The Mandel Files (30 page)

Greg had made his small contribution to the search for Armstrong, but for once not even his intuition could say whether the President had survived, he had no belief one way or the other. He just wished Armstrong dead dead dead; burning in Dante’s hell for ever more.

He gazed out of the chalet lounge’s window while the unbidden reflections drifted past, bringing the associated emotions back with them, the elation and the suffering. Flames and laughter.

Seventeen minutes after Gracious Services began the search, his terminal’s flatscreen came alive again.

GOT HIM FOR YOU, THUNDERCHILD. KENDRIC DI GIROLAMO CURRENTLY ON BOARD HIS YACHT MIRRIAM, DOCKED AT PETERBOROUGH’S NEW EASTFIELD MARINA, BERTH TWENTY-SEVEN.

THANK YOU, WILDACE, Greg typed.

NO PROBLEM. HOTROD HANDLED BLUEPRINCE BURNED HIM FOR YOU. SAYS IF YOU WANT ANOTHER RUN HE’LL BE HAPPY TO OBLIGE, FEE NEGOTIABLE

I’LL REMEMBER.

PLEASURE TO DO BUSINESS WITH YOU, THUNDERCHILD. WILDACE SIGNING OFF.

So Kendric was in Peterborough, was he? Close to the action. How convenient.

Greg made one final call, then headed back to the bedroom.

CHAPTER 23

The sheer number of Event Horizon facilities springing up in Peterborough after the Second Restoration, coupled with Wilholm’s proximity, meant that the company had to establish a large finance division in the city. Julia used it as her de facto head office, so it was only natural that Morgan Walshaw should use it for his security division’s command centre as well. It was a temporary arrangement while both divisions waited for the irrespective custom-built headquarters to be completed, The building they had moved into for the interregnum was the old Thomas Cook office block, situated at the top of a small bluff overlooking the Ferry Meadows estuary, on the western side of the town. In doing so they’d ousted the PSP Minorities Enhancement Council staff who had occupied it ever since currency restrictions put an end to the glories of package holidays.

After Event Horizon had taken over, the company engineers immediately set about building a concrete embankment along the bluff to halt the erosion which was eating towards the foundations. At the base of it they planted three small lagoons of gene-tailored coral to house a set of tidal turbines which powered the finance division’s gear. Seeing a building which wasn’t plastered with the glossy black squares of solar-cells came as something of a novelty.

The security office inside, which Greg and Gabriel had been loaned for interviewing the NN core team, was a cramped cell of a room with a metal table and three plastic chairs. It looked out towards Longthorpe, where gulls strutted about on the partially exposed mudflats.

Emily Chapman left the office without looking round, her rigid back conveying stark disapproval. She had every right to be upset, Greg acknowledged. He was actually doing the interviews with the NN core team. He’d thought it politic; Gabriel had dropped into one of her best prickly sulks at having to examine his possible interviews with over two hundred and fifty of the security staff in the building, and told him to take a share of the load himself for a change. But she could’ve timed it better, though.

The trouble was, Philip Evans had been right; the NN core team were all grade-A people—keen, loyal, honest, hard working, churned out by Event Horizon’s blandification programme. They hadn’t taken kindly to his accusations.

“Shit creek, and no messing.” He could feel a neurohormone headache coming on. Thank God there had only been nine of them to question.

“Don’t swear,” Gabriel snapped primly.

“I’ve got a right. None of them leaked the information about the NN core. How are you doing with the security personnel?”

“You wouldn’t find anything.”

“What? None of them have any shameful secrets?”

“They might well have, but if so they can certainly hide it from you.”

His unwinding espersense caught her gelid mind tone. Eggshell walking time. “Bugger, you know what that means.”

“Dillan Evans.”

“Yeah, unless we can produce this mole pronto. And I’m now having serious doubts he ever existed. Christ, how am I going to tell Philip? Maybe I’ll tell Julia first, she’s pretty protective when it comes to her father. Can’t say I blame Dillan, though, the man is totally fucked. Not rational.”

“Saved by the bell.”

“What?” His cybofax bleeped. “Oh.”

The call was a data squirt, a scramble code he knew by heart. Royan. His spirits lifted as the decrypted message rolled down the cybofax’s little screen. Royan had found one of the hotrods involved in the blitz: Ade O’Donal, operating from Leicester under the handle Tentimes. Greg snapped the cybofax shut with a flourish; at last he could take some positive action, get out of dead company architecture and pull in hard information. When he glanced up Gabriel was already standing by the door, expectant. “Coming?” she asked.

