From a Drood to A Kill: A Secret Histories Novel Read online

  He smiled, for the first time. “Then you’re not setting foot inside my base.”

  “Try to stop me,” I said. I wasn’t smiling any more. “You’ve seen my authority, Commander. I could shoot you, right now, and no one would even slap my wrist afterwards. Or, more pertinently; I could make one phone call and have you removed as Commander of Lark Hill. Your own soldiers would frog-march you out of here. You’ve seen my papers; for as long as I’m here, I outrank you. Commander.”

  He glared at me, at a loss for anything to say. He knew I wasn’t exaggerating. The documents the Armourer provided were unimpeachable. The soldiers were watching the Commander out of the corners of their eyes. He must have noticed, because he nodded stiffly to me, stepped back, and indicated the exit behind him. The door swung open, and the soldiers fell back on two sides to form an honour guard for me to walk through.

  I made a point of not noticing or caring, turned back to the Bentley, and activated the car’s security system. The Bentley made a series of loud and ostentatiously dangerous noises, then settled down again. Like a predator pretending it was asleep.

  “I’ll have someone park your car out of the way,” said the Commander.

  “No you won’t,” I said. “No one touches this car but me. She can look after herself. And don’t let anyone get too close. I haven’t fed her recently.”

  The soldiers looked at the Bentley, and then looked quickly away again. Because they could all feel the car looking back at them, in a thoughtful sort of way. The Commander shook his head disgustedly. He was clearly old-school military, with no time for anyone outside the recognised chain of command. Which left him vulnerable to people like me, who operate outside the system and don’t give a damn. Fortunately, he thought I was just another security expert, and I was determined to keep it that way for as long as possible. People in authority tend to clam up once they know they’re in the presence of a Drood.

  The Commander led the way through the open door. I looked hopefully at the honour guard of soldiers, in case they felt moved to salute me, but none of them did. Beyond the door lay just the kind of high-tech establishment I’d been expecting. Brightly lit corridors, gleaming white walls, all very calm and peaceful, with surveillance cameras everywhere. I had no doubt there would be more-sophisticated systems operating as well, hidden away from the naked eye.

  People hurried back and forth, nodding to the Commander and shooting suspicious glances at me, all of them doing their best to look as though they were on their way somewhere important, to do something vital, and possibly even urgent. I wasn’t fooled. I knew that look. It was the same expression I used to put on when I went striding purposefully through Drood Hall as a teenager, pretending to be frightfully busy so the family wouldn’t find me some real work to do. Interestingly, none of the people I passed were soldiers. No military uniforms, just cheap suits and the occasional white lab coat. Scientists and technicians, the lot of them. The Big Ear might be a military installation, but its work was still strictly scientific in nature. Despite all the airs and graces the Commander gave himself.

  Give the man his due; he went out of his way to give me the grand tour. I was taken in and out of endless offices and workrooms, where people sat in long rows, staring fixedly at computer screens or listening to headphones, occasionally bursting into flurries of sudden movement as they entered new information into the system. Dozens of men and women, watching the world and making long notes as to what it was up to. Studying video feeds, listening in on conversations, reading endless streams of e-mails. Doing their best to put it all together and make useful connections. Sorting out the dangerous wheat from the babble of chaff.

  No one spoke to anyone else. They were doing important work, and they took it all very seriously. I indicated to the Commander how impressed I was, and he nodded curtly.

  “We run a tight ship here, Mister Graves. Everyone knows their job and gets on with it.”

  “And this centre’s job is to listen to everyone?” I said. “Every communication, public and private? No exceptions?”

  If a note of disapproval had entered into my voice, the Commander chose not to hear it. “Of course,” he said flatly. “Security threats can come from anywhere. We need to know everything.”

  “What about people’s right to privacy?”

  “Their right to be protected must come first.”

  “Your new device must make that a lot easier,” I said.

  “It does. We’ve been covering the same ground for years, but the Big Ear gives us fuller access, in a far more efficient way.”

  I would have liked to say something about the moral implications of spying on people you’re supposed to be protecting. But I really couldn’t. Not when my family listens to the whole world, every day. We do it for a much greater cause than national security—but we still do it.

  The grand tour came to an end at the security control centre, where monitor screens covered the whole exterior and interior of Lark Hill. Short- and long-range sensors observed the surrounding countryside twenty-four hours a day. I leaned in for a close look at one screen, showing the soldiers guarding the gates I’d passed through earlier. The screen next to it seemed to be showing a bare expanse of open countryside. I looked at the Commander.

  “That is what lies on top of this centre,” he said. “Off-limits to the general public, of course. Protected by land mines, and other nasty hidden surprises, to discourage visitors.”

  “Do the locals know that?” I said.

  “Of course not,” said the Commander. “No one outside this base knows. If anyone knew, they wouldn’t be surprises, would they? We’re miles away from the nearest town, and the perimeter is fenced and guarded. No one has any good reason to be out there.”

  “Has anyone ever actually got inside the centre?” I said.

  “No,” said the Commander, with a certain pride. “And we are determined to keep it that way. Security here is top-notch. First-rate.”

