The Mandel Files (103 page)

There were times—like now—when she wished the NN core was only loaded with a simple Turing management program.

“Got it,” Philip said. “The Berkeley company has borrowed eight hundred million Eurofrancs from Diessenburg Mercantile. There are extension options covering another two and a half billion, but they’re all subject to some kind of clause. Dunno what, it’s classified, board members only.”

“MacLennan succeeding with the laser paradigms?” Morgan suggested.

“Very probable,” Philip agreed.

“Three and a half billion,” Julia said, ruminating out loud. “That’s more than Diessenburg loaned us before Prior’s Fen.”

“How much would it cost to build and operate an entire continent’s educational and penal services?” Greg asked.

“A lot,” she said. “And Karl Hildebrandt is on holiday. Unavailable for two months. I asked his office yesterday after you said you wanted to meet him.”

“We can’t really blame them,” Morgan said. “They were just protecting their investment. Natural corporate reflex.”

Julia didn’t approve of that attitude at all. “That doesn’t take away the fact that MacLennan is a double murderer, nor that an innocent man is in jail because of him.”

“You’ll have a terrible job trying to establish degrees of complicity,” Morgan said. “I doubt Karl will ever reappear anywhere under English jurisdiction. The Diessenburg Mercantile directors will disclaim any knowledge of the affair. And if the bank does allow any of them to come into our courts to testify, you can be sure they will be genuinely ignorant so that Greg here won’t be able to implicate them.”

“Maybe,” Greg said. “But at least we’ve got MacLennan nailed.”

“Yes,” Morgan said. “I’ll get on to the Home Office, they’ll have MacLennan arrested first thing tomorrow morning.”

“I’d like the Oakham police to handle the actual arrest,” Greg said. “They need the credit. I’ll rap with Langley, explain what actually happened. And we’d better have a premier-grade programmer on hand to serve the data warrant. I’d hate anything to happen to that paradigm now.”

“Right.” Morgan loaded a note into his cybofax.

Greg climbed to his feet, stretching laboriously.

Julia stood and tugged her windcheater jacket from the back of the chair. “Thanks again for helping, Teddy.”

He took a last swig from his beer bottle, and gave her a shrewd look. “No problem, gal, does me good to get out and about, keep my hand in. But you leave off Greg once this case is over, hear me? He’s a fucking orange farmer now. Nothing else.”

“I hear you, Teddy.” She blew him a kiss.

CHAPTER 24

It was midnight when Greg and Eleanor reached the farm. Fog had given way to a steady rain, the darkness was total. Greg could hear the wind rustling the tops of the new saplings on either side of the driveway. The EMC Ranger’s tyres splashed through long trickles of water as Eleanor let it roll slowly down the slope.

He ran a hand through his greasy hair. What he wanted was a shower, a drink, and bed. Worst of all, he wanted to go to bed to sleep. Arms and belly muscles were stiff and sore from hanging under the Westland ghost wing.

Surprisingly, given all the aches, plus a persistent post-mission edginess, he still felt easier than he had for a week. He grinned at his weak reflection in the side window. I knew Nicholas didn’t do it.

“What’s so funny?” Eleanor asked.

“Nothing. Tell you, I’m just glad it’s over.”

“Me too.”

“Yeah. Thanks for understanding.”

“Make the most of it. Next time, I’ll stomp my foot and say no.”

“Good,” he said, with feeling. “You’d better go and see Mrs Beswick tomorrow, give her the good news. I expect I’ll be having quite a busy day. Christ, and Vernon was upset about the murder being complicated before.”

“He’ll survive. Like you said, they’ll get a lot of credit for wrapping this up.”

“Yeah.” There’s justice. But at least it will make life in Oakham more tolerable for everybody.

Beyond the window’s reflection, Maurice Knebel’s mirage rippled unsteadily on the edge of reality. Greg knew his last memory of the ex-detective would take a long time to dissipate. Knebel had closed his eyes tightly, teeth clamping down on his lower lip, whimpering softly as Greg aimed the stun-shot at him. In the background Teddy had muttered snidely about using the Uzi instead.

Then there was the trip back to the warehouse. Walton’s minacious streets crowding in on him, plaguing him with the prospect of running into some kind of hazard now the mission was over—the oldest squaddie fear in the book.

The EMC Ranger’s headlight beams tracked across the side of the barn, unnaturally bright under the cloud-blocked sky. They touched the house briefly, a flash of moth-grey stone.

