Tunnels 06 - Terminal

to your heart’s content. Even decrypted transmissions.’
    ‘Yes, your recommendation has been noted,’ the Old Styx replied. ‘It’s something that we’ll have to deal with sooner or later, anyway, and it’s irksome that we haven’t been able topenetrate it before now and turn it to our use. The security measures to detect Darklit mules are extensive, and the military perimeter is formidable.’
    ‘So that’s a yes? We’re going for a strike?’ Danforth asked.
    ‘Yes, very shortly.’ The Old Styx took a breath. His voice showed no emotion, although he narrowed his eyes just the tiniest degree. ‘That place has always been top of your list, Danforth. Is there an ulterior motive to your suggestion?’
    Danforth smiled, but it was a malicious smile. ‘A few years back, I volunteered my considerable services, and they didn’t even grant me a meeting. Much of that facility wouldn’t be what it is today if it hadn’t been for me. They have this coming to them.’
    ‘Now shine it like a comet of revenge,’ the Old Styx quoted from Shakespeare’s Henry VI .
    ‘A prophet to the fall of all our foes!’ Danforth said, adding the next line.
    There was a moment when both men simply regarded each other, recognising a kindred spirit, before the Old Styx spoke. ‘I understand a man with that motivation.’ He wheeled to the two Limiters. ‘You were told to remove the body. Why have you not done it yet?’ He spun on his heels and walked away.
    Danforth was left with one of his Limiter escorts as the other dealt with the dead operator. Stifling a yawn, he did a last round of the floor, then began towards the windowless office that had been his home for the past month. Although he never slept for long, he would grab the occasional catnap when he could. Without turning on the light and still fully dressed, he went straight to the camp bed and lay down, while the Limiter remained in the corridor where he took up position.
    Danforth yawned as he rolled over onto his side. The Limiter outside the room had no way of seeing what he was doing as he put his hand into his mouth and twisted one of his molars. With the tiniest click, the hollow crown came away.
    At one time, when he would be posted abroad to advise the intelligence services of other countries on their electronic surveillance, there had always been the risk that he might be abducted and tortured for what he knew. Then the hollow molar had contained enough cyanide to kill him within seconds.
    But if Danforth had a talent above all others, it was the ability to take a piece of electronic hardware and miniaturise it. And that was precisely what he’d done in order to fit the state-of-the-art radio inside the tooth. ‘I knew I should have flogged Sony the patent,’ he said under his breath, as he activated the tiny radio with a press of his fingernail.
    He didn’t need to see the device, operating it through touch alone. By tapping the message in Morse code, the device began to record it. It was only a short message, but when it was ready Danforth pressed a preset number of times and it was sent, at a frequency which, not by chance, was in a blind spot for the detection equipment just down the corridor.
    In any case the transmission had taken only a fraction of a fraction of a second – or, as the military called it, ‘a burp’ – because the message was so highly compressed. Even if one of the operators in the main room had happened to pick up the transmission on their screens, they would very likely have put it down to a scanner glitch.
    When he had screwed the tooth back in place, the small smile on Danforth’s lips faded as he drifted off to sleep.

    ‘Um. You can’t do that,’ Chester said.
    ‘Do what?’ Stephanie was at the table by the window, leaning over a chessboard.
    Rising from his armchair by the fire, Chester went to stand beside her. ‘Pawns only move diagonally when they’re taking something,’ he said, as he cast an eye over the various pieces she’d left in random positions while she’d been practising. ‘Your grandfather must have told you that.’
    ‘Yeah, but isn’t that so totally lame?’ Stephanie flipped the small chess piece over with one of her bright red fingernails. ‘Prawns are like these boring little no-marks, nearly as useless as the stupid horses and castles.’
    ‘Pawns,’ Chester corrected her gently. ‘They’re called pawns.’ He’d been gradually coming out of his shell after the trauma of