Operation Sting (5 page)

It swung upright to reveal a blurred photograph of a face.

“It was taken at high speed,” said Simon, “so there’s rather a lot of blurring, but this guy must have taken off his balaclava and looked around. He was in the front passenger seat of the BMW, I think he was checking to see if the car was being followed. Do you see?”

Professor Miller nodded. His bald head seemed to glow pale blue in the light from the computer display. “This is the only shot of a face we have?” he asked.

“Yes, Chopper was trying to keep tabs on all the thieves at once and fly close enough to the car to gather data. He was lucky to get this, to be honest.”

“Let’s see what the Secret Intelligence Agency’s database makes of it,” said the Professor. He tapped at a nearby keyboard.

The 3D display bleeped and the photo was
suddenly surrounded by a series of lines and numbers. Hundreds of faces flashed past at lightning speed. The image was being cross-checked against the information held by the SIA on known crooks and terrorists.

Simon Turing waited nervously, his fingers tapping at the workbench. A few seconds later, the display bleeped twice and a section of text scrolled up in front of Simon’s eyes, along with newspaper clippings and more photos.

“Bingo!” declared Simon with a grin. “Our suspect’s name is Michael Kevin Bullman.”

The Professor stood at Simon’s shoulder.

“Known eco-terrorist and mercenary,” continued Simon. “He’s run various gangs and paramilitary squads in the past. He’s got a police file as long as a giraffe’s neck, and he’s currently wanted in connection with the destruction of a dam in Malaysia and the burning down of an office block in Paris.”

The Professor was already calling Queen Bee’s number at the communicator on the wall. “Any associates?” he said.

“Several,” said Simon, reading from the display. “Most notably Augustus Tiberius Fraser. What a name!”

Queen Bee’s face appeared on the 3D display. The Professor told her what they’d discovered.

“Good work!” said Queen Bee. “Look for location leads. Are there any unusual properties listed against this Bullman? Somewhere the gang might be using to hide Whiplash?”

Simon quickly checked through the data, one finger scrolling the text inside the display. “He’s listed as having no fixed address, as such. Although… Ah! In the last week he’s started renting a large lock-up beneath a railway arch just south of the River Thames, near Vauxhall Cross. Using a fake ID, of course.”

“That’s where they’ll be,” said Queen Bee.

“If we make a move on them,” said Simon, “we’ll really annoy the cops. According to this data, they got wise to the fake ID and are preparing to raid the place themselves.”

“Tough,” said Queen Bee. “Recovering Whiplash is more important. We must move in
before the police do.”

“Logged, Queen Bee,” said Simon.

Queen Bee’s face loomed large in the display. “Mission objective is to detain our suspects and recover Whiplash,” she said. “Launch the SWARM!”

CHAPTER FOUR

A computerized voice spoke from the ceiling. “Active mode authorized. Micro-agents online.”

“I’m live,” said Chopper the dragonfly.

“I’m live,” came the deeper, slower voice of Hercules the stag beetle.

The SWARM robots’ high-tech, cage-like boxes glided up out of the workbench. Each was brightly lit from inside. Tiny red and green lights flashed in sequence and a hum of power pulsed through the room.

One by one, the insectoid robots activated. Legs flexed, antennae twitched.

“I’m live,” each of the robots said in turn: Widow the spider; Nero the scorpion; Morph the centipede; Sirena the butterfly; and Sabre the mosquito, now fully repaired.

The cages slid open and the SWARM emerged on to the workbench.

Simon grinned at the Professor. “Those bad guys won’t know what hit them.”

In their hideout, the members of Operation New Age had nearly finished unpacking the crates and boxes, and were busy connecting and setting up the equipment they’d need to put their plan into effect.

Fraser the computer hacker was still sitting in front of his desktop PC, trying to break into the AKA code protecting Whiplash. Sweat beaded on his forehead and he was getting more irritated and anxious with every passing minute.

Williams appeared at his shoulder. Fraser deliberately kept his gaze on the screen in front of him.

“Well, any progress?” demanded Williams.

“None whatsoever!” spat Fraser angrily.

Williams lowered his face level with Fraser’s and spoke very quietly. “That’s not what I want to hear. If you’re no good to us, you’re going to get kicked off this project. Remember what’ll happen to anyone we have to kick off this project? Straight into the river wearing concrete wellies.”

Fraser gulped and tried to stop his hands shaking as they hovered over the keyboard. “Why didn’t the Insider warn us about this coded security?” he moaned.

“He did,” said Williams through gritted teeth. “And your mate Bullman promised me you wouldn’t find it a problem.”

Fraser wiped the sweat off his face with the grubby sleeve of his combat jacket. “Well, it is a problem!”

At that moment, Bullman entered the room carrying a large cardboard box filled with tinned and dried food. With a grunt, he dropped it on to a table. The sudden thump made Fraser jump.

“Any trouble on the way in?” said Williams.

“Naaah!” scoffed Bullman. “I’ve told you,
boss, there’s no way anyone will find us here. A perfect hiding place like this?”

Agent K, one of the new SWARM agents, made her way down a narrow alley. She had crossed the Thames at Westminster Bridge and walked through a series of backstreets and underpasses until she reached the rundown area. Bits of paper and empty fast-food wrappers blew along the gutter, and she could hear a dog barking menacingly in the distance.

