Local time – 5:55pm, Sunday 17th June, 2011.
Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
It was obvious to the occupants of the black four wheel drive that they had been extraordinarily lucky to have noticed the iPad registering the first Wifi connection. Josh explained that most Wifi connections had a range of about 100m, so if they hadn’t been travelling in the right most lane of the motorway, they would never have noticed it. Alex liked to think it was only Bernie’s help, somehow from the grave, which showed her the correct path. But now, the other connections were nowhere to be seen and the group was becoming frustrated to the point of anger.
‘Phil had slowly driven down the street, much to the interest of the men outside the factory, until Alex announced the connection was broken. He had then driven back in the other direction, passing back into the Wifi range, and out of it again without any other prompts appearing on the screen. The motorway edged the other side of the invisible boundary, and the last side produced no results either. They were now parked, just within the iPad connection, or as Alex liked to think of it, just inside Bernie’s bubble.
‘Josh, show me how to look at the list of connections again. Maybe that will help.’ He lent round in his seat and tapped on the iPad in her lap, bringing up a page that showed saved Wifi spots, with ready saved passwords. Everyone was quiet, giving Alex room to think.
‘Ok, like I said, these words are all familiar to me from Bernie’s life. But maybe there’s another reason he’s used them.’
‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know. The first one on the list is simple. Willowbridge. It’s the name of his house.’
‘How far is his house from the pub, Magdala?’ Alex could see immediately how smart Henry’s questions was.
‘It’s about a 15 -20 minute walk. Around a mile.’
‘And Magdala is second on the list?’
‘Yeah.’
‘So what if the first connection is Willowbridge, and it’s the exact same distance and direction from Magdala as the real Willowbridge and Magdala?’
‘That would make perfect sense,’ Alex said. Phil started the car and drove slowly forward. Alex brought up a Google map of London and typed in the directions from Bernie’s address to his favourite local pub. She turned the iPad in her hands, picturing herself walking with Bernie and Laura, along Hampstead’s beautiful tree lined streets. Henry slid across the seat until his hip and thigh met hers. He gently took the iPad from her and smiled. Even in the tense situation, she felt her insides melt.
‘Don’t twist it Alex. What is it with women twisting maps?’ Alex blushed.
‘I was just trying to picture the directions… ’
‘The map shows us fine. We have to go south east for one point three kilometres. If we’re right, the connection will be here.’ He put his finger on the map of Rawalpindi. Alex let him give directions to Phil, as he seemed completely sure of himself, seemingly able to imprint the map of Bernie’s local streets in his mind on the map of Rawalpindi open next to it.
There was no direct path to the location, and Phil was forced to slow down numerous times to find his way around a warren of back streets. When they got within two hundred meters of the street Henry had chosen, he asked Phil to slow down and then held the iPad out where he and Alex could see it. No one spoke as they waited for the iPad to find the connection. Suddenly there was a ping.
‘Willowbridge!’ Alex and Henry exclaimed in unison.
‘So we’ve found one, and two. We’ve proved the theory, so now we go back to Magdala. What’s number three?’ Henry minimised the maps on the screen and handed Alex back the iPad.
‘Hang on a sec. There’s something I noticed. When Magdala came up, the connection prompt said Magdala UD. But when you look at the connection in the list, it just says Magdala. Why do you think that is?’
‘Might be nothing,’ Henry replied.
‘But the reason I’m asking is that Willowbridge also had two letters after it, but only when it appeared on the screen. Not on the saved list. See...’ Henry looked at the list and shrugged.
‘What were the letters?’
‘KH. And Magdala had UD.’ Alex tapped the four letters into her notepad. The men were keen to move onto the next connection, and Alex felt like their car had become a steam train surging towards a station. She tapped in the directions to where she thought they should go next.
‘I think the next one has to be Arsenal’s stadium. Bernie loved Arsenal. The connection is called Gunners. That’s Arsenal’s nickname.’ She brought the map back up and typed directions from Magdala to the Emirates Stadium. It was west of Magdala just over five kilometres away. Henry again took over the directions, and they found themselves on a main road, where traffic was crawling. Alex looked at the list and Henry noticed her brow furrow.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘It’s the next one on the list. I’ve put the location in the search, but I think it looks like that takes us to the middle of a motorway. There’s no buildings. Look.’
‘What’s the location?’
‘The Freud Museum in Hampstead. It makes sense, because the description of the connection is Ego and Id. Bernie was fascinated by Freud, so it’s got to be right. Freud’s house was turned into a museum. See, it’s right here.’ Henry peered at the map for a few seconds.
‘We’ll have to try it out and see where it takes us. Let’s just make sure we’re right about Gunners first’.
The five kilometres took a painfully long time to cover, with the traffic getting increasingly clogged up. Henry eventually directed Phil off the main road, and they again found themselves on the back streets of Rawalpindi, where they were able to move faster. The iPad pinged before Phil had a chance to slow down. The connection must have been hidden in one of the old shops that sat in front of them, forming a crowded strip of foot traffic, busy at the end of a working day. They wasted no time in discussing exactly how Bernie managed to set this up. Or who might have helped him. Alex noticed again that two letters appeared with ‘Gunners’ when the connection pinged on the screen. This time the letters were A and D. She added them to the others on her notepad.
‘Ok, three down, two to go. We’re so close, I can’t believe this is working!’
Alex no longer felt scared to be in Pakistan. With Bernie’s guidance, there was no need to make themselves any more conspicuous than a random hire car winding around the city streets. She had no idea what they would do once they found Bernie’s hidden weapon. But at that moment she didn’t care. Bernie had been killed to stop him finishing this assignment. The best way for them to avenge his death was to finish it for him. And finish the Bilderbergers’ plans in the process.