Target Silverclaw (4 page)

Queen Bee turned to the bugs. “As soon as you can operate safely around those androids, return to the Palace of Westminster. Don’t worry about clearance, I’ll sort that out from here. Our three mission objectives are: firstly, find out what those androids are doing there; secondly, find out why Sir Godfrey Kite in particular has been replaced.”

“Database records indicate,” said Chopper, “that he is a bachelor and lives alone. Perhaps someone with no family would face less risk of detection?”

“It’s possible, but I suspect there’s more to it
than that.”

“You think there’s a link to the World Leaders’ Security Conference?” said Hercules.

“It would be an enormous coincidence if there wasn’t,” said Queen Bee. “Sixty-seven leaders in one room. A tempting target for any criminal organization. Which brings me to our third mission objective: trace the androids back to whoever built them.”

Simon Turing scrolled the 3D display. “At this point, all we can say is that manufacturing these androids must have taken time and money. There are a number of known terrorist groups who might have attempted this, but they’d all have needed very specialized scientific help.”

“Tap into every database you can,” said Queen Bee. “Look for anything suspicious with a link to research in robotics. Simon, you coordinate sorting through the data.”

“Will do, Ms Maynard,” said Simon.

“SWARM – I want you to watch, follow, gather clues and evidence,” Queen Bee instructed them. “That’s our best chance of tracing the villains behind this. Move in to attack only if an android is
about to cause harm. If they do, take them down – fast. Questions about what’s happened to the people those androids have replaced will have to wait. Our main aim must be to control the threat.”

At that moment, the door of the laboratory slid back. A man and a woman, both smartly dressed, dashed in and hurried over to Queen Bee. They were known only by their code names Agent J and Agent K, and they were SWARM’s human field agents.

“Bad news, Queen Bee,” said Agent J, slightly out of breath.

“It’s Morris Drake,” said Agent K. “He’s just been sprung from an MI5 safe house.”

Queen Bee shut her eyes for a moment, her hands squeezing into fists. “That’s all we need,” she said. “When was this?”

“Less than fifteen minutes ago,” Agent K said. “Initial police reports say neighbours heard explosions. The house is a wreck, two agents and a section chief are down. Drake was snatched by three people, all unidentified.”

“Do you think this is linked to the android situation?” said Chopper.

“If it isn’t,” said Hercules, “that would be another enormous coincidence!”

Queen Bee dropped her gaze to the floor for a second, her lips pursed. Not for a moment did she allow her tough, professional exterior to show any of the nerves and uncertainty she felt inside. Life-or-death decisions rested on her leadership. She snapped to attention.

“Our mission is expanded,” she said. “Nero, Hercules, Widow: go after Drake. We know he’s dangerous and devious, so we can’t allow him to get away. Find him by whatever means necessary. Chopper, Sirena, Morph, Sabre: proceed to the Palace of Westminster. Keep tabs on those androids and gather data. Agent K, you escort the first group. Agent J, the second group.” She turned to Professor Miller. “Get those upgrades finished and launch the SWARM!”

CHAPTER 5

Twenty minutes later, a small two-seater sports car drew up close to the MI5 safe house where Drake had been held. SWARM’s Agent K was at the wheel.

The house was cordoned off and a crime-scene-unit van was parked on the pavement outside. Officers could be seen going in and out through the wreckage of the front door.

Agent K glanced up and down the street to check that none of the police officers had noticed her arrive, then leaned across the dashboard and activated a slim panel. It slid aside with a soft
hum, and a tray glided out. Embedded into dark foam padding lay Widow, Nero and Hercules. They climbed out and the tray slid back.

Agent K spoke through an encrypted channel on her smartphone. “SWARM HQ, Hive 2 are online.”

“Logged, Hive 2,” said Simon Turing, back at base.

“You’re up, guys,” said Agent K to the three robots.

Hercules held Nero tightly with his legs and took to the air. Widow spun and swung her way out of the car and up into the trees of a nearby garden. Their voices were relayed through Agent K’s phone.

