“With respect, Devon, that’s the proof,” said Emily Dunston, next to Giles. “One of her kills was the mole himself…”
“So you assume,” Chisholme interrupted. “But once again, we appear to be rather short on supporting evidence.”
Giles forced himself not to sigh or raise his voice. “This isn’t a court room. Montgomery had the photographs in his possession when he attacked her, and the gendarmes later found a go-bag prepped for Moscow in his bedroom. In our book, that’s open and shut.”
“And those photos are how the information was leaked, without ever needing to actually conduct a computer hack,” said Emily. “Modern cameras afford extremely high resolution, as the sensors on autonomous vehicles like Exphoria itself demonstrate. What was cutting edge five years ago is now on sale in Argos.”
Sir Terence snorted. “Even assuming any code was extracted, I still don’t see how it justifies cancelling the demonstration. We assume Moscow has insight on our hardware initiatives anyway. If they now also have some knowledge of the software, surely it’s in our interest to demonstrate it quickly, before they can do anything with it themselves.”
“Yes, like hack into it,” said Giles, running out of patience.
“Is that likely?” asked Chisholme.
“Highly. If we had access to equivalent Russian software, our people would be working around the clock to dismantle it.”
“And how long would it take them?” asked Sir Terence.
“How long is a piece of string, or indeed, computer code? Hours, days, weeks, months, it’s impossible to speculate.”
“And yet, speculation is all you’ve presented this morning. Months, indeed. What you mean is, it might never happen. Or maybe they’ll just take a photograph of it, would that constitute a danger?” Sir Terence closed his briefing file, and his aide quickly scooped it into her briefcase. “In the face of a multi-billion euro project, I find your proposal to be a gross overreaction. Bring me real evidence, or drop it. And thank God we discussed this amongst ourselves before taking it to the French.” He stood, and turned on his heel. “Exphoria will proceed as scheduled, and that’s my final word on the matter. Good day, everyone.”
After Sir Terence and his aide left, Chisholme and his assistants followed, with an apologetic shrug but no offer of help. Giles and Emily remained, seething with shared anger.
Emily spoke first. “He’s after Lord Bloody Cavendish, isn’t he? Knighthood’s not enough for him.”
“Come on,” said Giles, “we have a lot of speculating to do.”
72
“How do you feel, now that you know the truth?”
Six hours ago, Bridge had been cooling off in a Heathrow detention room, thanks to the immigration officer who called security when she tried to enter the country. After three days in Syria she looked nothing like Fleur Simpson’s passport photo, but it wouldn’t have mattered if she had.
Two hours ago, three SIS juniors came to collect her, and said the passport was red-flagged the moment she went AWOL. They didn’t say a whole lot more, and she knew better than to ask. The only real surprise of the journey was that they drove directly to Vauxhall. She half-expected to be tossed in a secure compound.
Ninety minutes ago, she’d delivered a debrief to Buchanan, one of Giles’ deputies, down in the ‘fishbowl’, a basement interrogation room that earned its nickname because it was fully wired for sound and vision from a dozen different angles. She’d watched sessions in there herself from the comfort of a nearby viewing room, and wondered who was watching this time, as she related why she’d gone to Syria and what she now remembered about Doorkicker. She skipped the part where she’d contemplated blowing her own brains out in the desert.
Five minutes ago, she was brought to Dr Nayar’s corner office. The doctor had evidently watched the debrief, and now she wanted to know how her patient felt.
Bridge looked out over the Thames, and said, “It’s complicated.”
Dr Nayar smiled and replied in her gentle voice, “It always is. The mind often protects itself with false memories, trying to shield us from trauma.”
“I don’t see how thinking I’d abandoned him in the bunker was less traumatic than knowing I’d at least tried to save him.” She tapped the side of her head. “Aren’t you supposed to know how this works?”
“I’m afraid we’re still at the ‘more art than science’ stage. We can’t write lines of code for our minds. Not yet, anyway.” Dr Nayar smiled again. “And you now know there was nothing more you could have done. From what you’ve described, I believe you did more than most people would have in the same situation.”
Bridge shrugged. “But we’re not most people, are we? We’re supposed to be better trained, think more clearly, act more quickly.”
“You eliminated several enemy combatants, destroyed the facility, extracted your partner, then outran and escaped your pursuers. What more could you have done?”
“Saved Adrian’s life,” Bridge said. “Or is that not as important as the mission?”
“You saved your brother-in-law. Surely you can give yourself credit for that.”
Bridge snorted. “What, for making sure my sister probably never speaks to me again? If I hadn’t gone running to her, Fred would never have been in danger to start with. Buchanan said they’ve all had to sign the official secrets act, for God’s sake.”
“But you saved them. You killed their attacker, and eliminated the mole to boot.” Dr Nayar put down her notepad, and leaned forward. “I’ve spent a lot of time talking to officers like you, Brigitte. I’ve never met one whose mission didn’t run into problems. Mistaken identity, hesitation, errors of judgement… I mean, at least you didn’t jump into bed with anyone inappropriate, that’s always a bonus.” Bridge snorted a laugh despite herself. “We’re all human, and none of us is perfect. None of you are perfect. Do you think you’re the only OIT to doubt whether you did a good job? Who thinks they screwed everything up,
