Strangled Silence (13 page)

'Before the shipment arrives in Sinnostan?'
persisted. 'We don't know where
he is. We don't know if he's going to act against us. We
don't know if he's acting alone or with others. Your
people haven't found anything useful at all, have they?'

-
bit back an angry reply.
He knew she cared nothing for his irritation. For
her, emotions were phenomena to be observed and
studied and nothing more. He and
exchanged looks. They had grown used to her
behaviour, but it still galled them at times. There
could be nothing more aggravating on this earth
than a genius with no empathy and no social skills;
someone whose own work was exemplary and who
had no compunction in pointing out the flaws in
everybody else's. She had no idea – and little interest
in – how much effort it took to ensure her work
remained the stuff of science-fiction mythology.

'We'll find him,' he said again.

'I hope you do,' she told him.

'All right,'
cut into the argument with
his characteristically brusque manner. 'What's next?'

'I'm unhappy with the level of rejections,'
said. 'The more subjects I have
to work with, the more I can narrow down the
imperfections in the process.'

'We don't have a limitless supply,'
informed her sternly. 'Our sole purpose in all this is
to protect the nation – not to provide you with all
the human test subjects your heart desires. Besides,
as
-
pointed out, we want to
avoid patterns that are too easy to spot – and an
escalation in hostilities would be more than the
public would stand at the moment. This conflict is
becoming unpopular enough as it is. You'll just have
to improve your success rate.'

'I thought the purpose of my work was to
eliminate hostilities altogether,' the doctor replied
tartly.

'They said the same thing about the atomic
bomb,'
-
muttered drily.

Tariq normally remembered to knock before
walking into his dad's study, but his mind was
still buzzing on finishing
Tech-Shot Extreme
. He
stopped in his tracks when he found his father on a
prayer mat, performing
salat
. Tariq felt awkward for
a moment, as if he had walked in to find his dad in
his underwear.

Martin lifted his head up from the
sajjada
, his
characteristically benign expression somewhat
dulled, as if he were waking gently from a sleep.

'What's up?' he asked. 'From the look on your
face, you'd think I had two heads or something.'

'No . . . it's just . . . it's nothing,' Tariq stuttered.
'I just didn't know you, eh . . . you still prayed,
that's all.'

'Try looking away from the screen from time
to time,' Martin replied, then added in a more
sheepish tone as he glanced at the Qur'an lying
open on his desk: 'Actually, I haven't done much
lately – but I should. And it still helps when times
are trying.'

Tariq nodded, but didn't say anything. He
knew that times tended to be at their most trying
when his parents were having one of their bust-ups.
Martin expected Helena to stay at home more, now
that she was getting older, but she was having none
of it. For all his alpha-male tendencies, Martin
always gave in to his wife's stubbornness. She had
made it clear that she wouldn't convert to Islam
when they married and she had been winning most
of the arguments ever since. Tariq thought his dad
could be a bit of a wuss sometimes.

He wondered sometimes if his father had lost
his edge after giving up active service and becoming
a 'spokesman'. Tariq suspected that Martin
would always be a bit embarrassed about it. The
mates he had served with – all of whom ran their
own units now – certainly took the piss out of him
from time to time. But then, Martin earned more
money . . . and he was still married, which was
more than could be said for any of them.

Anyway, Tariq hadn't noticed any 'domestic'
problems recently. That said, the folks kept their
disagreements to themselves for the most part.

There were times when Tariq resorted to
prayer too. Not that he'd ever admit to it, but it was
hard to give up the habit.

'Listen, could you give me a lift down to Renta-a-Vision?'
he asked. '
Tech-Shot Mutant
is out and I
just finished
Extreme
. Darren sent me some shortcuts
so I can get straight onto the level with the
zombie elephants.'

'Cool!' Martin said, doing his best impression
of gawky teenage enthusiasm. When it met with
Tariq's effortless look of disdain, he tried another
tack: 'I'm off down to the range. Why don't you
come along? Do some real shooting for a change.'

Tariq had been going to the practice range for
over a year now and though firing his father's automatic
still hadn't lost its thrill, paper targets just
couldn't compete with cutting-edge graphics. He
was already a better shot than Amina, even though
she had started even younger than he had, what
with being Daddy's little pet. Tariq put that down
to his on-screen accuracy.

