Project Venom Read online

  The taxi came to a halt outside a line of upmarket shops. Seede paid the driver in yuan, the local currency, and headed down a side street.

  Seede paused for a moment outside a traditionally styled cafe. Its open front showed an interior painted red and black, with bulbous red lanterns hanging from the ceiling, and small tables where chattering people crowded around bowls of steaming food. A few tourists were dotted among the locals. Seede ignored the short queue at the serving counter, and weaved his way around the diners to a table near the back. Seated there were a man and a woman, both wearing sunglasses and hiking boots, with backpacks hanging on their chairs. They looked like tourists.

  The man was short, stocky and greying at the temples, with a heavy moustache. The woman was taller and more stylish, her long ginger hair swirled into a large bun at the back of her head. Both were picking at a serving of noodles with wooden chopsticks. Seede sat down beside them.

  The man leaned closer to him and spoke with a Spanish accent. From his hiding place in the lining of Seede’s jacket, Nero transmitted the conversation back to London. In SWARM’s lab, Simon Turing recorded it.

  “Identify yourself,” said the man, in a voice laced with suspicion and threat.

  “My name is Peter Seede. I first contacted you by hacking the email account of Pablo Alva. We’ve been corresponding via encrypted message boards to negotiate this meeting and a price for the merchandise. Do I need to go on?”

  The man sat back a little. He glanced around the cafe. Everyone was intent on their food and their chatter. From the kitchens came the sound of clanking pots and voices barking orders in the local dialect.

  “OK,” said the man with a grim smile. “My friend here will scan you for bugs. I’m sure you understand. Even a trusted associate can be working for the cops.”

  Seede nodded amiably. “Of course.”

  Nero sent an urgent message. “Morph! They’ll detect us! Temporary shutdown, thirty seconds!”

  “Logged.”

  The two micro-robots powered down a split second before the woman activated an app on her smartphone. She watched a stream of numbers form a graph on the screen. Nero and Morph’s advanced exoskeletons reflected a signal that registered only as non-organic material containing no electrical charge.

  “He’s clean,” said the woman. Her accent was eastern European.

  When the SWARM robots rebooted, they heard Seede asking the two strangers for their names. The man said he was called Hernandez, the woman Vinski. Morph’s analysis of their voice patterns indicated that they were both lying. Seede’s heart was racing, although he was making great efforts to appear calm.

  “Where is Pablo Alva now?” said Vinski. “Is he aware of your actions?”

  “No, you needn’t worry about him,” said Seede. “He’s completely in the dark.”

  Hernandez’s chair creaked as he shifted his weight. “To business, then? You have the merchandise?”

  “By the skin of my teeth, yes,” said Seede. “MI5 raided the company, and I had only a couple of minutes before the place was locked down. All I had time to do was erase evidence of my visit to the vault where the stuff was kept.”

  “How have you accomplished all this?” said Vinski. “I thought you weren’t a scientist?”

  “I’m not,” said Seede. “Everyone back home thinks I have no technical knowledge at all. But I’ve done a great deal of private study. I know more than enough, thanks. It got me the goods.”

  “It’s hidden elsewhere, I take it, or my friend’s scan would have shown it up.”

  “Hidden, yes,” smiled Seede. “You have the money?”

  Hernandez nodded. “Give us the details of the account into which you want it paid, and my friend will transfer the money as soon as you give us the merchandise.”

  Seede had the numbers and access codes relating to a secret Swiss bank account printed out on a slip of paper. His nerves momentarily blanked his memory of where he’d put it.

  In the top pocket of his jacket, the folded piece of paper lay wedged just beside Morph’s head.

  Seede rummaged through his other pockets.

  Morph flattened his exoskeleton, pulling himself as tightly as possible into the bottom corner. He tucked his legs and antennae into the thin lining of fluff that had accumulated in the seams beneath him.

  Seede’s fingers suddenly dived into the top pocket. They moved left and right, feeling for the paper. Morph sensed a slight brush against his side. If he delved any deeper, Seede would find the micro-robot.

