Chapter Thirty

‘Six Degrees is just the algorithm that drives it.’ Chris stretched his fingers out as if preparing to play a piano, 'Get ready to be amazed.'

He brought up the Maclays home page, at the top were four links: Personal | Premier | Business | Corporate.

He clicked the link for business accounts then the drop-down list and selected Transitions.

'That's the department who owns the pot of gold hidden in Maclays rainbow right?'

'Right,' Vi said, cutting over Chris. ‘Funny thing is, I checked everything and everywhere, and apart from Sutherland’s top-line signature, there are no department spaces allocated, no head of department, no infrastructure, it's a dead end, but then Chris found this.'

The page redirected to a log-in page with three options: New Client | Supplier | Account Manager.

'Michael's log-in still works here,' he clicked on the New Client link and logged-in.

'The same screen as before,' Savage said.

'Yeah, it's like one of those trial areas you get on a porn website. Not that I've ever looked of course,' he said quickly at Vi's glare. 'The only difference is you can propose names, or projects or whatever. Look,' he opened another page, typed in Homer Simpson and a dollar price $666. ‘This now appears in the green field. The surname is still blacked out, only I know who and what it really is.’

'So what are we looking at?'

'Well for that, we need to go here.' He clicked back to the main log-in page and hit Supplier.

As he typed he said, 'It's the same log-in. Like all fat cats, when he's behind a firewall he lets his guard down.'

'It's Joanna76 again?'

'It is,' he hit log-in, 'and look at what delights I have for you Mr Savage.'

A list of names rolled down the screen, all green.

'What is it?' he said, moving close to the monitor.

‘It’s called Dark Market,’ Chris said.

'I give him five minutes,' Stef piped up from the other side of the desk.

'Three,' Chris said. 'What are we betting for?'

'All the money in that honey pot.'

'Done.'

Savage stared intently at the names. He recognised some of them. The chancellor's name was one. A few more public figures he recognised and lots he didn't.

'The UN secretary general’s up there, he was with Sutherland yesterday. I see the names, what's the story?'

He could see the geeks were dying to tell him, but they had their bet.

'Like that is it? Okay, click the red list,' Savage said. 'Scroll down.' Ryan obliged. Savage took a breath.

'Stop,' he said, 'Jessica Price.' He read the status field out loud, 'Unnatural'.

Then the value next to her name '$40,000'. And finally, the field labelled Winning Guess: 'Kidnap gone wrong.'

He ran his finger down the screen over the names beneath hers, 'Dehaene, unnatural. $30,000. Amato, accidental. $70,000. Nash, unnatural, $150,000. Spencer, accidental, $52,000.' He looked at the other names. ‘Who are all these other people? Have you checked them?'

The geeks nodded as one.

'And?'

'Dead.'

'Every one of them.'

'Let me guess, all assassinations and accidental deaths,' Savage said.

'Mostly,' Vi said. 'There's a few natural causes, and a couple of suicides too.'

'It's like a job list on elance.com or something,' Chris said.

'Close. I think it's a hit list.'

'Bingo,' Chris said. 'Less than three minutes. The gold is mine.'

'I think it’s more than that,' Savage said. 'They used to talk about it in the Middle East. You ever hear of Jim Bell?'

'No. Who’s he?'

'A crypto-anarchist that got the American government all riled up.'

'How?'

'In the early days of the internet he wrote a series of essays exploring anonymous and, back then, theoretical assassination markets.'

'And that's what this is?' Ryan said, his fingers moving fast over the keyboard as he pulled up his internet browser.

'It looks like it.'

'Yeah, yeah, I've heard of this Bell guy,' Stef said. 'It's a system where if you don't like what you see on the news, anything from a politician taking a country to war against the will of the people, to car thieves in your neighbourhood, you can request a hit anonymously.'

'And whoever takes the bet and proposes a time, place and method is totally untraceable,’ Savage said. ‘They only get paid if the bet wins, so it’s in their interest to make it happen.’

‘That’s very a dangerous idea,’ Vi said.

‘Sure is. Bell called it Assassination Politics and he’s been in and out of prison for the last decade because of it. The FBI did not like him encouraging the assassination of corrupt political officials.'

'There'd be none of them left.'

'Exactly. Bell thought that this would remove the need for standing armies. Most wars are fought on behalf of business and political elites, politicians would become administrative figures only. It would be in their interests to make things work, keep governments transparent, minimise taxes, not torture their citizens, and so on.'

Chris nodded, 'Sounds good,' he said. He pointed at Ryan’s screen, 'Wired magazine called it “an unholy mix of encryption, anonymity, and digital cash to bring about the ultimate annihilation of all forms of government”. It even won the Chrysler Award for Innovation in Design.'

'Sure,' Savage said. 'Bell wasn't just some kook. The reason we knew about it in the pit was most people thought a similar market might have been in place for the 9/11 attacks.'

'Was it?'

'The feebies checked, nothing was ever proved.'

'It's ingenious,' Chris said. Reading more. 'An anonymous swap market that allows anyone to “predict” the time and place of someone's death and then post that prediction online using digital signatures and anonymous remailers. If people like it they, also anonymously, post encrypted money in an online pool fund that can only be received if the prediction comes good. Say Joe Bloggs, death by chocolate, July 9 in year X.'

'It’s inspired,' Stef said, 'But the technology for this was invented years ago, why hasn't it happened already?'

