4:00 p.m.
“Cashier number four, please.”
The recorded voice was loud and cheery. The long, snaking queue shuffled forward a little. Everything was as normal in this small north London branch of the Lowfax Building Society.
Cashier number four smiled at her next customer from behind a bulletproof screen. “Hello, my name’s Sue. How can I help you today?”
The customer was an old lady, quite short and thin, wearing a thick coat, gloves and a woolly hat. Her eyes seemed slightly unfocused.
“Can I help you, madam?” said Sue. “Are you all right?”
The old lady paused for a moment, as if she was listening to something nobody else could hear. She leaned close to the screen. “Give me all your money,” she said quietly.
“I beg your pardon?” The cashier blinked.
“Give me all your money,” repeated the old lady. She slid a fold-out shopping bag into the metal tray beneath the cashier’s screen. “Fill this. Notes only, no coins. Do it quickly. Do it quietly. If you try to press your alarm button, I’ll know.”
Sue half-laughed. “Sorry, is this a wind-up? Are we on telly?”
A small hatch opened at the front of the old lady’s hat. The barrel of a gun suddenly whirred out and the tiny spot of a laser sight appeared over the cashier’s heart.
“Fill the bag,” said the old lady. “Now.”
The cashier gulped. She had no idea whether the woman was bluffing or not. Then she remembered the reports about weird robberies in the City that were all over the news.
She took the bag and slowly opened it out. The customers behind the old lady in the queue hadn’t noticed anything strange yet. Neither had the other cashiers.
The dot of the laser sight followed the cashier as she moved. She opened up the bag, then opened a set of three drawers beside her. Each drawer contained large amounts of cash, neatly sorted into plastic compartments. Sue began to place the cash into the bag.
“Faster,” said the old lady quietly. “Get more from the safe behind you.”
Trying to stay calm, Sue swung round on her chair. There was a hefty safe, about the size of a wardrobe, standing against the wall a few metres away. She pressed a six-digit combination into the safe’s key coder and it opened. Inside were shelves packed with papers, files and plastic wrappers filled with money. Nervously, Sue began to take out the wrappers and place them in the shopping bag.
She glanced across to the other cashiers. One of them had heard the safe opening, and was looking at Sue with a puzzled expression on her face. Sue shot a wide-eyed look back at her, to indicate that there was something wrong.
The other cashier took the hint. Calmly, she reached out under her desk with her foot. The toe of her shoe tapped along, feeling for the alarm button that was located close to the floor.
Suddenly, motion-detection systems inside the old lady’s coat began to beep. Instantly, she pulled from her pocket what looked like a black tennis ball. She flung it at the floor in front of her.
As the ball hit the floor, an electro-magnetic pulse rippled out. The alarm buttons underneath the cashiers’ desks all fused and sparked. So did every electronic device within fifty metres, except the specially shielded ones carried by the old lady. The customers who were using their smartphones all yelped and dropped them in surprise.
The old lady reached out and touched the cashier’s bulletproof screen. Tiny lights blinked on the fingers of her gloves. Suddenly the screen burst into a shower of tiny pieces.
“Give!” demanded the old lady.
The laser sight was still levelled at Sue’s heart. Terrified, she pushed the nearly full shopping bag over the destroyed screen.
The old lady grabbed it and hurried out into the street. The customers behind her in the queue were too shocked to do anything. The cashiers were trapped, because the electric locks on all the doors had fused. After a minute or two, Sue crawled over her broken screen.
“Call the police, someone!” she cried, rushing into the street. She looked left and right, but there was no sign of the thief.
The old lady was gone. She’d ducked into a narrow alley close to the building society, and used a gripping device from her coat to raise a heavy manhole cover. Within seconds, she had climbed down into the drainage system below, and the manhole cover had been pulled back into place above her. Written on the pavement outside the building society, were the words:
“SWARM HQ to Hive 1, report,” said Queen Bee.
“Hive 1 to HQ,” signalled Chopper. “We think we’ve found something that links Tim Jones and Sally Burns. We’ve cross-checked every item in their homes, and have discovered that they both own exactly the same make and model of wireless speakers.”
“Speakers for a sound system?” said Queen Bee.
“Affirmative,”
“Is that really significant?” said Queen Bee. “Pick any two adults at random, and you may find a match on the brand of phone they own, or where they buy most of their clothes, all sorts of things.”
“Hive 2 to HQ,” cut in Nero. “That’s true, Queen Bee, but these particular speakers are a model not generally sold in this country, and which are normally expensive to buy.”
“Surely all this tells us is that they’re both music fans? They’ve bought top-quality equipment because they value what they listen to?”
“That might be the case,” said Nero, “if it were not for something else shown by our inventory of their possessions. Neither of them owns a large amount of music, or any other audio material.”
“A human who’d consider themselves a music fan would own a lot,” said Chopper. “Scans of hard drives, iPods and physical CDs shows that Jones owns only two thousand, one hundred and eleven music tracks, while Burns owns only two thousand, four hundred and eighty-five.”
“That sounds quite a lot,” said Queen Bee.
