The Gilded Cage Ch. 05

"Is that a problem?"

"The only thing I can possibly think of is that the round itself might have been faulty. Maybe it had too little charge in it when it was made. That could, theoretically, have turned a kill shot into a severe head-wound. Your man might be crawling around in there but I'd very much doubt it."

Bastion snapped into action. He contacted the camera unit that had been assigned to follow Connor when he left the house.

"Unit 2, this is Bastion."

"Unit 2 here sir."

"Change of role. I need you to enter the house and confirm that Connor is dead. Go armed and prepared in case he is only wounded. Report immediately you see anything. Go now, quickly."

"On our way sir."

As Bastion waited for them to report he contacted the sniper again.

"Ok, good job my friend. Payment will be via the usual channel. Get out of there, I have people taking care of any loose ends."

"Thanks Bastion. Have no worries, old friend. I never miss. Your target is dead."

Bastion poured himself a neat vodka as he waited for the report from inside the house. He did not want to calm his nerves, for he had complete faith in his friend's aim, but he was preparing to toast his victory. With Connor out of the way he could safely return to his favourite role of puppet-master over the stars of his show.

"Sir, this is unit 2. We are in the downstairs front room. We have positively identified the dead man in here as Connor, killed it seems by a single shot to the head. Do you want us to take care of the clean-up operation? I am concerned that unless we get him out of here and that window secured quickly, we are going to have the local police all over us."

Bastion smiled with a relief he could barely hide in his voice.

"Yes, thank you unit 2. I am giving you full authority to requisition anything you need from the network. Clean up well there and I promise you a bonus like you've never seen."

"Will do sir, thank you. 2 out."

Bastion sat back and watched Tammy in her room for a while whilst he enjoyed his drink. Vodka had never tasted so sweet. It was a full twenty minutes before he was interrupted by an urgent call. Still enjoying the heady mixture of alcohol and self-congratulations, Bastion took the call with a casual manner.

"Bastion here, who've we got calling me now?"

"Bastion this is Aegis. Tune your system over to scan channel 17."

Aegis had brought Bastion back to Earth with a shudder.

"Channel 17? Why?"

"Do it now please."

Bastion tuned his system into channel 17 and listened.

"I don't hear anything?"

"Exactly. My network uses channel 17 as a secondary communications hub. I can promise you that your own channel 9 is also dead."

"We've had a localised power-failure in Lexington Aegis. Maybe that's caused some of this?"

"Wake up man! I am talking about the secondary hub for both of our entire networks. Someone has taken it down and in a way I cannot trace. I lost the cameras in the house when your freelance was shooting. Are you certain that Connor is dead? This smells of the kind of retaliation he inflicted on you last time, although now it's on both of us."

Bastion's concern caused him to snap.

"Of course he's dead! My people are scraping him off the floor as we speak!"

Aegis finally lost his cool with Bastion. It was a rare event indeed from a man famed for his self-control. He spoke slowly, with every word dripping in venom.

"Then it's clear that you were wrong to assume that the friends of Connor would go away when their man was dead. They must have tried to contact him and having failed, assumed we'd terminated him. We have people out there who are willing and able to knock down two of our most secure systems. For the love of God, will you now call a breach and get C onto this?"

Bastion felt himself go cold. His voice became weak.

"I can't do that Aegis, C would crucify me. It's gone too far for me to admit that I did not bring him in when I should have."

Aegis spoke kindly as he sensed that shouting was going to achieve nothing.

"They are now targeting me so that means they know my people have been helping you. This is spreading Bastion and, disgrace or no disgrace, C needs to be warned before it gets out of hand. I'll back you up with him, tell him that you and I talked and that I agreed to all of your actions."

Bastion knew just what a sacrifice Aegis was offering to make on his behalf. It melted him.

"No, Aegis, I cannot allow you to get blamed for this. I think it's over anyhow. It's been quid pro quo so far, we hit Connor and Connor's friends hit us. The deal offered was peace for us in exchange for the freedom of the girl and the ending of my show. I think this network attack is simply them equalling the score. It should end now that their man is dead."

