‘Our allies, or possibly the opposition.’ Lomax’s statement seemed so ambiguous as to be almost meaningless.
‘OK, let’s assume she is a plant. What then?’
‘Then you will need to be extra vigilant’ Lomax replied.
Sean didn’t respond. He guessed Lomax had been briefed about his fiancé. If so he would know Sean had had little to do with women after she died. Lomax couldn’t possibly think that Natasha might be affecting his work, or could he?
‘I’ve arranged to collect Ben’s things and take them back to his parents. The least I can do is stay for the funeral.’
They arrived at the airport and Lomax found a short stay car park. He left Lomax to look after the car. The arrivals lounge was particularly busy, perhaps because it was the start of the working week. Sean waited until he was sure he was not under observation.
He watched as arrivals made their way through a gauntlet of waiting family, friends and colleagues. A tall thin young man arrived with a trolley stacked full of cases. Sean recognised Daniel immediately with his dark hair and lean features. He jerked his head to indicate the man should follow him. In the car park Sean was surprised to see Daniel’s trolley piled high with so many large camera-style cases. They loaded them in the back as best they could and didn’t speak until Lomax had pulled away.
‘Good to see you Daniel. How was the drive?’
The young man turned to Sean. ‘Not bad. I’ve left my car in one of the long stay car parks.’
‘What’s with all the luggage?’
Daniel grinned. ‘My stock-in-trade. When do I get to work?’
‘Right away. As soon as we get back I have a laptop for you to crack. The hard drive is a bit dented — it comes from someone who worked for the American DoD. The programs I have couldn’t hack it.’
‘Oh’ came the uneasy reply. ‘That’ll be a tough cookie. How much time do I have?’
‘I need it tonight, if possible’ replied Sean. ‘What’s your legend?’
The young man handed over his passport. ‘Name is Daniel Davis — DD to my friends. I’m currently studying for a post graduate degree at MIT in Ontology-based Navigation in Large Information Spaces. I’ve just started my second year and I’ve fixed up a house swap with an American student who is studying at London University.’
Sean smiled. ‘Good.’
‘OK. Do you have anything else lined up for me?’
‘Take a look at this.’ Sean handed over a page he had copied from Natasha’s letter. ‘What can you tell me about it?’
DD looked at it carefully. Sean explained where he had got the note. He sat back to see what DD would make of it all.
For a whole five minutes they sat quietly. Then DD spoke up. ‘Well if this is about archives, it looks like a record of computer backup tapes. The dates go back eight weeks. Again, I’m guessing, but the code in the second column probably identifies the tape. But without knowing what the code stands for I can’t tell you what’s on the tapes.’
DD indicated the last column. ‘But there is a clue in the description column. That tells me that some of the tapes were OK, but I am surprised at the number of blanks that appear. Normally you would only expect to get a bad copy once or twice a year, but here we have six in the space of six weeks.’
‘OK’ said Sean. ‘Anything else you can tell us?’
‘Well there are only two ways you can get a blank tape: when you first buy them in, or when you erase them. Both are different.’
‘Can you tell me in English?’
‘Sure — when you buy a tape it is completely blank. Before you can use it in a computer to copy data you have to go through a process called formatting.’
‘Like you have to before you install an new hard drive?’ asked Sean.
‘Exactly the same. You tell the machine to format the tape and it writes a special sequence of codes, so when the computer is asked to start copying data it knows where to start and stop for example.’
DD fished out a packet of cigarettes. ‘Anybody mind?’ he asked.
Sean wound the window down. ‘So what do you think is happening here?’
DD lit a cigarette. ‘If you ask me, I would say that someone is stealing to order.’
‘How do you mean?’ Sean asked.
‘Once a backup has been made the tape needs to be taken off-site. If the computer room burns down you don’t want the backup tapes to burn with them. Most firms have off-site storage or a company to collect and store the tapes for them. If you look there is a pattern of blank tapes, one for each of the different codes. Either someone is substituting blank tapes before they are taken off-site, or the substitution is being done at the off-site storage facility.’
‘Why would anyone do that?’
‘If someone from outside the organisation had access to these tapes they would be able to restore the information onto another computer and access a copy of the system just as if they were in the office. However to access all the systems they would need a tape for every server. According to this list there are eight servers and six of the tapes are blank or missing.’
Sean thought this made sense. ‘But wouldn’t someone notice?’
‘Not necessarily. Normally you would only need those tapes if there was a disaster and the place went up in smoke. Occasionally you might need to retrieve the odd file if someone got careless and deleted a document accidentally. So you might get away with it for a long time before someone noticed.’
‘Well someone noticed’. Sean indicated the list. ‘I think Ben became suspicious, started to investigate, then found out there was a problem. Soon afterwards he was killed.’
DD blanched. ‘Bloody hell’ he muttered as he opened the pack for another cigarette.
Lomax pulled in to the rented apartment he had arranged for DD and they helped him in with all his cases. Sean gave him the laptop containing Ben’s hard drive and DD promised to let Lomax know as soon as he had found anything.
On the way back Sean spoke. ‘If someone was stealing those tapes then I think I have a pretty good idea who.’
‘Go on’ replied Lomax.
‘You remember the messages I found on Ben’s answer machine? One of them was from Jack Langham. He was arranging to meet Ben to discuss something about the archives. He might have meant tape archives.’
Lomax shook his head. ‘So?’
‘I need to pay him a visit.’
Lomax didn’t sound convinced. ‘You remember we’ve been recalled?’
‘They know we can’t go back just yet’ responded Sean.
‘But they are expecting us to lie low until we can.’ Lomax looked at Sean intently.
Sean indicated he understood and waited.
‘Ben’s death has changed things’ continued Lomax. ‘We don’t want the police to switch the focus to us and London doesn’t want Ben’s extracurricular activities to be discovered.’ Lomax glanced at Sean. ‘That is something they are very particular about.’
Sean didn’t respond.
‘You must be very careful’ said Lomax finally.
Louis’ eyes swivelled to an empty coke tin discarded on one of the steps. It buzzed and slithered around, seeming to move of its own accord. Rattling, the can fell down to the next step and then the next.
Some engineers who had accompanied Louis to the deck slapped his shoulder in a good natured way, pleased that Cetus had launched successfully. Louis put out a hand to the rail to steady himself — and jerked it back again as if the metal had burnt his fingers. He stared curiously at the bar — it seemed to be conducting vibrations from the ship’s engines. He touched it momentarily once more and immediately felt the vibrations again. He glanced at his colleagues but no-one seemed to have noticed anything untoward.