Betrayed: (A Financial and Conspiracies Thriller – Book 1 in the Legacy Thriller Series) (6 page)

‘Mr Igor Komarov, yes.’

‘Make sure that account is blocked immediately will you. Until further notice, no one but me is to be allowed to access that account, got that?’

‘Got it,’ said Fleming.

Chapter 6

Thursday, lunchtime,

Number 11 Downing Street, London

Simon Cape, the Chancellor’s chief legal aide at Number 11 Downing Street, got down into the hall just as the Towneley Bank courier arrived with the package. It underwent the standard safety checks – for such as explosives or anthrax – and Cape then took it to his office.

As many Government computers have their usb memory stick drives disabled, Craithe had also verified that Cape would use his own laptop into which he could plug the memory stick. Cape plugged the security-cleared stick into his laptop followed by the password given to him earlier by Perry. On opening the files on the stick, he first read through the schedule to be sure he was up to date with Athena’s launch programme:

Today, 3.35pm to 4.15pm, ITV’s programme ‘A Day on the London Stock Exchange’

3.50pm Demonstration of Hedge Fund’s erratic trades for exactly one minute. Presenter of this sponsored programme to focus on this erratic trading. (Programme available thereafter on iPlayer for one week).

Good Friday, 9am to midday, Bank of England Cyber Defences Convention. By invitation only. Repeat of the attack sequence from the televised demonstration.

Installation of Athena’s attack detection software on any mainframes still not protected by it. Questions and Answers on Athena.

Conference to be warned that, at any time during the conference, there might be a cyber-attack on one of the companies attending.

Athena software on client’s machines to detect the attack and from its base, Athena to counter-attack and eliminate the attacker.

Cape looked through the contents of the memory stick a second time and chose a few documents which he thought would help the Chancellor at the Cobra Meeting. These he copied into a new folder on the machine’s desktop and named it “for printing”. He then called for his secretary, Mina, to come in quickly as there was an urgent print job to be done.

‘Mina, the Chancellor’s going to a Cobra Meeting shortly, and he needs some documents for that.’

‘What’s a Cobra Meeting?’

‘Look, I know you’re always asking questions because you want to get better at your job,’ said Cape, ‘but we’re in a hurry right now’. Mina put on her little pouting face for a second, and as usual Cape relented. ‘All right then; Cobra meetings are named after the initials of ‘Cabinet Office Briefing Room’; they’re emergency meetings for when a threatening incident would benefit from a get-together of the PM, senior ministers and advisors. There, that’s all I’m saying on that, so please do the printing now. I’ve put the documents the Chancellor needs into a file on the desktop and named it ‘for printing’. I’ve got more to look through on the memory stick when you finished and as I don’t want to have to re-enter the long password, just leave the memory stick in the machine while you do the print job. Okay?’

Mina was aware that the memory stick might shut down on a time lock if not used for a while, so she got Cape to keep it ‘awake’ before she took it for printing. ‘Could you just check that you’ve put everything you want me to print into the folder?’

‘Right,’ said Cape. He quickly looked through the files once more. ‘No, that’s all I need. Get them printed now as quickly as possible, will you?’

‘Of course, quick as can. But I have to go the photocopying room with this as the printer in my office is not working,’ she said putting on her ‘cute’ accent – the one she had used when they had first met.

‘Very well, if you must. But careful with the memory stick, now that I’ve opened it with the long password, anyone could read what’s on it.’

‘Yes, of course,’ replied Mina and she hurried out holding the Laptop as though it was made of porcelain. She hoped he would not check that there was nothing wrong with her printer. For what she planned to do, she needed to be out of Cape’s sight. She hurried along the corridor to the photocopying room. She saw no one on the way – many staff having already been allowed to go off early for the long holiday weekend. Although this was Cape’s own laptop, it was already set-up for use on one of the wifi-enabled printing machines there.

She clicked for it to print off copies of the documents in Cape’s ‘for printing’ folder, and whilst the machine gently whirred and clicked its way through them, she went over to the door and peered along the corridor in both directions. There was no one in sight.

