Zero Days Read online

  ZERO DAYS

  A CYBER THRILLER

  IAN WILLIAMS

  Published by RedDoor

  www.reddoorpress.co.uk

  © 2019 Ian Williams

  The right of Ian Williams to be identified as author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the author

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  Cover design: www.dissectdesigns.com

  Typesetting: Tutis Innovative E-Solutions Pte. Ltd

  A mound was mistaken to be a pagoda and worshipped – until the lizard came out

  Old Burmese proverb

  Chapter One

  The Buddha Head

  Bagan, Myanmar

  There was something almost hypnotic about the small blue blob on her computer screen; its steady pulse drawing her in and not letting go. Her laptop was propped up on pillows, and she sat cross-legged on the bed in front of it, tapping gently on a red stud above her right nostril, her finger matching the rhythm of the blinking blob. At the same time she explored the two silver rings that pierced the left corner of her upper lip with her tongue. It was something she did without thinking, the way others tap or swing their feet, spin pens or drum a table with anxious fingers. She’d known hackers who did them all, while popping endless pills to get through the long hours at the keyboard.

  At first she didn’t hear the gentle tapping on the door. When it came again, louder and more persistent, she moved quickly and silently across the room. She held a hammer tightly in one hand, a heavy slab of metal on a thick wooden handle, made for stone carvers in the market. With the other hand she peeled back a square of dark tape covering a small spyhole she had drilled through the wood herself.

  The server took two steps back as she opened the door, staring first at the hammer, then at her. His mouth tried to form words that wouldn’t come, eventually stammering, ‘Big sorry, Miss Vika. Big, big sorry.’ Because they’d run out of beer and had to send out for it, because it was warm beer, because he had taken such a long time. So long, that Miss Vika had completely forgotten placing the order, and she glowered at him, while he stared back, like he always stared, like a startled rabbit in the headlights, as if she was a creature from another planet.

  Vika snatched the bottle of Mandalay beer, with its logo of a golden pagoda, and a glass of ice from the server’s tray, replacing them with two one-dollar bills as crumpled as the kid’s uniform. The ice cracked as she poured the beer, the froth racing up the glass, and only a quick and hungry slurp prevented it from spilling on her bed, on which she resumed her vigil in front of the blue blob.

  A ceiling fan creaked and wobbled above her, as if it might come crashing down at any moment. It struggled to cool the room, the humid air reeking of mosquito repellent laced with smoke that seeped in from nearby piles of burning garbage.

  She leapt from the bed.

  Smack, smack, smack.

  The punches hit square and hard.

  The heavy duffle bag shuddered under her blows. Smack, smack, smack. She’d found the bag in the market and filled it with rice. It wasn’t ideal, not like the punch bags she’d trained with, but it served its purpose, another way of relieving the tension. Smack, smack, smack, smack.

  When the explosion came it was so loud it shook the window. It was the signal she’d been waiting for, thunder marking the arrival of the afternoon rain. She parted the sagging brown curtains, which she had permanently drawn. A gecko leapt to the floor and she took a step back, showing respect for an ally, at least in the fight against mosquitoes.

  Palm trees bent and swayed as they were whipped by the intensifying wind, black clouds sucked the light from the afternoon sky while a curtain of rain advanced from across the river, scrubbing out the distant bank. The rain might last less than an hour, but it would provide her with the cover she needed.

  She pushed aside a shower head with permanent dribble that hung limply from the mildewed wall of a bathroom described as a super deluxe en suite, and examined herself in the cracked mirror. The multiple piercings – eyebrows, a pin cushion of an ear, tongue, as well as the nose and lip. The hair – long on one side, shaven on the other, and purple. Appearances didn’t matter in the online world, her world, where you could be whoever you wanted to be. In the real, offline world, anonymity was more difficult.

  She stuffed her hair under a cheap red ‘I Love Myanmar’ baseball cap. Her blue eyes, wide and intense, vanished behind a pair of large Gucci sunglasses, before she pulled on an oversized rain jacket with hood.