She emerged from the alleyway into a large derelict patch of land. To one side was a hill of rubble and rubbish, beyond which she could see the towering buildings north of the river. In front of her was a wide area of scrubby brown grass, dotted with bricks and surrounded by an expanse of gravel. Opposite was the tall shape of a railway viaduct, blackened and crumbling with age.

Beneath the viaduct was a series of huge arches, each more than ten metres high. The arches were filled with walls of shabby, rotting
wood. Some of the walls had signs clinging on to them. In chipped and faded paint they announced things like “G&I Motors – brakes, tyres, exhausts” and “Butler’s Wholesale Fish – fresh today!”.

The place was eerily quiet – there was no sound except for the distant roar of traffic and the continued barking of somebody’s dog. Agent K crouched down, and took a silver case from her inside jacket pocket. Carefully, she placed it on the grass in front of her and stood back.

The case suddenly flipped open, and SWARM’s seven micro-robots emerged. Each of them beeped a contact signal back to SWARM headquarters, where Queen Bee watched seven monitors.

The screens showed a complex array of information, including the robots’ exact locations, the programming subroutines that were guiding their behaviour, and the current status of their sensor readings. The largest section of each display was taken up with a view of what the robots were seeing. The advanced cameras fitted into Chopper showed the clearest picture, since he was designed to record and observe in fine detail.

Crouched on the grass, Agent K snapped the case shut and, pausing only to make sure she wasn’t being followed, she stood and made her way back to the road.

The robots maintained their positions.

“Get ready to move in,” said Queen Bee.

“I can’t do it,” declared Fraser, slumping over the keyboard of his PC and gripping it with sweating hands. “Every route through the program ends in a lockout.” On the screen in front of him, multiple terminal windows showed long strings of UNIX commands, each ending in error codes. “The Whiplash software continually rewrites the encryption algorithm. You’d have to think three dozen steps ahead of it all the time!”

Williams looked from Fraser to the PC’s screen and back again. He took in a long, slow breath.

With a sudden knotted feeling in his stomach, Fraser realized he’d pushed too far.

Everyone in the room carried on with what they were doing but kept one eye on Williams,
wondering what he would do.

Williams stood beside Fraser. “Oh … dear … me,” he said quietly. “Are you telling me you can’t do your job? Is that what you’re telling me?”

He loomed over Fraser, blocking out the light from the bare electric bulb hanging high above. Fraser stared up at Williams, terrified.

“Move in,” said the voice of Queen Bee in the robots’ sensory circuits. “Detain the suspects and locate the weapon.”

“I’m live, Queen Bee,” signalled Chopper. He transmitted a stream of data to the other robots: “Spread out. Sensors on maximum. Our target is the lock-up in the middle.”

“We’ll make a beeline for it,” said the deep voice of Hercules.

“Very, very funny, Hercules,” said Nero. “What great programming.”

“Pay attention,” came the high, musical voice of Sirena the butterfly. “We have a job to do. Queen Bee, are you getting my data feed?”

“Got it,” said Queen Bee back at headquarters, checking Sirena’s monitor. It was filled with sensor readings of the area surrounding the butterfly.

All seven robots moved ahead at speed. Sirena, Chopper the dragonfly, Hercules the stag beetle and Sabre the mosquito flew low over the grass, fanning out slightly so that their sensors could pick up information from a wider area. Nero the scorpion, Widow the spider and Morph the centipede scuttled rapidly across the ground.

“How many suspects will there be?” said Morph. “What weapons will they have?”

“Unknown, as yet,” said Chopper. “Stay alert.”

Sirena, whose sensors were the most advanced, fluttered a little ahead of the others. The long antennae extending from her head waved and turned to pick up whatever clues she could.

“I’m detecting life forms in the lock-up,” she said.

“How many?” said Chopper.

“Processing…” said Sirena. “Multiple life signals, but the trace is quite faint. I don’t detect
anything shielding my signals. Not sure what to make of it.”

“There could be electronic interference,” said Chopper.

“That would match with the suspects’ likely behaviour patterns,” said Nero, his circuits checking against the information downloaded by Simon.

They were twenty metres from the lock-up and closing in.

“Widow, block the escape route,” said Chopper.

“Logged,” said the clipped voice of the spider.

Widow fired a thin strand of web ahead of her and swung at lightning speed, landing neatly on the wooden planks that formed the wall beneath the archway. Her legs gripping the wood with micro-hooks, she turned to face the wide, hefty door built into the wall.

With rapid jumps and twists, she leaped back and forth from one side of the door to the other. Behind her, she left a continuous line of thread, narrower than a human hair, but twice as strong as steel cable. Within a minute, a perfect cross-hatched
web had been formed across the door. Anyone trying to leave the lock-up would find their way barred.

“Exit sealed,” she said.

By now, the others had caught up with her.

“Attack mode,” said Chopper. “Nero, remain on guard out here. Other agents, prepare for combat.”

The robots quickly made their way round or through the wooden wall, creeping through tiny gaps and cracks. Hercules’s saw-like mouthparts cut a tiny tunnel at ground level. Morph squashed himself almost flat and squeezed underneath a large section of planking.

“I hope they don’t try to stamp on me,” said the centipede.

Seconds later, they were inside. The lock-up was cavernous and dark. The robots’ sensors picked up damp and decay.

This was no hideout. It was empty.

“Scan,” said Chopper. The night-vision filters in his eye cameras took in the dusty floor and the curved brick ceiling high above. Sirena’s antennae analyzed the air. Dozens of rats scurried about, their long tails scraping along behind
them, darting in an out of holes in the ancient brickwork.