The Codex File (2012) (49 page)

The President saw the light from the fireball glow briefly off the windows of his own Limousine before it was blown into a thousand pieces. The explosion tore the reinforced metal apart, scattering debris onto the bridge and into the river, before obliterating the limousine behind.

The driver of the final limousine felt the warmth of the explosion envelop his vehicle as he forced it into reverse. The wheels screeched loudly as the car hurtled backwards and out of the destructive path of the blast.

The vehicle came to an abrupt halt as is it careered into the 4x4 Jeep that had been behind as they’d reached the bridge. The four security guards sat in silence, watching in disbelief as the tangled mass of metal burned fiercely. Barely metres away. Not one of them spoke.

As with everywhere else in close proximity to Westminster Bridge the explosion had been heard, shaking the Japanese restaurant where Tate and Trevellion were finishing their meal.

Ignoring the four burly security guards the restaurant’s staff and other diners had all rushed to the windows to see what had happened.

Black smoke rose into the cloudy midday London sky above the rooftops of Oxford Street. The acrid smell of burning fuel started to seep into the restaurant as the babble of voices speculated as to what had just happened.

“
I think we should get you out of here, sir,” one of the security guards suggested, approaching Tate’s table.

Tate nodded, casting a knowing glance at Trevellion opposite.

“
Yes, I agree. Bring the car round.”

As the security guard moved away from the table the chatter of anxious voices in the restaurant was punctuated by Tate’s mobile phone, which began to ring. Picking it up from the table he exchanged glances with Trevellion before answering the call.

A familiar male voice was at the other end of the line.

“
The target has been destroyed.”

Vincent Trevellion strode purposefully through the white corridor, approaching the room where Michael and his brother were being held captive. A tall, unfriendly looking soldier accompanied him as they reached the locked door. Trevellion stood back as the soldier unlocked the door, a baton held firmly in his right hand.

As the door swung open Michael and Simon were at the back of the room. His brother sat on one of the three chairs, but this time he was fully clothed, not savagely restrained. Michael sat hunched on the floor, his back pressed against the cold white wall. Ben’s blood still stained the adjacent wall behind from where Brown had mercilessly executed him several days before.

Simon regarded the security guard warily, his faces drawn and harrowed from the days of torture, fearing what might next be in store for them.

Michael looked up from his thoughts and in Trevellion’s direction, remaining seated. His right eye was half closed from where Brown had blinded him with the cigarette. His skin and eyeball swollen and blistered from the savage heat. His other eye burned with an equal hatred for Trevellion and all that he stood for.

The soldier stood menacingly in front of Michael and Simon as Trevellion sat on the table, the same place Brown had been days before. Pulling a holstered handgun from inside his jacket, he held it purposefully in his left hand.

Smirking knowingly in Michael and Simon’s direction the soldier exited the room. The sound of his boots thudding down the corridor soon faded away as the three men were left together in the windowless cell.

For what seemed like an eternity none of the men spoke as mutual contempt hung in the air. Michael was the first to say what both men were thinking.

“
You’ve come here to kill us then, have you?”

Trevellion looked Michael directly in the eye.

“
Got every last bit of information out of us now, have you? Don’t need us anymore?”

The slightest smile passed Trevellion’s thin lips as his left index finger gently tapped the trigger of the handgun.

“
Answer him, damn it,” Simon interrupted with equal hostility. “Stop playing games with us.”

Trevellion turned to face his brother, contempt clear in his eyes.

“
But you know I like games, don’t you?” he replied calmly. “I always did. And I was always better at them than you.”

Simon scowled, anger burning in his eyes. He knew it was true. Vincent had always been the more manipulative, the more conniving of the two when they had grown up. He’d always managed to wriggle his way out of problems far better than he had. And always seemed to incur the wrath of their parents far less. It was one of his many talents. In life Vincent always seemed to have the upper hand. And now in certain death nothing had changed.

“
It’s ironic, isn’t it,” Trevellion continued menacingly. “The last time I saw you lectured me about your disgust at companies likes SemComNet. And, as I recall, your moral opposition to their stance on unregulated information. Imagine then how gratified I felt when I discovered from Kennedy that my own brother was a member of R.I.G. A group we’ve been hunting down for years. A rabble that stands for nothing more than anarchy and pathetic idealism. The irony was just too pleasing for words.”

Trevellion paused, choosing his next words as carefully as a surgeon selects his scalpel.

“
And then something else struck me, probably the greatest irony of all. I realised that maybe just for once father would probably have been proud of what you were doing. Finally, you were actually doing something you believed in. Not just lecturing or theorising about it. It’s a pity this revelation didn’t come when he was alive, isn’t it?”

A thin smile crossed Trevellion’s lips as Simon’s face flushed with anger. As usual his brother knew exactly how to provoke him. But never before had he done so with a gun pointed at him.

“
The R.I.G are over. We’re locating more of your groups all of the time and becoming very adept at getting rid of them. And now we have the app too.”

“
Oh yes, you’re good,” Michael added, breaking the sibling hostility. He braced himself for what he was about to say, fearing provocation might hasten his end further.

“
Just tell me one thing. Why? Not why you brutally butchered my wife and daughter. I know you were stealing industrial secrets and they were expendable and in your way. But why this app, this bit of fucking code? Why is it so important to you and SemComNet that you’ve killed God knows how many people in pursuit of it? I hope for your sake it was worth it.”

Michael tentatively rubbed his blistering eye as it began to throb again, gently weeping down his pale cheek.

“
It’s worth it, believe me. But you don’t understand the significance of what we now posses and what we can do with it. It’s far beyond the comfortable confines of your previous, mundane urban lives. You should have stayed in your quiet, boring existences and left this to people who are really changing the world, not associating with losers trying to maintain some antiquated, unregulated old network. If you’d left it alone, you wouldn’t be here now.”

