4
“But what were you doing there?” demanded Alfie. “What made you go to Uncle Phil’s?”
Luke was with Alfie and Alice at the fallen tree again, their regular meeting place. Luke had spent most of Saturday in a drowsy stupor, the result of something a doctor had given him on the Friday night after Phil had died. It was Sunday now, and he still hadn’t managed to get everything straight in his head.
Luke looked at the two of them. Alfie was impatient, always wanting to cut to the point. This made Luke think of that note he had found from their father, urging Alfie to be patient. Alice was merely curious: there was something intriguing going on and she wanted to understand.
“That note from Dad,” he said, finally. “The one we found with the clothes.”
Alfie snorted.
“Well... there was more than that.”
“What do you mean?” said Alfie. “Another note? Where? When did you find it? What did it say?”
Alice smacked Alfie on the arm. “Easy tiger,” she told him. “Let him tell it in his own way.”
“On his laptop,” said Luke. “I found some files...”
~
A short time later the three of them were up in Alfie’s attic bedroom.
Luke sat in the saggy armchair with the computer on his lap, Alfie perched on one arm of the chair, and Alice sat in the window seat behind them, peering over their shoulders at the screen.
“See?” said Luke. “He called the folder ‘delete this’. Why would you do that?”
He opened the first file.
Holidays: Late snow. J&L flight cancelled. Be home.
“Okay. What does the next one say?” said Alfie.
“I don’t know. The only other one I’ve looked at is the one about Uncle Phil.”
“So open the next one, then!”
The file was dated last June. Luke opened it and saw a series of dates and places. They meant nothing to him. He looked at Alfie, then back at Alice. Her eyes were narrowed. She pointed at the screen.
“That one,” she said. “14th July. Isn’t that a flight number next to it? Google it, Luke. Wasn’t that when...?”
He opened a web browser window and Googled the date and flight number.
When the results came up all he could do was stare. He remembered Uncle Phil’s words: Especially when he made some damn fool demand of me. Like don’t go on a particular flight, for instance. Alice had been right: it was a flight number... the flight number of the plane that had been brought down over the North Sea by the Nats. The search results were mostly news stories about the incident. The attack had killed 187 people. English Nationalist terrorists had struck with a daisy chain bomb cluster distributed through several pieces of hand luggage.
“Uncle Phil knew about that one,” said Luke. “Dad warned him. He’d been due at a conference in Helsinki.”
“What about the others?” asked Alice. “Some of the dates and places look familiar...”
Luke picked one of the dates:
12 Aug. UG.
“What’s that, do you think?” he said. “Undergraduate? Underground?”
“Underground, I reckon,” said Alfie.
Luke Googled, but nothing stood out in the results. He tried the next one:
14 Aug. Camden.
The results for this one were a fairly random mix again. Details of a summer play scheme, car parking information, details of a rock concert in Camden New Jersey, a blog entry about someone’s birthday party...
“There,” said Alfie. “That news story.”
Luke clicked through. A policeman shot dead on duty. He’d investigated suspicious activity in a closed down Kentish Town warehouse and stumbled upon an armed gang. The killer had fled, and the news story said nobody knew what the motive might be, or what the gang had been up to.
“And your point is...?” said Alice.
“It’s a list of times and places,” said Alfie. “Times when something seriously bad is going to happen.”
“Yeeeees...”
“He worked in the Home Office, right? What do they do? Law and order, security, that kind of thing. Did any of us know exactly what he did? No. And now we find out that he knew about things like terrorist attacks. He must have been investigating them. That’s why he had a list like this.”
“So what’s with the policeman?” asked Luke.
“It’s Kentish Town – that’s Camden, isn’t it? Nobody knows what the gang was up to. They could have been terrorists. They could have been security forces investigating terrorists. All part of the investigation.”
“Try another one,” said Alice.
Luke Googled an October date:
1 Oct. Wembley.
That was easy: the bomb found in Wembley Stadium on the morning of an England friendly with Turkey; it had been in a block of seating allocated to the visiting fans.
One from December turned up nothing.
“Maybe they managed to stop that one, whatever had been planned,” said Alice. “No attack, so no story.”
“What about–”
But Luke cut Alice off with a raised hand.
He pointed to the screen. The last item on the list...
