Target Silverclaw (3 page)

“Understood, Sirena,” transmitted Chopper. “Emergency change of plan. Four androids pose too much of a risk. Leave the building! Return to SWARM HQ!”

“Logged,” replied the others.

CHAPTER 4

In another part of the city, two men sat facing each other across a kitchen table. The kitchen was an ordinary one, in a plain-looking house on an unremarkable street, but it held a secret. This particular house had been modified with bulletproof windows and reinforced doors. It was a “safe house” used by the government – as a refuge for people in danger, or as somewhere for intelligence agents to keep a low profile. On some occasions it was used as a store for important items, away from prying eyes.

It was currently functioning as a kind of prison.
One of the men at the kitchen table was an MI5 section chief. The other was the prisoner – until recently an MI5 agent himself. He was a small, round man with a moustache. His lined face seemed to be set in a permanent sneer. His name was Morris Drake. He and SWARM were old enemies, even though Drake had never even heard of SWARM. The micro-robots had fought him – without his knowledge – during the Project Venom case, and he had finally been exposed as a traitor during the Code Name Firestorm operation.

The section chief slapped a file of official documents on to the table. “Are you going to talk to me today, Drake?”

“Are you going to cut me a deal and put me into a witness protection scheme instead of sending me to prison?”

The section chief sighed. “You know perfectly well, Drake, that any deal depends on what information you give us. Supply good intelligence on this –” he twirled his hand in midair – “mysterious criminal organization you keep hinting at, and then I’ll see what I can do.”

“You guarantee me protection, and then I’ll supply the information,” said Drake.

The section chief shut his eyes and let out a long, slow breath. “So you’ve been saying for weeks. But we need more. So far you’ve offered no proof that you’re part of an international criminal syndicate. You won’t even tell us this organization’s name!”

“I don’t know it,” grinned Drake. “That’s the beauty of the thing. Almost everyone who works for it has no idea who runs it, or how it’s run.”

“And yet you claim to know what they’re planning? You know details of the evil schemes they’re cooking up?”

Drake winked at him. “I know a lot more than they think I do.”

“But you’re not going to tell us what they’re up to?” said the section chief.

Drake leaned forward across the table. “Not without guaranteed protection. If they ever … ever … got the slightest clue that I’d talked, they’d have me killed without a moment’s thought.”

Meanwhile, in the living room, one MI5 agent was monitoring the CCTV that covered the rear of
the house and a second agent kept watch on the street from a bedroom window upstairs. He saw a large powerful car pull up on the opposite side of the street. A postman with a trolley appeared from the other direction. Not the regular postman, the agent noticed.

The driver of the car sat still and silent behind the wheel. The agent frowned slightly.

Back in the kitchen, the section chief was finding his conversation with Drake more irritating by the minute.

“I think you’re just playing for time,” he growled. “I don’t think you really know anything. You’re just stringing us along, so you can stay here with your own private bodyguard, instead of being slung into a prison cell where you belong.”

Drake smiled. “Don’t forget, I used to be one of you. I know all the tricks.”

The section chief struggled to control his temper. He spoke slowly. “I want proof. And I want it now.”

Upstairs, the agent on watch was growing nervous. The postman had walked straight past every other address in the street, but had now
stopped in front of the safe house. He reached inside his trolley and took out a bundle of small square parcels wrapped in brown paper. The agent’s heart thudded. Drawing a gun from inside his jacket, he headed for the stairs.

The driver of the car suddenly got out. He was dressed in grey workman’s overalls, and carried a large roll of wallpaper under his arm.

Downstairs in the living room, the other MI5 agent heard a sharp, “Heads up! Out front!” come from upstairs. She looked up from her laptop and saw the postman standing a short distance back from the front of the house. She leaped to her feet, reaching for her revolver.

The postman raised one of the small parcels high above his head. Then he flung it at the front door of the safe house.

As it hit the door, it exploded, making the entire house shudder. The door was blown off its hinges and toppled flat into the hallway, leaving the entrance to the house wide open.

The agents on guard instantly dashed for the hallway, levelling their guns.

The postman and the decorator advanced
towards the smoking hole where the door had been. The postman lobbed a second parcel into the house. It detonated beside the stairs. The house shook again and the banister shattered into splinters of wood.

In the kitchen, the section chief also drew a gun. He aimed it squarely at Drake.

“Is this your doing?” he demanded.

“I’m afraid not,” said Drake, with an icy calm.

The agent on duty downstairs rushed out into the hall. As the decorator walked swiftly towards him, she fired twice, but the bullets ricocheted off the man’s chest and he didn’t stop walking.

The decorator squeezed the roll of wallpaper he was carrying. A canister hidden inside it suddenly sent a jet of knock-out gas into the agent’s face. She coughed, staggered and dropped to the floor.

The agent who’d been on watch upstairs saw what had happened and fired shot after shot at the two figures, who advanced, completely unaffected by the bullets. The decorator swung around and directed a blast of the gas at him and the agent fell back against the stairs.

In the kitchen, the section chief rose to his feet.
“Move a millimetre and you’re dead!” he spat at Drake. He rushed into the living room, but the postman had got there before him. The android threw a parcel at the floor and the deafening explosion it caused tore an armchair to pieces and blew the section chief across the room. He slammed into a bookcase and collapsed into a heap, unconscious.