Michael could feel his rage erupting up from within.

“
But you brought me into this. You killed my wife and daughter. Did you think I’d just let that lie?”

“
Yes, but we gave you the killer. There was no need to pursue this any further. But you forced our hand when you came to see me, telling me your wife had further information. We couldn’t let that lie I’m afraid.”

“
Davey Wilkes was innocent,” Michael said flatly.

Trevellion gestured dismissively, waving the handgun in front of him.

“
A Green road protester who lives up trees and in tunnels. Hardly a loss to society, is he?”

“
That’s a matter of perspective, Vincent,” Simon interrupted.

Trevellion turned angrily to face his brother.

“
Spare me your patronising intellectual reasoning. This is a ruthless business and he was expendable.”

“
But the question remains: what is this business? This clearly goes beyond just computers. We’ve all seen the code and what it does. This is warfare by any other name.”

Trevellion smiled knowingly at his brother, content in the knowledge he was shortly going to end his life.

“
You always were the smarter one, weren’t you Simon? It’s a shame you didn’t use that intellect in a more profitable way, rather than wasting it on academia and the freedom of ideas and information. What a waste of your life.”

“
I’d stand up for that every time against the sham that’s UKCitizensNet. That’s worth dying for.”

“
Well, how ironic that you will die for your beliefs then.”

Simon watched, surprised at how calm he was feeling in the circumstances. Vincent looked them up and down. His finger poised on the trigger.

Warfare?

Suddenly he was struck by what he’d just said. The day before they’d been moved out of the room they were being held in and taken to one of the many R&D computer labs. The purpose had been to check Michael’s confession that his wife had further information about the app stored on a remote server.

Whilst in the lab, the various screens filling the room had been showing live UKCitizensNet feeds reporting the death of Saudi leader, President Mahmoud Khalefa Al-Haifi on Westminster Bridge in London. The tragedy was being blamed on one of his drivers losing control of his vehicle and ploughing into a petrol tanker, causing a massive explosion, killing the President and leaving the bridge with enormous structural damage. A terrible thought crossed his mind.

“
You used the app to kill the Saudi President, didn’t you?” he said, as he had an epiphany about the possible motives for needing the app to work on a wireless network, his thoughts filling with theories and conspiracies.

Trevellion lowered his gun, relaxing his finger on the trigger, his eyes widening with mild surprise. A look of satisfaction crossed his face.

“
You see, I told you your brain was wasted in a dusty university library.”

“
But why? This country’s not at war with Saudi Arabia. It never has been.”

His thoughts trailed off as another idea suddenly struck him.

“
This is about oil, isn’t it?”

Trevellion seemed to smile again, although his facial expression barely changed. He seemed to be enjoying the intellectual spat with his brother Michael thought as he watched from where he sat.

“
It’s about oil this time. But it won’t be next time. This stealth weapon gives us control. The control to pursue whatever policies this government sees fit, but which would be, let’s say, less palatable to the average voter.”

Simon closed his eyes, trying to process all of the facts bombarding him.

“
So this is about the Saudi oil tariffs?

“
Go on.”

“
The Saudi President has been touring European countries, who’ve all been trying to negotiate better deals on the oil tariff. Doubtless they’ve been offering concessions to Saudi Arabia elsewhere?”

“
Very good.”

“
But why kill him?”

Trevellion looked at Simon and Michael, and then to the gun he was holding, deciding how much information he was prepared to share. He had no interest in sharing anything with Michael Robertson - his purpose had been served. They’d squeezed everything they could out of him.

But with his brother it was different. Academically he’d always been superior to him. Doubtless he would’ve made Professor one day.

But what he himself lacked in intellect compared to his brother he’d more than compensated with his determination. A ruthless spirit to see anything through to the end. No matter what the cost. The means always justified the end.

But here they were now. And for one of the few times in their lives he held the upper hand intellectually. He understood the bigger picture. Had all the answers. Held the power. What a fitting personal scenario to end his brother’s worthless pursuit of intellectual freedom and the sharing of ideas. Could their views be further apart?

“
You’ve heard of Oil-NetCom, I presume?” Trevellion continued.

Simon nodded. Michael, who was grappling with the pain in his eye, didn’t acknowledge the question. But somewhere at the back of his consciousness the name was vaguely familiar.

“
Oil-NetCom is one ofSemComNet’s sister companies and has refineries based in a number of oil producing countries. Its biggest concentration of refineries was, however, formerly in Saudi Arabia. But, as I’m sure you’ll remember, four years ago the former Saudi royal family was ousted in a bloodless coup and exiled from the country. That was when President Al-Haifi and his cabinet came to power.”

Simon nodded, remembering the international coverage of the momentous event.

“
One of the first things Al-Haifi did was to nationalise the oil industry in Saudi Arabia. The result was all foreign oil companies being forced out of the country and the Saudi government claiming the wells for themselves. One of these companies was Oil-NetCom. Of course, there was outrage in the Western world at this move, which only got worse when the Saudi government introduced the now infamous ‘oil tariff’. Military action wasn’t an option. It would have united the entire Arab world against the West. And that was too high a price to risk. Instead, the cost of a barrel of oil immediately topped $100 and has been rising ever since. Before long it will be over $200 a barrel. Oil-NetCom, as with all of the other companies forced to leave Saudi Arabia, incurred billions in loses. Some of this was cushioned by national governments. But not all. However, not everyone in the Saudi cabinet supported the move to nationalisation. But Al-Haifi forced it through. Needless to say, this move to nationalisation was deliriously greeted in Riyadh and the rest of the country. A nice little ‘fuck you’ to the Western world.”