Fang was sitting cross-legged on the bed in an isolated ward in the basement of an unused wing of London’s oldest hospital. Yawning so hard her jaw cracked, she scrolled through the headlines on her phone. Close by, the latest in a series of bespectacled men in white coats stuck North with a serum – this one to guard against Weil’s disease. ‘From rats’ urine,’ one said. ‘Potentially fatal.’ He sounded intrigued rather than appalled.
As far as he knew, St Bartholomew’s Hospital had no Accident and Emergency, so North guessed that most of the doctors scurrying in and out usually worked out of the government’s Defence Science and Technology Lab at Porton Down. He hazarded that Hone felt obliged to provide him with the same level of care as Esme. Unless he wanted to torture him before he went – which, knowing the one-eyed man, was a definite possibility.
‘What do we know?’ he said, in search of distraction as much as information.
‘“Nightmare at the Museum”...’ Fang read, as North turned his head and bit his lip against the hepatitis injection. ‘“A previously unknown terrorist cell intent on stopping the progress of artificial intelligence sabotaged a glittering event at the British Museum earlier tonight.”’ He took a deep breath. He’d showered in water hot enough to skin him, but the smell of the sewers was still in his nose. ‘“Dozens are believed to be dead, many of them prominent global scientists in the AI field, including Tobias Hawke, Director of the AI Institute, Derkind. Hawke was understood to be on the brink of announcing a step change in AI that could transform humanity’s relationship with machines for all time.”’
He braced himself for the antidotes to cholera, typhoid, dysentery and cryptosporidiosis as Fang read on regardless: ‘This columnist in The Times online is hazarding Hawke created consciousness in a machine and is demanding to know what happened to it. Was it destroyed by terrorists? Stolen by Russians? There’s a crowdfunding page, which is at £2,500 – in case criminals ask for a ransom. Shall I put you down for a tenner?’
Terrorists? Russians? The guys were British mercenaries – capable, organized and armed to the teeth. The itch he’d been trying to scratch since he stared down at Tobias’s body started up again. Something wasn’t right…
A trolley appeared, the door banging open as another doctor entered backwards. Tortoiseshell glasses. Early forties. Honey-coloured hair tied back in a ponytail which was beginning to work itself loose. Elegant and exhausted in equal measure. Underneath the white coat, North caught a glimpse of black cigarette pants, with tiger-print loafers on her feet.
‘Dr Lily reporting for duty,’ she said, pulling out the biggest needle North had yet seen. ‘Which of you is the numpty who went wild-swimming in a sewer?’ The voice was that of a professional who had seen idiocy before and knew she would see it again, way sooner than she wanted.
‘Do I look like a numpty? More importantly, do I smell like a numpty?’ Fang wrinkled her nose and pointed in North’s direction.
The doctor scrutinized first Fang and then North over the top of her glasses. ‘Good point, Toots.’ Her mouth twitched, her upper lip holding on to the ghost of a scar of what must have been a cleft lip. ‘I feel I should point out to the adult in the room that sewers are full of nasties from cleaning products – not to mention the illicit disposal of chemical waste, not to mention – and I’m using a technical term here – poop.’
She plunged the giant needle into a vial and sucked up its neon-green contents into the glass barrel. Wide-eyed Fang stared as Dr Lily held the syringe upright, tapped it, then pressed the plunger so that a tiny fountain spurted out of the top of the needle. ‘Before we do this, though, brighten up my night shift…’ She peered over her glasses again, and this time, North noticed that one of her eyes was blue and the other a scintillating green, almost matching the contents of the vial. ‘The nurses have a bet on and they need me to settle it. Is it true you have a bullet in your brain?’
‘The bullet may sound cool, but think about it – his numpty brain has to be freakishly empty for the bullet to have missed anything important,’ Fang said.
The doctor laughed and with a rush it came back to him. Lying in a hospital bed nearly six years ago. His head hurting so much he thought it might be ready to fall to pieces. The sombre faces of army medics explaining the fact he was coming round from a three-month medically induced coma. That he’d been shot on patrol outside Lashkar Gah in southern Afghanistan. That they’d got him to a top-flight trauma centre fast, where they’d removed bone fragments but had opted to leave a bullet in his brain. That its trajectory and position were highly unusual; that it had missed the brain stem, the thalamus and major blood vessels. Their fascination that he was still alive, and his decision to keep its immediate impact on his brain functioning a secret from them, for fear that they decided he was insane and went back in to dig the bullet out. The certain knowledge that nothing he did mattered, because he could be dead at any second, which meant he had nothing to lose.
A sharp prick of the needle pressed into the muscle of his forearm bringing him back to the present, his eyes went to the tiny bubble of bright red blood that rose to the surface of his skin. He’d had enough of doctors – even charming doctors like Dr Lily. He had nothing to lose, he reminded himself. Unlike Tobias, who’d had everything and lost it all. ‘I’m not so dumb that I don’t know that Syd is the key, Fang. I don’t care what Hone says...’ – North looked away from the needle he was pretty sure they used to treat rhinos – ‘... I’m finding that bastard tablet.’
He felt the release of pressure as Dr Lily lifted the needle before flicking the barrel of the syringe again with a manicured thumb and forefinger. ‘Actually, bearing in mind these blood results…’ she said, glancing at his notes. She gestured for him to turn round and bend over. Sighing, he took hold of the bed’s footrail. The things he did for his country. There was a pause then a sharp stabbing pain in his rump, which the doctor smacked once, hard. North was pretty sure that was against the Hippocratic oath.
‘Okay, my treatment plan,’ the doctor said as she peeled off the latex gloves, one after the other, ‘is for Toots here to keep you away from bullets and sewers. Here, have a sticker. Scooby Doo – my favourite.’ She slapped a sticker on the bedside locker and winked at Fang before steering the trolley out of the door, which banged behind her.