  “Then how is important information getting out?” I said.

  “We don’t know! We’re on top of every form of communication that goes in or out of Lark Hill! It’s impossible for anyone to make contact with the outside world without going through several layers of oversight. But someone is alerting and warning off the very people we’ve identified as security risks. It has to stop!”

  * * *

  The Commander escorted me to his very private and secure office, set behind a steel door that opened only to the right numbers punched into a computer keypad. Which he was careful to block from me with his body. He needn’t have bothered. Never met a keypad my armour couldn’t crack. The office turned out to be unsurprisingly spartan, with not even a single family photo on his neat and tidy military desk. The Commander sat on a hard-backed chair on his side of the desk, while I settled myself on the equally uncomfortable visitor’s chair facing him. For a while we just sat and stared at each other. In the end, the Commander leaned forward across the desk to fix me with his steely gaze.

  “We’re going to have to work together, Graves. The situation here has become unacceptable. Our country’s safety is at risk. It appears . . . somebody working inside this centre has betrayed us. As soon as we identify someone as worthy of our attention, someone here tells them they’ve been found out. Warning them! So they can run bleating to their lawyers, or the media—or just disappear.”

  “You’re sure this is an inside job?” I said, just to show I was paying attention. “There’s no chance someone could be intercepting your communications? Maybe even tapping into the Big Ear itself?”

  “No. Completely impossible. We checked, of course, but no, it has to be one of our people. All the military personnel were personally selected by me—men and women I’d worked with before. I trust them implicitly. So that leaves just the civilians. Scientists, technicians, computer people, and security. But they were all exhaustively vetted be
fore they were allowed anywhere near Lark Hill! So it can’t be them either.”

  “Perhaps someone here isn’t who they’re supposed to be,” I said.

  The Commander shook his head. “We’ve checked everyone’s fingerprints, retina scans, and DNA. Twice.”

  “I’ll run my own checks,” I said. “Just in case.”

  “You were invited in to come up with new ideas,” said the Commander, “not cover old ground.”

  “This new device of yours,” I said. “The Big Ear. I’m going to need to see it at some point.”

  “No,” the Commander said immediately. “I don’t care what your papers say; you don’t have the necessary clearance. No one gets to see the Big Ear except me.”

  I didn’t argue. I could see he wasn’t going to budge. I fed him a few cheerful platitudes, told him not to worry because I was on the case now, and said I’d take a walk around the centre to get the feel of things. The Commander wanted to send a couple of soldiers with me. I politely but firmly declined. I rose to my feet, and he did too. We didn’t shake hands. I left his office, and the heavy steel door closed firmly behind me.

  * * *

  I strolled through the brightly lit corridors, nodding amiably to everyone I passed, and they all avoided my gaze and hurried away. No one wanted to draw attention to themselves. I did think about grabbing a few at random, slamming them up against the nearest wall and asking a few pointed questions, but I didn’t see the point. The Commander was right; security in Lark Hill was airtight. Cameras everywhere, no blind spots, all kinds of hidden surveillance systems . . . So the problem had to be with the only new element: the Big Ear. Someone must have got to it.

  I made a point of popping into various offices and just hanging around, chatting aimlessly, letting people get used to me. Making it as clear as I could that I wasn’t on any kind of witch hunt. Gradually, people started to open up and talk to me. They all seemed honestly puzzled as to how the information was getting out. They all had their own theories too, but none of them amounted to much. There were the usual suggestions as to who might be behind it—agents of a foreign power, someone doing it for the money, or even some over-principled whistle-blower doing it for WikiLeaks. All perfectly plausible, but no one was able to suggest how it could be done.

  The one thing that did emerge, very clearly, was that none of them had ever seen the Big Ear. They’d all been locked in their offices and workrooms the day the device was installed by outside contractors. And the device and its room were strictly off-limits to everyone but the Commander. So who operates it? I asked. And the answer came back: We think it operates itself. One technician lowered his voice to a whisper as he told me that even the approaches to the device’s room were protected by seriously extreme security measures. One man had been killed, early on, just for taking a wrong turn and ending up where he shouldn’t have been. The Commander hadn’t even tried to cover it up. Just let it stand as a warning, and an object lesson.

  I went back to wandering through the corridors, heading nowhere in particular, thinking furiously. It was clear the centre’s security was as much about keeping an eye on people inside Lark Hill as on people outside. Nothing happened here without someone knowing all about it. Whoever was beating the system had to know every detail of how Lark Hill operated, from the inside out. Including the Big Ear. Which meant I had to see the device for myself. I always love it when my first instincts turn out to be right. I contacted Kate.

  “Way ahead of you,” she said briskly. “I’m sending you Lark Hill’s floor plans. Don’t tell the Commander; he doesn’t know we’ve got them. We’ve already worked out where the Big Ear is, but . . .”

  “Oh, it’s never good when you hesitate like that,” I said. “But what?”

  “Well, it is rather odd. The first thing we looked for was the kind of power levels necessary to run something as powerful as the Big Ear would have to be, and there don’t appear to be any. Whatever kind of device this is, it doesn’t follow any of the expected design parameters. No energy drain, no connections to the rest of the centre’s technology; and no one to operate it. Which suggests . . .”