“These are less than average amounts for adult humans of their ages and income levels,” said Nero. “I have checked with a number of online databases.”
“The presence of these specific speakers in the homes of humans who don’t collect audio tracks is a statistical oddity,” said Chopper.
“It’s not much to go on,” said Queen Bee, “but you should investigate further. Wait! We’re picking up reports here of a third raid by Firestorm. Keep sending data back to the lab, I’ll be in touch shortly.”
“Logged, Queen Bee,” replied the robots.
The SWARM team at Tim Jones’s house – Chopper the dragonfly, Hercules the stag beetle and Sirena the butterfly – made their way over to the shelf in the sitting room where the two speakers sat.
Over at Sally Burns’s flat, the second team – Nero the scorpion, Sabre the mosquito, Morph the centipede and Widow the spider – had located the speakers on the floor of the flat’s main living area, at either end of a sofa that was littered with cushions and magazines.
The speakers themselves didn’t look unusual or remarkable. They were plain, black and box-like. There was a manufacturer’s badge showing the make and model number “BebKo-X1” in the lower-left corner of each.
“Comparing X-ray scans shows that all these speakers contain exactly the same components and circuits,” said Sirena at Tim Jones’s house.
“Confirmed,” said Nero at Sally Burns’s flat. “They connect to a Wi-Fi system using a standard set of protocols.”
“Same over here,” said Hercules. “Status check: no human activity detected nearby.”
“Police databases show both Jones and Burns are still being held in custody,” added Nero.
“Beginning high-res scans of individual circuits inside the speakers…” said Sirena. “There’s something strange here. Nero, do you read a data-static feedback loop too?”
“Affirmative,” said Nero. “In fact, there’s an entire circuit board that’s not part of the speaker system itself.”
“Confirmed,” said Sirena.
“We were right,” said Morph. “These speakers are definitely a clue of some kind.”
“Should we neutralize them?” said Sabre.
“Not until we know what we’ve found here,” said Chopper. “Let’s take a close look at these circuit boards.”
The robots calculated and analyzed, as sensor data flowed through their electronic brains.
“Each speaker has had one small extra circuit board added to it,” said Sirena. “Connectors and soldering marks show that this addition was made recently.”
“Someone has taken these speakers, opened them up, and modified them,” said Chopper. “Whoever is behind the attacks, most likely.”
“I’d say these extra circuits were home-made,” said Nero. “Extraordinary. Firestorm may be one individual acting alone after all.”
“That would indeed be extraordinary,” said Sirena.
“I meant it’s extraordinary that I could have been wrong about Firestorm,” said Nero. “I calculate that the circuits were home-made because these components are the same, but there are very small differences in exactly where and how they’ve been fitted into the speakers. For example, the extra circuit in this speaker at Burns’s flat has been mounted eight millimetres lower than the one you’re looking at there in Jones’s house. That probably wouldn’t happen if the circuits had been added in a factory. Everything there would be done in a standard way. Someone has assembled these circuits individually, and wired them inside the speakers too. This is something human agents might have taken weeks to spot.”
“If I didn’t know better,” said Hercules, “I’d say you were boasting.”
“This evidence is important,” said Chopper. “It’s too much of a coincidence that we’ve found these speakers, modified in this way, in the homes of both Jones and Burns.”
“The question is why?” said Hercules. “What do these extra circuits actually do? Why have they been wired into ordinary audio speakers? A data-static feedback loop would seem to serve no function at all here.”
“The added circuits aren’t even powered up,” said Sirena. “The speakers are on standby, but these strange extras appear completely inactive.”
“I’ll cut my way inside this speaker,” said Hercules. “We need to get one of these circuits free and take it back to the lab at SWARM HQ.”
“Logged,” replied the others.
“Be careful,” said Morph.
Hercules’s razor-sharp claw was designed to cut through almost anything. It clicked and whirred as the targeting systems in his brain homed in on a small area at the back of the speaker.
“I’ll make a hole where it’s least likely to be noticed,” he said.
His claw sliced quickly into the speaker’s tough plastic case. Within a few seconds, he’d cut a neat, circular hole, exactly large enough for his wing case to fit through. He crawled inside the speaker, pulling his legs in tightly. He was the bulkiest of the SWARM robots, even though he was only five centimetres long.
“I see it,” he reported from inside. “It’s a very advanced piece of work. Whoever made it was also extremely careful – there are no fingerprints on any of the components. I’ll remove it now.”
He scuttled alongside the circuit board. His sharp claw moved to snip the board free.
Suddenly, there was a sharp crackling sound. A flash of white light shone through the hole Hercules had made. Inside the speaker, sparks flew from the robot’s joints. Wisps of smoke rose around his claw, and his legs curled sharply inward.
“He’s offline!” said Chopper.
“The circuit was booby-trapped!” said Morph. “Exactly like the briefcase Tim Jones had in the bank. It must have a hidden power source.”
The robots couldn’t detect any electrical activity in Hercules. All his systems were dead.
Folding back their wings, Chopper and Sirena wriggled through the hole in the speaker. Hercules was silent, surrounded by smoke and the smell of burning.