It made him think of
MindFeed
. With the
army in school, he wondered how long it would be
before the kids were training with real weapons.
The government was always going on about how
people had to be ready to defend themselves against
the terrorist threat.

'Well?' his dad prompted him. 'How about it?'

'Do they have zombie elephants?' he asked.

'They
swore
to me they were getting them in
next week. Big rotting corpses with mad eyes and
sticky-outy ribs and ears like . . . like sheets of
rancid meat hanging off them. But they can't
guarantee they'll be halal.'

'Gross. Maybe next week, then,' Tariq responded.'
So . . . ? Can I get that lift or what?'

His father tried not to look disappointed.

'It's a fifteen-minute walk and it's a lovely
evening. You could do with the exercise . . . not to
mention a bit of fresh air. When was the last time
you went for a run, or even a walk for that
matter?'

'Right,' Tariq said, trying hard not to grit his
teeth.'How about you let
me
decide how I'm going
to misspend my youth? That way, you can still give
me a lift down to the shop where I can rent another
violent PlayStation game,
and
have the satisfaction
of telling me you told me so ten years from
now.'

'How about you do without lifts to Rent-a-Vision
for the rest of your misspent youth?'

Tariq went to slam the door, but stopped. He
tried to quell the unreasonable anger rising inside
him. His lips were pressed tightly together, his hand
gripping the door handle like a claw. It was stupid.
He and his father did this a lot now, and he was disappointed
at how easily they had slipped into the
whole teenager-versus-parent thing. He liked his
father. In fact, if he were pressed, he would have to
admit that he thought his dad was cool. His friends
had always thought so. So how did they always
ended up sniping at each other like this?

'I'm sorry, Dad.'

'Me too,' Martin said, nodding.

There was a long pause while they each waited
for the other to speak next.

'So,' Tariq relented, 'we still on for going to
the range?'

His father did not smile, but his expression
warmed up.

'Yeah, we can shoot guns and bond like men.
Maybe I'll call Geoff and tell him to bring down his
L85A1 so we can lay down some heavier fire.
Could even go out into the countryside, smoke
some cigars and shoot us some dairy cows.'

'Cool.'

Chi followed Amina up the stairs and found Ivor
McMorris waiting with his door open. There was a
look of resolute bitterness on his face.

Amina made the introductions as they were
ushered inside.

'We're sorry about your friend,' she said softly.
'Had he . . . had he been very unhappy?'

Ivor said nothing for a moment, and then
shook his head as if trying to clear the thoughts
from his mind.

'It wasn't suicide,' he said firmly.

Ben Considine was dead. His body had been
found on Beckford Strand the day before, at the
mouth of the River Sliney. There was an old iron
footbridge that crossed the river further upstream,
at its narrowest point, where the currents were
strongest. It was known as Suicide Bridge, and
Beckford Strand – where the river's victims often
washed up – as Suicide Beach. There were few
places in the country more popular with those who
had given up hope.

Ben's death had warranted a small article in the
Chronicle
, but only because he had friends in the
press. Ivor had asked Amina to come over as soon as
he'd seen it; she thought it was as good a time as any
for him to meet Chi.

'Ben wasn't ready to kill himself,' Ivor insisted.
'It may have been on his mind – he was dealing
with a lot of bad stuff – but I'm sure he had business
to see to first.' He took a shuddering breath. 'I heard
it in his voice, you know . . . I thought I'd get to
talk to him . . .'

His voice cracked and he fell silent, looking
faintly embarrassed by this hint of grief. Amina put
her hand on his, suppressing the urge to offer words
of comfort. Sometimes it was better to just be there,
without making your presence felt; to let a person
find their own time to talk. Ivor savoured the
contact, not wanting to move his hand away from
hers. Was there something more than pity there?
Again, he reminded himself: she was in it for the
story. Don't let yourself think you have a chance
here. It's just sympathy, nothing more.

It was still a moment worth holding onto . . .
But Chi had too much to say.

'He's not the first,' he blurted out, much to
Amina's annoyance. 'Your friend – he's just the latest
in a string of suspicious deaths.'

'Maybe we should give it a minute—' Amina
started to say, but Ivor interrupted her:

'No, it's OK. Let him talk. I'll just sit here
brooding otherwise. I have too much time to think
as it is.'

