The Debt Collectors War

Chapter 88

Ellie watched the martyrdom video for a while, then stopped it and emailed it to the operations centre. The video wasn’t useful. The kid was just making a speech about injustice and suffering. He wasn’t actually saying anything about what he planned to do. The ops centre could go over the video, and analyze it for hidden sounds and voice stress and room echoes and all the rest, and then pick through everything else on the same server, too. They would do their analysis, and probably find something useful in the end, but sometimes it was easier just to ask what you needed to know.

“Was this made here?” Ellie said.

Terry and the tech officer both nodded.

“Actually here? In this compound?”

“Yes,” Terry said.

“And it is what I think it is?” Ellie said. “He’s going to do something dramatic? To make some kind of point?”

Terry nodded again.

“But I suppose you don’t know what?” Ellie said.

Terry seemed relieved. “No.”

“Even if I have you interrogated? Interrogated properly, I mean, by specialists, for weeks?”

“We still wouldn’t, no.”

“Because you have good operational security,” Ellie said, wearily. “Of course.”

It wasn’t really a question, but Terry nodded anyway.

Ellie sighed. It had been a mistake to let movies become too specific and detailed, she thought, because it just gave people ideas. Now everyone knew about compartmentalization and information leakage. Now everyone could run an insurgent cell out of their bedroom.

She thought for a moment. “Who does know?” she said. “About the operation?”

“Our group in Los Angeles. The one we sent the boy to.”

“So you’re just a meeting point? A conduit? That’s all?”

Terry nodded. “We do our part as we’re needed.”

Ellie thought about that. She wondered whether to believe it. It would make sense, she supposed, that Terry’s group, as the first point of contact, and so also the most likely to be captured and interrogated, would know nothing. It was how any sensible security scheme would be organized.

“All right,” Ellie said. “I think I believe you. But why here? Why this town? This is the middle of nowhere.”

Terry seemed puzzled. “Well, because we’re based here…”

“No, why make you the point of contact? Why have him come here at all? Why not just send him direct to Los Angeles?”

Terry looked almost embarrassed. He cleared his throat. “Operational security.”

Ellie sighed again. “Of course.”

“That was why,” Terry said, a little defensively. “We wanted to check he was sincere before he met everyone. Before he could identity any of us. We wanted to do it somewhere secure, not on the coasts or near borders, not near your people. And we’re on the railroad, here, too. We’re part of the railroad, and can patch him into it from here.”

Ellie nodded. Her briefing files had mentioned the railroad. It was an underground debtor-hiding network that had spread throughout Měi-guó, which helped give debtors new identities and moved them away from areas where they were being actively sought. Of course Terry’s group was part of the railroad, and of course the militia had needed to run security checks on their new asset and make sure he wasn’t an infiltrator.

“So there’s a plan,” Ellie said. “But one you know nothing about?”

Terry nodded.

“Absolutely nothing?” Ellie said.

“Nothing.”

Ellie wanted to sigh again.