At that moment, a clunking sound came from the back of Tim Jones’s house. There was a scuffling and a series of bumps.
“Someone’s entering the house,” said Chopper.
“Scanning…” said Sirena. “It’s Tim Jones’s wife and their pet dog.”
“Get out of there,” said Morph. “Now!”
“Police confirm a third raid,” announced Simon Turing. “This time, Firestorm got away with almost half a million pounds!”
Every screen in SWARM’s laboratory was filled with scrolling information. Queen Bee narrowed her eyes as she watched the displays.
“Do we have any leads?”
“Sorry, Ms Maynard,” said Simon. “CCTV went down inside and outside the building. Some sort of signal blocker, I assume. We have no visual on the attacker, apart from a verbal description. She vanished into thin air.”
Queen Bee turned to Alfred Berners. “Update?”
“My hacks into MI6 are holding. It seems that secret-service departments all over the world are starting to panic, not knowing who Firestorm are, or what their objective is. MI6 have put every agent outside the UK on full alert. Security forces worldwide are bracing for similar attacks: the CIA in America, the MSS in China, Russia’s FSB, everyone. They’re all very jumpy. Accusations and suspicions are beginning to fray nerves and shorten tempers. On top of all that, the media are going crazy now there’s been a third attack.”
Queen Bee took a deep breath. “We must handle this with extreme caution. The world could collapse into war even quicker than we feared. Simon, what can the robots give us?”
“Hercules’s signal just went down.”
“What?”
Simon tapped at a nearby screen. A beep confirmed that the SWARM network was live.
“SWARM HQ to Hive 1,” said Queen Bee. “What’s happened?”
“Nothing we can’t handle, Queen Bee,” said Chopper. “Hercules has been damaged by a power surge. He’s fused to a circuit board and it will take time to free him.”
“Do you need Agent K or Agent J to intervene?”
“Negative, Queen Bee. The Firestorm situation is too urgent, they’re needed for the investigation. The logical thing to do is leave Hercules here until we can return for him. He is safely hidden inside this speaker, there’s no danger of discovery.”
“I agree,” said Queen Bee. “We need every agent we’ve got on this, human or robot.”
“A human has returned to the house now. Sirena and I will keep out of sight, exit the house and fly directly back to HQ.”
“Understood.” Queen Bee turned her attention to the second group. “HQ to Hive 2.”
“We’re leaving Burns’s flat now,” signalled Nero. “No problem here. We’ll proceed to the pick-up point.”
“Acknowledged. HQ out,” said Queen Bee.
She turned to Simon Turing. “Any good news?”
“Actually, yes,” said Simon. “The robots have gathered a massive amount of data from the homes of Jones and Burns. I’ve just run it through our own computers. Look at what’s coming up on the 3D display. I think we may have exactly the breakthrough we need!”
On the display were detailed diagrams of the mysterious speakers. Beside the diagrams, streams of information were being divided into categories by SWARM’s computers.
“The robots identified those speakers as imported,” said Simon, “so we’ve compiled a full list of every shop and warehouse in the UK that bought that make and model. There aren’t many. Better still, the scans taken by the robots have given us an exact breakdown of the components used to make those weird added circuits: microchips, PCBs, memristors, capacitors, all that sort of stuff. We can identify everyone who’s bought those specific components too. A full cross-check of all this information gives us eleven places that have bought both the speakers and the added components. All of them are small electrical shops. One of them is sure to lead us to Firestorm.”
“Good work!” said Queen Bee. “We’ll start checking them immediately.”
“No need,” smiled Simon. “So far, all the attacks have taken place in London. There’s only one shop on the list within fifty miles of all three raids. That’s most likely to be our Firestorm link.”
“Excellent, where is it?”
“In a side street off Tottenham Court Road, a small audio sales and repair place called Trendi Soundz.”
4:38 p.m.
A buzzer sounded over the Trendi Soundz shop door as the old lady entered. Her eyes were still slightly glazed.
The shop was small and cluttered. Shelves and racks were stacked full of boxes of audio equipment, cables, speakers and modems. There were flash-shaped signs cut out of bright orange card with handwritten text in black marker pen advertising “Lowest Pricez” and “Best Bargainz”.
There were no customers inside and the shop’s owner sat behind a dusty wooden counter. He was a middle-aged man in a tatty denim jacket and a black woollen beanie. A radio was in pieces on the counter, and he was working on it with a screwdriver. He looked up as the buzzer sounded. He had piercing pale blue eyes.
“Ah,” he said quietly. “Success.”
The old lady said nothing. She placed the shopping bag on the counter. He glanced inside to check that it was filled with money, then tucked it away out of sight. The old lady placed her coat, hat and gloves on the counter too.
“Code name Firestorm, Part Three,” said the shop owner. “Go across the street. Take the next bus, go three stops. Sit outside the nearest coffee shop. Memory wipe will take place one minute after you sit down.”
“Confirmed,” she said flatly.
“Good,” he grinned. “Now go. You smell of drains.”