do you want me to start with?’
Thorpe read through the file names and saw one titled ‘Glimgrow’. The word seemed to be gibberish but rang a bell in Thorpe’s brain. ‘That one,’ he said, pointing to it. ‘Glimgrow was the name of a dummy company that Jade Green used to buy her Rolls Royce.’
The technician nodded and clicked onto the icon. A file opened and displayed a question. Secure access. Do you wish to continue? Yes/No.
‘What does that mean?’
‘If we answer ‘Yes’, we’ll probably be asked to supply a password before we continue.’
‘We don’t have a password. What will we do?’
The technician smiled, ‘I’ll hook this one up to our mainframe. Then they can talk to one another until we hit on the right one.’
‘How long will that take?’
‘With the counter-intelligence programmes we’re running it won’t take more than a couple of hours. Do you want me to go ahead?’
‘Yes, of course. Let me know as soon as you’ve gained entry.’
Thorpe turned to go just as the technician punched the ‘Yes’ option.
‘Shit!’ yelped the technician.
Thorpe spun around in time to see a message flash across the screen.
‘System has detected use of unauthorised hardware. Too late to do anything now. Better luck next time Mr Thorpe.’
The sound of hissing came from the lap-top and smoke began to rise through the keyboard. They watched in shock as the screen went blank and more smoke seeped out of the computer’s interior.
The technician quickly pulled a fire extinguisher from its bracket on the wall and sprayed foam over the machine.
Thorpe stared in dismay at the ruined computer.
‘I’ll take out the hard drive and see if I can recover anything,’ offered the technician.
Thorpe felt like kicking the infernal machine across the laboratory, but knew that he couldn’t show that sort of weakness in front of a junior staff member.
‘Ring me when you know something,’ he demanded and stormed out.
***
Thorpe was in a meeting with his deputy when the technician finally rang. ‘I took the computer down to our mechanical engineers. There was nothing we could do with the hard drive. It had been booby trapped. The minute the computer identified that we were using the wrong sort of hardware to operate the drive it activated a phial of acid inside the hard drive itself. There was nothing usable left inside the case by the time we opened it. I’m sorry.’
Thorpe had no intention of trying to console his staff and hung up in her ear. ‘The bastards are trying to stuff us around again.’
‘Why now?’ asked his deputy.
‘Because they’ve brought the videos out from wherever they were hidden. They knew they had nothing to fear when they didn’t go near them but now that they’ve been moved they’ve become vulnerable.’
‘What do we do now?’
‘The girl. She had the lap-top. She must have known what was on it. I want to talk to her.’
The deputy consulted his notes, ‘Eliza Strang.’
‘Strang? Isn’t she the daughter of that petty thief they employ as a security officer?’
‘Apparently so. She’s a Director of The Fund.’
‘I’ve met her before. She forced the Minister for Inland Security to release her father when I was interrogating him. But she doesn’t look anything like the person I ran into at their former headquarters.’
The deputy passed over a pair of photos from the file. One was of a pasty faced Goth and the second a well groomed young woman. ‘She certainly has undergone a change. I also have a note here that she is about to leave England. She’s booked on a flight to Jersey. She’ll be staying there overnight before flying to Paris with further connecting flights that will take her to Namola.’
‘Why the stopovers in Jersey and Paris? I smell a rat. When’s her flight?’
‘This evening at eight.’
‘I’ll need a couple of agents to come with me to the airport. I want to speak to her before she goes anywhere.’
***
Eliza sat in the airport lounge, sipping a fruit juice as she waited for her flight to be called. To pass the time she was hard at work sending SMS messages to her contacts in Namola, letting them know that she was on her way back and offering any help that they might need. Her latest lap-top, issued by The Fund’s technology department, rested in it’s satchel between her legs. There was no way that this computer would be allowed out of her sight.
As she worked, Eliza could not help but feel that there were eyes watching her, and glanced around. She noted that amongst those people present there were at least four who could have been security agents. Or am I just being paranoid?
She returned to her texting as three suited men entered the room.
Eliza saw them approach and casually reached up to tap at her neck.
The oldest of the three men held back while his companions approached and produced their Inland Security identification, ‘Please come with us Miss Strang.’
Eliza ignored the two men and waved to the third, ‘Good evening Mr Thorpe! It’s good to see you again.’
Thorpe refused to reply, simply waving to his agents, who took up positions on either side of Eliza.
Shrugging at Thorpe’s rudeness, Eliza rose and picked up her hand luggage before following after the retreating Thorpe while the other agents closed in behind her. The other occupants of the lounge stared at the young woman as she passed and wondered if they were experiencing a close encounter with a terrorist.
***
Thorpe sat behind a small desk in a nondescript office located in the bowels of the airport terminal.
Eliza was directed to a chair opposite while one of the agents took her personal items and searched through them carefully. Her lap-top was handed to Thorpe.
‘You wouldn’t want to do anything silly with that Mr Thorpe, would you now? You know what happened last time,’ she added sweetly.
‘I see you have your father’s sense of humour,’ replied Thorpe acidly.
Eliza shrugged, ‘I’m simply reminding you Mr Thorpe. It’d be such a waste to ruin another computer.’
Thorpe turned to one of his men. ‘Take it apart. Remove the hard drive.’
‘And what are you looking