'Who says it hasn't?' Vi said. ‘What we’re seeing is the management system.’

As one they turned to the screens.

'The thing that always got me about it,' Savage said, 'Was that someone anonymous always had to set it up first. How do we know they were on the level and not just bumping people off on a whim?' He pointed to the screen. 'And what,’ he said, ‘if somebody did it for profit?'

Each of them thought through the consequences of this in silence, apart from Chris. The keyboard rattled beneath his fingers.

'You name is on here,' Chris said, pointing to Savage.

'What?' Vi said. Savage shrugged.

'Makes sense,' he said. 'What’s the winning guess?'

He clicked a few more keys. 'See the red column?' Savage nodded. 'That's a past jobs column. See the X next to each one? They're guesses that failed. Here's your name and a dollar amount. $35,000. The date was yesterday.'

They all looked at Savage.

'Well you're not dead, it must be make-believe, right? Vi said. 'Why are you smiling?'

'I would be if the job hadn't gone to amateurs.'

Silence.

He didn’t think Vi needed to know about his night time visit to Crystal. He’d nearly taken the man’s head and he might not even be responsible.

'Look at the numbers,’ Savage said, ‘you're only going to get monkeys trying to write Shakespeare at that price.'

More silence.

'I can hear your hearts bleeding,' he said. 'I left them alive. More than they would have done for me.'

More silence.

'Say something.'

'It's real,' Vi slumped in her chair. 'We designed something that kills people.'

There was a heavy pause.

'Cool,' Stef said.

'It's so not cool,' Vi said.

'Yeah, but if we know who’s in charge, we can put their name on there and have them killed too, end of assassination market.'

She brightened up, 'Good point. Do we know who set it up?'

'Unfortunately, not yet.' Savage aimed a finger at the red column. 'Can we see the prediction for my hit?

A click. A shake of the head. 'We're locked out. Full details on winning guesses only. On fails you can only see the price, proposed date of assassination and the date of posting.'

Savage looked at the posting time.

'Well that means whoever posted that did so with no time to spare. I didn't even know where I'd be then. How many names are there in the green column?'

'Eighty six,' Chris said a moment later. 'Look who's next.'

They all peered in. 'The chancellor.'

'His name's in the red list too under failed.'

'Yeah, that makes sense. Just because someone fails first time doesn't mean they can’t make another guess.

'When's the hit scheduled?'

Chris’s face went grey. 'Today.'

'We need access to the detail,' Savage jabbed a finger at the screen. 'What about the account manager log-in?'

'We tried it already. It must be under someone else's control. I mean Michael's log-in works on the lower level areas but he's been dead three years.'

'But I thought he commissioned it? His log-in works everywhere else,' Vi said.

'Maybe he didn't?' Chris said.

Vi and Savage turned to each other at the same time, 'You first,' she said.

'It’s Friday morning.'

'Sutherland's office?'

'How long do we have until they log-in?'

'Seven minutes.'

'Okay,' Savage said. 'Is the camera feed live in there? Did the motion detector work?'

'No, nothing,’ Stef said. ‘There's nobody there yet.'

'And they've been there the same time every week?'

'Like clockwork.'

Savage drummed his fingers across the table top, 'Well,' he said, 'we wait. What's seven minutes?'

'Six now.'

'What do you think?’ Savage said. ‘Will we be able to log-in after we've seen them?'

'We've got your camera in place for a bit of shoulder surfing, if we can catch what they type,’ Stef threw up his hands, ‘it's as good as we're going to get.'

Savage tried not to burst out of his seat and run upstairs.

'Hey, here's some good news John,' Chris said, 'Your name's not on the green list.'

He tried to look nonchalant about it. 'Give it time,' he said.

Everyone sat in silence, you could almost hear the heartbeats. Savage pulled the MI5 man's card out of his pocket, played with it and wondered if he should call.

Six minutes later nothing had happened and worry carved lines in every brow.

At seven minutes Savage looked up into the face of Thomson standing above him with his arms folded.

'What's going on here?'

'Nothing that will interest you.' Savage said, trying hard not to tear the arm of his chair.

You could feel every sphincter tighten. The screen drew their eyes back.

'Maybe Sutherland isn't coming?' Everyone stared daggers at Stef.

Thomson started to bark, but no one was listening. The sound of Chris’s fingers on the keyboard had all their attention.

'Talk to me Chris,' Vi said. A server log popped up.

'The camera hasn't come on.'

'Somebody spotted it?' Vi said.

'Shush, let me look,' Chris said.

He scanned his eyes rapidly across lines of code that would make a normal person’s eyes bleed. His eyebrows rose higher and higher.

'Shit,' he said. 'They're already logged in. I'll go manual on the camera.'

Another screen fired up, Chris hit connect and the video feed came to life, they all held their breath. A second later a blank white screen came into focus. It took a few moments to get it.

'Some thing is blocking—'

'Whiteboard,' Vi said. 'There was never any motion for the camera to detect.'

The arm of the chair came loose in Savage's hands, he shoved the MI5 man's card into Vi's palm.

'Call that number, tell him I told you to, and tell him what's going on here.'

'Savage!' another bark from Thomson. 'Unless you tell me what’s happening right now, I'll have you run off the premises.'

Both hands up, he slammed Thomson out of the way. 'Tell him too,' he said. And then he ran.

He only just heard Vi's shout as he slammed through the outer office door, 'John, keep your god-damned phone on.'