Project Venom Read online

  They heard scuffling, other movements, the scraping of a chair. The tiny tracking device Hercules had planted on Alva was beaming back a live audio stream, as well as his exact position. Alfred adjusted the stream to ensure that the voices sounded as clear as possible.

  There was a bump, then a series of clunks and taps. Finally, MI5 agent Drake’s voice came through loud and clear. Queen Bee, Simon and Alfred listened intently to the conversation:

  Drake: Evening, Mr Alva. Glad you could join us.

  Alva: You can’t keep me here, I demand to see a lawyer!

  Drake: Demand all you like, you ain’t getting nothing. Not till we’ve had a nice little chat.

  Alva: I know my rights!

  Drake: We’re not the police, Mr Alva. You’re on the green surveillance list. An active suspect.

  Alva: What am I supposed to have done?

  Drake: Well, that’s what we’re here to find out. Now then, from our earlier chats with your colleagues, it seems five people knew the poison existed. Is that right?

  Alva: Yes. Our Chief Executive, my boss, Dr Kirk, who’s Head of Science, the company’s Sales Director, me, and the other lab assistant, Emma Barnes. Where is Emma? She disappeared.

  Drake: My men caught her on her way down to the bio-storage in the basement. She claimed she was going to make sure it was securely locked. She claimed she didn’t want my men blundering about in there. She claimed she was worried about the poison being taken away, or not handled correctly.

  Alva: If that’s what she says, then that’s the truth. Emma is completely trustworthy.

  Drake: That’s for me to decide. My men have got her just along the corridor, until we can investigate her further. Mind you, even a brief glance at her record shows she’s never been a foreign national, or a member of a terrorist organization. Looks like you’re still Suspect Number One.

  Alva: You don’t frighten me. I left my home country to escape from bullies like you.

  Drake: Let’s talk about your home country, shall we? East Balboa. Lovely countryside, I’m led to understand. Or it was, until the EBLS started blowing it up.

  Alva: I’m no longer a member! I’m sure you know that perfectly well.

  Drake: I know perfectly well that you claim you’re not a member any more.

  Alva: I have never been a terrorist. I despise violence! The reason I left the EBLS was because they started threatening people. They were an organization dedicated to peaceful protest. We wanted justice and democracy for our country. Then evil men took it over. I was horrified, I left the EBLS behind, I have a new home here in the UK, and that is all. I have no involvement with terrorists, not now, not ever!

  Drake: Yes, well that’s what you would say, isn’t it? I mean, you’re not going to come in here and say “Yes, I’ve been plotting to poison the world” now, are you? I mean, if you did, you’d be a pretty rubbish terrorist, wouldn’t you?

  Alva: If you know about the poison, you surely know it was an accident! We were working on a cure for the common cold. There were mutations in the genetic code of the serum.

  Drake: It doesn’t matter how it was created. It matters how you intend to use it.

  Alva: I don’t! Why won’t you listen to me? I have nothing to hide!

  Drake: Did you send an email to the EBLS last week?

  Alva: What? No, of course I didn’t, I told you I—

  Drake: Someone did.

  Alva: It wasn’t me!

  Drake: Someone using your email account, on your computer, at your workstation, in your lab.

  Alva: What? How? It wasn’t me, I tell you!

  Drake: Oh dear, we seem to be going around in circles, don’t we? I say you did, you say you didn’t. The thing is, who’s going to be believed? The ex-EBLS member who knew about this poison, who helped keep it a secret, who appears to have contacted his old terrorist buddies, who resisted arrest … or MI5? Who would you believe?

  Alva: I never sent an email! I haven’t been down to the bio-storage vault for days. I couldn’t even tell you what the poison is being kept in!

  Drake: An old yoghurt pot, I heard.

  Alva: You make fun of me? That poison is deadly! If you allow even—

  Drake: We know very well how deadly it is! Why do you think we raided the company in force, huh? Don’t you worry, there’s no way it’s leaving that basement, it’s safely guarded. As soon as our nerds can get in there, it’ll be destroyed. Should be later today, as a matter of fact.

  Alva: Good! Then this nightmare will be over.

