The Lost Kingdom

CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT

When Drake saw Hibiki take the call he didn’t immediately understand its magnitude but, as the Japanese cop talked and his voice grew unaccountably hoarse and hushed, the Yorkshireman knew something was afoot. Locking eyes with both Alicia and Dahl he drifted over.

“I understand,” Hibiki was saying. “Tomorrow night, yes, but why all of us? Wouldn’t a smaller unit be less conspicuous?”

The answer made him grimace. “Yes, I understand. How will we gain entry?”

Yorgi joined them, looking pensive. “Is this problem?”

“Nothing good happens after 1 a.m.,” Drake said. “You should know that, Yorgi.”

The Russian frowned. “But it is afternoon.”

“Not in Yorkshire it ain’t, and that’s where my time clock’s based.”

Dahl groaned. “You’re as nutty as a bag of pistachios.”

“Oh, am I? Not as cracked as a piece of Swedish shelving?”

Hibiki ended his call then, quite abruptly, and stood staring at his cellphone as if it might be about to sprout legs.

“Problem, mate?” Drake asked.

“That has to be one of the oddest calls I’ve ever taken,” Hibiki said. “But wait, I don’t want to go through it all twice, and neither will you. Let’s get Hayden and co on the line.”

Dahl checked his watch. “Is it worth waking her in the middle of the night?”

“It’s bigger than the Taiwan Strait exploding.”

Drake waited whilst Dahl contacted Hayden and then managed to loop everyone else into the conference call. Alicia fidgeted and gave Hibiki the eye, mentioning that there was a time and a place for teasing and it better be worth her while. Drake was pleased to see Mai take an interest and with her came an increasingly assured Grace and a healing Chika. Maybe they could salvage something out of this crude rescue after all. A return to normality? That alone would be worth all the effort.

At last the call was ready. Hibiki spoke up. “I just received a call from a man, a Taiwanese man, who told me he’d managed to steal one of the Z-boxes from Callan Dudley and wants to give it to us.”

Now Drake understood why Hibiki wanted everyone involved. “Bollocks,” he said. “Stealing anything from Dudley would be beyond tough, but then giving it away for free?”

“Guy said he’s loyal to the US, to SPEAR and to the Ninth Division. A friend, he said.”

Drake pulled a face and glanced across at Alicia, his old compatriot in that secret unit. “How’s he know about the Ninth? Did he give a name?”

“No names. He said he used to do business with Crouch. Mentioned the Pythians, the Lost Kingdom. Seemed pretty switched on.”

“Plenty of people know Michael,” Drake said. “What else did he say?”

“That the other two Z-boxes were on their way to the Pythians.” Hibiki shrugged as if that information helped prove the man’s good intent. “And that we should dread what they might do with them. That the Chinese had agreed to the destruction of Mu for the perfect excuse to invade Taiwan—”

“Invade?” Mai repeated. “You gotta be kidding me.”

Hayden spoke up then. “The Politburo have long since known that despite their recent startling advances, an occupation of Taiwan would not be feasible without putting boots on the ground. Failing that, it all might go pear-shaped and become a humiliation.”

Hibiki tried to continue. “This man also said he would only exchange the box if the entire team were present, stating that he may want something from any of you in the future and that he wants you to be able to recognize him on sight. But it’s for your eyes only and no pictures, no covert surveillance, that’s why he wants the meet to be at a stylish, swish party tomorrow night in HK. That, and safety from Dudley. You’ll all need to be dressed for the part and be able to pass through reasonable security.”

Hayden jumped in as he took a breath. “When you say the SPEAR team? Do you mean all of us?”

“I’m not sure,” Hibiki admitted. “Can you make it?”

Hayden paused as the entire team did the calculation. “It gives us about twenty nine hours to get to you and make ready. Yeah, we can do that.”

“Then I would say get started.”

“Can we pause for a second?” Mai said. “And address the issue of these so-called Z-boxes. I mean — we know the Chinese developed them and then just gave them away. Why are they so important?”

