Strangled Silence (15 page)

'But the letter was a hoax, wasn't it?' Amina
pointed out.

'Only one of many,' Sykes replied. 'The
National News
got one too, as well as a number of
MPs. It'll all be coming in over the wire as we
speak. But we think this may have been a dry run.
They want to see how we're going to react.'

'Oh,' Amina said, wondering why he was
telling her so much.

Counter Terrorism Command only gave out
information when it suited them. If they were talking
openly about this Shang character, then he had
to be on the terrorist watch list. She made a mental
note to check him out. The country was suffering
continuous terrorist alerts, seeding a near-constant
atmosphere of fear, particularly in the cities. Any
threat of attack was always guaranteed to make the
headlines but, like most people, she had never made
any attempt to put faces to the source of that fear.
After today, she would start paying more attention.

First, though, she needed to start going through
the paper's archives in search of articles on
Sinnostan. She would be meeting Ivor and Chi this
evening, and she hadn't yet made any headway on
her mental-health enquiries. Amina was desperate
to be taken seriously as a journalist and it was vital
that the two young men she was working with did
not outshine her. She had to show them that she
was a force to be reckoned with.

'Amina, can you make me a coffee?' one of the
editors asked as he walked past her. 'I'll be in my
office. Decaf latte with two sugars, yeah?'

Chi felt like his guts were digesting broken glass.
Gierek had only hit him three times, but the guy
had hands like lump hammers and the blows had a
peculiar penetrating quality that Chi was sure had
sent shockwaves all the way through to his spine.
The rope around his ankles was biting into
his flesh and he thought he could feel the joints
dislocating under his weight. Ankles were made
to be stood on, not hung from. His head
throbbed unbearably. His charcoal trench coat hung
down over him like the wings of a misshapen
bat.

'Ahh . . . ahh,' he gasped. 'I . . . Was just coming
back to you on that, man . . . Gierek. I didn't even
realize I had it until a few days ag—'Another punch
to his abdomen stopped him dead. He moaned and
coughed painfully.

'You stole my badge. I want it back. NOW,
numb-nuts!'

Gierek's mix of Polish and north London
accents was strong enough to make him sound like
a ham actor playing a Cold War bad guy. He had
failed to get into no less than three armies (Polish,
US and British) on mental-health grounds, but had
nevertheless embraced military living with gusto –
right down to his drill-sergeant dialogue.

'Fine,' Chi grunted. 'Happy to oblige. If you
could just cut me down—'

'You get down when I say you can, you pissblooded
bottom-feeding crackerjack! WHERE'S
MY BADGE?'

Chi would have pointed out that Gierek had
originally said he wouldn't ask twice, but it didn't
seem like a good idea just then. In Chi's view, the
man was overreacting wildly to his theft of
the badge in question. Granted, it was the one piece
of evidence that Gierek possessed to prove he
wasn't going mad, but it wasn't actually any good to
him unless he could figure out how it worked.
Which was why Chi had taken it – without
permission from its owner.

'It's back at my place,' Chi wheezed. 'I'll take
you there.'

Gierek cut the rope and Chi dropped to the
floor, all his weight coming down on his right
shoulder and back. He cried out again but decided
against further protest, waiting while the Pole cut
the duct tape from his ankles.

Nexus was sitting miserably in a chair nearby.
There had been no need for Gierek to tie him up.
The maniac had simply threatened to smash Nex's
computer gear if he made any funny moves. Nex sat
there like a meek kitten, watching his friend get
pummelled. Chi glowered at him. There was little
that sixty kilos of computer nerd could do against a
survival nut twice his size, but he could have made
an
effort
.

Nex's place had once been a sweatshop where
illegal immigrant workers created fake, gaily
coloured designer-label garments. Despite some
renovating, it still had a seedy quality to it. Nex had
inherited the building when his father was
convicted of people trafficking.

He was now intent on healing his karma by
helping the needy of the world fight government
corruption, particularly in the form of dark,
shadowy agencies that operated beyond the law.
The concrete walls of the workshop were plastered
with papers, photos and cuttings from his various
investigations, along with posters of indie bands
and a tricked-out synthesizer with an intimidating
sound set-up. One corner of the room was filled with
a state-of-the-art computer system that made Chi's
look like a ZX Spectrum. The rain could be heard
rattling on the metal roof above them; the yellowing
perspex skylights gave out onto a mottled sky.