  Drake: Over? It’ll be over, will it, sunshine? For you, it’s just beginning.

  “Turn it off,” said Queen Bee. “That Drake idiot makes me cringe.”

  Simon Turing tapped a couple of keys and the tracker switched over to “record only”.

  “Alva is telling the truth,” he muttered. He pointed to a series of readouts on the display beside him. “The stress patterns in his speech indicate it. Lies show up as specific changes in pitch and tone, and he’s shown none.”

  “Yes,” said Queen Bee in a low voice. “That conversation reveals three important facts. Firstly, theories about Alva have been wrong. He didn’t send that email, and isn’t involved with selling the Venom to the EBLS. Which means that, secondly, whoever is involved has enough technical skill to hack into Alva’s account. Thirdly, SWARM’s focus must now switch to the other people who knew about the Venom.”

  “MI5 are only interested in Alva,” said Simon. “My guess is that this Emma Barnes is now the likeliest suspect. She was heading for the bio-storage, and she’d have had the technical knowledge.”

  “At least if MI5 have her, we can concentrate on the final three staff,” said Queen Bee. “We must stay on our toes. This situation is now completely open, anything could happen.” She thought for a few moments. “Contact Chopper.”

  Chopper the dragonfly had taken over from Sirena on surveillance duty at Smith-Neutall. He was keeping well out of sight, darting from room to room, his highly tuned sensors and advanced eye cameras watching and recording everything.

  Most of the staff had been questioned and sent home. The bio-storage was being guarded by a squadron of soldiers armed with machine guns, to ensure nobody went anywhere near it. There were more soldiers and MI5 agents on permanent patrol around the building.

  The lab where Pablo Alva, Emma Barnes and Dr Kirk normally worked was filled with an array of MI5 agents, science advisers and bio-weapon experts. They were sifting through the company’s records, piecing together the experiments that had accidentally led to the poison’s creation.

  “They’ll soon be ready to destroy the Venom,” reported Chopper, who was positioned above a filing cabinet in one of the offices.

  “Do they have the necessary equipment?” transmitted Queen Bee.

  “From what I’ve observed, yes,” said Chopper. “MI5’s science personnel are well aware of the risks. The job will be done thoroughly.”

  “At least that’s one piece of good news,” sighed Queen Bee. “I want an update on the situation there. Hack into the computers, see if you can link an employee called Emma Barnes to sending that email to the EBLS.”

  “Accessing now, Queen Bee,” said Chopper. His circuits tapped into the probes left inside the computers by Nero. “Data is downloading… Cross-checking… Information established.”

  “Go ahead,” said Queen Bee.

  “Keystroke data shows that the email was typed and sent at time index 6:22 p.m. However, the security camera on the outside of the building shows Barnes leaving to go home, time index also 6:22 p.m. The email was written and sent at exactly the time Barnes was walking across the car park. She was not the sender.”

  “OK,” said Queen Bee. “Check against three others: the company’s Chief Executive, Gwen Stirling, Head of Science, Dr Kirk, and Sales Director, Peter Seede.”

  “Accessing… None are logged as being in the building at the time. However, if Alva is innocent, we know that the guilty person can
interfere with the computer systems. This data is not conclusive.”

  “Understood. Good work, Chopper,” said Queen Bee. “Where are these three suspects right now?”

  “I intercepted a conversation between an MI5 agent here and MI5 HQ less than twenty minutes ago. They are accepting the claim that the Venom was an accidental creation, and are allowing our three suspects to remain free, for the time being, although under close watch. Internal sensors show that the Chief Executive, Gwen Stirling, is currently at her desk. The Sales Director, Peter Seede, has been allowed to continue with a business trip to Thailand. Dr Kirk, the Head of Science, is in the lab, assisting MI5 with their enquiries into the Venom. Can I ask a question, Queen Bee?”

  “Of course.” Queen Bee sounded surprised, but pleased that one of her robots was thinking for itself.

  “We have proven to ourselves that Alva is innocent,” said Chopper, “and that Barnes is innocent, within a matter of minutes. Of the remaining suspects, only Dr Kirk is likely to have had the technical skills needed to hack Alva’s email. He’s now the key suspect.”