Hurrying back to the printer and laptop, she reached into the top of her bra and pulled out a small computer memory stick of her own. This she plugged it into one of the laptop’s spare usb ports. She then carefully selected Angus’s memory stick which was still ‘open’ on the desktop.
She then
copied much of its contents onto hers.
She was careful not copy the entire contents, in case the Craithe Team had software on it that would detect a
complete
transfer and see it as theft. Clearly well used to this kind of operation, she then extracted her own memory stick and snuck it back into the top of her bra with many of Craithe’s and Athena’s secrets now on it.

As soon as all the printing was finished, she collected it up, stacked it on top of the closed laptop with Angus’s memory stick still firmly in place and hurried back to Cape’s office. During the entire operation she had seen no one.

‘All done, want to cheek?’ she beamed as she carefully laid the laptop and pile of papers down on his desk.

‘Check,’ he corrected, ‘it’s check not cheek.’ She smiled, though, out of sight under the desk her left foot tapped with irritation. Looking through the copies and checking them off against his list, Cape finally said, ‘Great, you’re getting quite good at all this now, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, I hope,’ she smiled yet again.

Checks completed, Cape looked at his watch. No time left for looking at other material on the stick right now, so he removed it from the laptop and put it into his small wall safe. Shutting the door firmly, he twiddled the locking wheels and then tested that it was properly secured for it was not just the instructions that had come with the memory stick that made him nervous about its security − what little he had read convinced him that its contents should be kept limited to as few people as possible.

‘If you’re meeting with the Chancellor for some time, shall I take quick lunch now?’ asked Mina. ‘That way I’m ready help you when you finished meeting with him?’ She gave Cape another of her coy looks.

‘Good thinking,’ replied Cape and, glancing at his watch again. He suggested that she be back by two thirty - rather over an hour from now. Then, with his thoughts focused on how he would brief the Chancellor, he hurried from his office, head bent low, small quick steps, concentration on ‘high’.

* * * * *

As soon as he was gone, Mina half-ran from his office back to her desk. She collected up her large floppy leather bag, put on her coat and a Cossack style mock-fur hat, rushed downstairs and out of Number Eleven. Leaving Downing Street, she gave a broad, little-girl grin to the policemen on the gates, turned left and headed up Whitehall towards Trafalgar Square. As soon as she was out of sight of the Downing Street Gates, she got out her mobile phone and rang another mobile number. Her phone told her the number was in use.

She smiled. The information of the memory stick was hopefully going to be worth a good deal of money to her – enough perhaps for some celebrations in Italy. She would also be able to give her other branch of ‘the family’ what they were looking for. She would try the mobile again in a minute. She tried twice. In her eagerness, she nearly dropped the phone − trying to use it a third time whilst threading her way through the lunchtime crowds. It was still some distance to the small Internet Café she often used, so she stopped in Trafalgar Square and sat on a step there. She rang the number a fourth time. Eventually it was answered.

‘Wheeler’ said a firm voice.

‘It’s me, Mina.’

‘Mina, nice to hear from you - something for me?’

‘Yes, very big, I’d say it’s “hot stuff” - you’ll be most surprised I think’ she said, now speaking without a trace of accent, in quick, fluent English.

‘Hot, you say?’ Wheeler sounded cautious.

‘Yes, hot’, she repeated. ‘I have a memory stick with some secret information on it. I’m on my way to the Internet Café I usually send you this kind of secret information from − I’ll be there in five or six minutes. I’ll email some of it to you – all of it will be too much, might make the internet café owner suspicious. We’ll have to meet some time for me to give you the memory stick itself, Okay?’

‘Well, yes if that’s what you need to do with it. In the meantime, can you tell me a bit more about what you’ve got?’

‘Could tell you a bit more I suppose,’ she said, ‘but I
also
need to talk to you about a special bonus for this lot.’

‘We’ll talk about bonuses when I see what you’ve sent,’ replied Wheeler, ‘but give me a hint anyway.’

