Whiteout (16 page)

KIT set up his computer in the box room, a small space that could be reached only by going through his bedroom. He plugged in his laptop, a fingerprint scanner, and a smart-card reader-writer he had bought secondhand for £270 on eBay.

This room had always been his lair. When he was small, they had had only the three bedrooms: Mamma and Daddy in the main room, Olga and Miranda in the second room, and Kit in a cot in this box room off the girls' room. After the extension was built, and Olga went off to university, Kit had the bedroom as well as the box room, but this had remained his den.

It was still furnished as a schoolboy's study, with a cheap desk, a bookshelf, a small TV set, and a seat known as the sleepchair, which unfolded into a small single bed and had often been used by school friends coming to stay. Sitting at the desk, he thought wistfully of the tedious hours of homework he had done here, geography and biology, medieval kings and irregular verbs,
Hail, Caesar!
He had learned so much, and forgotten it all.

He took the pass he had stolen from his father and slid it into the reader-writer. Its top stuck out of the slot, clearly showing the printed words “Oxenford Medical.” He hoped no one would come into the room. They were all in the kitchen. Lori was making
osso bucco
according
to Mamma Marta's famous recipe—Kit could smell the oregano. Daddy had opened a bottle of champagne. By now they would be telling stories that began “Do you remember when . . . ?”

The chip in the card contained details of his father's fingerprint. It was not a simple image, for that was too easy to fake—a photograph of the finger could fool a normal scanner. Rather, Kit had built a device that measured twenty-five points of the fingerprint, using minute electrical differences between ridges and valleys. He had also written a program that stored these details in code. At his apartment he had several prototypes of the fingerprint scanner and he had, naturally, kept a copy of the software he had created.

Now he set his laptop to read the smart card. The only danger was that someone at Oxenford Medical—Toni Gallo, perhaps—might have modified the software so that Kit's program would no longer work; for example, by requiring an access code before the card could be read. It was unlikely that anyone would have gone to such trouble and expense to guard against a possibility that must have seemed fanciful—but it was conceivable. And he had not told Nigel about this potential snag.

He waited a few anxious seconds, watching the screen.

At last it shimmered and displayed a page of code: Stanley's fingerprint details. Kit sighed with relief and saved the file.

His niece Caroline walked in, carrying a rat.

She was dressed younger than her age, in a flower-patterned dress and white stockings. The rat had white fur and pink eyes. Caroline sat on the sleepchair, stroking her pet.

Kit suppressed a curse. He could hardly tell her that he was doing something secret and would prefer to be alone. But he could not continue while she sat there.

She had always been a nuisance. From an early age she had hero-worshipped her young Uncle Kit. As a boy he had quickly wearied of this and become fed up with the way she followed him around. But she was hard to shake off.

He tried to be nice. “How's the rat?” he said.

“His name is Leonard,” she replied in a tone of mild reproof.

“Leonard. Where did you get him?”

“Paradise Pets in Sauchiehall Street.” She let the rat go, and it ran up her arm and perched on her shoulder.

Kit thought the girl was insane, carrying a rat around as if it were a baby. Caroline looked like her mother, Olga, with long dark hair and heavy black eyebrows, but where Olga was dryly severe, Caroline was as wet as a rainy February. She was only seventeen, she might grow out of it.

He hoped she was too wrapped up in herself and her pet to notice the card sticking up out of the reader and the words “Oxenford Medical” printed along its top. Even she would realize he was not supposed to have a pass for the Kremlin nine months after he was fired.

“What are you doing?” she asked him.

“Work. I need to finish this today.” He longed to snatch the telltale card out of the reader, but he feared that would only call her attention to it.

“I won't bother you, just carry on.”

“Nothing happening downstairs?”

“Mummy and Aunt Miranda are stuffing the stockings in the drawing room, so I've been chucked out.”

“Ah.” He turned back to the computer and switched the software into “Read” mode. His next step should be to scan his own fingerprint, but he could not let her see that. She might not grasp the significance herself, but she could easily mention it to someone who would. He pretended to study the screen, racking his brains for a way to get rid of her. After a minute he was inspired. He faked a sneeze.

“Bless you,” she said.

“Thanks.” He sneezed again. “You know, I think poor dear Leonard is doing this to me.”

“How could he?” she said indignantly.

“I'm slightly allergic, and this room is so small.”

She stood up. “We don't want to make people sneeze, do we, Lennie?” She went out.

Kit closed the door gratefully behind her, then sat down and pressed the forefinger of his right hand to the glass of the scanner. The program scrutinized his fingerprint and encoded the details. Kit saved the file.

Finally, he uploaded his own fingerprint details to the smart card, overwriting his father's. No one else could have done this, unless they had copies of Kit's own software, plus a stolen smart card with the correct site code. If he were devising the system anew he still would not bother to make the cards nonrewritable. Nevertheless, Toni Gallo might have. He looked anxiously at the screen, half-expecting an error message saying “YOU DO NOT HAVE ACCESS.”

No such message appeared. Toni had not outsmarted him this time. He reread the data from the chip, to make sure the procedure had been successful. It had: the card now carried Kit's fingerprint details, not Stanley's. “Yes!” he said aloud, mutedly triumphant.

He removed the card from the machine and put it in his pocket. It would now give him access to BSL4. When he waved the card at the reader, and pressed his finger to the touch screen, the computer would read the data on the card and compare it with the fingerprint, find they matched, and unlock the door.