Chi nodded and collected himself a bit,
belatedly conscious of the solemn mood.

'I've been tracking down Sinnostan veterans
over the last two years,' he told them, opening his
laptop case and booting up the computer.
'Particularly ones who've been vocal against the
war, or who've been reported to be suffering posttraumatic
stress.'

'How would you find that out?' Ivor asked. 'We
don't go round wearing labels.'

'Eh . . . actually you do – in a manner of
speaking.' Chi gave a hesitant chuckle. 'It's in your
medical records.'

'Jesus, you hack into our medical records?' Ivor
exclaimed. 'That's as personal as it gets, man. How
the hell do you—'

'No, no.' Chi raised his hands in defence. 'I have
some
principles, you know. But there are friends of
mine who don't.
They
hack into medical databases
and we . . . well, we trade information. Ever since
the government set up the National Database –
combining our medical, tax, criminal records and
all that – it's a piece of cake. You hack into a local
council office and you've got access to information,
like, anywhere in the country if you can pinch a
few passwords. Plant a program on their system that
records keystrokes and feeds them back to you and
you're in. And given the monkeys they've got
running tech support for these places, it's easy
to . . .'

He noticed that they were staring at him.

'Right. Anyway. What I'm getting at is that
your whole life is there for anybody who really
wants to see it, and that includes your medical
records. So I got the names of all the veterans who'd
come out bitter, twisted and raising a racket and
you know what I found?'

Chi leaned in closer to them, but then stopped,
his mouth still hanging open. To think he'd almost
forgotten – he had taken no precautions. Standing
up, he took his bugfinder from his pocket and
started combing the room for signals. He wasn't
happy with what he found. Hoping he hadn't
already said too much, he motioned to the others
and opened the front door, watching the readout
on the bugfinder. He ushered them up two flights
of stairs to the landing in the floor above and then
gathered them close, speaking in a hushed voice:

'Ivor, your place is crawling with surveillance.
I counted, like, six devices at least. Chances are I
didn't even find them all. You need to take
measures, man. I'll come back with some gear
tomorrow.'

Amina maintained a sceptical expression, but
Ivor looked neither surprised nor frightened.

'Look, get on with it,' Amina urged Chi
impatiently. 'Tell him about the soldiers.'

'Yeah, well I started seeing some interesting
patterns,' Chi said, still whispering. 'As in, scarycoincidence
type stuff. Guys would come home
from Sinnostan with PTS symptoms and start
mouthing off, demanding investigations into what
had happened to them . . . and then they'd stop.
Like, really clam up. One minute they're, like,
fanatical rebels, the next there's not a peep out
of them. Others . . . well, others just plain
died
.
Nothing overly suspicious: a house fire here, a road
traffic accident there, men having heart attacks
despite being in peak physical fitness, a few drug
overdoses.

'And at least four of them,' he continued,
watching Ivor's face, 'ended up on Suicide Beach.'

He paused for effect, letting this dramatic
information sink in.

'OK,' Ivor said cautiously. 'But this could be
nothing. This is how conspiracies get started: you
pull out random bits of information, dump the
ordinary, obvious explanations and start making
connections that aren't there. How do you know
these weren't all just normal deaths?'

Amina drew a breath to say something but
didn't get it out in time.

'UFOs,' Chi replied grimly. 'A large proportion
of these men reported seeing a UFO not long
before their deaths.'

'Riiiight.' Ivor leaned back, glancing at Amina.

'OK, OK.' Chi held his hands up again. 'Let's
overlook my geeky obsession with the paranormal
for the moment, all right? You reckon something's
been done to you, but you don't know what. I'm
telling you there's others out there suffering from
the same symptoms. You want to know more, yeah?
Well so do I.'

Ivor regarded him for a minute, a guarded
expression on his face. Then he relaxed and nodded.
Chi gave them both a brief smile, but he could feel
his heart pounding in his chest. Finally, he had some
allies who didn't fall into the typical abduction-nut
category. He couldn't tell them everything yet – not
until he had their trust and he was sure they were
committed. His hands were in his pockets. The
fingers of his right hand fidgeted, playing with a
metal disc about five centimetres across. He itched
to show it to them, desperate to test it on Ivor, but
it was too soon. There would be time yet.