Mina explained as briefly as she could the events of the morning – the way she had copied the contents of the memory stick and what she had been able to overhear from Cape’s various telephone conversations. She had only been able to look a few of the files on the stick, but could tell Wheeler what had been on the pages she had printed off for Cape. When she finished her tale, there was a coughing sound from the other mobile.

‘Let me see if I’ve got this straight,’ said Wheeler, his voice now hoarse. ‘There’s going to be a demonstration this afternoon to show off the power of Athena’s internet hacking capabilities? Who the hell is Athena?’

‘It’s apparently the next generation of computer software,’ she said, ‘Mr Cape was saying to someone on the phone that it will take over from all the present computer systems which he said were like kid’s stuff by comparison.’

‘It’s going to be easier for me to understand once I’ve actually seen what you’re sending me and what’s on the memory stick,’ said Wheeler. He was intrigued. Why would the Chancellor be interested in a new generation of computer software? Why the secrecy? Why hold a Cobra Meeting – such meetings were usually only convened when there was a perceived threat to the nation.

‘Anyway,’ she added, ‘as I already said, this information should mean a really big bonus?’

‘Okay, Okay,’ replied Wheeler, now irritated with her usual harping on about money − even though he acknowledged to himself that her payments, her bonuses as she called them, were probably her entire motivation for risking so much by passing on information to him. And with two of the world’s giant accountancy firms as clients, her information was one of the main reasons he had manoeuvred her into the job there in the first place.

After a pause in the haggling he conceded ‘If what you’ve got there is as good as it sounds, you’ll be very well rewarded, believe me’.

‘That’s better,’ said Mina, ‘we can talk about that when I hand over the stick with the rest of the materials on it. I’ll go to the internet café now and send you what I printed out for Mr Cape – it still has everything about the demonstration, the hedge fund being used for it, the agenda for Athena’s launch tomorrow. I’m going to pretend I’m sending something very personal so I don’t make the café manager suspicious – I’ll think of something’, she said as she got to her feet to continue her journey, still holding the mobile to her ear.

‘Just send me what you can and meet me tonight at the Antelope Pub in Eaton Terrace,’ he said ‘be there at seven o’clock if you can make it by then. I’ll bring my laptop and I promise I’ll bring plenty of money in case your information’s worth it.’

She ended the call and hurried on towards the Globespan Internet Café.

At the café, knowing that most booths had just a keyboard and screen, she went straight to the manager’s counter and smiled her usual blend of lost little girl and coquette. The young customer services manager behind the desk recognised her from earlier visits, gave her a broad grin and came out with the usual ‘can I help you?’

‘I have to email with my employment details for a new job – my CV,’ she said looking directly into his eyes. ‘But unfortunately they’re here on this memory stick; is there somewhere I can plug it in to send it as an attachment to an email?’ She had put the foreign accent back on, to help with the plea.

‘Sure, do it from here,’ he said as he lifted the section of the counter and beckoned her through.

She quickly sat down at one of the Café’s admin screens, pulled out the little memory stick, and inserted it into the desktop’s tower drive down by her left knee. Next, carefully checking Wheeler’s email address, she opened an email form on the screen. She wrote a covering email to ensure that he did not forget to bring plenty of cash to the Antelope. In it she boasted again about the importance of the information she was sending – the demonstration, Athena’s new software and the preparations to counter a cyber-attack on a bank tomorrow. She then attached three files off the stick and pressed send.

This done, she took a second little memory stick out of her bag, plugged it into the tower of the desktop and copied the entire contents of the first stick onto the second. Taking both sticks out of the tower, she put one back into her bag and the other into a padded jiffy-bag envelope she had already addressed to Anton Silayev, care of the Russian Embassy. It would go in the next diplomatic bag to Moscow and then on to Silayev. She smiled. For all of Wheeler’s assumption that she was spying only for him, this second envelope would be worth ten -thousand pounds to her – probably five times what Wheeler would be paying her in the Antelope pub tonight.
Ah well,
she thought to herself,
it’s not bad money for very little work, so who cares whose paying it?