Meltwater (Fire and Ice)

and we have decided
we’re running with this.’
    Erika was aware of Dieter’s bulk beside her. She knew she could railroad Apex as long as Dieter didn’t back him up.
    ‘We could publish it right now,’ the German said. ‘Just put it up on the web for everyone to see. Get it out there. Then there’s nothing they can do to us. It will be too
late.’
    ‘No,’ said Erika. ‘That’s a non-starter. We used to do that, remember, and no one ever took any notice. Journalists are pathetic, they need to be told what’s
exciting and why.’
    Dieter nodded. Their original Darfur leak had been met with total indifference until Erika had stirred things up, telling people where to look.
    ‘Plus, we don’t know it’s genuine yet,’ Erika continued. ‘We have to make sure it’s authentic or they’ll crucify us. We need to get people
double-checking the facts on the ground in Gaza. We need to get the websites up and secure, with back-ups if the Israelis launch cyber attacks on them. We need editing, commentary, a coordinated
release. Samantha Wilton in tears at a press conference. We need to make maximum impact with this video. Otherwise it will just be flitting around on the edge of the Internet: the Israelis will
dismiss it as some daft conspiracy.’
    ‘She’s right,’ said Apex. ‘If we are going to publish it, we need to do it properly.’
    ‘Oh, by the way, I think the CIA is on to us,’ said Erika.
    ‘Are they following you again?’ Apex asked.
    ‘Worse than that. After the police took us to some police station in the middle of nowhere an American showed up. He had a police badge and he spoke Icelandic, but he also spoke English
perfectly. With an American accent. He claimed he was some kind of cop on secondment, but he sounded like a well-educated kind of cop to me.’
    ‘Jesus,’ said Apex.
    ‘Are you sure our computers are safe?’ Erika said. ‘Viktor’s holding out against a warrant to search them, but he might fail.’
    ‘Quite sure,’ said Apex. ‘Or at least ours are. Military-grade encryption. Even the CIA won’t be able to read them. But you’d better check that the volunteers
don’t have anything on theirs. And of course the police can always read notes written on paper.’
    Erika trusted Apex. She had her whole life on her laptop, but everything was encrypted and backed up on a cloud of servers in Germany, Sweden and Australia. The passwords were in her head.
    ‘I made sure that none of the volunteers has brought their own laptops into the house,’ said Dieter.
    ‘Once you are all working on the video, shut everything down as soon as the police appear,’ Apex said. ‘Once when I was a kid I got raided in Australia by a SWAT team trying to
catch me red-handed logged into a network.’ Apex chuckled. ‘Scared the wits out of my mum, but I heard them coming.’
    ‘We’ll be careful,’ said Dieter.
    ‘What about finances?’ said Erika. ‘We’re going to need some cash here. Can you send us some over, Apex?’
    ‘Ah.’
    Erika glanced at Dieter. She didn’t like the sound of that. ‘What do you mean, “Ah”?’
    ‘With Nico gone, there isn’t any money.’
    ‘Hold on. That can’t be right! I thought we had back-up procedures so if something happened to him, you and I would still have access to Freeflow’s accounts.’
    ‘Oh, yes, those procedures are in place. We can access the accounts. The trouble is . . .’
    Erika didn’t like the sound of this at all. ‘The trouble is what?’
    ‘The trouble is there is nothing in them.’
    ‘Even in the reserve account in Guernsey?’
    ‘Even in that.’
    ‘But Nico didn’t tell me we had run out of cash?’
    ‘For the last couple of weeks he had been using his own money to run Freeflow. Out of his personal bank account. Which will now be frozen.’
    ‘Jesus,’ said Erika. ‘That’s a problem. Shit! Shit, shit, shit, shit!’
    Money. Money was always Freeflow’s problem, always had been, always would be.
    Dieter and Apex were silent. ‘OK,’ Erika sighed. ‘Let’s think this through. The rent on this place is paid in advance, right, Dieter?’
    ‘Yes. And in fact there will be a deposit returned when we leave.’
    ‘Good. I’ll need some cash for my air fare out of here to the press conference in London. I guess everyone else has return tickets. We’ve got all the computer equipment we need
here from volunteers. Do you need to buy anything else?’
    Dieter shook his head. ‘Nothing