Liz paused. “No,” she said, after a moment. “Not like Dempsey.” She looked at him. “Sarah Lincoln, the MP for Tower Hamlets South, is planning on crashing Albion’s arrival. There’ll be a lot of press, a lot of confusion – that’ll give us the distraction we need to get in and out, right under Albion’s nose.”
“But even with badges, they’re not going to just let us wander around…”
“They will if they can’t see us.”
“You what?”
Liz grinned. “Has Krish not explained that to you yet?”
“Explained what?” Olly demanded, getting impatient.
“You know how your implant works, yeah?” she asked, tapping the implant just in front of his ear. Everyone who had an Optik had one. The Optik’s main processor was contained in a miniscule device which was attached to the implant by way of a neodymium magnet. The implantation procedure was non-invasive – about like getting a piercing.
“Yeah, course, it sends data directly to the optical nerve or something, right?”
“Right. So, that means if we hack this–” She tapped her own implant. “–then we hack these too.” She indicated her eyes. “Following me?”
Olly frowned. “Yeah, like my camouflage app, only… bigger. You can do this?”
“We can do this. DedSec.”
“Why didn’t I know about it?”
Because you didn’t need to, Olly, Bagley broke in. Less weight to break the thin ice, so to speak. Can’t go sharing all our secrets with every Tom, Dick and Harry…
“Shut up,” Liz said. “Tell me something useful. How many Optiks in the station?”
Which is it? Shut up, or something useful?
“Bagley…” Liz began, in warning.
Fifteen.
“And how many people?”
The same.
She looked at Olly. “There we go. Everyone in there has an Optik, running on the same software. We’ll be the next best thing to invisible. Just keep your hands to yourself, don’t bump into anyone and don’t attract any undue attention and we’ll be fine.”
“So if we can do this, why do we need press badges?”
“First rule of DedSec – always have a backup plan. The passes are ours. If we get caught, we have an explanation that most plods will buy without thinking about it too hard. Just another pair of nosy journalists.” She poked him in the chest. “But we’re not going to get caught, are we?”
“Wasn’t on my schedule,” Olly said.
“Good to know.” Liz paused again. She looked at him. “You haven’t asked why yet.”
“Why what?”
“Why I volunteered you to help me.”
Olly shrugged. “I assumed it was just some arbitrary bullshit, you know?”
“A bit, but mostly I’m trying to educate you.” She poked him in the side of the head. “You have a lot of potential, Olly. I’d hate to see you waste it on being stupid.”
Olly stepped back, annoyed. “I’m not stupid. What I am, is worried. What if we get caught? What then?”
“We won’t.”
“But what if? Do we have a backup plan for our backup plan?”
Liz smiled. “Yes. That’s rule number two.”
“Which is?”
“We improvise like fuck and hope for the best.”
10: Coyle
Art Coyle sat facing the window, looking out over London. It was beautiful in the afternoon light. Jagged mountains of steel and glass, overlooking canyons of brick and rivers of pavement. The city was a country unto itself. Looking at it from this height, it almost made him proud to be British. Then, inevitably, he would remember where he was and the pride would fade, replaced by amused melancholy.
He occupied the uppermost floor of the Pinnacle, one of the tallest and most recognisable buildings in London, known popularly as the most civilised skyscraper in the capital. The structure was well known, mostly for its curious shape. Though that shape had made it a recognisable landmark, it had not saved it from the financial crash.
Once, the structure had housed numerous businesses: offices, restaurants, investment and trading firms, even a television studio. Now it housed only a few diehard tenants, including a newsagents and a high end patisserie, which was closed four days out of the week. The previous owner of the building had sold it not long after the Redundancy Riots, and the current owner was a private equity firm.
Coyle had rented the uppermost floor through one of several shell corporations in which he was the majority – and only – stakeholder, claiming the need for offices closer to the financial heart of London. The circular space was largely empty, save for a few dozen barren cubicles, a conference room, a working gender-neutral lavatory and windows that provided a stunning panoramic view.
All in all, well worth a not insignificant amount of money. Someone else’s money, at least. For Coyle, it was perfect. He preferred to be high up, when possible. People rarely thought to look up. Especially these days, when the air was full of drones, whizzing and whirring in all directions.
His nest, as he thought of it, was adequate for his needs. It was rather like camping out, and there was enough abandoned furniture on this floor to give him some semblance of comfort. So long as no one stumbled onto his hideaway by accident, there would be no sign that he had ever been there at all.
His operational centre was situated in front of one of the windows, with three walls of a cubicle repurposed in a sort of hunter’s blind, blocking off sight of him from the stairwell entrance and the lifts. More cubical walls had been situated to form an improvised kill-box, stretching from the lifts to where he currently sat. Loose cans, plastic bags, bubble wrap and papers had been scattered across the floor, to act as an early warning system. He’d also planted motion sensors and cameras in both lift shafts and the stairwell.
Some might call such contingencies paranoid. For Coyle, it was simply business as usual. The key to success was preparation and patience. The old adage of hurry up and wait had served him well in his career to date.
Coyle had been a