Aegis sighed.

"Are you trying to convince me of that or yourself? You are not going to tell C, are you? Are you?"

"Just give me time to tie up the ends. Connor is dead and the girl will also be in a few days. Whoever attacked us will then have nothing left to fight for. They needed Connor with the girl in order to operate, for whatever reason, and now that he's not there they are neutered. C need not know something that would cause me to look bad if the situation is now contained."

Bastion heard Aegis breathing heavily. Aegis was clearly fighting every natural instinct within him as he spoke.

"Ok Bastion, this is my final favour to you. I am telling you straight that you have exactly twenty-four hours from now to show me that the threat is gone. If you do not, I will personally not only report the breach to C but also tell him how you have failed in your duty. Don't make me play Judas. Sort this."

"You have my word, Aegis. In one day I will either mail you the dicks of those responsible or I will terminate Miss Squires, even if the viewers want it otherwise. Either way we will not be bothered anymore."

"May God help us all, Bastion."

Bastion sat back in his chair.

"Who was it who said that God backs the general with the biggest battalions? We're practically the entire military in a can. Nothing can touch us. One day more my friend, I promise. Bastion out."

It only took Bastion a few seconds to activate the controls that allowed him to talk to every agent, in every sector, under his direct command.

"This is a general message from Bastion to the network. Channel 9 has been compromised by unknown outside elements. There is reason to assume that these elements may also be targeting other assets although I do not expect any hostile action against them at present. As of this moment, all other priorities cease. Identify and terminate the elements. Liase with your local commanders for information on how to target your own activities to this end."

Bastion then switched his channel to allow only the commanders to hear him.

"This is not a breach but it's too close to one to allow comfort. I am giving you twenty hours to succeed. Begin by discovering how channel 9 was disrupted. Use your imagination, your funds are unlimited for this operation and there are no rules of engagement, but do whatever it takes to regain the initiative against these bastards. Bastion out."

Tammy looked at the clock in her hotel room and saw that she had five hours before the ball was due to begin. She had selected her costume, which was the nearest thing to Catwoman she'd seen outside of the movies, and now it was just a matter of filling in time without arousing suspicions. There are only so many showers a girl can take in an afternoon, she thought before settling down to watch TV.

Bastion did not take pills as a rule. He was a believer in his own inner-strength and quite often suffered unnecessarily with colds because he refused to medicate the symptoms away. Today was very much an exception to that rule and he was on his third set of tranquillisers when he was notified of an incoming transmission. It was from one of his field commanders.

"Bastion? This is the commander of Blue Section."

"It's been over four hours commander. I had expected at least a summary of action report before now."

The commander was used to Bastion. He knew the best way to handle him was polite-belligerence.

"I've been a little busy, sir, given the far-reaching remit you handed the network and the limited starting point we had to work with. Anyway I think the delay may have proved worthwhile."

Bastion became very focused, very suddenly.

"Worthwhile? You've found them?"

"Channel 17 is now active again sir as is our own channel 9. It took our best efforts to locate the source of the invasion because it was routed all over the globe and, in the end, came from the very last place we expected."

"Where?"

"Ourselves. Sir, the communication network was compromised from our primary relay in London. Once we found the programmes responsible we were able to erase them and also do some secondary tracking. The computer programmes fell into two categories, with one being signal-activated and the other being on a timer. The signal they were programmed to respond to was from one of our transponders here in Lexington which, in turn, was activated by a mobile-phone call."

"Let me guess, commander. That call was made by Connor?"

"Indeed. We recovered his mobile from the corpse and analysed it. It piggy-backed off of one of the defence networks, by-passing our normal scans, and was pre-programmed to call the transponder after a code was entered into the handset."

"I presume, commander, it was one of the usual alphanumeric codes?"

"You would have expected that sir, given the complexity of the operation behind it, but in fact the code was almost childish. It made us second-guess ourselves for a while."

