The Amnesiac's Guide to Espionage, page 22
Loch and Eva waited in silence until a bus arrived and unloaded. Merging into the group, they waited in line until it was their turn to show their IDs. Eva’s blood was liquid nitrogen for a good five minutes. Despite her fears, they both had their badges scanned without incident, and were granted access. No blaring sirens, no fanfare; it was automatic, quite perfunctory. They were through.
Within minutes, Eva was frisked twice, as was every other member of staff. It seemed the threat of a nuclear bomb really put the wind up security. Too bad the bomb was already inside the grounds. Loch and Eva made their way to an area designated “New Arrivals”.
Their security clearance didn’t give them access to the inner perimeter of the G8, only the outer one, but it was enough.
They split up, sticking to the plan. Eva had her character memorised. Her role wasn’t an unfamiliar one, but it was critical. If she screwed up, the whole thing would fall apart. She had to maintain focus and stick to the plan. She approached a friendly looking staff member sitting at a desk.
The woman glanced up from her laptop. “Name and assignment?”
“Hi, I’m Gwen. I’m a barista.”
Chapter
Nineteen
“Was it the expression, ‘gives a golden shower of bat piss a bad name’?”
“No.”
“Tastes like boiled arse hair left out in the sun?” Eva asked. “Was it that one?”
Her supervisor shook his head.
“Was it when I told you I would prefer to drink Starbucks poured into a wank sock than taste your coffee again?”
With barely controlled anger, he nodded.
“Okay. Good to know.”
Between clenched teeth, he replied, “I’ve made coffee for heads of state.”
“Did any of them survive?”
Eva had been at her station for less than half an hour. Her role was listed as “barista”, but when she arrived at the staff coffee tent her supervisor, a pasty middle-aged white man with a receding hairline and a face like crumbling concrete, told her she wouldn’t be making coffee. Her role, she was informed, was to take orders, not screw up, and stand there and look pretty. It had taken a grand total of thirty-seven seconds before her hackles were up.
Eva had tried to convince him of her coffee-making skills, but he’d protected the coffee machine like a misogynist defended pay inequality. For the sake of the operation, she sucked it up. Well, tried to. It was when her supervisor had told her to smile more and suggested, ever so politely, that perhaps she should “show a bit of tit” for the boys, that she’d decided to share her opinion on his coffee-making abilities.
And now she was fired.
She’d been sacked in shorter amounts of time. The two other female staff members at the coffee tent stared at her in equal measures of shock and admiration.
Not one to give in, especially to the likes of him, Eva strode past her supervisor to the coffee machine. It wasn’t her beloved La Marzocco, but the La Pavoni was fine. Ignoring the supervisor’s wrathful howls, she prepared three long blacks in quick succession, ensuring the crema was extracted ristretto.
With a defiant look, she handed two to her fellow staff members and held the third cup out to the supervisor. He glared at it as if she’d taken a dump in the cup. She waggled it at him. He shook his head.
“You’re fired,” he said emotionlessly.
“I know. I’ll go straight to HR to sign out and won’t say a word about you being a sexist pig if you drink this.” His face was like stone. “Or are you afraid I’ll show you up in front of the skirts?” she added.
With lips stretched thin as rubber bands, he snatched the cup and drank. The metamorphosis on his face was astonishing. In mere seconds he went from anger, to shock, to surprise, to enjoyment, to appreciation then all the way back to anger again.
Her fellow staff members took a sip. “Holy crap,” the blonde one exclaimed.
The brunette with pink highlights stared at the cup in awe. “I think I just came a little.”
“This doesn’t change the fact that you’re fired for insubordination.” The supervisor’s anger was subdued.
“And?” Eva raised as many eyebrows as she could muster.
He mumbled something incomprehensible.
Cupping her hand to her ear, Eva said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that.”
“The coffee’s good.”
The women behind him did their best to stifle giggles.
“Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?” Eva gestured towards some portable rooms behind her. “So, HR’s this way?”
An expression of trepidation crossed his features. “You’re not… you’re not going to report me, are you?”
Eva tilted her head as if considering it. “Look, I’ll tell you what, you give them a call to tell them you’re overstaffed and you promise not to be a sleaze around these bright, intelligent women, and no, I won’t report you.”
The pasty man pulled out his phone. Eva left, giving each of her co-workers a high five. “Don’t take any shit from The Man.”
They beamed and seemed to stand several inches taller. Eva made her way to the portable building marked “Human Resources”. She was behind schedule.
She knocked on the door and a pleasant-looking middle-aged woman greeted her with a smile as weak as her supervisor’s coffee. She had a phone to her ear but seemed to only be half listening to the person on the other end. “Sorry,” she mouthed, and ushered Eva into a reception area.
After a minute, she ended the call, saying, “Thank you Justin, I’ll keep you in the loop,” and hung up. She turned to Eva. “Sorry, that was the boss.”
“Hi, I’ve been sent for reassignment,” Eva said brightly.
“Ah, yes, Gwen, come into the office.”
It was only a few minutes before the conversation went downhill. In the tiny prefabricated office Eva saw the writing on the cheaply painted walls. The HR manager, Amanda, was going through the motions with little interest. It became increasingly clear that she was reluctant to assign Eva another role. Eva had no time for this. Amanda seemed nice, in an officious, overbearing way, but Eva needed to leave her office as soon as possible.
“So, Gwen.” Amanda folded her hands together. “Mr Lenton said he was overstaffed, but I have to ask, just us girls, did he reassign you due to the—ah, how can I put this delicately? Did he reassign you due to your smell?”
“Smell?”
“Yes, dear. I should probably be more tactful, but, to be frank, you stink.”
“I don’t stink, I have an adorable feminine musk.” Eva shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “He was overstaffed, that’s why I’m here.”
The woman made a cat bum face, clearly not believing a word of it. “Be that as it may, I don’t appear to have another job for someone of your, ah, qualifications.”
Eva did her best to appear heartbroken. “I understand, but I’ve come all this way. Can I just wait in reception for a bit, in case something comes up?”
Amanda’s features creased, appearing reluctant.
Eva quickly added, “I’ll wait for an hour and if nothing pops up I’ll get out of your hair. That’s fair, is that cool?”
Amanda did her best to maintain her pleasant façade. “That’s fine, dear, but I’m almost certain nothing will materialise.”
“Not a worry, I appreciate the opportunity.”
Eva went to shake her hand but Amanda baulked, as if taken aback by the move. As Eva retracted her hand she bumped Amanda’s purse, knocking it off the desk. Eva quickly picked it up and apologised. The manager plastered on a fake smile and wished her the best. Eva returned to reception and took a seat. A young man was positioned behind a desk, staring directly ahead, his back rigidly straight. He moved so infrequently Eva began to wonder if he was a mannequin of some description. She sat and waited.
Eva was never going to find a nuclear bomb making coffee. Her mission was to infiltrate the building. There were limits to the information Paul had access to. The vital material was contained within the HR building—in fact, just through the door behind the reception desk.
Eva was disappointed she couldn’t go straight into the HR building on arrival. She had quickly determined that the only way in was to be sacked. Not a hard assignment, given the circumstances. The only trouble was, obtaining the information meant Eva would have to use a computer, her least favourite thing after leg waxing, pap smears and acid jazz.
The HR building also contained a security office. Not the main one, which was located within the central perimeter, but a backup, in case that one was compromised. It would have security computers with access to the current security logs. All she had to do was get past Mr Mannequin.
As a precaution, all secondary G8 locations were locked down in case they were needed. It was far easier than tossing out a conference of accountants halfway through their annual junket about standardised taxation mediation. Before the Switchback protocol had been initiated security would have been lax, but it did exist. All visitors would have been required to sign in and out, kind of like signing in to the office for a school visit. Nothing too strenuous.
