The Codex File (2012) (53 page)

He raised his gun again, the tears rolling down his cheeks.

“
She believed in the cause,” Trevellion said dismissively. “Don’t talk to me about the morality of the project. This isn’t about morality. It’s about guaranteeing control. The former internet didn’t allow it. UKCitizensNet does. It’s as simple as that.”

As Trevellion spoke Michael could hear a stream of questions being asked in his head, his anger rising by the moment.

“
But if she was so important to you, why did you have her killed?”

Trevellion didn’t respond. A slight grin formed on his lips.

Michael’s finger squeezed the trigger. The bullet flashed past Trevellion’s head, catching the side of his ear, puncturing a hole in the metal filing cabinet to the right of him.

Trevellion flinched slightly before touching his ear. His fingers were coated with blood from where the bullet had grazed his lobe on its way past his head. The aim had been slightly closer than Michael had intended. But it had the desired effect.

“
We couldn’t afford for there to be any loose ends. If either she or David Langley had been exposed as passing on secrets to SemComNet then our tender would have been over. And we were always very careful who she actually met at SemComNet. It wasn’t desirable for her to ever meet with any of the senior team. Myself included. The risks of exposure and being implicated were far too great. She always met trusted ‘go-betweens’ at meetings. Any risks or exposure and the project would have failed. There couldn’t be anything that led back to us once UKCitizensNet was operational.”

“
So she was expendable then?” Michael said angrily.

“
She’d served her purpose,” Trevellion replied honestly. “She knew the risks when she got involved. That’s why she didn’t want you knowing about it. She wanted to protect you. What we hadn’t counted on was her taking out a little insurance policy by storing information elsewhere rather than sharing it with us.”

“
I guess she didn’t quite trust you enough,” Michael sneered back. “Maybe the cause wasn’t the be all and the end all. Her family came first. Clare came first.”

Trevellion scoffed at the assertion, aware Michael was trying to hang onto anything that held his wife’s memories sacred.

How many bullets were still left in the clip he wondered, staring at the pointing barrel.

“
Don’t kid yourself, Michael. She believed in it and she was prepared to see SW Technologies go to the wall when they didn’t get the tender. The company’s future was dependent on it, but still she fed us information because she understood the wider picture, and what we could do with UKCitizensNet. She was a patriot. Read the file, man. It’s all in there.”

As Michael glanced down at the file again Trevellion lunged at the end of the cabinet, thrusting it closed, smashing into Michael’s arm which was in the way. Colette’s incriminating files were thrown into the air as Michael slipped to the ground. Trevellion turned and began to run.

Pulling himself to his feet Michael set off in pursuit, unable to lock his aim on Trevellion as the pair of them scurried down the aisle of filing cabinets. Eventually their pursuit opened up into an office area. Michael grinned triumphantly as Trevellion ran into a cul-de-sac from which there was no escape.

His nemesis stood behind a metallic desk, a single tablet computer on it, linked to a large screen on the wall opposite. Trevellion cursed at his wrong turn, glaring angrily at Michael.

“
Just answer me one question,” Michael said slowly, calmly, keeping his rage and his trigger finger under control. “Why did you film it? Why did you film what you did to my little girl?”

He paused as an almost indiscernible expression of guilt and concealment crossed Trevellion’s face. The realisation hit him like an express train.

“
You videoed that butcher killing Colette too, didn’t you?” he yelled, as Trevellion edged slightly backwards, the first signs of fear showing on his sombre features, his eyes widening slightly.

“
Answer me, you bastard,” he bellowed again, his rage threatening to overwhelm him.

But before Trevellion could reply he involuntarily pulled the trigger, and again, and again, and again, until the barrel stopped firing as the magazine emptied. For a few long seconds the smell of cordite filled his nostrils, smoke blurring his vision.

As the haze cleared he blinked. Trevellion was still standing motionless in front, four yawning craters in the wall to the left of his head where the bullets had impacted with the brick wall. Michael had missed his target. The magazine was empty. Turning to examine the holes in the wall Trevellion smiled wryly, turning back to face Michael.

“
It looks as if you’re out of ammunition. I think the odds have swung back in my favour somehow.”

In an instant Michael dropped the gun, anticipating some sort of retaliation from Trevellion. Slipping his hand into trouser pocket he pulled a small hand grenade from within. Trevellion stopped his approach and looked warily at Michael.

“
I’ve got a bit of my own insurance,” Michael said firmly. “Something I picked up from one of your soldiers who didn’t survive all the blasts that have been going off.”

Sliding his finger through the pin at the top of the grenade he ordered Trevellion to sit down behind the desk.

“
The question remains: why did you video their deaths?”

“
We thought it would give us a little extra leverage should certain circumstances ever arise. And how right we were.”

“
But why kill my little girl? She wasn’t involved. Why kill an innocent child?”

Trevellion rolled his eyes, exasperated at Michael’s continuing naivete.

“
Have you understood nothing? We had to publicly crucify Davey Wilkes to ensure the public’s appetite was satisfied in having someone to blame for the killings. The murder of a child ensured that appetite was insatiable. I told you before, this is a dirty business. One you shouldn’t even think of playing.”

Michael looked down at the grenade in his hand and smiled thinly.

“
You’re right. I don’t want to play this game anymore, which is why I’m going to end it, here, tonight.”

He looked at his watch again. The launch of the app was less the two minutes away if Simon had kept to his word.

“
Why do you keep looking at your watch?” Trevellion snapped impatiently. “Is there somewhere else you need to be?”

