Book 1 - The Man With the Golden Torc (36 page)

The tunnel walls were strung with overlapping layers of
multicoloured electrical cables interspersed with junction boxes and a whole
bunch of technology that baffled me completely. Swivelling security cameras kept
track of Molly and me as we made our way down the tunnel, and I did my best to
smile back at them in a friendly and distinctly unthreatening manner.

"You’ve been here before," I said. "What’s his place like?"

"Ah," said Molly, carefully not looking at me. "I haven’t
actually been here before. Not in person, that is. In fact, I don’t know anyone
who has. You should be very flattered he let us in. The Mole doesn’t normally
allow visitors. In fact, he tends to discourage them by killing anyone who turns
up."

"Hold everything," I said. "You mean, there was a real chance he
might not have opened that door for us? That he might very well have just left
us out there to die?"

"Well, that was a possibility, yes. But I was pretty sure he’d
be so curious about you that he’d let us in. Besides, he sort of likes me."

"He likes you."

"No, I mean, he likes me."

"How, if you’ve never been here before?"

"Oh, I’ve been in his lair lots of times, just not in the flesh.
I’ve dreamwalked here a dozen times, astral travelling. That’s how I knew the
way. And we talk on the phone a lot. He can be very chatty, as long as you keep
your distance. I really was pretty sure he’d let us in."

"Because he likes you."

"Yes. I do him favours…"

"I’m almost afraid to ask. What kind of favours?"

"I find him these dodgy porn sites on the Net…"

"I was right. I didn’t want to know."

The tunnel opened up abruptly into a huge cavern carved out of
the bedrock deep under London. It was vast, almost overpowering in its scale,
but the Mole had clearly had a lot of time to make himself comfortable. The
great open floor space was packed with every modern appliance, every conceivable
luxury and convenience. Along with mountains of piled-up computer equipment.
Huge flat plasma screens covered the walls, showing fifty different views at
once, with the sound turned off. And in every gap and space there were computer
monitors showing dozens of different sites all at once. Molly led me through the
maze of equipment and into the centre of the Mole’s lair, and there in the very
heart of the labyrinth sat the Mole himself in a great bright red leather swivel
chair. He kept his back to us until the very last moment, and then he
reluctantly swung the chair around to glare at us. He put up a hand to stop us
coming any closer, and we stopped a good dozen feet away. He looked us over,
making no move to rise from his chair to greet us.

I’d expected the Mole to be a dumpy little guy with squinty eyes
behind huge spectacles, and that was exactly what he was. He was very pale, with
long flyaway hair around a podgy face, and he blinked and twitched quite a bit.
He wore Bermuda shorts, grubby trainers, and a T-shirt bearing the legend
Tarzan, Lord of the Geeks. He also wore a Buddhist charm on a chain around his
neck: the All-Seeing Eye. And above that, the golden collar of the Droods. One
plump hand rose to touch it as he looked at me and the torc around my throat,
and finally he relaxed a little. He smiled briefly at me and nodded to Molly.

"Hello, my dear. So good to see you again. And in person, at
last. Yes. But please, both of you, don’t come any closer. I’m not used to
company anymore. No. No. Hello, Edwin. Fellow Drood, fellow rogue. Yes. I don’t
normally allow visitors. They’re too hard on my nerves. But if I can’t trust a
fellow rogue…So, welcome to my lair. Edwin, Molly. Yes."

"Nice chair," I said for want of anything else polite and
nonthreatening to say.

"It is, isn’t it?" said the Mole, brightening a little. "I
ordered it specially. Through a whole series of cutouts. I have to be very
careful. The armrests hold coolers for soft drinks. Would you care for one?"

"Not just now," I said.

"Good, because I’m running a bit short just at the moment. I
must put a new order in. Yes. I have very good people who smuggle all sorts of
things down here to me, for a consideration, but of course it’s not easy,
getting things delivered. No. No. I have to be…circumspect. About everything.
I’m safe here, protected, and I intend to stay safe. Cut off from the world. It
isn’t just the family who want me dead, after all. Oh, no."

"Really?" I said. "Who else is after you?"