Greg began searching round with his hand, lifting the stun-shot from the back seat. He slung it over his shoulder. Bloody good job Langley can’t see me now, he thought. He had always been dubious of Greg’s real motivations, the underground politics behind his assignment to the case. Seeing him in full combat gear would confirm every black paranoid suspicion about Julia’s undue influence.

Eleanor stopped the EMC Ranger in front of the door, and the porch light came on automatically. They both climbed out, shoulders hunched against the rain. Eleanor blipped the lock, pulling her navy-blue jacket tighter across her sweatshirt.

Greg heard the lynch mob first. Footsteps crunching on the wet gravel behind the EMC Ranger. His gland gave a lurch, discharging the neurohormone into his brain. He grunted in shock as the five minds trespassed on his consciousness. They were all identical, possessed with unrelenting berserker arrogance, thought currents devoid of any rationality. A teratoid insanity. Recognition was instantaneous; he had encountered that mind once before: Liam Bursken.

They walked into the splash of light thrown by the porch light, a soft dead smile on their lips—Frankie Owen, Mark Sutton, Les Hepburn, Andrew Foster, and Douglas Kellam.

Eleanor twisted round. “What—”

Mark Sutton raised a double-barrelled shotgun. Thoughts radiant with cool delight.

Greg’s training took over. He fired the stunshot even as he was bringing it to bear. The pulse was dazzlingly bright to his night-acclimatized retinas. It missed Sutton, fizzling voraciously as it sliced through the rain. But it was enough.

Sutton jerked aside, complacency shattered. The shotgun went off, blowing out one of the EMC Ranger’s rear windows. A lethal blast of crystalline splinters slammed into the stone wall to Greg’s right. He felt stingers of pain jab down his chest where the combat jacket was open. Spots of blood bloomed on his white T-shirt.

He saw the other four men jumping back into the concealing murk of rain and darkness which cloaked the rest of the farmyard, surprise and outrage rampant on their faces. Fury that their victim should dare to fight back, resist the Lord’s will. His fumbling fingers found the stunshot’s fire selector catch, and flicked it to continuous. A solid stream of glaring blue-white lighting speared out of the barrel as he tugged the trigger, illuminating the entire farmyard. Its end grew ragged over by the barn, flickering spasmodically as the close-packed pulses lost cohesion.

He swung the weapon down and round, not really aiming, simply chasing Sutton as the man scrambled for cover behind the EMC Ranger. The torrent of pulses caught him on the shoulder, spinning him round as if it was a high-pressure water jet. The shotgun went flying off into the night as he whirled around, arms extended.

He let go of the trigger, and Sutton collapsed into a bucking heap. To his left he saw Frankie Owen making a grab for Eleanor, his normally sulky face snarled up in an expression of wrath. A flick knife gleamed as it slid out of his fist. Eleanor was blocking the stunshot’s line of fire.

A narrow line of damp air in front of Greg suddenly fluoresced a vivid green. Raindrops scintillated with an uncanny beauty as they fell through it. Laser. He was being shot at! Overstressed nerves jerked him backwards. He nearly lost his footing on the gravel as he dropped below the level of the EMC Ranger. He fought to regain balance. Judging by the angle of the beam, it was coming from the tangerine grove on the other side of the barn.

The beam swept along the farmhouse’s stonework, across the door, towards the two figures thrashing about. It was too broad to be a rifle targeting-laser. Wrong colour, anyway.

Realization struck like a spike of ice directly into his spine. The paradigm imprinter. MacLennan himself was out there, trying to zombie Eleanor.

“Down!” he screamed, and launched himself at the wrestling figures just as they broke apart. Eleanor was staggering backwards. Green light stroked her torso. He caught her round the waist in a tackle which sent both of them crashing to the ground. Eleanor yelped in shock and pain as they hit the gravel. Somehow he managed to hold on to the stunshot; ‘ware modules jabbed painfully into his side. Up above, the laser slashed furiously from side to side, producing a canopy of lurid green radiation between the EMC Ranger and the house, flecked with twinkling jade raindrops.

Frankie Owen groaned, his thought currents disfigured by supreme agony. Greg glanced up to see him curled up on the gravel just in front of them, hands clutching his groin, nursing crushed testicles. A mushy spurt of vomit sputtered out of his open mouth. His face was corpse white, eyes red and wet.

