London Wild (60 page)

‘The papers?’ Sult
asked. ‘I mean, everything’s sorted; she won’t be missed?’

‘The doctor is organizing everything.’

‘That’s good,’ Sult told him. ‘I’ll see you early tomorrow, then. The only question remaining is how we should do this.’

‘Johnson doesn’t want to see anyone with you
. If you aren’t alone he won’t stop, so be alone. I’d suggest you get Joseph to drop you off en route and pick both you and Amba up after the exchange has been made. If we don’t see you at all, we won’t be stopping either, so if you can’t raise the money, don’t worry about trying to get in touch.’

‘Okay,’ agreed Sult, ‘I can arrange all that.’

‘And you must have the money with you,’ Fredrick insisted. ‘We aren’t going to be making any exchange unless you can pay for her on the spot. You should disappear after the exchange until we’re sure everything went according to plan.’

‘I think we were planning to anyway,’ Sult put in.

‘Good,’ Fredrick commented.

‘It’s very short notice
, though,’ Sult said. The image of Fredrick reappeared on the screen but was still ghosting. ‘What if we can get the money but can’t raise it in time?’

‘Then the deal is off,’ Fredrick said calmly
. ‘I’m sorry, but that’s how it has to be.’

‘I’ll see what we can do
, then,’ Sult replied.

‘Okay,’ Fredrick continued, ‘there is a pair of old disused cottages
, buildings that were listed by the national trust so they weren’t allowed to pull them down when the forest was replanted. They overlook a bend in the road between the Cattery and… ’

‘I know them,’ Sult interrupted.

‘Good,’ said Fredrick. ‘We stop, make the swap, and part. You get Amba, we get a million each, and hopefully no one else is any the wiser.’

‘Good,’ said Sult. ‘What if they keep an eye on you via satellite?’

‘Then we got lost for a few minutes,’ Fredrick commented, his images shrugging. ‘That’s part of what you’re paying us for.’

‘Good,’ Sult repeated, ‘good, good.’

‘You seem a little preoccupied,’ Fredrick sought.

‘Just this damn
Game
,’ Sult replied after a moment’s hesitation. ‘I lost my character today, but they cheated. I was in my escape pod when they took me out. To say I’m angry would be a bit of an understatement. I’m thinking of complaining to the people that run it.’

‘Hmm
…’ Fredrick commented. His face was still out of sync with his voice, but they were approaching congruity. ‘Sounds like the
Forces of Bryan.
’

‘That’s right,’ Sult replied
, now seeming somehow more animated. ‘How’d you know?’

‘Dirty tricks are their trademark
,’ Fredrick explained. ‘According to the news article I saw a couple of weeks back, the
Forces of Bryan
is owned by an American businessman called Bryan Harley. He also owns a chain of supermarkets called
Bryanland
. It seems that as one of the schemes he uses to bring in customers, he offers those that play
The Game
and join his
clan
one point towards their next rank for every ten they spend in his shops, exchangeable in lots of five hundred, of course. So long as he doesn’t go over his quotas, this is considered legal within the framework of
The Game,
but most people think of it as a rather shoddy way to promote his own business while at the same time attract people to his
clan
.’

‘So he’s using
The Game
to increase his sales?’ Sult sounded disgusted. ‘I should definitely let the people that run
The Game
know.’

‘There’s no point,’ Fredrick told him
. ‘If they don’t know they must be blind to what’s happening in their own game. The suggestion was that Bryan isn’t actually breaking any of the rules of
The Game
; he’s merely taking advantage of certain loopholes. There was also the suggestion that he might’ve paid a little extra to those that run
The Game
for them to turn a blind eye to his actions.’

‘This sort of thing makes me mad,’ Sult growled.

‘I know, I know,’ Fredrick commented. ‘Look, I can’t stay and chat any longer. We’ll see you tomorrow, but I have to get back to duty.’

‘Okay
, Fred,’ Sult replied, ‘thanks for the info. I’ll get in touch with Joseph straight away; we might need as much time as we can get to gather the money.’

Naming everything after himself, Sult thought as he watched the screen go blank, that Bryan Harley must have one hell of an ego. He waited until the link with Fredrick had been totally disconnected and then told the computer, ‘
Ok, put me through to Joseph.’

‘Joseph who?’
the computer asked.

‘Joseph Carnes,’ Sult pressed angrily, ‘the only Joseph you should have in my phone book.’

The computer ignored Sult’s tone and put the call through almost instantly.

Then there was a bit of a wait
; Joseph had obviously been too busy to get to the link on his end immediately.

‘Hello,’ came a questioning voice a couple of minutes later
. No picture accompanied it.

‘Joseph, this is Sult,’ Sult said.

Joseph’s face appeared on the screen. He was disguised as he normally was and was probably just being cautious. Considering the current vendetta that seemed to be being waged against his people, Sult couldn’t really blame him. ‘Good to see you, what’s the news?’

‘We’re to go ahead for tomorrow. Can you collect Judith and come round tonight so I can tell you what we’re going to need to do
?’

‘That’s good,’
said Joseph, his face seeming greatly relieved, ‘I miss her. Did they say how much?’

‘They want three million!’ Sult told him.

‘Damn,’ Joseph replied. ‘Well, it’s good of you to help. It’s a hell of a lot, but I think I might be able to get help from a few friends. We may need a second plan if I can’t raise the money.’