'We're goin' to get that badge, you puckered-up
lily-livered ass leech,' Gierek barked. 'And if you try
anything stupid, I'll hit you so hard your whole
family'll die!'

He checked that Chi's hands were still tied
firmly behind his back, and then went to open the
door at the top of the stairs. Chi saw Nexus lean
over and press a button on his keyboard. As Gierek's
hand grabbed the door handle, his whole body
went rigid and a strangled hissing noise burst from
between his gritted teeth. He let go of the handle
and collapsed to the floor.

'You electrified the door handle?' Chi asked in
amazement. 'How long's it been like that? You never
told me!'

'Can't take chances.' Nexus shrugged as he
walked over to Gierek's unconscious body and
checked for a pulse. 'He'll live. Sorry about that,
man. Nutter nailed me as I was coming back in
from the shops. Made me call you up and get you
over here and then kept a knife jammed against my
arsehole when I went to answer the door. I couldn't
do anything until his attention was focused on you.'

'Took your time,' Chi muttered miserably. 'You
gonna untie me or what?'

'He really did a number on you, didn't he?'
Nex said as he sliced the tape off Chi's wrists with
a box-cutter. 'Here, help me get him taped up and
then we can put him somewhere safe until we
figure out what to do with him. That cupboard over
there should hold him.'

Once they had the Pole bound up and locked
in the metal cabinet, they relaxed. He was starting
to wake up and they listened anxiously as powerful
blows thudded against the cupboard's aluminium
walls. Enraged screams unleashed strings of Polish
swear words.

'We can't keep him in there for ever,' Chi
commented. 'And now he knows where you live.'

'I'm moving tomorrow,' Nex declared. 'I'll
move to bloody Thailand if I have to.'

Chi looked at the cabinet shaking with each
blow.

'May not be far enough,' he said.

Ivor found Chi's house without too much trouble,
but there was no answer when he rang the front
doorbell. The rain had stopped, so he sat down on
the polished granite step of the porch to wait. It was
a sprawling, high-class residence in a wealthy
neighbourhood, but he did not feel safe. He was
sure he had been followed; there had been fleeting
glimpses of people looking away as he glanced at
them, reflected figures in shop windows that
changed direction just as he did and, more than
anything, the shivery, instinctive sense of being
watched. His fingers went up to his glass eye and he
remembered the warning left in chalk on the
pavement.

Amina showed up not long after and it felt
good to have someone there with him. He
wondered if she noticed how he stared at her, but
then decided she was probably used to it. You
couldn't look that good and not be used to turning
heads. He had no doubt the watchers would be
getting an eyeful too. She was in a black trouser suit
with a deep blue shirt and her long black hair hung
loose, draped over one shoulder. She smiled at him.

Ivor was abruptly conscious of how he himself
was dressed. Back in the day, he had been a sharp
dresser, but ever since leaving the army he rarely
tried harder than hiking boots, jeans and a T-shirt or
baggy sweater. Maybe he should put some more
effort in.

'Hi!' she said, and he stood up as she stepped
into the porch. 'He not home then?'

'Nope. Not unless he's locked himself in his
safe-room or something.'

'Yeah. If I get much more paranoid, I'm going
to need one of those myself,' she chuckled.

And just as she said it, a man walked past along
the road. He was dressed in a casual jacket and
cords, and as he passed, he glanced once up at the
house. Ivor tensed, his hands clenching in fists.
Amina saw his reaction and turned to look. The
man disappeared behind the willow trees overhanging
the garden wall.

'Did you see it?' Ivor muttered through tight
jaws. 'Did you see his face?'

'I only just caught his back as he was walking
away,' she told him. 'Why? What was wrong?'

'It was one of them,' he hissed. 'His face was
gone . . . smudged like . . . like he was a painting
and somebody'd rubbed their thumb across his
whole face. There was nothing there!'

Amina took off at a run down the driveway,
stumbling to a stop at the gate. But the guy was
gone. She came back up, a look of concern on her
face.

'You think they're watching us?' she asked.

'They're always watching,' he replied.