  She stole one last look at her laptop.

  The gently throbbing blob hadn’t moved. He was still in the museum.

  She left through the veranda door of her ground floor room, glancing nervously at the windows above her own, curtains drawn, dull lights beyond. They were still in their rooms. The rain was now hammering hard on the roof of the guest house, the palm trees shrivelling under the intensifying onslaught. She stepped into the storm. Nobody in their right mind would set out on a walk now, and that made it ideal.

  The dark sky rumbled and flickered as her feet sank into the waterlogged lawn. She pulled her hood tightly to her face, and in a few quick strides was under the cover of trees leading to a muddy path along the bank of the river. The driving rain stung her face each time she looked up, the river just a frothy grey nothingness.

  The modern archaeological museum was a sprawling pavilion-like building with a tiered roof topped by golden towers. There were a series of broad pillars and arches with ornate carvings, somebody’s fantasy of past imperial glories, but the cheap concrete was already cracking. A clock inside the entrance showed five o’clock. A woman at the ticket office said the museum closed in half an hour but sold her a ticket anyway.

  Vika left a trail of water across the cavernous atrium. She quickened her pace, ignoring the display cabinets, instead concentrating on her phone. It guided her towards the blob, directing her to the far corner of the atrium, up two flights of stairs, and to a heavy door marked, ‘PRIVATE WORKSHOP. DO NOT ENTER’.

  It was not the sign that stopped her. She needed to be sure he was alone.

  She stepped into another exhibition room to one side of the workshop. Display cabinets containing Buddha statues. A large laminated board explained the hand gestures. Touching the earth, preaching, meditation, compassion. The last was protection against danger. She lingered longer on that one. The glossy board let her see everything behind her. An elderly attendant, his head slumped, was asleep in a chair. A door leading to a terrace was ajar, blown open by the wind, a pool of water seeping in, though the rain had stopped as abruptly as it started. She stepped silently onto the terrace. Beside the workshop, the terrace was littered with heavy metal cabinets, battered and rusting. She stopped close to an open window.

  She’d not known what to expect. Until that moment the professor had been just a beating blue blob on her screen. Click once and it was on a map so they could track him. Click again and it became a moving line, jumping and falling with the beat, the vital signs of life they could manipulate at will.

  He was elderly, with a dishevelled head of grey hair and thick beard. He sat at a cluttered desk, leaning forward and gently brushing the long dangly earlobe of a Buddha head. She watched as he blew it gently, moving his mouth right up close, as if he was sharing a secret. She’d read his biog – explorer, acquirer of antiquities, benefactor to the world’s top museums, a man who collected academic chairs like others col
lect stamps. But this was no Indiana Jones. His movements were slow and deliberate, stooping as he stood to fetch a pair of magnifying spectacles, a light on top, which he used to read the squiggles that made up the ancient words of an inscription carved into the four sides of a plinth-like stone on which the Buddha head was sitting.

  The professor looked up sharply and then fixed his eyes on a backpack at his feet. He leaned down and dug around in the bag, emerging with a cell phone, holding it between his forefinger and thumb, keeping it at a distance at first, as if it was something dirty or contaminated. He looked at the screen, hesitated, and then jabbed his finger clumsily to take the call, succeeding at the third attempt.

  ‘Yes, I hear you,’ was all he said. The words slow and taut.

  Then he listened.

  The call was no more than thirty seconds, after which he placed the phone on the table and sat staring blankly at the Buddha head.

  Was the call from them? Playing with him, one last demand perhaps, one last order before this master of the ancient world was shut down by a weapon from the future.

  Vika knew she had to move, and she had to move fast.

  But she stopped abruptly and retreated behind one of the cabinets as a boy approached the professor. He was tall and gangly, dressed in traditional Burmese skirt-like longyi and check shirt, a mug in his hand, which he held out in front of him. The professor’s hand appeared to be shaking as he reached to take it, the two of them stepping out to the terrace. Neither spoke.