Eva hoped to access these security logs, the ones from before Switchback had been triggered. She wanted to find an entry for a large vehicle that had arrived between the time Eva had jumped out of the truck and when Freddie had mentioned it was already in place. Hopefully something would turn up. With any luck it would tell them where to start looking.
While Eva performed this role, Bishop and Loch would be part of the security team sweeping the grounds, actively searching for somewhere you could hide a nuclear bomb. If they didn’t kill each other first. It was becoming increasingly evident that Bishop had feelings for Eva. It was just as plain that Loch’s puppy dog eyes were unlikely to be an act. What would she do with all that? She was an independent woman; she didn’t have to choose either if she didn’t want to. And yet, Eva felt an unexpected pull that she hadn’t anticipated, which complicated matters.
Mr Mannequin abruptly stood and left without a word. Toilet break, possibly? Or perhaps he’d gone to change his oil. Either way, Eva had a tiny window to do her thing. She leapt into action. She had been surreptitiously eying the keypad next to the security door the entire time she’d been in reception. It was a Sentex. When she’d seen this, Eva had performed a silent and hopefully not obvious little happy dance. The Sentex keypad was at least ten years old. In that time, its security had been proven to have more holes than a porcupine’s condom. Holes Eva knew how to exploit.
She was taking a chance that, because it had been hired for the event, they probably hadn’t changed the administrative password. Three stars to enter the admin code, six zeroes, which was the factory-default password, and then three more keystrokes to open the door. She hit enter.
The light pinged green and there was a small click. It was way too easy. Eva had at least thought she might have to try the most common PIN numbers, but no, the default still worked. If she hadn’t known it off by heart due to a former, more nefarious, life, a quick internet search would have uncovered the code. She’d send the head of security an email if she ever got out of this alive.
Eva opened the door and went in. Clearly the security team didn’t expect they’d need to use the backup room. Mismatched chairs, half-constructed desks and visible network cables crisscrossed the floor. That was all fine as far as Eva was concerned. There were three powered-up computers. All she needed to do was hack into one. Not exactly her forte.
Pulling out a mobile from her pocket, Eva dialled a number. It was Amanda’s phone. Eva had pilfered it from her brightly coloured purse when she’d “accidentally” knocked it off the table. She would delete the call history and leave it on the floor of reception on her way out. No use ruining Amanda’s day; she hadn’t done anything wrong.
When the voice on the other end answered, Eva was overwhelmed with a sense of relief. She wouldn’t have succeeded without him. She definitely owed him a night out in London. But that was all. She didn’t want to ruin him for life.
She explained the situation. Trevor was more than eager to help her out. She imagined him bouncing on his chair in excitement.
“Okay,” he said slowly, probably anticipating his frustration to come, “what operating system are they using?”
“Ah, I don’t know.”
“That’s fine, just click on the system icon and tell me the build and the patch versions.”
Silence was Trevor’s answer.
“Eva, have you turned the monitor on?”
She scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous.” Eva turned the monitor on. “What was the first question again?”
Fifteen minutes later Trevor had patiently and miraculously helped her hack into a “level five security” computer. It was all due to his perseverance and nothing to do with Eva’s computing skills. She would definitely take him out and help him get laid.
“How are you going with decrypting the files?”
“Good. Knocked over three of the four protocols. I should have something within the hour—maybe all four, depending if they’re using hexadecimal for the last layer.” There was a pause. Eva suspected he realised he’d gone too hardcore nerd. “Um, Eva, there’s a video file here that’s not encrypted that you really need to know about.”
“Is it about the bomb?”
“No, it’s not, but you probably want to look at it—”
“Trev, if we get through this I will, but right now we can only have a single priority.”
“Okay.” He was reluctant. “But you should really…”
“I will, promise, but for now I have to go. Thanks again, you’re ace. Oh, and if we don’t make it, find Paul Cavendish, wherever he is, and give him everything.”