27 Apr. IoD.
Luke could see that Alfie understood immediately, and then after a few seconds more Alice did too.
IoD... Institute of Directors. The dinner at the Institute’s headquarters on Pall Mall in central London. It had taken place on the 27th.
That was when their father had died.
“Okay,” said Alfie, eventually. “I think we’ve seen enough. This file. It should have gone with the rest of Dad’s stuff with that Mr Mahmood. We shouldn’t be looking at this. It’s way out of our league. You need to give it back, Luke. Dad was clearly involved in some really serious stuff – who knows what else he was investigating? There might be something important in there.”
Luke nodded. Alfie was right. They should hand the files over, not get involved.
Then he remembered, and said, “But I dragged it across the network – I only took a copy. The original files are still on the laptop, so they have them.”
“Then you should delete your copy,” said Alfie. “We don’t want anything to do with this.”
Alice says: So u’ve looked at the rest of them, right?
U didn’t let big brother stop u, did u?
Luke was sitting downstairs at the shared computer in the living room. His mother was through in her hobby room, on the phone to another well-wisher; Alfie was upstairs in his bedroom, probably watching the news channels again.
Luke says: But we said we shouldn’t.
He remembered Mr Mahmood’s words.
Luke says: There could be information of a sensitive nature on there
Alice says: duuude
how u gonna know if u dont look
He sighed. Then said:
Luke says: siiiiiigh
From where he sat, Luke could see out and along the gravel drive to the main road through the village. The sun was low, and twilight was creeping through the lime trees. It made him think of Uncle Phil, cycling away after the takeaway and a Cobra beer too many.
Alice says: so you gonna?
Luke says: what i said
Alice says: ????
Luke says: siiiiigh
From the hobby room, he could hear the occasional distant mumble from his mother on the telephone. Still no sign of Alfie.
He opened the “delete this” folder and looked at the files. After a few seconds he picked one from next week. Tuesday... the day of his father’s funeral.
Another one. Need to keep on guard, but no details. Hate it when they do that. Am I supposed to guess? How do I even know what to look for?
Luke struggled to make sense of it. Alfie’s explanation was the best they’d managed so far: if their father was involved in national security, then he must have inside information about incidents before they happened.
Next he opened one from a few days before the Institute of Directors bombing.
Getting intense. They’re really out to get me. Dover was closest yet. Hate staying away but maybe that’s best way to keep the boys safe. So hard.
Luke stared at the words. This was the first hint that he and Alfie were involved in any way. How could they be at risk, unless it was just being close to their father that was dangerous, if he was being targeted for some reason?
Alice says: so wassup silent 1?
u reading them r u?
find anytihng?
Luke says: its all confusing
hard to make sense of it
its like he knew stuff - inside information about terrorist attacks and stuff
Alice says: what u fund
found i mean
Luke says: something about tuedsay
Alice says: funeral day... :-(
Luke says: he didnt have any info on that
an something about dover. said it was close. dont know what that means. i didnt know he was there when they had the riots.
The Dover riot had started when a crowd of protestors had blocked the roads because they claimed there was a ferry full of immigrants from eastern Europe in port. Riot police had tried to move them along and things had turned nasty. Some of the protestors had come armed...
Alice says: curiouser and curiouser
Luke says: said something about keeping the boys safe
Alice says: ??
Luke says: yeah
Alice says: u think u’re in some kinda risk?
what u gonna do? gonna tell alfie?
Luke says: yeah right
~
Before logging off, Luke opened one more file, the last on the list. It was dated from six years in the future. How could they have intelligence information about terrorist attacks that far ahead?
This file was longer than the others Luke had read, and its tone was very different.
I’ve searched all I can, through everything they’ve given me, and there’s no trace. I’m pretty sure I must be dead by now. Bit of a bummer, eh? The boys will be young men, but still so much ahead. I’m going to miss such a lot. Bummer, yeah.
What they have shown me of this near future is scary stuff, though. The riots and bombs... all that was nothing. Who would have thought we’d see tanks on the streets just to keep the peace? Curfews and no-go areas. Vigilante mobs with machine guns and machetes.
We’re never far from brutality, no matter how well we hide it with a veneer of civilisation.
This is what they’ve shown me.
This is what’s going to come.
This is what history shows will happen.