreira's face showed irritation at the expression, but all he said was, ‘That is also classified, Vinter. I don't think you need to know that.'

‘I don't need the technical details, for God's sake. I just need to know the kind of resources you'd need. Could Teixeira have programmed himself? Or would it have needed someone else?'

‘It needs quite sophisticated equipment, so I don't think he could have done it alone, no.'

‘Could it be done aboard
Terra Nova
?'

Again, Ferreira seemed about to refuse to answer, but then realised the relevance of the question. ‘I don't know,' he admitted. ‘I would have to consult the experts on that – and I am not fobbing you off here. I can see that being able to carry out such conditioning aboard this ship would have significant security problems. My best guess is that it would not be feasible, but I will have to get back to you on that. However, if I am right and he could only have been conditioned on Earth, then that's a plus point from our point of view, isn't it? It means that it's less likely that we're talking about an undercover network and more about a lone agent, surely?'

‘It isn't that simple, Colonel, I'm afraid. Teixeira killed himself – or was made to kill himself – in order to protect something – or someone. Which implies that it or they are aboard this ship, otherwise there wouldn't be any point in doing that, would there? If all that he could betray was that he had to report back to Stalker by using this comms link that was set up by persons unknown possibly before we even left Earth, then their best bet would be to let him live and let us waste our time interrogating him because he wouldn't tell us anything useful. But he knew something they didn't want us to discover – so what was it? What was so important that he had to die to protect it?'

Ferreira stared levelly at Vinter, then his lips turned down at the edges in a gesture of distaste. ‘I see what you're driving at, Inspector, but, to put it bluntly, that is your problem, not mine. It will be your job to find that out, won't it?'

*****

‘Come in, Lieutenant – sit down,' said Vinter, suppressing the thought – again – that Kari Sondgren was a very attractive woman indeed. It wasn't the first time he'd had to do that and he suspected it wouldn't be the last…

She sat down on the other side of the desk, facing him. ‘You wanted to see me, sir?'

‘Yes, I did.' He reached forward and turned his comp pad around so that she could see its screen. ‘I'm not recording this conversation, Lieutenant.' He pressed a key and the words RECORDING MODE DISABLED appeared on the screen. Smiling faintly, he continued, ‘OK, so that doesn't prove anything, but I really do want this to be between the two of us.'