In the kitchen, Drake heard glass smash behind him. He whipped around and saw an android dressed as a gardener appearing through a broken window. He turned to run but the android grabbed both his arms from behind and gripped tightly. The postman and the decorator androids appeared in the kitchen doorway.

“I take it the Silverclaw operation is under way,” said Drake, shifting uncomfortably in the vice-like hold of the android.

“Correct,” said the postman. “You are to report to Gold Leader.”

“Why? That wasn’t part of the plan. I was only supposed to advise.” Drake frowned.

“Gold Leader orders you to report.”

Drake stared at the postman android. “I must
congratulate her. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were humans.”

“We are standard Mercury units,” said the postman. “More-advanced Platinum units are deployed in other areas of the mission.”

“Very good,” said Drake. “Now, can you tell this one to let me go? I’m on your side, you know! You don’t have to—”

He was interrupted by a jet of knock-out gas. His head rocked from side to side for a second, then slumped back. The android who had been restraining him simply held him up at arm’s length and all three walked quickly and quietly to the car. They bundled Drake on to the back seat, before getting in themselves.

The car sped away, as the wail of police sirens sounded in the distance.

At SWARM headquarters, the human personnel were gathered in the laboratory. The room was brightly lit and filled with a vast array of advanced electronic equipment. On one of the raised
workbenches in the centre of the lab, the seven SWARM micro-robots were recharging in webs of circuits and wires, listening to the discussion as they regained power.

Beside them, SWARM’s Data Analyst Simon Turing and Computer Programmer Alfred Berners were examining a 3D computer display showing a reconstructed visual of the Sir Godfrey android’s head.

“This is brilliant work,” Simon said quietly, not taking his eyes off the display. “They’ve managed to get the skin texture exactly right. You see this section here, Fred? If I zoom in a bit… There! Every hair follicle, every pore. Brilliant.”

Alfred lifted his spectacles and screwed up his eyes to peer closely at the image. “Yes. Rather creepy. You can’t tell it from real skin, can you?”

SWARM’s leader, Queen Bee, was standing behind them. She gave a sharp, theatrical cough. “If we’ve finished admiring the handiwork, gentlemen, perhaps we could concentrate on mission details?”

“Ah, yes. Sorry Ms Maynard.” Simon smiled.

Professor Miller was seated at a nearby
machine, using a microscope and mechanical arms to create miniature circuit boards. He gave Simon a disapproving glance.

“I’ve informed MI5 that there’s a threat inside the Palace of Westminster,” said Queen Bee. “They’re doubling all patrols and checks. I haven’t shared the full details of the situation with them because, as far as we know, only SWARM are capable of detecting these androids. It’s up to SWARM, and SWARM alone, to deal with this problem.”

“Couldn’t MI5 simply arrest Sir Godfrey Kite?” said Simon. “Or rather, his duplicate?”

“Without knowing where these androids came from or what they’re up to, that might make things worse,” replied Queen Bee. “The arrest of a senior cabinet minister would be all over the news in minutes. What else do we know about the androids?”

“Examination of their data processing shows that they can’t really think for themselves,” said Alfred. “They act on instructions only.”

“Do we know where these instructions are coming from?” said Queen Bee.

The electronic voice of Sirena came through a
speaker in the workbench. “Negative, Queen Bee. I scanned multiple wavebands, but the android’s control transmissions were lost behind normal background electromagnetic interference.”

“We think they’re controlled using something very similar to mobile-phone data,” said Simon. “It’s almost impossible to pick it out from the millions of other sources out there. Even the computing power of our insects would take weeks to isolate the right information.”

“What about their offensive capabilities?” said Queen Bee.

“The androids we’ve seen so far aren’t armed, as such. However, there are a number of cavities built into them, at hip and chest level, which could be used to house, well –” Simon spread his arms wide – “you name it. Guns, grenades, even small rocket launchers or more specialized devices. Also, looking at their carbon-fibre frames, they’re extremely strong. They could easily smash their way through a wall. Our insects are designed to withstand direct hammer blows, but one of these androids could do them severe damage!”

“Excuse me,” said Nero. “Both Widow and I are
in the form of arachnids. Spiders and scorpions are not insects.”

Simon smiled. “Quite right,” he muttered. “We’ll try to remember to call you ‘bugs’ instead.”

“Whatever word we use,” said Professor Miller, arching an eyebrow, “I have the latest system upgrades ready for installation. Chopper, you can go first.”

The dragonfly detached himself from his recharger and flew across to the professor, who swung a large magnifying screen down in front of his eyes and selected a series of microscopic tools to load into the mechanical arms.

“Is this the new stealth enhancement?” said Queen Bee.

“That’s right,” said the professor. “On past missions, our –” he chose his words carefully – “agents … have been forced to power down in order to avoid detection. I’ve designed revised components, which enable them to switch into a ‘stealth’ operating mode. This blankets their electromagnetic activity and will prevent them from being identified by all but the most high-intensity security and surveillance
equipment. Stealth mode puts a heavy drain on their internal power systems, but they’ll be able to maintain it for several hours without any ill effects.”

“Excellent,” said Queen Bee.

“They’ll be able to operate normally,” continued the professor, “even when right beside one of the androids. Providing they’re not seen, that is! The only problem is that we won’t be able to detect them, either. We can communicate with them, but we can’t track them.”