The Code War (11 page)

'All tyrants thought of themselves
as nice people
,'
replied Bezejel patiently, as though talking to a child.
'That's what made them so dangerous. They set out to do good. But
ambition always overwhelms kindness. Drowns it utterly. There, I've
said the word. Ambition. Ambition is the one thing that Nancy's
missing. She needs lots of it and she hasn't got it. Not enough,
anyway. She simply doesn't want power as much as we want her to.
Not yet. But we have a plan to change that.'

'
But how
can we give her ambition?' Kodrob asked the obvious question. 'We
can't just plant it into her, can we?'

'
We're
going to give Nancy the lust for power that she doesn't have at the
moment. A lust that will consume her so completely that it will
squeeze all kindness out of her. But there's someone who knows more
about that part of the project than I do. His name is Colonel
Hideki.'

'Is that the Colonel Hideki who heads up
HARM?' asked Kodrob.

'The same. Human Ancestor Research
and Manipulation,' explained Bezejel for the benefit of the other
Marauders. 'It's the department that produces background
information on people who are the subjects of Destructive Purpose
projects. Such as Nancy. Then they develop a plan to use that
information against them. HARM projects begin with tracing
someone's family history. Then if they can find a criminal ancestor
they use the familial psychic back-channels to pass their septic
motivations forward in time to their descendants. It's painstaking
work but it can achieve powerful results. People who would not
normally go dark can be corrupted from within without any obvious
bad influences around them. It's genius.'

'That sounds
excellent
. I would like to be part of
that team,' interjected Lafarge.

Kodrob gave him a hard look.
'You're in my team, Lafarge. Remember that. You don't leave without
my permission.'

'No, I just think it would be good
to be working with them, boss. That's all I meant.' Lafarge held
his hands up submissively.

'We are going to work closely with
Colonel Hideki,' said Bezejel, looking intently at Lafarge.
'
He has found a criminal ancestor in
Nancy's family. A very dangerous female indeed. But don't think
about working for Hideki after this is over. HARM has suffered a
lot of desertions recently. Their productivity has been down. And
they've been missing a lot of family connections in important
projects, so I've heard. Their research analysts have been leaving
in droves because Hideki has been keeping a load of the
department's squawhouse vouchers for himself. How would you like it
if your boss kept stealing your squaw vouchers,
Lafarge?'

Lafarge looked shocked. 'I
couldn't work for someone like that,' admitted the French demon.
'Never.'

'I didn't think so. Well then.
Stay with Captain Kodrob. He won't steal your squaws.' Kodrob
nodded to Bezejel appreciatively.

'Remind me, ma'am,' asked Kodrob.
'Hideki. Is that the kamikaze squadron leader who sent all his men
to their deaths? Then he refused to fly himself, instead getting
run over by a car as he left his aerodrome?'

'The same,' replied
Bezejel
.

'Then
I
know him. And I believe I know where he'll be right
now.'

'How so?
' asked Bezejel.

'M
a'am,
I believe right now we'll find him in one of the establishments
which accepts the vouchers he's been embezzling.'

Bezejel looked at him knowingly.
'W
hich squawhouse?'

'Navaho's.'

She smiled in amusement. 'All
right Kodrob. You and I will set off for Navaho's in a moment and
surprise him. Any more questions?'

'Just one ma'am.' Holzman
had his hand up. 'About Nancy. I can see that
you like her. But when she eventually gets here to Inferno, after
she's done everything you want her to do for us in the Fourth, will
she become part of your team?'

Bezejel's face filled with
anger.
She stopped her pacing and stood
still facing Holzman.

'No, Holzman. She will never be
part of my team. Don't you understand anything about me
yet?'

Holzman swallowed hard. He thought he'd
asked a friendly question.

'When Nancy arrives in Inferno,'
continued Bezejel, measuring every word, 'she will be full of
herself. She will have a head so big she'll barely make it through
the Gates. Within minutes of getting here she'll want my job. She
will want my place,
my
place you understand, next to the Leader. Well,
I forbid it. Her square yard of misery is already reserved for
her.'

There was a pause which Holzman
felt he was obliged to fill. 'Do you mean to send her
to…to…'

'Yes, I do mean to send her to,'
replied Bezejel sarcastically. 'That's exactly where I mean to send
her. Nancy will go straight to Tyrant's Fall.'

Heaven's
Shore

Jabez
's
globe sparked like a hundred arc welders working simultaneously.
Each spark was the image of a male or female angel. As each one
came and went in a scintilla of a moment he looked for a perfect
match to his needs. Luke's face stayed constant to the side of the
flickering faces.

'I'm going to need lots of help on
this one, Luke. First I've got to find a code-breaker. They're
heading somewhere with this letter game and I need to understand
it. That capital letter R, it's mysterious. We also need a
character reader, someone who can tell us what's going on inside
Nancy's head. One moment she's an ordinary girl, quiet and shy. A
face in the crowd. Then she intimidated her boss in front of the
whole office. Now she's used sex to manipulate and control several
men. Yet she's holding it together quite naturally. That's for
starters. Luke, you've done a great job already tracking the enemy
for me. But I think I'm going to need someone on this round the
clock. Can you come and join my team full time and give me your
insight into twentieth century human behaviour? When I last walked
the Earth people didn't have so many options available. Especially
options to do bad stuff. I need some support.'

Luke hesitated before responding.

'I could see that coming so I
already checked with my boss. Things are a little slow in Supernova
Start-ups at the moment so she says I can work with you, at least
for now. But she may want your help on one of her projects in the
future.'

'She may, or she may not,
depending on how this goes,' replied Jabez sardonically. 'If I
deliver a big 'fail' on this project she may want to wash her hands
of me. Anyway thank her for me; it's good to have you on board.
Meanwhile I was thinking of Agatha for the code-breaker. Do you
know her?'