“We’re live,” reported Hercules. “We’d better work fast.”

“Tapping multiple databases… Connected…” said Nero.

“Whoever has taken Drake currently has a forty-five minute lead on you,” said Agent K. “The only clue we have from the police report is that a neighbour saw a dark blue car driving away from the scene. It’s not exactly much to go on!
We don’t even have the registration number.”

By now the three robots were well out of Agent K’s sight.

“Drake doesn’t know about SWARM,” said Nero. “We have no reason to suspect that the people in the car will know we’re chasing him. They’re unlikely to have changed vehicles – humans will assume that it would be impossible to be tracked down in such a big city.”

“So he’ll still be in that same dark blue car,” said Hercules.

“Unless he’s already reached wherever he’s going,” added Agent K.

“That’s also unlikely,” said Nero. “He’s now a wanted fugitive. There’ll be a lot of people looking for him in London. He’ll be heading somewhere further away.”

“Good hunting,” said Agent K. She flipped her phone back into her pocket, and drove away. The police outside the damaged safe house didn’t notice her go.

“Queen Bee to Hive 1.”

Chopper, Sirena, Morph and Sabre had spread out to scan a number of government buildings. Sirena was back at the Palace of Westminster while Chopper and Sabre were at Downing Street and the cabinet offices in Whitehall; Morph was at the Ministry of Defence. All had switched to stealth mode.

“Hive 1 to Queen Bee,” transmitted Chopper. “We’re in position.”

“What’s the status of the Sir Godfrey android?”

“It’s still in the House of Commons,” said Sirena. “It seems to be doing nothing that the real Sir Godfrey wouldn’t normally do. I’m making a systematic high-res scan of the entire area. Now we know what we’re looking for, I can recalibrate my sensors to pick up the androids over a much greater distance. The two journalist androids are both in the public gallery overlooking the main chamber. The cleaner android is emptying bins in the offices to the west. All four are sending out scan signals. They’ll find nothing now that we have the stealth upgrade. No further androids found so far.”

“Good, keep me informed,” said Queen Bee. “And what data have you gathered?”

“I’ve squeezed around a loose window frame,” said Morph, “and into the casing of the laptop PC in Sir Godfrey’s office. I’m about to hack into the hard drive using fibre-optic probes.”

“Once you’re inside the Ministry of Defence private network,” said Queen Bee, “pull out every byte of data you can. There should be important clues in there somewhere.”

“Logged, Queen Bee.”

Nero was also soaking up data. He hacked into CCTV systems across the city and analyzed thousands of gigabytes of information, including hundreds of hours of video footage. Work that would have taken humans – or even ordinary computers – several weeks to carry out was completed in less than a minute.

“Within the correct time parameters,” said Nero, “allowing a three-minute margin of error, there are five vehicles that passed the safe house
and would be described by humans as ‘dark blue’. No data is available from the exact street on which the safe house stands, because the CCTV recordings at the safe house were destroyed by one of the explosions. I’ve had to base calculations on the nearest visual sources.”

“And?” said Hercules.

“All five vehicles are standard cars. One can be tracked to the car park of a supermarket. Two drove to private addresses within a mile of the safe house. One visited a coffee shop and then pulled up outside a hotel in the city centre. All of these can be eliminated from our enquiries.”

“Because they’ve stayed within London?” said Hercules.

“Affirmative,” said Nero. “And because each had only one occupant. Drake will probably be travelling with whoever freed him. The fifth car is our target. Piecing together data from three traffic cameras, this car has four people in it.”

“Where’s our target now?” said Hercules.

“Close to the M25,” said Nero. “I haven’t been able to assemble a complete record of the car’s route so far, but it seems they stopped at a petrol
station for seven minutes to refuel. The obvious conclusion is that they’re planning quite a long journey.”

“Should we signal Agent K?” said Hercules. “Could we catch up with them faster at ground level?”