  “Yes, I think you’re right…”

  “So, why are the humans of MI5 still questioning Mr Alva? It’s not logical.”

  Queen Bee chuckled to herself. “You’ve got a lot to learn about humans.”

  At that moment, a tinny voice sounded around the Smith-Neutall building. “Assigned agents to basement storage vault, please. Assigned agents to bio-storage.”

  “They’re about to destroy the Venom,” said Chopper.

  “Go!” said Queen Bee. “Keep a close eye on everything going on down there. Dr Kirk especially! If he’s the one we want, this will be his last chance to snatch the Venom. Be prepared.”

  “Logged, Queen Bee.”

  Chopper buzzed through the building at high speed. In less than a minute, he’d made his way down through stairwells and rooms, and was on the ceiling of the area outside the storage vault.

  Below him was a small gathering of agents and scientists, along with Smith-Neutall’s Chief Executive. All of them were wearing yellow biohazard suits and breathing masks over their ordinary clothes. A couple of the scientists carried a large metal container, about the size of a pizza box. This was the incinerator, into which the phial of Venom would be placed and burned away. Dr Kirk held a long pair of tongs, with which he would carefully take the phial from the glass cabinet inside the vault, and deposit it into the incinerator.

  Chopper took sensor readings of everything around him. Deep inside his programming, he was still puzzled by human inefficiency. His CPU began to re-analyze the many terabytes of data he’d accessed in the past couple of hours, since the raid by MI5. He wondered if there was some tiny detail that the humans hadn’t accounted for so far.

  And there was!

  Instantly the dragonfly darted high above the heads of the scientists. He landed beside the small hole leading into the bio-storage vault, which Hercules had cut on the SWARM’s visit the previous night. Folding back his mechanical wings, he quickly crawled inside, sending an emergency signal back to SWARM HQ.

  “Chopper to SWARM! Gap in data detected! MI5 sealed off the bio-storage within two minutes, but sensor logs are blank for ninety-seven seconds between arrival of soldiers at the building, and arrival of soldiers down here at bio-storage!”

  Chopper emerged into the pitch dark bio-storage room. His eyes switched to the green glow of night vision. He zoomed in on the glass case at the far end of the room, checking through the dozens of bottles and test tubes it contained.

  “Chopper to SWARM! The phial of Venom is gone! Repeat, the phial is gone!”

  At that moment, the security locks on the bio-storage vault were undone. A red light began to flash above the door. A recorded voice announced calmly, “Personnel must check protective equipment before entering. This is a biohazard area. Thank you.”

  There was a hiss of hydraulics. The door swung back on massive hinges. Overhead lights blinked into life inside the vault. Unseen through the scientists’ cumbersome masks, Chopper buzzed back outside.

  “I’m sure we’re all going to feel a lot safer once this is done,” said Dr Kirk, stepping into the vault, now brightly lit. There was a murmur of agreement from the others. “Thank goodness this terrible poison has been safely contained.”

  Back at SWARM HQ, the alarm had already been raised. Action was already being taken.

  The Venom was out in the open.

  The laboratory at SWARM HQ in London was filled with secret service technicians. Professor Miller was directing a team who were tapping into communications and CCTV systems all over the world. Simon Turing and Alfred Berners were programming SWARM’s computers to intercept words, patterns or images that might provide a clue to the whereabouts of the Venom.

  “It’s a hive of activity in here,” said Hercules.

  Everyone ignored him. He and the other robots were clipped into their electronic frames, raised up from the surface of one of the long workbenches.

  “That was a joke.”

  “Was it?” said Nero. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize.”

  “I’m practising my human interactions,” grumbled Hercules. “They’re surprisingly difficult.”

  “Don’t bicker,” said Sirena.

  “We’ve been ordered to add our processing capabilities to the search,” said Nero. “Needless talk wastes precious CPU cycles.”

  Queen Bee swept into the room. She held a wad of papers in one hand, her phone in the other. She marched across to Professor Miller.

  “Sorry to interrupt your work, Professor,” she said, “but I’ve got my SIA boss upstairs demanding to know what progress we’ve made.”

