The Debt Collectors War

Chapter 93

Ellie glanced at Sameh. “Are we recording audio?” she said. “On the black box apps?”

Sameh nodded, but seemed a little puzzled. Probably because they usually just left the apps running, so it was fairly safe to assume they were now.

The apps were a substitute for live monitoring of their comms, software that sat on their tablets and constantly recorded environmental audio, and which the operations centre could access remotely, if she and Sameh died, to capture any last intel about what had happened. Usually, Ellie didn’t mind the apps running, because they were under her control, and could be deactivated when she wished, and were only remotely accessible when the ops centre lost their life-signs, anyway. At least in theory.

Usually she didn’t mind, but sometimes it seemed better to deactivate them. Mostly because of that remote access, and Ellie’s inability to be completely sure that the privacy controls built into company-supplied software couldn’t be overridden from the company headquarters.

“Switch them off,” Ellie said. “Then delete the recording files. Mine too.”

Sameh did, without comment. She probably thought there was about to be a massacre. This was an obvious first step, if they were about to do something truly awful, diverting drones and blanking comms, so she probably assumed that was why, and probably didn’t care.

That wasn’t why, though, although Ellie didn’t bother explaining. It wasn’t what they were about to do that Ellie didn’t want overheard, it was the recording files that had just been made.

Ellie waited. Sameh tapped at her tablet. She would be switching the app off on hers, and then remotely accessing Ellie’s to do the same.

“Done,” Sameh said.

“Why are your recorders off,” Terry said, nervously.

Ellie looked at him. “Not became of you.”

Terry opened his mouth.

“Quiet,” Ellie said. She tapped her comm, and said into it, “Could you connect me to whoever’s in charge of this operation. The person in Shanghai at the very top.”

“I can connect you to my supervisor,” the person in the operations centre said.

“That’s fine,” Ellie said. “Explain what I want.”

The operator must have. Another voice came on the line, and said, “You wish to speak to the person in overall command in Shanghai?”

“I do,” Ellie said.

“May I ask why?”

“Because I need to.”

“Ma’am, I need to give some reason…”

“I don’t know. Because I need to negotiate with that person directly.”

“We’ve been monitoring,” the supervisor said. “There’s been no sign of…”

“Just connect me,” Ellie said. “Or explain why you didn’t when this whole situation goes to shit.”

A hesitation, then, “Very well.”

Ellie waited. She looked around at the militia as she did. After a moment, a voice said, in Chinese, “Hello.”

“I think I’m working for you,” Ellie said.

“I think you are.”

“You have my daughter.”

There was no answer. A high-ranking corporate official probably wasn’t going to admit to kidnapping, even on a corporate communications system. Ellie realized as soon as she’d spoken.