"Pretty much everybody," the Mole said sadly. "I know so many
secrets, you see. So many things that some people don’t want other people to
know. Oh, the things I know! You’d be amazed! Really. Yes."

"How do you power all this equipment?" I asked, genuinely
curious.

The Mole shrugged. "I tap all the energy I need from the
Underground. And the city. They don’t notice. I have all the utilities down
here, and I’ve never paid a bill. Though I could, if I chose. I’m really quite
remarkably wealthy. Oh, yes. So, Edwin; you’re the new rogue. Let me look at
you…I know you by reputation, of course. The only field agent to keep the family
at arm’s length for almost ten years. Unprecedented! Always knew it couldn’t
last…The family doesn’t trust anyone or anything it can’t control. I used to be
Malcolm Drood, you know."

He said the name as though he expected me to recognise it, but I
didn’t. We’re a big family. He studied my face intently, and then frowned and
pouted as he realised the name meant nothing to me.

"So, I’ve been erased from the official family history. Scrubbed
out. I suspected as much. Yes. You will have been wiped out too by now, Edwin.
As far as the next few generations of the family are concerned, you will never
have existed. All your history gone, oh, yes. Everything you ever did for the
family, all your battles and successes and achievements, will be parcelled out
and attributed to others. To agents who still toe the family line and bow down
to family authority. Matthew will probably get most of it. He always was
hard-core family, the humourless little prick. He’ll always be a good little
soldier…Not like us, eh, Edwin? We have minds of our own. Souls of our own. Yes.
Yes!"

"Can they really do that?" Molly said to me. "Just write you out
of history, as though you never even existed?"

"Of course!" said the Mole. "It’s always been that way. As
decided by the higher echelons of the family. Of which I was once a valued
member."

"What is it you do down here, exactly?" I said bluntly. "And
what, if anything, can you do to help me?"

He blinked and twitched at me for a while, not used to being so
openly challenged in his own private kingdom. One hand reached for remote
controls set into his armrest, and then he pulled the hand away again. He smiled
nervously at me, and then at Molly. She gave him her best cheerful, reassuring
smile, and he calmed down a little.

"I watch the world," said the Mole just a little smugly. He
turned back and forth in his chair, indicating the many screens with one plump
hand. "Down here I can see everything that goes on, or at least everything that
matters. I have hidden cameras in places you wouldn’t believe. I spy, I
eavesdrop, and I make notes. If you knew what Bill Gates was planning to do
next, you’d shit yourselves. Yes. Yes…I live on the Net, you know. Studying
conspiracy theories, searching for evidence of our family at work, and then
passing the information on to whomever I think will make best use of it.
Wherever it will do the most good, or the most harm to the family." He looked at
me very solemnly. "Our family has to be stopped, Edwin. Broken, humbled, brought
down. For everything that’s been done to you and me and all the others just like
us. And I belong to a hundred different subversive organisations, under a
hundred different identities. Oh, yes! Nothing happens, nothing is planned that
I don’t get to know about in advance. I need to know everything, to make sense
of what’s happening in the world. Yes…A difficult job. An endless job…But
someone’s got to do it."

"Do you by any chance belong to a group called Manifest
Destiny?" said Molly.

"Of course. Paranoid, xenophobic, and definitely in thrall to
the cult of the personality, and downright sloppy when it comes to operations in
the field…But I had great hopes of them originally. I mean, yes, they were and
are complete and utter bastards in many ways, but at least they have an
organisation that seems capable of taking on the Droods. I support them, from a
distance, trying to encourage them into more practical pursuits on the grounds
that anyone who opposes the family deserves supporting. Yes. Would you like to
see the battle that’s going on between their people and the three Drood field
agents in the streets above us?"

"That’s still happening?" said Molly.

"Oh, yes. Manifest Destiny are throwing everything they’ve got
against the field agents. The poor fools. You’ll never bring down the family
through direct conflict. No. No…"

"Show me," I said.