  With a lightning movement, Morph flicked his head against the folded paper. It was knocked into the path of Seede’s fingers. Seede nipped it tightly and plucked it out of his pocket.

  “Ah, I knew I had it somewhere,” he smiled, pushing the slip across the table. Vinski picked it up and switched her smartphone to an online banking connection.

  “The payment is as agreed,” said Hernandez. “Five million pounds sterling. We will wait here while you retrieve the merchandise.”

  Seede grinned at them. “I’m afraid not. Payment first.”

  Hernandez and Vinski glanced suspiciously at each other. “What?” said Vinski.

  “You’ll get what you’re paying for, when you’ve paid for it,” said Seede. Morph registered a sudden increase in his heart rate and perspiration.

  Hernandez shifted in his chair again. His voice dropped to a sinister growl. “That is not the way it works, my friend. You’ve never dealt with us before, so we will give you the benefit of the doubt. We are reasonable people. Business people. As are you, yes? The goods, please. Now.”

  Seede stared levelly at them, his expression as blank as he could make it. He’d spent much of the flight to Shanghai mentally preparing for this moment.

  “Only I know where it is. Without me, you’ll never get your grubby little hands on it. Isn’t that right?”

  Hernandez’s eyes narrowed. Vinski’s gaze flicked between Hernandez and Seede.

  “The price has doubled,” said Seede. “I want ten million. Or I walk away right now.”

  Hernandez’s voice became a sibilant whisper. “You walk out of here, and you’ll be dead before you reach the corner of the street. We have twelve men watching this cafe.”

  “If I’m dead, you’ll never find the goods,” said Seede quietly. “Trust me. The price is ten million. I can never return, you understand. MI5 would trace me in the end. Not that I’d want to go back. I plan to disappear, to set myself up on some lovely warm island somewhere. That sort of thing doesn’t come cheap.”

  “The deal is five million,” growled Hernandez.

  “Ten,” said Seede. “Not. One. Penny. Less. You know the goods are worth it. More, even.”

  Hernandez paused for a moment, then suddenly smiled and shook his head. “Now, my friend,” he laughed, “I have seen the true face of greed.”

  Seede laughed too.

  Hernandez snorted amusement, then became serious again. “And what is to stop us killing you the minute you hand over the merchandise?” he said. “If you think you’re going to rip us off, you are sadly mistaken.”

  “Ah, but I’ve come prepared,” said Seede. “You’ve brought your heavies with you, I’ve brought mine. Hired assassins, ready to wipe you out, and anyone else in your organization they can track down, if I don’t reach my lovely warm island. I can afford them, now.”

  In Seede’s top pocket, Morph’s sensors showed that Seede was lying too. He was calling Hernandez’s bluff.

  Hernandez turned to Vinski. “Pay the man,” he grunted.

  Seede couldn’t stop himself grinning with triumph. Vinski tapped at her smartphone. A few seconds later, she turned the screen around to show Seede the payment confirmation. Seede consulted his own phone to double check that the money was in his account.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  He leaned forward across the table, extending his left hand, palm upwards. “By the way,” he said, “what do you plan to do with it?”
r />   “It’s no concern of yours,” muttered Hernandez.

  “Just curious,” shrugged Seede. “I don’t want to find that the lovely warm island I choose is right in your firing line, that’s all.”

  “We have a carefully devised plan,” smiled Vinski. “The company which created the merchandise will be bombed. That way, those who created it will die, the records of it will be destroyed, and the possibility of an antidote being developed will be reduced. Then, one week from now, the merchandise will be let loose in two locations. The United Nations building in New York, and the EU headquarters in Brussels. Neither of which are lovely warm islands.”

  “I see,” said Seede. “There are major governmental meetings in both cities that day. Maximum chaos. I expect half the world’s leaders will be killed.”

  “The world will not be able to act,” said Vinski, “when the EBLS stages revolutions in neighbouring South American countries, and then further afield.”