Greg drove past the ranks of company buses in the car park and out on to the A47.

Getting under way didn’t noticeably alter Gabriel’s disposition. “Fascinating,” she said. “The lovely Eleanor, a fully-fledged Trinity urban predator. The mind boggles.”

“I wish you’d make an effort. That girl’s never said a single bad word about you. And God knows she’s entitled.”

“Greg, you can’t just abandon all your old mates in her favour, however besotted you are with her gymnast legs and top-heavy chest.”

He pulled his anger down to a tight incendiary ball. Anger never did any good, not against Gabriel. But it was fucking tempting to let fly once in a while. Not this time, though. He needed her. And she knew it. “Eleanor gets on perfectly well with the marine-adepts, and Royan has taken a shine to her.”

“That was the first time you’d been to see Royan for two months. You know how much that boy worships you.”

Fell into that one, he told himself. Just as she’d intended, guiding his conversation down the Tau line she’d selected.

Greg gunned the Duo along the A47 above the flooded remains of Ailsworth. Her words had kindled not so much guilt as a sense of melancholy.

Arguing with her when she was being this waspish was impossible. Whatever he said in his defence she’d have a parry honed and ready, the best of all possible answers. Besides, truthfully, he had neglected Royan. Eleanor made it easy to forget. Life and the future, rather than Royan, a shackle to an emetic past. He just wished Gabriel didn’t use a sledgehammer to ram home the point.

He was aware of her studying his face intently. She gave a tart nod and leant back into the seat cushioning.

The last section of road leading into Leicester cut through a banana plantation. Methane-fuelled tractors chugged between the rows of big glossy-leafed plants, hauling vast quantities of still-green fruit in their cage trailers. Cutter teams moved ahead of the tractors, machetes flashing in the sun.

Incorporated in the city boundary sign was the prominent declaration: PSP Free Zone.

“Oh yeah?” said Gabriel.

Greg let the snipe ride, though he conceded she had a point. Leicester council had earned a reputation for sycophancy during Armstrong’s presidency; it was one of the last to acknowledge the Party’s perdition.

That obedience was the root of its downfall; a numbing historical repetition, those showing the most loyalty receiving the least. With such devotion assured, the PSP had no need to pump in bribe money. Leicester had declined as Peterborough had risen. Now the city’s New Conservative dominated council was striving hard to obliterate the image of the past in an attempt to attract hard-industry investment.

“Give them a chance,” Greg said. “It’s only been two years.”

“Once a Trot, always a Trot.”

“Exactly where would you be happy living?” he asked in exasperation.

“Mars, I expect. Turn left here.”

“I know.”

He turned off the Uppingham Road and nudged into the near solid file of bicycle traffic along Spencefield Lane. The big old trees whose branches had once turned the road into a leafy tunnel were long dead. New sequoias had been planted to replace them. They were grand trees, but Greg couldn’t help wondering whether they were a wise choice if the residents were aiming for permanency; give them a couple of centuries and the sequoias would be skyscraper high.

The original trees had been trimmed into near-identical pillars six metres high, supporting giant cross-beams over the road. Each arch was swathed in a different coloured climbing rose. The sun shone through the petals, creating a blazing sequence of coronal crescents. It was like driving under a solid rainbow.

Greg slowed the Duo to a walking pace as they passed the entrance to an old school. Cars were clustered along the verge ahead, sporty Renaults, several Mercs, one old Toyota GX4. Image cars.

“Shouldn’t there be sailboards strapped on top of them?” Gabriel said under her breath.

Greg concentrated on house numbers, praying she’d snap out of it before long. Of course, he could always ask her when her mood was due to end. He clamped down on a grin. “That’s the address.”

The house was hidden behind a head-high brick wall that had a hurricane fence on top, a thick row of evergreen firs hid most of the building from the road. The gate was a sturdy metal-reinforced chainlink, painted white. Cameras were perched on each side, their casings weather-dulled.

“He’s having a party,” Gabriel said, with facetious humour disguising the tingle of nerves Greg knew would be there.

“How nice. A big one?”

“For him. It’s enough to provide us with cover, anyway.”

Greg parked the Duo beyond the last of the guests’ cars. “Front or back?”

“Front, of course. Your card is good for it.”

He felt a burn of anticipation warming his skin, heightening senses. Black liver-flesh of the gland throbbing enthusiastically.

