Rule 34 - Charles Stross [148]
You reach across the desk and answer it. “Felix.”
“Sir? Please confirm—” It’s the duty officer in the operations centre. You go through the challenge-response routine. “Sir, beg to report that the Hummingbird has flown.”
“Excellent.” You put the phone down and stand up, then go through into the next room. “We’re on, boys.”
(This network is unable to monitor subsequent events.)
You are an old hand and do not entirely trust these modern communication tools. Hummingbird is unknown to the network. It appears to be a verbally prearranged code, though. Interior Ministry troops are deploying downstairs, loading their personal defence weapons—older AK-74s with iron sights—and climbing into ancient trucks that bellow and belch blue diesel fumes as they move out.
Trucks deploy through Bishkek, parking outside office blocks and hotels. Troops, gendarmes, police deploy inside, crowding elevators and marching up to receptionists. They maintain total communication silence—smartphones switched off or physically disabled, battle-field radios stowed back at headquarters—as they march on their targets.
(This network makes an association: The phone on Colonel Datka’s desk rang within minutes of a police officer in Scotland starting a distributed search for information about . . . Colonel Datka?)
((Evidently a trap has been sprung.))
Traffic cameras (known to the network) follow a group of trucks across town to the Erkindik Hotel. When they draw up, a platoon of special forces soldiers deploy around them—Spetsnaz anti-terrorism troops. Then a clump of officers climb down from the second-to-rearmost vehicle. Colonel Datka is among them. They enter the hotel behind a vanguard of Interior Ministry troops, two of whom disappear into the offices behind the reception desk.
(The hotel network switch goes down. The hotel primary router goes off-line. The hotel backup router goes off-line. The LTE picocells go off-line, one on each floor, followed by the LAN bridges and wifi repeaters. The fire alarm and security alarms . . . off-line. This network can no longer observe events inside the hotel, with one or two exceptions.)
(One of the exceptions is a suite on the eleventh floor. Its occupant, an American investment analyst, has brought his own satellite phone and a compact generator. His webcams, deployed around the lounge/ conference area to provide motion capture for teleconferencing, are still transmitting through a ruinously expensive thin pipe.)
((This network can monitor these transmissions.))
Mr. White is clearly not expecting company. He’s half-dressed, slouched on the sofa with an open bottle of white wine and a pad loaded with Iranian amateur pornography. When the door buzzer sounds, he jerks guiltily and looks round, then slides the pad face-down on the occasional table and goes to grab a towelling bath-robe.
The buzzer does not sound again. Instead, the door opens. “Hey, what are you—”
“Mr. White.” Colonel Datka follows his soldiers into the room. “You are under arrest.”
Mr. White gapes dumbly. “Uh?”
“Sit down,” says the colonel. He points at the sofa. “Do not touch your pad.”
“But I, what the fuck are you, hey.” Mr. White’s eyes take in the spotty post-adolescents in uniform, their guns clenched tight in whiteknuckled fingers, their eyes determined. His movements slow abruptly. “Wait a minute. What about the contract? Are you planning on defaulting on us?”
“Sit. Down.” The colonel’s finger will not be argued with. Mr. White sits down. The colonel continues, in Kyrgyz, to his troops: “Handcuff him.”
“Hey, wait . . . ! You can’t do this!”
“I can, and I am.” The colonel watches as his men lay hands on Mr. White. “By the way, these men were selected specifically because they do not speak English.”
“You don’t want