  The Professor gave a sharp sniff. “The Smith-Neutall building is locked down, but Chopper reports his scans show no sign of the phial there. We have monitoring in place for a radius of a hundred miles. Cameras on streets and motorways, CCTV and ticketing systems at train stations, airports, ferry terminals, every possible transport link. We’re keeping a close watch on all credit card transactions and reported stolen vehicles, and adding more data sources all the time. We’re still in the dark, but something has to turn up eventually.”

  “And in the meantime, the Venom could have changed hands fifty times and be almost anywhere,” said Queen Bee.

  “Since we don’t yet know how that phial got out, we’re broadening our net to follow as many of the company’s employees as we can,” said Professor Miller. He paused for a moment, watching everyone around him bustling back and forth. He drew closer to Queen Bee and dropped his voice to a whisper. “We’re also following the MI5 agents who were assigned to the raid on Smith-Neutall. Given the seriousness of the situation, we have to consider the possibility that the terrorist is a traitor from our own side.”

  “Very wise,” whispered Queen Bee. “Until we can track the phial down, our real enemy could be anyone.”

  Simon Turing approached them. He was clutching a bundle of documents to his chest. “Ms Maynard, I’ve been checking through current information on EBLS activities abroad. MI5 and MI6 terrorist watch… There’s no report of any EBLS sympathisers arriving anywhere in the UK recently.”

  “How does this affect the search?” said Queen Bee.

  “Well,” said Simon, “our terrorist will be aiming to hand the Venom over to them in person. Yes?”

  “I see!” said Queen Bee. “If the EBLS isn’t in the UK, then our suspect will need to travel to wherever they are.”

  “Right,” said Simon. “We should concentrate the search on airports, and other routes out of the country.”

  “Good thinking,” said Queen Bee. “Send Agent J and Agent K down here. And get a couple of helicopters ready.” She turned to the robots. “Disengage CPUs from the mainframe computer. I want you all deployed at main international transport hubs. The SWARM can act faster and more efficiently than troops or other secret service personnel. More quietly too. There’s danger of widespread panic if agents or p
olice start marching about, and the media get to hear about the Venom.”

  “Whoever has the phial may be alerted too,” added Hercules.

  “Exactly,” said Queen Bee. “I want the SWARM active, on the ground. Nero, Sirena, Morph, you’ll be at Heathrow airport. We’ll need three of you there because it’s the biggest and busiest. We’ll divert Chopper to Gatwick. Widow, Stansted. Sabre, you’re at Birmingham. Hercules, the Eurostar terminal at St Pancras. Go!”

  “We’re live, Queen Bee!”

  The cavernous halls of Heathrow airport were noisy and bustling. Passengers stared up at electronic boards, which clicked and blinked, announcing arrivals and departures. At lines of check-in desks, queues snaked back in long, controlled zigzags.

  Up above, a network of fat heating pipes, electrical cables and air vents criss-crossed the ceiling. Perched on a cable, Nero the scorpion, Morph the centipede and Sirena the butterfly were hacking into the airport’s data systems. Nero’s fibre-optic pincer probes stabbed into the wiring beneath them.

  “I’m online with today’s check-in data and operations information,” said Nero.

  “I’ve got CCTV feeds and recordings,” said Morph, his antennae twitching. “Anything happening down there?”

  Sirena’s ultra-sensitive detection circuits were keeping a constant watch on people moving around below. Using X-ray sensors, she scanned luggage, bags and passengers. She downloaded closed-circuit camera images from Morph and used facial recognition software, cross-checked with official databases, to identify everyone who’d passed through the airport in the past twelve hours.

  “Nothing suspicious,” she said. “That lady down there in the blue coat has got a pair of scissors in a sewing kit in her bag. The security gate will take them from her. There’s a boy with a toy sword, which will probably be confiscated too, but there’s nothing that isn’t routine.”

  “Are you monitoring physiological states?” said Nero.

  “Yes,” said Sirena. “Any increased heart rates, higher levels of perspiration or rapid eye movements might suggest agitation or fear. There are some nervous flyers down there, but nobody is trying to conceal their nerves, as a terrorist might. Someone carrying something as dangerous as the Venom would definitely show signs of that kind.”