  While she spoke, Seede took hold of the little finger of his left hand. He gave it a sharp twist, then slowly pulled it away, leaving behind a tiny pair of plastic clips. Then, holding the fake finger by its tip, he unscrewed a small lid at its base and slid the phial of Venom out. He very carefully placed it on the table in front of Hernandez.

  “You had it here in front of us all the time!” laughed Hernandez. “My friend, I take my hat off to you. You have outwitted the EBLS at every turn, it seems.”

  A series of loud clangs came from the kitchen, followed by angry cries. The cafe’s cashier, perched on a stool close to the street, was arguing with an American over his bill. The diners and tourists paid no attention to any of it, and carried on eating and talking.

  Vinski pointed to the hollow finger, amazed. “You created this just to transport the goods to us?”

  “Actually, I’ve had it for quite a while,” said Seede. He didn’t tell her that he’d used it several times in the past, to sell the company’s secret formulas to foreign rivals.

  Vinski scanned the phial using an app on her phone. The results caused her face to pale. “The specs he sent us were correct,” she muttered, a tremble in her voice. “This is so toxic it’s off the scale.”

  Seede clipped the fake finger back on to his hand, and stood up.

  “Nice to do business with you,” he said. “Goodbye.”

  “Adios,” smiled Hernandez.

  Seede picked his way around the tables and back out into the street.

  Hernandez whispered to Vinski, “I placed a guy at the airport. Seede arrived alone. Too tight to really buy protection, I guess. Not so clever after all.” He pointed to her smartphone. “Make sure someone hacks his account, gets the money back.”

  Outside, Nero and Morph got ready to leave Seede’s jacket. “Nero to SWARM,” said Nero. “Confirm pursuit.”

  “Confirmed,” said Queen Bee. “Track the phial, leave Seede. We can deal with him later.”

  The robots slipped away from Seede as stealthily as they had hitched a lift on him. They dropped to the pavement and quickly moved into the gutter, where they were less likely to be spotted.

  Neither of them detected any unusual activity in the street. The armed EBLS terrorist on the roof of a nearby block of flats was too far away to alert their sensors. He ended his phone call from Hernandez and took aim with his automatic rifle.

  Three loud cracks echoed along the street. People paused in alarm, looking around for the source of the noise.

  Seede halted in mid-step. For several seconds, he stood motionless. He looked down. Three circular red stains were growing across his white cotton shirt. His shoulders slumped, his knees buckled, and he pitched forward, landing with a smack on his face. He was dead before he hit the ground.

  “Leave him,” said Nero. “He’s not our concern any more.”

  People in the cafe were either trying to see what was going on in the street, or else getting up and rushing outside. The robots hurried over to the table near the back, where Seede had been sitting.

  Hernandez and Vinski were gone. So was the Venom.

  “Scan!” said Nero.

  “The kitchen area shows two more humans than were there a minute ago,” said Morph. “They must be escaping through the back of the cafe.”

  The robots scuttled at high speed into the kitchen. They were just in time to see Hernandez and Vinski leaving through a back door.

  Three cooks in heavily stained chef’s whites were too busy arguing with each other and attending to their sizzling pans to care what else was going on around them. The robots hurried through the pot-clanking, steam-filled kitchen and emerged into a dark, narrow alleyway. Walls dotted with lichen rose high on both sides.

  Hernandez and Vinski were approaching a people carrier parked at the far end of the alley. Nero and Morph caught up with them as the terrorists climbed inside. Hernandez snapped orders in Chinese to a man in the driving seat.

  The car pulled away at speed. The robots were clinging tightly to the mud-splashed rear wheel arch, the tyre spinning just centimetres below them. The rumbling roar of the car’s tyres against the road echoed around them. It was beginning to shower with rain. Water droplets sprayed off the wheels.

  “My internal energy cells are running a little low,” transmitted Morph.

