Chapter 19

Almost a year had passed since Libby had last suffered a panic attack.

They’d plagued her through her early twenties before gradually tapering off as her thirties had loomed. When they’d reappeared and limited her tasks as an in-patient mental health nurse, her ex-fiancé William had insisted she told Occupational Health who’d matched her with a counsellor.

Dr Goodwin had suggested what Libby had already suspected: that they were a symptom of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. Now, witnessing Victor Patterson’s murder brought to the surface memories of both Monroe Street and her brother Nicky’s death.

The counselling sessions taught her mechanisms for when she sensed an attack looming. So, soon after her heart palpitations began in the inquest room, she pushed her chair back from the table, ignoring the commotion surrounding her and tried to keep herself steady despite the disorientation.

Next came the dizziness and underarms and chest sweats. She picked a blank wall to stare at and clear her mind.

Ride it out, she told herself, don’t run away from it, confront it head-on, it’s not going to kill you.

Libby had been advised that having someone with her during an episode might help to reassure her. But there was no one she placed her trust in

inside that room. The only person she had any faith in was just an image on a screen and who was facing much more life-threatening problems than hers. Gradually, Libby’s eyes left the blank wall and returned to Jude’s screen until the anxiety slowly drained from her body and her escalated heart rate decreased.

The seven remaining Passengers appeared afraid. If the Hacker could kill a disabled pensioner and war hero so casually, he could do the same to any of them.

There was so much shouting and talking over one another that Libby struggled to take in complete sentences, and could only pick up on a few random words and phrases. Sam kept repeating to his wife Heidi that he loved her and that they would be okay, but neither looked convinced.

Bilquis, the woman wearing the colourful hijab, wouldn’t give up hope that her telephone might just work, and kept pushing at buttons and trying to summon her operating system. Meanwhile Shabana didn’t appear to understand much of what was happening, only that it wasn’t good. Only Sofia was taking it all in her stride and kept smiling to the camera.

Jude was more concerned with putting someone else’s well-being above his own. Libby watched Jude reassure Claire, who was cleary distressed.

Listening to him trying to persuade her not to lose hope was proof her instinct about him the night they’d met was the right one. He was a good man, a man who cared for others. And in Libby’s experience, they were few and far between.

The Hacker’s voice cut through the chatter. ‘Now, Jack,’ he continued,

‘do I have your attention?’ But before he answered, Libby jumped in.

‘You didn’t have to do that,’ she began and rose from her chair. She steadied herself against the rim of the table, her legs still weak from the panic attack. ‘Victor didn’t deserve that, he was innocent.’

‘Well, someone has truly found their voice, haven’t they?’ the Hacker replied. ‘I have to disagree with you though. He wasn’t innocent. None of us are innocent.’

‘Why did you kill him? He’s done nothing to you.’

‘Miss Dixon, hush please,’ snapped Jack, glaring at her. ‘You are only making this worse.’

‘Worse? I’ve just watched a man blown to bits because you wouldn’t follow the Hacker’s instructions when you were told to! How could this get any worse?’

‘Let her speak. You’re not in charge of your kangaroo court now, Jack,’

the Hacker continued. ‘What’s on your mind, Libby?’

‘Victor was a war hero and had terminal cancer. What you did to him was completely unjust.’

‘I think the families of those men and women he killed in combat would disagree with you on both the “innocent” and “unjust” parts of your argument.’

‘Is that your best defence?’

‘I don’t have to defend myself, Libby. May I call you Libby? Now we are getting to know one another it feels much less formal than Miss Dixon.

Victor died for precisely the reason you have said – because Jack didn’t listen to me.’

‘Even if he had listened, you’d have found an excuse to kill one of them. You just wanted to prove a point.’

‘And what do you think that point is?’

‘That you are in charge.’

‘And did I get that across to you in an effective and suitable manner?’

‘Effective yes. Suitable? You must be kidding.’

‘Will you please stop trying to goad him!’ said Jack.

‘This might be an opportune moment to mention there are many more details about you that I also know, Jack,’ continued the Hacker. ‘Such as your medical records, home address, your credit card numbers, the call girls you hire, passwords, bank statements, mortgage deficits, the emails you’ve sent, the texts you’ve received and even where you invest the cash you don’t want the HM Revenues and Customs to find. When you scratch beneath the surface, it’s interesting to see where some of your investments have been made. And the best part about being the gatekeeper of all this knowledge? I get to impart it to an audience of millions. If you look carefully at the centre screen on the wall, you will note that everything I know about you, I’m now making public.’

On cue, Jack’s private information filled the screen along with links to download it.

‘Take that down!’ shouted Jack at the technicians around him. All scrambled to their keyboards, hitting buttons and trying to input keystrokes and instructions. Libby noted Jack staring wide-eyed back at the screen as the links remained in place. An anxious half-minute passed before he turned his head again. Libby had never seen anyone so close to exploding as Jack.

‘Well?’ he growled. ‘Why is that link still up?’

‘We can’t access it,’ replied one of Jack’s staff. ‘It’s impossible to triangulate.’

‘Then get the police or the National Cyber Crime Unit to do it!’

‘They’re patched in and they are doing everything they can but we can’t find the source.’

‘Jesus Fucking Christ!’ yelled Jack. ‘There must be someone who can help me?’

‘He is in our system,’ a technician replied. ‘It’ll take specialised programmers time to find him and recode it all. We don’t have the training or the security clearance.’

‘You’re all fucking useless!’ he bellowed and hurled his tablet towards them. It clipped one man’s shoulder then spiralled into the wall before landing on the floor, its screen shattering.

‘Someone has quite the temper, don’t they?’ mocked the Hacker. ‘Don’t forget, there are cameras watching your every move.’

Jack turned to look up at the screens and hesitated, as if weighing up the public’s potential perception of him with his need to act out his fury.

Reluctantly, he erred on the side of caution.

‘My system tells me that my links have already been downloaded almost fifteen thousand times,’ the Hacker added. ‘Quite incredible the reach we have these days, isn’t it? People as far away as Australia and Hong Kong are now using your credit cards to purchase goods.’

An on-screen counter revealed the number of shares and reposts rising by dozens each second.

‘It’s not too late to make any of this stop,’ Jack said, his tone becoming desperate. ‘Set the remaining Passengers free and just disappear back to where you came from. If you’re that clever, you’ll have covered your tracks so no one will find you.’

‘I’m sorry but we’ve gone too far for that to happen. Besides, isn’t there a little part of you that wants to see what I have planned next? I am sure that Libby is dying to know.’

His sudden attention startled her and she looked up towards Jude’s screen. ‘No, I’m not,’ she replied.

‘I understand. But unfortunately, if you thought witnessing Victor Patterson’s death was difficult, Libby, then I doubt that you are going to like what I’m about to ask you to do next.’