“Olly’s been working on it all night,” Krish said, somewhat accusingly.
“He’s a good lad,” she said. “Is there any coffee left? I need a caffeine hit.” She collected coffees for herself and Olly and went downstairs. Olly was right where she’d left him, feet up on the table, leaning back in his chair, dozing. What was left of the Optik lay on a towel on the table, its internal workings exposed, its wiring connected to circuit boards and tiny components.
She considered pulling the chair out from under him, and then decided to be merciful. She put the coffees down and cleared her throat. “Wakey-wakey.”
Olly jolted awake, nearly falling backwards. “What? I’m up!”
“Coffee.” Liz indicated a cup. Olly reached for it and she snatched it out of reach. “First tell me what you found.”
He sat back. “Does the name Marcus Tell mean anything to you?”
“No. Should it?”
“Dunno. Why I asked, yeah?” Olly frowned and sat back, staring at the gutted remains of the Optik, as if it had offended him. “He’s the owner, which means he’s likely the bloke Dempsey stole it from. Which means…”
“He’s the one the shot was intended for. Any reason why?”
“Not that I can see. But there’s something… something off about him.”
Liz stood and came around the table so that she could look over his shoulder. “Show me,” she said. Olly brought up a batch of profiles, forms and data, transmitting them to the overhead display.
“Right, so, on a surface skim it’s all good. But you spend as much time as I have building ghost profiles, and you start to get a feeling for when something’s artificial-like. Like, too perfect, in that imperfect sort of way. Does that make sense?”
Liz nodded. “Say it does. You’re saying the profile is dodgy?”
“I’m saying it’s all dodgy. Census data, GP records, birth certificate – every bleeding bit of it is artificial. Oh it’s a lovely fake, but it’s still a fake. I doubt anyone would’ve spotted it a few years ago, but these days you can see the cracks, if you know what to look for.” Olly gnawed on a knuckle as he glared at the data. “Whoever he is, he’s put a lot of effort into this. He’s made himself a whole life, and he’s wearing it like a mask.”
“You only wear a mask if you have something to hide.”
“Like us,” Olly said, not looking at her.
Liz paused. Olly was proving to be perceptive. “Yeah,” she said. “And maybe he’s hiding for the same reasons we do. But we need to find out who he is, regardless. Two people have been killed so far. Whoever is hunting him, it doesn’t look they’re planning to stop until they get him.”
“So we need to find him first,” Olly said, hunching over the Optik. “I can do that. I can get into the cloud, dig around in the GPS data, and see where he might be.”
“Good thinking.” Liz hesitated, and then squeezed his shoulder. Olly glanced at her and then away. Liz sat down, thinking. Trying to assemble the pieces.
“What I can’t figure,” Olly said, “Is how the other poor sod fits in. You remember, the one shot behind The Wolfe Tone?”
“Wilson,” Liz said, dredging up the name. “Colin Wilson.”
“Right. So, same MO, innit?”
“Yes.”
“So we know what Dempsey did. But what did that poor fucker do?”
Liz looked at him. “That, Olly, is a very good question.” Tapping at her Optik, she brought up Bagley’s model of the first shooting. And then added the one the AI had constructed for the second.
She watched the reconstructions play through several times. The angle of the two shots was different, but each had come from above. Not the rooftops, but higher. A high calibre weapon in each case. The same weapon.
“A drone,” she murmured.
“What?” Olly was looking at her.
“It’s a drone.”
“What is?”
“The killer. It’s a drone.”
Olly nodded slowly. “That’d explain the height, and the whole triangulation thing. The Albion pursuit drones do the same thing – they track you by your GPS signal. If someone’s got an armed drone…” He trailed off. “Bloody Hell. That is some serious shit. What’s going on here?”
“I don’t know.” Liz sat back and swung her feet up onto the table. “Every answer we find leads to a new question.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “I fucking hate mysteries.”
“Me mum loved them,” Olly said. “Watched Miss Marple on the telly all the time.”
Liz looked at him. “Do I look like your bleeding mum, Olly?”
“I mean, it’s just – you’re both of a certain age…” he trailed off as her expression registered. “Never mind,” he added, quickly.
Liz stared at him for a moment longer, letting him sweat, before closing her eyes again. Something occurred to her. “Past tense,” she said, softly.
“What?”
“She loved them. Used to watch them. Past tense.”
Olly was silent. Liz had read what Krish had compiled on Oliver Soames. There wasn’t much that wasn’t immediately obvious. But sometimes not everything got shared online, or included in super-secret resistance movement dossiers for that matter.
Finally, he said, “She died, didn’t she?” He cleared his throat. “Got sick. With a virus. Funny, ’cause she was a nurse an’ all.” He fell silent again.
“It doesn’t sound funny at all.” She peered at him, trying to read his expression. “Were you young when it happened, then?”
“Young enough.” He rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his palms. “Is what it is, innit?” He turned his attentions back to the Optik.
She felt a moment’s sympathy, watching him. Olly was young, inexperienced. Not exactly a hardened criminal or a revolutionary. He was just a kid who’d pulled some clever clogs shit and gotten drafted into