  “Mine too,” said Nero. “We must watch out for opportunities to recharge. We don’t know how long we’ll need to track these terrorists.”

  “Logically,” said Morph, “the terrorists will put their plans into operation immediately. Any delay increases their risk of being caught.”

  “They’ll need to place small quantities of the Venom into explosives, or some kind of aerosol device,” said Nero. “That will require specialized equipment and knowledge. I think Hernandez and Vinski will now head directly to find such facilities.”

  “That could be many places in the world,” said Morph.

  Nero made several million calculations of probability. Then he signalled SWARM HQ.

  “The other robots confirm your mathematical analysis,” said Simon Turing, in the lab. “Because we now know that their first target is Smith-Neutall, a return to London is the most likely outcome. The EBLS will want to have as few members involved in the operation as possible, to further reduce the risk of capture. Therefore, Hernandez and Vinski themselves are likely to be the ones who’ll blow up Smith-Neutall, then weaponize the Venom. Then they’ll split up to place devices in New York and Brussels.”

  “Correct so far,” transmitted Morph. “We’re arriving back at the airport now.”

  Queen Bee’s voice cut into the communication channel. “Don’t worry about being out of contact again. We trust your judgement. SWARM are making preparations here. Our plan will be put into action the moment you re-enter UK airspace. We’ll close comms for now.”

  “Logged, Queen Bee,” said Nero and Morph.

  As the car pulled into a passenger drop-off bay, the robots descended to the ground. Hernandez and Vinski got out. The robots watched the terrorists’ feet go around to the back of the vehicle, and heard the clunk and wheeze of the rear hatch lifting. Two small travelling cases were unloaded.

  “Time to hitch another ride,” signalled Nero.

  Morph scurried rapidly to the back of one of the knee-high boots Vinski was wearing. He flattened himself against the leather, so that he would appear to be nothing more than a curling design on the boot’s surface. Nero slipped into one of the dusty turn-ups at the bottom of Hernandez’s heavy black jeans.

  “Wait! I can’t detect the Venom,” said Morph. “They must be carrying it in something that blocks scans, like Seede did. If only we had Sirena’s high-res sensors here! Could the Venom be hidden in their luggage?”

  “Unlikely,” said Nero. “Just like Seede, they’ll want to keep it with them. The luggage will be part of their disguise as tourists.”

  The terrorists checked into Air Weihan’s next flight back to the UK. The robots powered down while Hernandez and Vinski went throug
h security, to make sure they weren’t detected, then rebooted while the terrorists waited in the departure lounge. Vinski flicked through a technology magazine, while Hernandez stood watching aircraft come and go.

  Unlike Seede, the terrorists travelled in the First Class section, towards the front of the plane, screened off from the other passengers. Of the ten seats in First Class, and thirty in Business Class, only half were occupied.

  “They’re making sure they’re noticed by as few people as possible,” said Morph.

  As soon as the flight had taken off, and the “Fasten Seatbelts” sign had gone out, Hernandez and Vinski both tipped their plush seats back into a reclined position. Vinski squeezed off her boots and let them bump on to the thick carpet. Morph crawled under the seats, and Nero joined him in the shadows. The springs of Hernandez’s seat squeaked above them as he settled down for a nap.

  Using his pincers, Nero snipped three sides of a square into the carpet, and flipped up the resulting flap to reveal a small access port for the aircraft’s electrical system. “We can tap into the power grid from here, and recharge.”

  The robots sent tiny fibre-optic probes into the access port. They soaked up power to bring their internal energy cells back up to maximum.

  On the flight deck, the pilot and co-pilot sat in front of a wide dashboard covered in instruments, dials, readouts and switches. Above the complex array of controls, sunshine could be seen reflecting off the tops of the clouds at 30,000 feet above the ground.

  The co-pilot noticed a fluctuation in the power grid. He spoke into the microphone attached to his headphones. “Mike, I’m reading a small tap on the electrical system. Definitely not plug sockets, passenger Wi-Fi or our own equipment.”