“Checking current traffic conditions… Negative, a direct route at altitude will be quickest. Heavy traffic means the car is travelling slowly, and should continue to do so for approximately fourteen minutes. If you can carry me and fly at your maximum speed, and Widow matches it, we will make visual contact with the vehicle in eleven minutes, twenty seconds.”

“Logged,” came the reply from both Hercules and Widow.

Widow fired a micro-thin web-line at a nearby office block and zipped along it at high speed. Hercules increased power to his motor circuits, tilted his wings forward slightly and shot off in a straight line, heading north-west.

“All this data is heating up my central processors,” said Morph. “Switching the laptop’s internal fan on.”

The centipede’s gelatinous body was squashed to a thickness of only 0.9 millimetres. He was squeezed inside Sir Godfrey Kite’s computer, below the hard drive and the motherboard. Tiny probes ran from between his antennae to the components around him. The computer’s fan whirred into life, sending cooling air currents all around Morph.

“That’s better,” said Morph. “Processing Ministry of Defence records … personal calendar and scheduling information … personnel data… Using mainframe at SWARM HQ for additional cross-referencing…”

“What have you come up with?” asked Chopper, who was currently concealed behind a ceiling light inside Number 10 Downing Street.

“To begin with,” said Morph, “there’s a small discrepancy in the logs covering personnel movements last night. Sir Godfrey Kite is listed as entering this building twice yesterday, but leaving only once. Normally, we could dismiss
that as simple human error, but under the circumstances, it’s almost certainly significant. It may indicate that Sir Godfrey was replaced less than twelve hours before we detected his android duplicate.”

“That’s good news,” said Chopper. “See if you can establish his movements and actions since then.”

“Logged.”

Suddenly, Sirena signalled from the House of Commons. “Two more androids detected!”

“Location?” said Chopper.

“They’ve just entered the Ministry of Defence.”

“Morph, can you ID them?”

“Checking…” said Morph. “Yes, computer logs and security cameras show them both to be officials working for Sir Godfrey Kite. One of them is his personal secretary, Colin Havelock. The other is Miranda Knowles, in charge of the ministry’s budget.”

“Hive 1 to SWARM HQ,” said Chopper.

Queen Bee was online immediately and Chopper brought her up to date.

“So now we know that six people with regular
access to government buildings have been replaced by androids,” said Queen Bee. “And we don’t know of any unusual or criminal actions they’ve carried out so far?”

“Negative,” said Chopper. “Morph is analyzing the Ministry of Defence’s confidential files now.”

“The androids appear to be waiting,” said Queen Bee thoughtfully.

“For the World Leaders’ Security Conference?” said Chopper.

“Yes,” said Queen Bee. “Simon and Professor Miller have been checking the robotics angle. If the people behind the androids are getting scientific help, they’re not getting it from any of the world’s leading researchers. The professor says there have been nine notable experts across the globe capable of producing these androids in the past five years. Right now, seven are safely accounted for, one has been unwell for many months and one died a couple of years ago. It looks like the androids’ controllers are better technicians than we thought. Keep me informed. Queen Bee out.”

There was a beep on the network.

“Morph,” said Chopper. “Anything more yet?”

“I may not be as fast as Nero at data processing,” said Morph, “but I think I’ve isolated exactly the information we’re looking for. I’ve found several suspicious consignments of goods.”

“What are these consignments?” said Sabre. He was currently on the underside of a table in a meeting room at the government’s offices on Whitehall.

“All but one were large deliveries of electronic spare parts. They were ordered from various different suppliers by Miranda Knowles – or rather, her duplicate – over the past three weeks.”

“So that particular android has been operating for nearly a month!” said Chopper.

“All the suppliers were told that the parts were for Ministry of Defence projects, and all were told to make their delivery to a remote government airfield in the north-west of England. It’s located close to a woodland area in Cumbria, and is designated 11-88.”

“These Ministry of Defence projects were fake?” said Chopper.

“Yes,” said Morph. “After arriving at airfield
11-88, records of the deliveries vanish without trace.”