  “It’s not technology as we know it,” I said. “Not from around here . . .”

  “Exactly. So find out what it is, Eddie. And if need be, take it away from them.”

  “I’ve been told there are lethal levels of protection in place, defending the device,” I said.

  “Oh yes. All sorts.”

  The floor plans arrived through my torc. I looked quickly around to make sure no one was watching, then sent a trickle of strange matter up the side of my face to form a pair of golden sunglasses over my eyes. The floor plans appeared floating on the air before me. I studied the plans just long enough to memorise the quickest route to the device, then let the sunglasses run back into my torc.

  “I’m going to need a distraction,” I murmured to Kate. “Something to keep everyone occupied while I pay the Big Ear a quick visit.”

  “No problem,” said Kate. “The comm people tell me they’re ready to hit Lark Hill with a blast of electronic chaff—enough useless information to temporarily override all their systems without seeming like any kind of attack. We don’t want them to shut down the centre, after all. So make this quick, Eddie.”

  “Right, then,” I said. “I’ll just pop in for a peek and then piss off again.”

  * * *

  Just around the corner from the Big Ear’s corridor, and all its hidden deadly protections, I leaned against the wall and put my phone to my ear. Marvellous invention, the mobile phone. Never been a better excuse for standing around, apparently doing nothing. Everyone just assumes you’re listening to someone. A quick glance around the corner was all it took to confirm that there were heavily armed soldiers patrolling both ends of the corridor. I let Kate know I was in position, and immediately every alarm bell and siren and flashing light in the centre went off at once. People came running from all directions, glaring wildly about them, then heading for their prescribed panic stations, at speed. At speed, while still being very careful to avoid all approaches to the Big Ear, of course. I put my phone away, and took another quick peek round the corner. The armed guards were still standing their ground. Which was a pity—for them.

  I subvocalised my activating Words, and my golden armour flowed out and over me in a moment. I felt stronger and sharper, as though I’d been kicked fully awake. I shot round the corner and took out both guards at my end of the corridor with two solid taps behind the ear. The guards at the other end realised something had happened, but I was off and running before they even had time to raise their weapons. I raced down the corridor at inhuman speed, driven on by the unnatural strength in my armoured legs. I was just a golden blur to the startled soldiers, right before they were suddenly unconscious too. When the guards finally woke up, none of them would be able to explain to the Commander what had happened.

  I stood well back from the door that led to the Big Ear and looked it over carefully. I didn’t worry about the security cameras; Drood armour is invisible to all surveillance. How else could our field agents operate today? We move unseen through the world to do what we have to do.

  The lethal security measures were very well hidden; I couldn’t see a sign of them anywhere. I kicked in all my mask’s filters, and then discovered the pressure pads cunningly concealed in the floor, the hidden panels in the walls over robot gun emplacements, and the hidden panels in the ceilings for poison gas nozzles. The Commander really wasn’t taking any chances. I considered the situation carefully. I couldn’t hang around too long. The Commander would be bound to check in with his soldiers during an emergency alert, and he’d send serious reinforcements when the guards didn’t answer.

  The most obvious solution was to just stomp on the pressure pads and trust my armour to protect me, but that would confirm that someone had been here. Someone the lethal levels didn’t bother
at all. So, step around the pads. But when I stepped carefully past the first pad, the others immediately rearranged themselves into a whole new pattern. Which was just downright sneaky. So I hopscotched my way past and around the pads, my mask’s filters allowing me to dodge them all no matter how fast they moved.

  I can be sneaky too.

  I stood in front of the door and looked it over carefully. Fairly ordinary-looking, with another computer keypad lock. I grinned under my mask. Good enough to keep most people out, but I’m not most people. I pressed a golden fingertip against the keypad and sent a filament of strange matter leaping into the electronic system. It took my armour only a moment to find and input the right entrance code, and then the door swung quietly open before me. And no, I don’t know how the armour does that. My armour does a lot of things I don’t understand, and I discovered long ago that there was absolutely no point in asking Ethel questions concerning the marvellous armour she provides for my family. The answers only make my head hurt. I stepped quickly inside the room, and the door closed and locked itself quietly but firmly behind me.

  * * *

  I appeared to be standing inside someone’s parlour. Quiet, comfortably old-fashioned, with padded chairs and chunky furniture, and more doors leading off to other rooms. Fresh flowers in vases, nice prints on the walls, and a pleasantly patterned carpet underfoot. A little old lady was sitting in a chair, knitting something shapeless, her gaze far away. She wore a baggy sweater over a simple dress, and big fluffy slippers. Her hair was grey, and tightly curled. Her face looked well-worn, but not unhappy, with bifocal glasses pushed right down her nose. In front of her chair stood a simple coffee table, bearing a computer laptop chattering importantly to itself. The old lady didn’t appear to be paying it any attention.

  I armoured down, so as not to alarm her. My torc would still conceal me from the room’s surveillance systems. The old lady looked at me, smiled vaguely, and put her knitting down in her lap, to give me her full attention. The computer kept working on its own.