Eleanor did that to him. Greg felt a crazy edge of glee. My Eleanor.

Out on the brink of his espersense those remaining three joyless minds were congregating. Scattered thoughts refocusing on him.

“Are you all tight?” he hissed.

“My arm’s numb. Why did you pull me down?”

“Look up, that’s the paradigm imprint laser.”

“Oh, Jesus.”

“Let’s see if we can get inside.”

He rolled over and rose to a crouch. Foster, Hepburn, and Kellam were moving apart again, fanning out around the EMC Ranger. It was four metres to the door, the laser painted a sharp green line two-thirds of the way up.

“I’ll go first,” he told her. “Start moving as soon as I reach it.”

“Right.”

He tensed his legs, then he was up and running. Fingers reaching for the brass bulb handle. The polished metal was slick in his palm. Turning slowly. His shoulder thudded into the wood, and he was through, skating on the hall tiles.

Eleanor was racing past him less than a second later. He shoved the door shut with a burst of frantic strength. There was a quiet whine as the lock engaged. He aimed the stunshot at it, and fired. The plastic covering melted with a flash of orange flame, droplets spraying out. The ‘ware circuits inside flared briefly, sparks fountained, dying embers skittering over the cold tiles.

Someone outside smacked into the door. He saw it quiver in the frame. There was the sound of a fist hammering on the panels.

“Mandel.” It was Les Hepburn’s voice, but toneless, that same clipped precision Bursken used. “Come out, Mandel. You shall not escape the Lord’s justice.”

“Fuck off!” He grabbed Eleanor’s hand. “Come on, they’ll be inside in a minute.” There was no light in the hall. He felt round for the photon amp band hooked on his shoulder tab, and slapped it into place. The time display and guido coordinates gleamed brightly. Walls, floor, and furniture shimmered out of nowhere, solidifying into their familiar places. He bled in the infrared. The photon amp’s grey and blue world tinted into red, becoming fractionally brighter, losing some definition.

“I’ll call the police,” Eleanor said.

“No way,” he said, leading her down to the study. “People like Keith Willet aren’t going to be able to cope with a bunch of Liam Burskens, even if they believed us. In any case it would take them too long to get here.”

“Greg! We need help.” She was battling panic.

“I know!” He switched on the communication ‘ware, and pulled his skull helmet into place. “Emergency.”

“What is it, boy?” Philip Evans asked.

“We’ve been ambushed at the farm. MacLennan is here with five people he’s loaded with Bursken’s paradigm. And this time it’s me they’re after.”

“Shit, boy; you all right?”

“For now. We need help and fast.”

“I’m launching the security crash team now. They’ll be there in ten minutes.”

Greg opened the study door. The room was supposed to be his den, but he still hadn’t got it sorted out. There was a big desk over by the window, a settee, long planks were leaning against a wall, destined to be shelves when he got round to screwing them together. The floor was cluttered with kelpboard boxes full of his accumulated junk. He could just make out the Berrybut estate through the window, pinprick glints of light from the chalets; the rain must have extinguished the bonfire hours ago, the photon amp’s infrared function couldn’t even pick up the dying cinders.

“Philip’s launching the Event Horizon crash team,” he told Eleanor.

“Right. Why are we in here?”

A dark human silhouette moved across the window, eclipsing the chalets. The head glowed brightly in grades of red, hot blood highlighting the cheeks and nose; eyes were cooler, darker. It contained the familiar thought currents of Liam Bursken.

“Shush.” He gripped her hand tighter. Even with the infrared’s ambiguous slant, he could recognize the features of the face pressed to the glass. Brendan Talbot, an engineer who lived in Hambleton.

Christ, how many people had MacLennan loaded the paradigm into?

Greg’s free hand closed around the stock of the Heckler and Koch rifle lying on the desk. A real weapon.

Ronnie Kay appeared next to Brendan Talbot, and hurled a brick straight through the study window. Eleanor yelled in fright. A torch shone into the room with the force of a solar flare.

The photon amp filters responded immediately, reducing the glare until it was a manageable corona. Greg could see Talbot, his hand reaching through the jagged hole in the glass, scrabbling round for the catch.

“Face your judgement, Mandel,” Kay shouted. “Embrace us. We will deliver you from sin.”

Greg levelled the rifle at Talbot. And couldn’t pull the trigger. It wasn’t Talbot, only his body. Brendan had a wife, a six-year-old daughter.