He noticed she was looking uncomfortable; he
couldn't be sure if it was because of the surveillance
or the fact that he had apparently seen a man with
no face. Chi appeared a few moments later. He was
looking decidedly uneasy and was sporting a
massive bruise around his left eye.

'Jesus, what happened to you?' Ivor asked.

Chi waved the question away, unlocking the
door, disarming the intruder alarm and ushering
them inside. He led them down to his study and
quickly scanned the room for surveillance. His cat
came in, sitting at the door, licking her crotch and
gazing at them occasionally as if daring them to
judge her. Chi picked the cat up and put her on his
lap, stroking her as if he needed to calm his nerves.

He wouldn't say who had beaten him up, so
Amina went ahead and told them about the anthrax
scare at the newspaper.

'I saw it on the news,' Ivor told her when she
was finished. 'Two newspapers, BBC Television
Centre and four MPs. They were all fakes – the
letters, I mean, not the MPs – but they had
the desired effect. Lots of news coverage. Now
everybody in a public position will be thinking
twice about opening their post.'

'It scared the hell out of me,' Amina admitted.
'I didn't know how easy it was to catch, but . . .'

'Pretty easy,' Chi mumbled, bringing the news
report up on screen on the
Chronicle
's website. 'I
haven't read the reports on this yet, but the letters
that were sent in the US after September the
eleventh caused five deaths and put seventeen
people in hospital. Just a few grains of powder.
You have to hand it to those headcases; here's the
West coming up with all this sophisticated, multimillion-pound
technology for tackling terrorists
and they're taking over airliners with box-cutter
knives and sending diseases through the post.

'Mark my words: the next real terrorist attack,
when it comes, will be something
simple
.'

'You should phone the police and tell them
immediately,' Amina urged him. 'It could be the
breakthrough they're looking for.'

'Oh, ha ha.'

'Maybe some of the terrorists are aliens,' Ivor
mused. 'Maybe they're only using primitive
techniques to hide their superior technology until
they're ready to unleash it on the world. Destabilizing
the planet before the fleet of mother
ships arrive. I bet there's a great big flying saucer
lying buried in sand somewhere in the mountains
in Sinnostan. Been there for thousands of years,
lying dormant, waiting for the signal to awaken an
army of clones in cryogenic suspension.'

'And the soldiers who've gone missing have
accidentally discovered the ship,' Amina added.
'They have to be captured and reprogrammed so
they don't give the game away.'

'Look, you can laugh—' Chi burst out, but Ivor
interrupted him.

'And the ship is defended by human agents of
the aliens, like desert vampires being protected by
human slaves. You know "Osama Bin Laden" is an
anagram for "Alien Sand Mob"!'

'Go on then, get it out of your systems,' Chi
said, scowling. 'I know you've been dying to have a
go. And you're wrong, by the way – your anagram
is missing an "A". And for your information, there
have
been sightings of UFOs in Sinnostan, including
some by veteran chopper pilots who were
reluctant to report them. But more have been
sighted over
London
than Sinnostan and you should
be asking why. Because that was one of the things
your fellow soldiers had in common when they
started asking questions, Ivor. Over a quarter of
them reported seeing an object in the sky that hovered
like a helicopter but had no visible means of
propulsion, and when it did move, it did so way too
fast to have been a balloon or an airship. So put that
in your pipe and smoke it, Cyclops!'

Chi stopped as he realized what he had just
said. Ivor stared back at him. The younger man had
been incensed, eager to score a hit after being
mocked. It didn't mean anything, but Chi had
turned bright red.

'God, I'm sorry, man. I—'

'It's OK.'

'I didn't—'

'It's OK, Chi. I'm not sensitive about it, all
right? It's cool.'

Ivor saw the expression on Amina's face and
knew that she was angry about it – offended on his
behalf. And he didn't want that either. He didn't
want her to pay any attention to his disfigurement.
But how could she not? How could she ignore the
fact that this guy in front of her had a glass ball
stuck in one of his eye sockets? Now Ivor did feel
embarrassed, and the anger that rose because of it
reminded him why they were there: to find out
who had planted lies in his brain about the day he
had lost his eye . . . and why.

That was when his gaze fell on the computer
screen and he saw the photo displayed on the news
site.