That whatever he and Sam were fighting for, it was worth it.
Theo.
Marsden.
Good people who had died to protect others. Etheridge would honour them all by seeing it through to the end, and that meant giving Sam all the help he could.
‘Who was that guy?’ Etheridge asked, sipping his beer.
‘Ahmad Farukh,’ Sam replied. ‘I recognised the eyes. Somewhere, I’ve seen that man before but I couldn’t tell you where.’
‘A horror film, perhaps?’ Etheridge joked and Sam raised his eyebrows in agreement. ‘Well, whoever he was, he’s working for Wallace. He said he wanted the stick.’
Etheridge slid open the draw of his desk and pulled out a secure, metal box. Taking the key from his key chain, he clicked the lock and pulled out the USB stick Sam had mailed him months ago.
He had tried in vain to hack into it, but the security was top of the range.
They needed a fingerprint to access it.
Sam had pulled thirty of them straight from the company themselves and Etheridge took a chance that the more senior of the team would be more privy to the files.
‘What’s the plan?’ Sam asked, always enthralled by the complexity of Etheridge’s knowledge.
‘First, I’m going to run a quick scan across all databases to confirm which sheet is Brandt’s.’ Etheridge began clicking away on the keyboard. ‘Once we establish that, I’m going to transfer all fingerprints onto the scanner, until one of them unlocks them.’
‘You have program that does that?’ Sam asked, impressed. He grimaced slightly, his body reminding him of the beating he’d taken. Etheridge flashed him a grin.
‘Yup. It’s a delicate process of placing each print on the scanner.’
Sam stared blankly at him, unimpressed. Etheridge chuckled and continued as Sam stepped away to the bathroom. He took a quick shower, allowing the water to try to calm the pain raging through his body. After a few moments, he stepped back out, got dressed, and rejoined Etheridge in the loft. Impressively, Etheridge had already identified which sheet belonged to Brandt and was now going through the arduous process of pressing the prints against the scanner.
On the eighth print, they got a match.
Two of the screens flicked to life, as the unlocked files of the stick suddenly opened on the screen and an avalanche of documents flooded the folder, all of them labelled in a random code of numbers.
It would take a while to crack the code on each one, but Etheridge interlocked his fingers and cracked them, ready to accept the challenge. After flicking through a couple of documents, he typed out an intricate formula in a separate window, inputting the numbers from the document name in, before hitting the enter button.
Each number was turned into a letter, and Sam blinked twice to try to comprehend it.
While he could dismantle and rebuild a sniper rifle with his eyes shut, Sam was a novice when it came to computers, He could do enough to survive in a world that was on the cusp of complete digitalisation, but what he’d just witnessed felt like magic. He patted Etheridge on the back, who seemed chuffed with the approval.
‘This may take a while.’
Whatever Etheridge did, Sam wouldn’t understand. But as his fingers tap danced across the keyboard, the large servers in the room roared into life, as Etheridge’s genius began to push them into overdrive.
The numbers on the file names began to scramble and slowly, they were replaced with letters.
The process took over three hours, and the two of them shared a couple more beers as Etheridge ordered them a pizza from a local eatery. According to him, it ‘shat all over Domino’s and Pizza Hut’ and while Sam wasn’t particularly au fait with either chain, he didn’t doubt it. The pizza was incredible and the two of them shared stories of their lives before.
Etheridge asked Sam about Jamie, not wanting to know about the pain of his passing, but the good times before that.
It was cathartic for Sam to recount his little boy talking to him about books. Sam had always struggled with his son’s academic prowess but had promised him he would read more to give his son tips.
It was one of the two promises he’d made his son. The other, not to kill anymore, he’d broken.
‘But for good reason,’ Etheridge pointed out. ‘You are not letting him down by doing it, Sam. You are honouring him.’
Sam could feel his eyes watering.
‘How?’
‘Because he knew his dad was a hero. That you fought for what was right.’ Etheridge held out his beer bottle. ‘You still are fighting, Sam. And I guarantee you, Jamie is looking down at you with pride.’
Sam took a moment to compose himself, took a deep breath and then clinked his bottle.
‘Thank you, Paul. For everything.’
Etheridge shrugged.
‘Also, I got a shit tonne of books in this place. Help yourself.’
The two men chuckled, when suddenly, Etheridge’s phone gave a satisfying chime. It was linked to his computers upstairs in the loft.
The decoding had completed.
The two men left the kitchen and returned to the loft where the heat emanating from the servers felt like stepping into a sauna. After cracking the large windows and letting in the brisk, night-time air, Etheridge sat down at the base of several screens, and flicked his powerful system into life.
The files were now labelled correctly, and a quick search landed them on a folder marked ‘Hailstorm’
‘This is it,’ Etheridge said, the tension in the room was palpable. ‘You sure you want to know what’s in this? Once we do, we can’t go back.’
Sam reached forward and clicked open the folder. A grid of documents welcomed them and systematically, they opened them reading through each one. As they ventured further into the truth, their eyes widened.
Sam’s fist clenched.
The truth of Project Hailstorm laid bare to them.
Sam