“The Pythians want them,” Dahl said. “So they’re not waffle makers.”

“Actually,” Hayden said. “I was waiting until morning to tell you guys, but we recently got the low down on the Z-boxes from our contacts inside the Politburo. A ten-year deep cover asset had to blow his ID and then be pulled out to attain this info so you can bet your sweet asses it’s of the highest importance, presidential level. The Z-box is basically a hacking tool. A complex, intelligent machine that cracks codes.” She paused. “Almost any code.”

“You’re talking US military access,” Dahl said. “Monetary and energy grids. That kind of stuff.”

“I’m not just talking US or military, but anywhere and everything. Every essential service’s infrastructure. Schools. Government. Entertainment.”

“How would they do that?” Smyth wondered.

Karin answered that one. “All common individual systems, whether they be offense oriented, defense oriented, hell, even used for gas and electric distribution, run off the same sort of structural design, much the same as one corporation’s personnel records run on systems pretty similar to another’s. They’re all based on the same designs. Access one, you can access another and another. Once you have their source code it’s relatively easy to find vulnerabilities in the whole system. For malware writers as much as terrorists and serious hackers such vulnerabilities are the Holy Grail, an unlocked window for these sneak-burglars to get into. Alternatively they could alter the code for their own means or leave a backdoor for later. Sell the backdoor’s password to someone else. This box does all that and more, and it doesn’t need a super-geek to operate it. It provides access.”

Hayden took over without missing a beat. “The US has accused China of conducting a cyberwar and cyber espionage against its interests for many years. Congress called them ‘the single greatest risk to the security of American technologies’.” She sighed tiredly. “And here we are.”

Mai coughed loudly. “So, to recap, the Chinese developed a code box and everyone wants it.”

“They’re all at it,” Komodo said with a disbelieving grunt. “NSA. British Intelligence. The Mossad. You name it. China just got here first.”

“And since they gave it away so easily they probably already have a superior design.”

Komodo laughed. “Well you know what they say about your PlayStation and laptops. By the time you buy the latest one it’s already out of date.”

“What I’m thinking,” Hayden said. “Is that if we gained possession of a device we’d be able to better understand how they work. Maybe even crack their code, make them obsolete. I’m pretty sure the Secretary will have the same idea. I’ll call him now but do expect to be on the next Gulfstream out. ETA fourteen hours or so.”

“We’ll start gearing up.” Drake said. “Working the op. Build it on a ‘don’t trust the source’ basis and take it from there. At the very least Dudley will be trying to get the box back. We don’t want any surprises.”

Smyth’s sarcastic grunt filtered down the wires. “That’d be a friggin’ first.”

Drake admitted he had a point. “All right, smart ass. Fewer surprises than normal. How’s that?”

“Still clutching.”

“And bring your stylist, Smyth,” Alicia cracked. “This party — it sounds posh. You for one are gonna take an awful lot of tittifying up.”

“What the hell does that mean? Is that rude?”

Drake was laughing. “Bloody hell, Alicia, you’re one to talk.” Even Mai had to hide a smirk.

Alicia swept up on to her feet, a swan in perfect flight. “Vogue’s my middle name, didn’t ya know? I’m the chic chick. A glamour puss with a large helping of added ‘Y’. The swank that makes you—”

“We get it,” Dahl said. “You think you can pull it off and maybe you can.” He surveyed the group critically. “My guess — Drake’s the problem.”

“Balls. The last time I looked the height of Swedish fashion was Abba’s Agnetha. What have you had since then? Boris Becker?”

“He was German, you damn, ignorant Yorkshire tw—”

“Well, there you go. Even Saab went bust.”

“Guys,” Hayden interrupted. “Guys. Just start making ready. We’re on our way. Hopefully this will be a ten-minute cakewalk. But failing that—”

“Big Trouble in Little China gets a sequel,” Drake stated. “But bigger. Much bigger.”

“Be ready for anything.”

“Always am, Hayden. Always am. Already I see a plan B forming…”