They strolled back to the gate, unhurried, unconcerned. Greg showed his Event Horizon card to the post, using his little finger for activation. The gate’s electric bolt thudded, and the servos swung it back.

It remained open behind them, its control circuitry bleached clean. He sent a mental note of thanks to Royan.

The mossy gravel drive crunched under their feet. O’Donal’s house was a large one, three storeys of dull russet brick with inset stone windows, the slates on the mansard roof a Peculiar olive-green. Nobody had bothered with the front garden for years, the grass was tangled and overgrown, and dead cherry trees were still standing. Some sort of stone ornament, a birdbath or a sundial poked up through a tumble of Cornflowers. A brand-new scarlet BMW convertible was parked in front of the triple garage.

“The man that answers the door is a minder, he’ll make trouble if you let him,” Gabriel said. “Take him out straight away.”

“Right.” He rang the bell. Music and laughter wafted over the roof.

Greg saw him coming through the smoked glass pane set into the grimy hardwood door, an obscure blotch of brown motion, swelling to cloud the whole rectangle.

The door was pulled open.

“Hello, sorry we’re late.”

The man behind the door was street muscle in a suit; early twenties, tall, stringy, dark hair, broad forehead crinkling into a frown.

Greg stepped forward neatly, one foot on the mat the other coming up, further and further. Fast. It was victory through surprise. A smiling man and a portly spinster eager to party just didn’t register as a threat. Not until the carbon-mesh-reinforced toe of Greg’s desert boot smashed into his kneecap.

His mouth opened to suck in air, eyes wide with shock. He was toppling forwards, leg giving way, and bending to clutch desperately at his shattered knee.

Greg brought his fist straight up, catching the minder’s chin as he was on his way down. The force of the blow snapped his head back, lifting him off his feet, back arching, arms and legs flung wide.

He crashed back on to the shiny blue ceramic tiling, skull making a nasty cracking sound, a thin stream of pea-green vomit sloshing from his slack mouth.

Greg took in the dark hall behind him with a quick glance, espersense wide for alarmed minds. Big tasteless urns holding willowy arrangements of dried pampas grass making the most impression. But the hall was empty. Nobody had witnessed their arrival.

“Jesus, Greg.” Gabriel was kneeling beside the prone minder, feeling for a pulse.

Greg opened the cloakroom door. “In here.” There was a wicker dog-basket on the floor, jackets were piled high on a washbasin; it smelt of urine and detergent. “Come on!”

Gabriel shot him a filthy look, but took hold of the minder’s left arm as Greg grabbed the right. They pulled him across the tiles.

“If he was going to die you’d have told me not to hit so hard.”

“You know bloody well it doesn’t work like that,” Gabriel said. “There are a million ways you could’ve dealt with him.”

“Well, is he going to be all right or not?”

“I don’t bloody know, some futures have him dying.”

Greg shoved the dog basket out of the way and left the minder with his head propped up against the toilet bowl. Gabriel rolled up one of the jackets and slipped it behind the minder’s head. He was still breathing.

“How many futures?” Greg asked.

“Some.”

Greg recognized the defensive tone, and relaxed. The minder would survive.

“There’s a rear belt-holster,” Gabriel said reluctantly.

Greg knelt down and felt underneath the minder. Sure enough, he was carrying a Mulekick, a flattened ellipsoid in grey plastic, small enough to fit snugly into Greg’s palm, with a single sensitive circle positioned for the thumb and a metal tip that discharged an electric shock strong enough to stun a victim senseless.

“We’ll need it later,” Gabriel said cryptically.

Greg dropped it into his jacket pocket and followed her back out into the hall.

The house would’ve given any half-way competent interior designer nightmares. To Greg it looked as though it’d been decorated by someone watching a home-shopping catalogue channel and picking out all the furniture and fittings which had the brightest colours. There was no attempt to blend styles.

The lounge had two three-piece suites, one upholstered in overstuffed white leather, the other done in a bold lemon and Purple zigzag print. A harlequin array of biolum spheres hung from the ceiling on long brass chains, imitating a planetarium’s solar system display. Dark African shields hung on the wall, along with spears, tomahawks, broadswords, and longbows. The weapons were interspaced with antique rock-concert posters, mostly from Leicester’s De Monfort hall—Bowie, Be Bop Deluxe, Blue Oyster Cult, David Hunter, The Stranglers, one for The Who at Granby Hall in 1974. If they were real, and they looked it, they must’ve cost a fortune.