'Not sure I do. Tell me about her.'

'English. She worked on the Enigma
thing while in the Fourth Dimension and she hasn't been assigned to
a project yet. She's in Clearing. There hasn't been a big call for
code-breakers recently and hopefully she's looking for her first
project.'

The Creator was continually
expanding and building new territories in the dimensions in which
he existed. The human-inhabited universe was the Fourth Dimension.
Most of Paradise was in the Fifth Dimension; as was all of Inferno.
In 'the Fifth' as it was known, time had little relevance. Time
didn't flow forward uniformly as it does on Earth. In the Sixth,
the problem of distance had been eliminated with thought travel
while in the Ninth, light could be played with in ways unimaginable
on Earth. Other dimensions were just as unusual.

'Just looking her up right now,'
replied Luke. 'Hmm, says here she has a flair for danger. She once
went on an intelligence gathering mission into occupied territory
during the Fourth's World War Two. That could be useful. I'm not
saying we're going to do anything like that here. But you never
know. I like the sound of her Jabez, why don't you go ahead and get
in touch?'

'Good, I will, and if you happen..'

But Luke interrupted him.

'Yes, I do happen to have an idea
for a shrink. Thank you for asking. Angel by the name of Ruth.
Texan. Lots of experience. Worked on the Skajj interrogation. Built
a great reputation there.

Jabez's brow was furrowed. 'I
don't know
much about the Skajj case.
Tell me more.'

'
Well,
Skajj was a demon who approached Heaven on the sly,' continued
Luke. 'He claimed to be an intelligence devil who had fallen out
with his team and was eager to cut a deal with Heaven for his own
benefit. He was interviewed by a mid-ranking council of angels, the
Mitten Gard, who were inclined to believe him. But then Ruth
produced an analysis of all Skajj's replies to the Gard. It showed
inconsistencies in thought and sentence-forms which pointed to
origins in lots of different sources. This meant that Skajj could
not have created the plan by himself. He was being told what to say
by a motley of different Crossbones centurions who hadn't bothered
to confer with each other. They all had different ways of saying
things and Skajj simply repeated everything they all told him. That
was why he sounded like a crowd.'

'Fascinating. Go on.'

'
When
Ruth displayed her research, it blew Skajj's scam out of the water.
In reality he was trying to identify and map an approach route to
Paradise's Tenth dimension preparatory to an invasion by elements
of four sprite armies. The Mitten Gard were initially sceptical of
Ruth's reasoning. But in the end they were very grateful to her.
They had nearly been deceived. She showed a lot of nerve to
challenge their authority but luckily it paid off.'

'I remember that incident
now,' said Jabez. 'But I didn't know what
occasioned it. Thanks for filling in the gap in my
knowledge.'

'Glad to. But it's what happened
to Ruth as a result that's interesting. Her reputation ascended the
heights. She was included on every panel and leadership group
connected with better understanding demon thought patterns. She's
now a leading authority in that area. That's why I mentioned
her.'

'She's out of our league, isn't she
Luke? A lady like that isn't going to want to get involved with
small fry like us.'

'You may be surprised, Jabez,'
Luke rejoined confidently. 'Two of Ruth's panel appointments are in
recess right now, meaning she has very little to do for a while.
But also, she involves herself in projects that interest her.
Especially where she can be highly involved with a committed
project team, not just be a player in a talking shop. I think she
could be interested.'

Jabez began to suspect that Luke had
already spoken to Ruth and had solicited her interest. That was why
he was talking her up so confidently.

'OK,' he said, 'I'll go ahead and globe
her.'

Luke wasn't finished. 'And
remember, Jabez, you and I may be sm
all
fry but the project isn't. You're saving the world now. There's
lots of senior people watching you.'

'Thanks Luke
,' said Jabez with a heavy sigh. 'Just what I needed to
hear.'

Navaho's Squawhouse,
Central Pentacurse Region, Inferno

Bezejel and Kodrob crunched their
way across the cinder track outside Navaho's squawhouse. Gog and
Magog followed close behind, keeping a watchful eye on the gaunt
figures surveying them from the shadows. Many lower-caste demons
came down to Pentacurse from the fingers of Festerlode and
Slothmire looking for drunken soldiers to ambush and rob.
Gog and Magog pulled their cloaks aside
revealing the flashing iron handles of their swords and glared at
them contemptuously.

Above them towered the huge
conical structure that was Navaho's, an oasis for those seeking
forgetfulness.
Outside the door, neon
signs that read Smokin' Joe's Frankfurters, Budweiser, Cold Pepsi
and Studebaker shone out brightly. They had been foraged from
derelict towns in America's rustbelt. None of these were really on
sale. Demons just liked their colour. 'You know how squawhouses got
their shape, Kodrob?' asked Bezejel, now playing a tour
guide.

'No ma'am, no-one ever told me
that.'

'It's all about women, Kodrob. Not
men.'

'Yes ma'am.'

'Throughout Earth's history,
w
omen with supernatural power used to
wear conical headgear. Witches. Men would come to them with all
types of hopes and hates. Give me a son. Poison my enemy. That sort
of thing. Follow?'

'Yes ma'am.'

A
crowd
of eager squaddies was gathered at the door of Navaho's trying to
get in. Satyr doormen were taking their weapons for safe-keeping.
An argument developed over a small knife. Bezejel and Kodrob stood
near a lava lamp while they waited for the fracas to blow over. Its
convex mirror reflected the light coming up from the lava in the
hole in the ground beneath it and bathed their faces in its glow.
Lava lamps were Inferno's cheapest form of light.

'So when brothel madams set up
their enterprises in Inferno,' continued Bezejel proudly, 'they
made their buildings conical. It meant a certain type of female was
inside.'