‘What a weirdo,’ Fang said. ‘But for an old lady, she was smoking hot and totally objectified you there. When this is over, you should defo ask her out to a tea dance or a coach trip or whatever it is pensioners do.’
North started pacing. ‘What do we know?’
‘We know Esme was attacked in her own home by an unknown assailant,’ Fang said, sitting upright and wide awake.
‘We know they had a leak of medical technology to China…’ North said.
‘… and Tobias was responsible and set Paulie up to take the flak,’ Fang finished.
‘We know Tobias was working on a sabotage program for self-drive vehicles and someone managed to hack it.’
‘And almost killed you and Esme,’ Fang reminded him.
‘We know there was a massive attack on the gala and that they killed Tobias and got what they came for – i.e. the tablet with Syd on it,’ North said.
‘We know Syd spells the end of the world as we know it,’ Fang said. ‘And we have no idea where it is or who has it.’
‘Do they know more than we do?’ North nodded towards the phone in her hand.
She turned it around for North’s inspection. On a live news programme, bearded pundits were frothing with impatience to talk about whether AI would destroy the world. Or save it from itself. Opinion was divided.
‘According to this, the Home Secretary is livid,’ Fang said. ‘The way Ralph Rafferty talks, this is epic…’ She clicked on the play arrow of a news video and Rafferty’s skeletal figure emerged from the Home Office, surrounded by camera crews and journalists. He stopped in his tracks, as if he was doing them all an immense favour at a time of national crisis. ‘I am deeply concerned about events at the British Museum,’ he intoned. ‘The country has lost one of its finest minds in the death of my very dear friend, Tobias Hawke, and I’d like to offer his family my deepest sympathies as well as the families of the other victims in tonight’s atrocity. The Commissioner assures me that the Metropolitan Police is doing its utmost to recover the machine and bring those responsible for these horrific deaths to justice. I can only hope a foreign power isn’t involved in an operation on our sovereign soil. In any event, whether this is a hostile action by a foreign power or indeed the act of domestic terrorists, there will be severe consequences and the guilty will be brought to justice.’
‘Hone said Rafferty was all over Derkind and what they were doing,’ North said. ‘But he wasn’t at the gala because you pulled the guest list and I saw the names of everyone who turned up.’
Fang flicked through the files on her phone to check and she shook her head. Rafferty wasn’t at the gala. ‘The other guy who wasn’t there was that General from the photo,’ she said. ‘The one who was involved in that scandal about his soldiers shooting at kids – Aeron Kirkham.’
General Aeron Kirkham. A name not to forget in a hurry.
‘Apart from being a General, can you see what Kirkham does?’
She was quiet while she searched. ‘Director of the Defence Innovations Board,’ she said finally.
‘Tobias was about to launch the next revolution. Why wouldn’t Ralph Rafferty and the Director of the Defence Innovations Board be there?’
The General’s absence was even odder than the politician’s, North thought, bearing in mind the defence contract Esme had confessed to – the sabotaging of the enemy’s autonomous vehicles. Which sounded very much like a defence innovation to him.
‘I want everything you can find on both of them,’ he said. ‘And use Plug.’ Fang made a face. ‘He’s a people person – not your strong point,’ North added.
‘… Says the trained killer,’ Fang added.
‘Hone fired us, by the way.’
‘That’s the patriarchy for you.’ Fang kept chewing on her bubblegum.
‘I’ve a bullet in the head. Do you know what that means?’
‘You should learn to duck?’ She blew out a small bubble and popped it immediately.
‘It means that I’m going to die sooner than I want to.’
‘I’m downloading my brain into a computer come the day. Mine’s the way-better plan.’
‘The bullet means I can take risks you can’t. It also means that consequences matter less.’
‘Whatevs, mate,’ she said.
‘We’ll have no resources and no official cover if it all goes wrong.’ He was serious, because these were high stakes. Tobias was dead. Whoever stole Syd had no idea the machine was ready to take over the world. And there were dangerous men out there who showed no compunction about cold-blooded murder.
‘I’m dying of boredom as you speak,’ Fang said, ‘and I’m not even listening to what you’re saying.’
He gave in. ‘If Rafferty is talking about a foreign power being responsible, there’s only the US, Russia, Israel and China who could pull something like this off. But the shooters were English.’ He recalled their voices. Their accents. The way they worked together. But mercenaries would work for whomsoever paid them.
The business card he extracted from the soaking wet trousers on the chair was soggy and the cardboard coming apart, but it was just about legible. While Fang and Plug turned over Rafferty and Aeron Kirkham, it seemed a logical place to start.
‘I’m going to visit Octavius Chin. We know Yan worked for Chin, and we know Paulie passed Yan secrets about Syd’s medical program with Tobias’s blessing. The Thinkers were working for someone. And according to Esme, the Chinese are desperate to get in on Syd. It would be a bold move but these are high stakes – what if Chin set this whole thing up?’
‘Bad idea,’ said Fang. ‘We need to do the legwork on Rafferty and Aeron Kirkham first. Then see how Chin fits in.’
‘Chin thinks I’m working for the secret service. After the shooting, he’s not going to be surprised when I come knocking. But if Hone gets to him before I do, I won’t get anything useful from him.’
What he didn’t tell Fang was that he had something to prove. He owed it to Esme to find Syd because then maybe she’d forgive him for keeping her alive and he could put what he felt about her to one side. The fact that when he looked at her, his heart beat faster and he felt hope.
He checked the Rolex on his wrist. It was midnight. He had ten hours and fourteen minutes to recover Syd – and prove that Hone was wrong to call him an amateur. He was every bit the professional when it came to making trouble.