Trevor rang off, sounding fairly confused, and Eva got to work finding what she needed. Thankfully the file structure was logical, so navigating was relatively easy. Within minutes she had a list of the vehicles that had entered the grounds during the timeframe she was interested in. It was a start. Two were small staff transport buses, unlikely to carry something that went boom. One was the owner’s car—the annotation beside it stated “Porsche Cayenne (wanker)”. Eva dismissed it as too small. That left only two viable candidates. One was so garish she initially dismissed it out of hand. The other seemed far more likely.
The gate security staff had noted one vehicle down as a “crypt maintenance van”. An hour and a half later it had been signed out. Something about it struck Eva as odd. It had arrived at the same moment as the other garish van, but had only stayed for a short amount of time. The other van had never been signed out—it must still be in the grounds. Satisfied that she had what she needed, Eva shut down the computer.
Opening the door of the secondary security room she found herself staring straight into the startled eyes of Mr Mannequin. Eva gave him a friendly wave.
“Everything’s in order here,” she said, putting on her best officious voice. Eva leaned towards him conspiratorially. “Just between you and me, there’s going to be a fire drill in about an hour. I’d recommend grabbing a coffee beforehand.” She paused. “Actually, a tea. I’d recommend getting a tea. Just a heads-up.”
He blinked at her several times. “Don’t I need to see some sort of ID for you to…” he pointed at the security door.
“Oh no, you’re good. Your security clearance is fine for you to sit there.” Eva opened the front door, hoping he’d be discombobulated by her confusing replies.
“No, I meant, ah—”
“Don’t sweat it. I’ll let Justin know you’re doing a bang-up job. We’re looking for some extra help over in the main building. I’ll put in a good word.” She tilted her head at the security door. “Is that shut properly?”
As Mr Mannequin turned, Eva deposited Amanda’s phone out of sight on the floor. Before he’d turned back she was out the door. Lurking around secure areas followed the same principle as faking your way into VIP areas of nightclubs. Walk around acting like you belong and no one ever questions you. Eva strode towards the outer gate.
The temporary chain-link fence surrounding the outer boundary of the rolling grassy hills wove between beautifully manicured gardens. The harsh fence sat at odds with the natural surroundings. Further into the complex, closer to the mansion, everything took on a more regal appearance; even the fencing was fancier.
It didn’t take Eva long to find Loch and Bishop. All she had to do was follow the plumes of steam coming from their ears. They were at the main commercial vehicle checkpoint; neither was armed. Not that they needed to be with Royal Marines nearby.
Loch was using an under-car mirror to sweep a newly-arrived bus for explosives. Bishop held a clipboard; Eva assumed he was ticking off vehicles as they entered. Even from a distance, Eva could see the two of them squaring off.
There were two lines of vehicles and many staff. When Eva approached, both men broke into broad grins, then scowled at each other. Eva felt like she was in high school, although these days she didn’t have braces, had a lot more tattoos and could give a definitive critique of every position in the Kama Sutra.
“What’s up, gents?”
Before Bishop could utter a syllable she held up a finger to silence him. No time for innuendo. She flicked her head, gesturing for them to follow her. It took several minutes before they could extricate themselves from their duties; Eva distinctly heard the words “irritable bowel syndrome” before they managed to get away.
They huddled together under a large oak tree overlooking the lush valley below. She quickly gave them a rundown of her findings.
“So, the crypt, you reckon?”
“It would be out of the way, it’s big enough, and it’s not something you’d generally inspect too closely.”
“Let’s check it out,” Loch said.
They found a hilltop position where they could look down on the crypt without being seen. It was a large stone edifice with carved gargoyles and crosses. Not exactly welcoming. Just as unwelcoming were the three guards stationed around it. Unlike Loch and Bishop, these civilian guards had rifles.