  They stood looking out at a vast plain beside the bloated Irrawaddy River. The temples seemed to have burst into life, glowing under the late afternoon sun. The plain bristled with them, some short and stubby, others soaring above the plain, multiple terraces topped by conical spires of ornate brick and gold.

  Coaches raced towards them, throwing up water from flooded pathways. Tourists poured from their doors, cameras and selfie-sticks in hand, following tour guides with little flags, climbing up the temple terraces for the sunset. The retreating storm clouds were replaced by hot air balloons, adverts for a 4G cellular network on their sides, offering a better sunset view to those with deeper pockets. The professor turned, a look of disgust on his face, slowly shaking his head, before he and the boy stepped back into the workshop.

  Vika jumped as a hand gripped her shoulder, spinning around, instinctively clenching her fists. It was the attendant from the exhibition room, who barked a series of disjointed instructions in broken English. ‘No. Must not. Here forbidden. Go, please. Close now.’ Two security guards stood behind him, and the three of them walked her to the museum entrance, allowing her to stop at a small gift shop.

  ‘Two minutes please. Two minutes.’

  She bought a card showing an engraving above a temple entrance, a dog, a snarling three-headed dog. That should get his attention, she thought. ‘This is a friend,’ she wrote in the card. ‘You are in grave danger. You MUST disable the transmitter.’ Then a series of instructions, as clear and precise as she could make them. ‘This will take you offline. It will save your life.’ She sealed the card in an envelope, on which she wrote the professor’s name in bold letters. ‘Please,’ she said, pressing it into the hand of the attendant. ‘You must give this to Professor Pendelton. He has to have it today. Urgent, you understand?’

  She handed the attendant a twenty dollar bill, to help with the understanding.

  He looked bewildered and then smiled, a smile she found impossible to read, and said, ‘Sure, yes, fine. Urgent,’ before steering her to the door.

  She ordered a bottle of water in a small café opposite the museum’s main gate, and then sat waiting and hoping.

  Nightfall comes quickly in the tropics, and the light was rapidly draining from the sky when the museum door swung open and the professor walked onto the steps in front. He struggled to get his backpack over his shoulder. It seemed unusually heavy, but he waved away a security guard offering him help.

  He was carrying the envelope in his right hand as he walked down the steps.

  Vika rose quickly, crossing back towards the museum compound, wanting to be sure, but by the time she reached the gate, the professor was climbing into the back of a battered museum car, which spluttered as it swept past her through deep puddles and onto a rutted and potholed road. She watched as a single rear light flickered and bounced before it disappeared into the gloom.

  *****

  A chorus of frogs welcomed Vika to the small restaurant opposite her guest house, where she sat at her usual corner table, the server bringing her a fresh coconut with a straw without asking.

  She jumped between her cell phone and laptop, searching for the blue blob.

  The restaurant, all bamboo and wood, a thatched roof as leaky as a sieve when it rained, was popular with backpackers. It had the musty smell of the rainy season, the damp air laden with stale beer and tobacco. The yard out front was a jumble of bikes and a refuge to never fewer than a dozen languid dogs, tourists being more generous with their scraps than the locals. During her time in Bagan, Vika had made the corner table her own. It was private and had a strong Wi-Fi signal, but no matter how many times she booted and rebooted, connected and reconnected, the blob would not respond.

  It was unreachable.

  She glanced nervously at the guest house, spotting Yuri as he crossed to the restaurant. He was tall and muscular, with the rolling walk of an athlete, and he made straight for Vika’s table, sitting opposite her. She kept her eyes firmly on her screens, ignoring him at first.

  ‘The lobby. Why the fuck weren’t you in the lobby, ready to leave, like we told you?’ he said; the words spat rather than spoken.

  She reached for the coconut and sucked on the straw, searching for the last dregs of milk and making a loud slurping sound. Then she slowly looked up, staring at Yuri, cold and hard, sucking again on the straw, louder this time.