Bastion was about to move on when he hesitated. Something inside him made him ask.

"What was the code?"

"04-02-1968"

"A date? The second of April 1968?"

"Yes, maybe his date of birth? He looked around that age. Anyway the initial explosion at the Texan listening station used explosives that were radio-activated, from a signal that emanated from the London relay. The attack on our channels was timer-based and could only have been prevented if Connor had dialled the relay. It, and a series of others against our network, were programmed to re-set by twelve hours if contacted. The fact it went off indicates that no one was alive to prevent it. In short, sir, it's our conclusion that Connor was a highly sophisticated but ultimately solitary intruder. The threat has died with him and I recommend we stand-down the network."

Bastion was already placing a call to Aegis as he spoke.

"Of course. You have performed excellent work commander and I will not be ungrateful. Bastion out."

"Aegis here."

"Aegis! I presume you have been copied into the data from Blue Commander?"

Aegis sounded, if anything, a little drunk.

"Yes Bastion and I must admit it's a huge relief to me. I was beginning to become a little stressed over this whole Connor business. It seems he was a loose-cannon after all and that means that we can relax a bit more now he's dead. There only remains the one niggling thing."

Bastion was too excited to listen properly

"Of course he was! I told you Aegis, my network can handle anything! And you wanted me to run to C, tail between my legs!"

Then part of Bastion's brain processed the end of what Aegis had said.

"What niggling thing?"

"The code on his phone, Bastion. It's a date."

"Yes I know. Probably his date of birth or something, so what?

"He had a British accent and used our primary relay in London. It's not a massive leap of logic to assume he also used the British means of dating which has the day first. That makes the date the fourth of February 1968."

Bastion felt himself becoming annoyed at the way Aegis was always nit picking.

"Fascinating, Aegis. Remind me to invite you to my next pedant-themed party."

Aegis spoke with thinly veiled malice.

"Just be careful you do not exceed the tolerance limits of our friendship. If you had bothered to read the Sentinel file properly, you would have remembered that the Guild interrogation centre, within which the man with Connor's DNA profile was first recorded, was ultimately defeated by that man. After that, the Guild closed it dow. They did that on the fourth of February 1968."

Even the tranquillisers could not prevent Bastion from suddenly feeling a sharp pain in his chest. Recovering after a few moments he tried to clear his mind.

"Aegis, Connor is dead. That man from the interrogation centre is dead. There must have been an error in the DNA analysis because one could not possibly have been the other anyhow. Even if they were, it's over. The threat is over."

"All I am saying Bastion, is that the evidence suggests that this man was buried in London in 1984. It also suggests you just had him assassinated today. If your agents have any holy water on them I would think a little sprinkle on Connor would not go amiss, eh? Death seems to be a way of life for this guy."

"I don't believe in ghosts Aegis. If Connor had enough access to our network to do what he did, then who is to say he did not alter the original record from the facility? Who cares anyhow? He's dead and I have a show to run. At least we can agree that C need never know about this?"

Aegis clearly needed more convincing.

"Please, old friend. It's not exactly been my finest hour has it? C would take a very dim view."

"I wish you would reconsider Bastion. You know as well as I that it is your duty to report all this to C. Nonetheless, I will not be the one to do it if you decide not to. The immediate danger seems to be over."

"Thank you my friend. Sorry to cut you short but I have to prepare for this evening's main event. Miss Squires is about to go partying. Bastion out."

Tammy received a phone call from Green in her hotel room.

"Miss Squires, it's almost time. I just wanted to brief you a little before you attend the ball because we will only have the transmitter in the glasses once you are in there. Your targets tonight are Senator Taylor and his good wife. I have them under surveillance now. Once they leave their house I will have my people install hidden cameras inside their home, to capture the final act of our little drama."

"What should I do when I attend?"

"Just listen to my instructions and relax. I have people in there as well to assist you. Perform well tonight Tammy and there is nothing you cannot ask for in return."

Other than my freedom, Tammy thought.