After he returned from the lab, he would reverse the process, erasing his own fingerprint data from the chip and reinstating Stanley's, before he replaced the card in his father's wallet sometime tomorrow. The computer at the Kremlin would record that Stanley Oxenford had entered BSL4 in the early hours of 25 December. Stanley would protest that he had been at home in bed, and Toni Gallo would tell the police that no one else could have used Stanley's card because of the fingerprint check. “Sweet,” he said aloud. It pleased him to think how baffled they would all be.

Some biometric security systems matched the fingerprint with data stored on a central computer. If the Kremlin had used that configuration, Kit would have needed access to the database. But employees had an irrational aversion to the thought of their personal details being stored on company computers. Scientists in particular often read the
Guardian
and became finicky about their civil rights. Kit had chosen to store the fingerprint record on the smart card, rather than the central database, to make the new security setup more acceptable to the staff. He had not anticipated that one day he would be trying to defeat his own scheme.

He felt satisfied. Stage One was complete. He had a working pass for BSL4. But, before he could use it, he had to get inside the Kremlin.

He took his phone from his pocket. The number he dialed was the mobile of Hamish McKinnon, one of the security guards on duty at the Kremlin tonight. Hamish was the company dope dealer, supplying marijuana to the younger scientists and Ecstasy to the secretaries for their weekends. He did not deal in heroin or crack, knowing that a serious addict was sure to betray him sooner or later. Kit had asked Hamish to be his inside man tonight, confident that Hamish would not dare to spill the beans, having his own secrets to conceal.

“It's me,” Kit said when Hamish answered. “Can you talk?”

“And a happy Christmas to you too, Ian, you old bugger,” Hamish said cheerily. “Just a tick, I'm going to step outside . . . That's better.”

“Everything all right?”

Hamish's voice became serious. “Aye, but she's doubled the guard, so I've got Willie Crawford with me.”

“Where are you stationed?”

“In the gatehouse.”

“Perfect. Is everything quiet?”

“Like a graveyard.”

“How many guards in total?”

“Six. Two here, two at reception, and two in the control room.”

“Okay. We can cope with that. Let me know if anything unusual happens.”

“Okay.”

Kit ended the call and dialed a number that gave him access to the telephone system computer at the Kremlin. The number was used by Hibernian Telecom, the company that had installed the phones, for remote diagnosis of faults. Kit had worked closely with Hibernian, because the alarms he had installed used phone lines. He knew the number and the access code. Once again, he had a moment of tension, worrying that the number or the code might have been changed in the nine months since he had left. But they had not.

His mobile phone was linked to his laptop by a wireless connection that worked over distances of fifty feet or so—even through walls, which might be useful later. Now he used the laptop to access the central processing unit of the Kremlin's phone system. The system had tamper detectors—but they did not register an alarm if the company's own phone line and code were used.

First he closed down every phone on the site except the one on the desk in reception.

Next, he diverted all calls into and out of the Kremlin to his mobile. He had already programmed his laptop to recognize the numbers likeliest to come up, such as Toni Gallo's. He would be able to answer the calls himself, or play recorded messages to the callers, or even redirect calls and eavesdrop on the conversations.

Finally, he caused every phone in the building to ring for five seconds. That was just to get the attention of the security guards.

Then he disconnected and sat on the edge of his chair, waiting.

He was fairly sure what would happen next. The guards had a list of people to call in the event of different emergencies. Their first action now should be to call the phone company.

He did not have to wait long. His mobile rang. He left it, watching his laptop. After a moment, a message appeared on the screen saying: “Kremlin calls Toni.”

That was not what he had expected. They should have called Hibernian first. Nevertheless, he was prepared. Quickly, he activated a recorded message. The security guard who was trying to reach Toni Gallo heard a female voice saying that the mobile he was calling might be switched off or out of range, and advising him to try later. The guard hung up.

Kit's phone rang again almost immediately. Kit hoped the guards would now be calling the phone company, but once again he was disappointed. The screen said “Kremlin calls RPHQ.” The guards were ringing regional police headquarters at Inverburn. Kit was happy for the police to be informed. He redirected the call to the correct number and listened in.

“This is Steven Tremlett, security guard supervisor at Oxenford Medical, calling to report an unusual incident.”

“What's the incident, Mr. Tremlett?”

“No big emergency, but we have a problem with our phone lines, and I'm not sure the alarms will work.”

“I'll log it. Can you get your phones fixed?”

“I'll call out a repair crew, but God knows when they'll get here, being Christmas Eve.”

“Do you want a patrol to call?”

“It wouldn't do any harm, if they've not much on.”

Kit hoped the police would pay a visit to the Kremlin. It would add conviction to his cover.

The policeman said, “They'll be busy later, when the pubs chuck out, but it's quiet the noo.”

“Right. Tell them I'll give them a cup of tea.”

They hung up. Kit's mobile rang a third time and the screen said: “Kremlin calls Hibernian.” At last, he thought with relief. This was the one he had been waiting for. He touched a button and said into his phone, “Hibernian Telecom, can I help you?”

Steve's voice said, “This is Oxenford Medical, we have a problem with our phone system.”

Kit exaggerated his Scots accent to disguise his voice. “Would that be Greenmantle Road, Inverburn?”

“Aye.”

“What's the problem?”

“All the phones are out except this one. The place is empty, of course, but the thing is, the alarm system uses the phone lines, and we need to be sure that's working properly.”

At that point, Kit's father walked into the room.