“
I’m not going anywhere. In fact I’m not going anywhere ever again. I came down here looking for you for one reason and one reason alone - to ensure you never leave this room. You see, in less than two minutes this room is going to fill with a deadly gas cocktail from SemComNet’s own resources. Ironic really. In less than a minute you’ll be dead, amongst your prized computer network.”

Michael looked up at the sprinklers evenly distributed in the ceiling panels and smiled knowingly. A slight look of panic crossed Trevellion’s face as the realisation struck him.

“
Didn’t Kennedy explain to you how we tried to kill you previously? I guess not.”

“
But you’ll be killed also?” Trevellion protested.

“
What have I got to live for? You took everything from me. There’s nothing for me to go back to. My wife and daughter are dead. The police and army are hunting me because they think I’m some sort of child-kiling cyber terrorist. What could I possibly have to live for outside these walls? The only thing I have left is ensuring you die with me, and that UKCitizensNet ends here, tonight. Your CODEX project has failed.”

Trevellion began to advance on Michael who held the grenade up in front of him, stopping him in his tracks.

“
If you try to get past me and escape, I will detonate the grenade, which will be a far less pretty way to go. Although probably somewhat quicker. The choice is yours.”

He looked at his watch again. Thirty seconds to the gas was due to disperse.

Trevellion exhaled loudly, sitting back on the metallic desk, a slight smile crossing his face.

“
I certainly underestimated you, didn’t I?” he said thoughtfully, rubbing his hands together.

Twenty seconds.

“
There will be others to carry on this work. You know that, don’t you? This CODEX project will continue”

“
It’s over. The Real Internet Guardians are tearing UKCitizensNet to pieces. Look at the screen behind me.”

The large screen mounted on the wall displayed the UKCitizensNet homepage and the message the R.I.G had posted to the nation.

Ten seconds.

His index finger was firmly gripped around the pin of the hand grenade.

“
You can’t stop progress, no-one can. It will…”

The thunderous explosion ripped through the East Wing of the building, swallowing everything up in its path. The walls crumbled, sending mountains of flying debris into the air. The floors above the room collapsed, filling the area with more dust and masonry as the building heaved before falling in on itself.

In the Data Warehouse the room shook and everything went black as the lights were extinguished. Then there was silence.

The first explosion had woken Digger from his slumber in the hammock he’d erected forty feet up between two sturdy oak trees, above his observation platform. In a state of stirring consciousness he’d laid in his hammock, unsure whether he’d dreamt the noise or whether it had been real.

For a few long seconds the sound had given him anxious flashbacks. It was as if the bastards were coming for them all over again. As they had two years earlier. He could still hear the screams as the trees had fallen to the ground, taking his friends with them. They’d either been killed by the fall or beaten to death by the soldiers on the ground. No mercy had been shown that day and still it haunted him. Regularly he would wake up in the night in a cold sweat, the images haunting him, wondering why he’d been the only one to escape.

But this was different. Normally the sounds or the explosions were just in his dreams. But this had been real. And this had come from within SemComNet itself.

When the second explosion shook the ground he knew he wasn’t dreaming. Moving to the edge of his platform he peered through the trees and the darkness to where SemComNet was illuminated in the distance. The night was punctuated by lights beaming through the gallery of windows, covering the imposing complex. Straining his hearing, he was sure he could the sound of screams and ensuing panic from within the building.

The sound of another explosion filled the air and this time he could see flames licking at the inside of the right wing of the building as parts of the structure collapsed.

What the hell’s happening?

Quickly, he began his descent to the ground. It was three days since Michael, Simon and Brown had entered the building, and failed to return. They’d obviously been captured. He’d presumed they were almost certainly dead now. He knew only too well how ruthless SemComNet were. If they’d been caught, there was no way they were coming out alive.

But he’d not been expecting this. It was surely no coincidence the building was coming under some form of attack.

Reaching the ground he moved to almost the edge of the tree line, close to where the entrance to the tunnel was. Scratching his several days’ stubble he watched the chaos several hundred feet away. Frightened staff were frantically trying to escape from the main entrance in the atrium, their screams and cries filling the still night air.

Surely, there wasn’t any prospect of the three of them escaping he wondered, looking down at where the entrance to the tunnel was concealed.

Kicking the leaves and foliage away which concealed the entrance he was struck by another thought. Although virtually none of it had made any sense, he remembered discussions the three men had had prior to their covert advance on SemComNet. They’d mentioned something about other groups being able to attack SemComNet if they could infiltrate UKCitizensNet. As a stream of fire blew out a window about half-way up the building on the right side he pondered this possibility. Could this be the attack they were talking about?

He didn’t know. But there was one thing he was sure of. And without further thought he pulled open the entrance to the tunnel and began to wait.

The candles in the tunnel had long since burnt out and Simon’s escape was slow and tortuous. Walking slowly through the tunnel he groped at the walls for direction, fighting off the feelings of claustrophobia as he looked into total blackness. He had no idea where he was in relation to the other end of the tunnel. He just had to keep on walking.

Several minutes later he breathed a sigh of relief. His hands made contact with the base of the ladder which led out of the tunnel. Sweating, he wondered if Michael was behind him or whether he really had stayed to the end with Vincent.

Climbing up the ladder it took him a further two minutes before he felt the cool night air on his face. As his head poked out of the top of the tunnel entrance he could hear the sounds of SemComNet burning, screams filling the air as staff attempted to flee the mayhem.

Pulling himself out he crouched on the ground, attempting to catch his breath, his heart pounding. But before he could move a vice like grip surrounded his neck, pulling his head upwards, almost breaking his neck.