Sult shook his head
and said, ‘I’m not going to backstab a friend of mine over this. If we can’t get the money, then the deal’s off and you’ll just have to live with it.’

Joseph seemed about to protest, but then his expression changed and he nodded
. ‘Okay, I’ll do what I can. Rescuing one of our own must be worth something to those friends of mine.’

‘Indeed,’ Sult agreed
. He could guess what friends Joseph meant. ‘See you later.’

‘See you soon,’ Joseph confirmed.

Day Six

Rescue

The Elite Guard was originally known as the Elite Cattery Guard back when their duties consisted only of protecting the Cattery from all sorts of perceived dangers. In recent years their duties have extended to encompass all things Herbaht
-related.

Money

Every night since Amba had been taken away from him had been painful to get through. Reaching across to the far side of the bed and then finding it vacant only reminded Jhosatl even more of his loss. This night was no different. Jhosatl had gotten very little sleep; so many things were vying for attention in his mind, and every one of them insisted on keeping him awake. There were a number of things he had to do tomorrow, culminating in the rescue of his wife, knowing he wouldn’t be there to actually influence the outcome.

Then there was something he needed to do before he would go to meet Judith and Sult. He didn’t foresee any problems with this small errand, but it did require him to be up very early in order to get it done.

In the end he found himself just looking at the clock, watching the luminous holographic numbers move slowly but effortlessly towards the alarm he had set for three in the morning. No, it was no good. He couldn’t sleep, and at a quarter past two he got up and stopped the alarm with a fatalistic sigh. Since he couldn’t sleep, he might as well get ready to go out. He would get his morning mission over with that much sooner.

Although his mind refused to allow him to sleep, his body seemed to have other ideas
, and though it cooperated as he headed to the bathroom, it did so reluctantly and he stumbled a couple of times before he reached the doorway. Perhaps a quick cold shower would help to wake him up. How could someone feel so tired and yet be totally unable to sleep?

Once his shower was over, and wearing no more than a towel
, he headed into the kitchen via the living room, turning on all the lights as he went. First he poured out a glass of water and with it took a pill to replace his body’s need for whatever chemical would usually be gained by the eating of human meat.

He considered breakfast
, but it was really too early in the morning to be worrying about such things. Maybe he’d get the chance to grab a take-away somewhere before he called round on Judith. 

He started to head back to the bedroom so he could get dressed. On the way, in order to ensure he didn’t forget to take
the remainder of the pills with him, he placed them on his dining table in the living room, next to a large envelope containing the money that Judith, Sult, and he had been able to raise for the exchange. There was three quarters of a million in there, perhaps a hundred notes of various denominations, but only about a quarter of the sum they needed to free Amba. Oh, how he missed her.

A tear came to his eye as he thought of her.
They’ll get her free soon
, he assured himself as he reached the bedroom and started to dress. Judith and Sult were good friends. He wouldn’t have gotten this far without them, and what was more, they were herd. Jhosatl considered himself blessed to have such friends and at the same time cursed because there was only one way he could think of to make up the deficit between what the three of them had been able to raise and the sum they needed to buy her back. What he had to do felt like a betrayal of his friends’ trust, but Amba was most important.

‘I think I can get the rest of the money from my people
once I tell them what it’s for,’ Jhosatl had said the previous night when they had counted the money and realized just how short they were of their target. However, he knew well that there would be no chance of them even considering giving him the required sum just to rescue one prisoner. Perhaps if he could buy the freedom of everyone in the Cattery, they might be interested, but not just one female, especially as Jhosatl and Amba’s history with Herbaht society up until her capture hadn’t been all that prolific. No, he wouldn’t get the money that way, but another option was open to him: he could use the three quarters of a million to purchase three million counterfeit notes.

He hoped the tribe forger was as good as reputation claimed. Currency had so many safeguards that copying
it properly could be quite a chore. Most counterfeiters tended to not bother with all the fiddly little details in the hope that those who took the notes wouldn’t notice until it was too late. Herbaht forgers were among the best because their lives might depend on those details, but on the downside, they weren’t always able to get the best equipment.

He would have to get the notes and hope they would be good enough until Amba was free. Amba was all-important, even if he had to alienate his herd friends to rescue her. The fact that the
Elite Guard tended to be more observant than most daunted him a little, but he really had no choice in the matter. Without Amba there was no point continuing.

Dressed and ready to leave
, he had one final look around the house. He didn’t know what the immediate future might hold in store, but he was pretty sure he wouldn’t get the chance to return to his home for a while. He might never return here. He wanted to be certain he left nothing important behind. Finally confident that he had everything he intended to take either on his person or already packed in the car the previous night, he grabbed the envelope and pills off the table and ventured out into the night. Yet a niggling little feeling still bothered him that he must have forgotten something, no matter how well he had checked beforehand.

The regional headquarters was in a large building that was usually used as a conference center for a large, privately owned company. The company, though, was just a front, and like the conference building, its owners were Herbaht. In order to keep up appearances, the building was let out once in a while to other companies and even occasionally to wedding receptions, and on these occasions the leaders would warn their known members that the headquarters itself was effectively closed for the days in question. A large ‘Keep off the grass’ sign was planted by the main entrance gates, a recognized signal to warn anyone who hadn’t gotten the message through official channels not to come in that day. Casual visitors would be the only ones not fully aware of the situation, but a similar dual disposition surrounded many of the other regional headquarters in the city, and it would be unwise of the casual visitor not to be prepared for such happenstance.