  Yuri stared back. His face reddened, and so did his scar, a scar that ran from high on his forehead to his eyebrow, then started again below his eye, a deep crevice down his right cheek. On his right arm he had a tattoo of a spider, its thick legs emerging from under his T-shirt, reaching down towards this wrist and wrapping around his forearm. He had another tattoo on his chest, an orthodox church, a cupola poking out above the neckline of the T-shirt. He was wearing a thick gold chain and was chewing gum.

  ‘The boss wants you in the car, like now,’ he said.

  She answered with another long slurp.

  He reached and tugged at one of the rings through her upper lip. ‘I don’t hear you Vika. Maybe I should just rip this out. Help you talk better.’

  She slapped his hand away, stood up and leaned across the table, bringing her face right next to his. ‘Do us all a favour Yuri and get yourself a stud. A fucking big stud. And stick it in your arse. That way you won’t be able to talk at all. Because, you know what? You’re full of shit.’

  She grabbed her laptop and bag and pushed past him.

  She pulled open the rear door of a black pick-up truck that was parked in the shadow of a dark temple wall. ‘My brother. I want to speak to him Dmitry. That was the deal, now we’re done here, now you have what you want.’

  ‘Get in,’ was all Dmitry said at first, flicking back his hair with his right hand, talking to the back of the seat in front of him.

  Vika hesitated.

  ‘My brother. Now. I need to know he’s OK,’ she said.

  ‘Everything’s good,’ Dmitry replied. ‘Let’s get away from here first, then we’ll make the call.’

  He was still looking straight ahead, the contours of his angular face highlighted for a moment by the headlights of a passing car. His thick brown hair hung limply over his forehead, partly hiding his small sunken eyes.

  She climbed into the back beside him, Yuri driving. He pulled the truck onto the road that led out of Bagan.

  Dmitry flicked his hair again and then rested his hand on a Buddha head that lay on the seat between them.

  They drove f
or five minutes and then turned onto a bumpy track, the truck weaving to avoid potholes and stray dogs that refused to move.

  ‘Where the fuck are we going?’ Vika said.

  ‘Shortcut,’ said Yuri.

  A few minutes later they reached a small clearing where the remains of three small temples – little more than piles of stones – and two white, bell-shaped stupas, were illuminated by an almost full moon. A steep wooded bank led down to the Irrawaddy River.

  The truck stopped and Dmitry said, ‘You like the rain, do you Vika? Big nasty storms, a walk on the wild side?’ His words, cold and slow.

  Vika said nothing, suddenly very alert, a tightness in her stomach, glancing at Yuri sitting motionless in the front, cutting the engine. Then back at Dmitry, a white envelope in his hand, the envelope she’d left for the professor.

  He pulled out the card, looking at the front, tracing the outlines of the snarling dog with his finger. ‘Nice temple,’ he said, opening the card. ‘Horrible spindly handwriting. Never liked it. Always was hard to read.’ He flicked back his hair. ‘Pity the professor never got a chance to look at it.’

  He tore the card into small pieces and threw it from the window.

  Still not looking directly at her.

  For a few moments they sat in silence. Her heart was pounding, and she felt the sweat dripping down her cheek. She lunged for the door handle, but it wouldn’t open.

  ‘Central locking. Even in Burma. There’s progress for you,’ Dmitry said, caressing the Buddha head as he spoke.

  Her door was opened from the outside, Yuri standing beside it, a gun in his hand, pointing at her head. ‘Get out,’ he said.

  The noise of cicadas seemed to grow as they walked, Vika in front, Yuri a few steps behind, gun trained on her back. The cicadas echoed and were amplified by the temple walls, the noise broken only by the barks and yelps from scrapping dogs, launching their nightly skirmishes and battles amid the temple ruins. Mosquitoes buzzed around Vika’s ears, and she slapped at her neck, where they were beginning to feast.