The Mole worked the remote controls on the arm of his chair, and
the biggest plasma screen before us suddenly blared into new life, showing
Manifest Destiny forces attacking three golden armoured figures right out in the
open. The depth and definition of the image was outstanding, complete with full
surround sound. It was just like being in the thick of the battle. I could
almost smell the blood and smoke. Truman must have sent half an army to bring
down the Drood field agents who’d dared defy him; and much good it had done him.
Armoured cars, armoured soldiers, attack helicopters raining down fire from
above…The street was full of thick black smoke from burning buildings, and
burnt-out armoured cars, but still the three golden figures moved through the
thick of it, untouched.

They slammed through the advancing soldiers with supernatural
speed, killing with a touch and moving on. The dead and the dying lay in piles
up and down the street. The golden figures overturned armoured cars with a
single heave, moving unscathed through a hail of bullets and explosions. A black
helicopter came in low for a strafing run, and one golden figure leapt straight
up into the air, propelled by the strength in his golden legs. He clung onto the
side of the helicopter, ripped the door off with one hand, and disappeared
inside. He threw the crew out one at a time, and they fell screaming to their
deaths. The agent stayed on board just long enough to aim the crashing
helicopter at an armoured vehicle, and then he jumped free at the last moment,
landing easily and gracefully as his armoured legs soaked up the impact.
Manifest Destiny had every advantage of modern warfare on their side, and it
didn’t do them a damned bit of good against three Drood field agents.

It almost made me proud to be a Drood, to see so few standing
firm against so many. Almost.

"That last one had to be Matthew," said the Mole. "Always was a
show-off."

"How the hell are they going to hush this up?" said Molly,
staring fascinated at the carnage. "This much death and destruction, a war zone,
right in the middle of London?"

"Do you see any media people present?" said the Mole. "Any
television crews or news photographers? Any paparazzi even? No. These days, if
it doesn’t appear on the television news or in the tabloids, it didn’t happen.
Any civilian witnesses will have their memories altered, all CCTV footage will
disappear, and the damage will be blamed on whatever terrorists are the latest
bogeymen. Or perhaps on a gas explosion. Or a plane falling out of the sky.
Whatever the family decides. Yes. Oh, stories will get out; they always do. The
Net does so love its urban legends. But no one will ever know the truth. The
family’s had a lot of practice at burying the truth. Oh yes."

"How are we seeing this?" I said. "If there aren’t any camera
crews there…"

"I have cameras everywhere, remember?" said the Mole, blinking
proudly. "I can tap into any CCTV, any and all security systems, plus a whole
bunch of assorted surveillance technology that my people have planted in
unobtrusive places. I have eyes and ears in every major city in the world. Plus
all those smaller places that the world doesn’t know are important. Though I’m
still having trouble getting into Area 53…But nothing happens in London that I
don’t know about sooner or later. Oh, no…I knew you’d come down here looking for
me, even before you did. Oh, yes! I had plenty of time to think about whether I
was going to let you in here, Edwin. It helped that you brought Molly with you.
A double agent would never have hooked up with the infamous Molly Metcalf."

He ignored Molly’s bristling, intent on the mayhem filling the
big screen. The Manifest Destiny soldiers were in full retreat, pursued by the
three field agents. The Mole giggled.

"Good thing I’m recording this. I know people who’ll pay good
money to see Drood field agents in action. And others who’ll pay even more to
see Manifest Destiny getting their nasty arses kicked so convincingly. Oh, that
reminds me. Excuse me a moment while I make sure the machines are recording all
my soaps properly. I hate it when I miss an episode because the machines have
recorded the wrong channel again."

He gave all his attention to fussing with his remote controls
while Molly and I took the opportunity to move a few steps away and talk quietly
with each other. I kept my voice really low. I wouldn’t put it past the Mole to
bug his own lair, just in case.

"What do you think?" I murmured. "Can we trust him? I get the
feeling he’s not too tightly wrapped, to be honest."

"What did you expect?" said Molly just as quietly. "He’s lived
down here in seclusion for God knows how many years, his only contact with the
world what he sees on his screens and hears on the Net. Like Oddly John: if he
wasn’t crazy when he came down here, he almost certainly is now."

"But he says he knows things."