Jani and the Greater Game (The Multiplicity Series Book 1) (20 page)

Before he could do that, however, an officer climbed onto the flat-bed and approached the Mech-Man. Anand grabbed Jani’s hand – so soft and hot in his – and pulled her behind the seat. They crouched side by side, peering through the gap between the seat and the head-rest.

The officer covered his eyes with his hand and peered in, then tapped the glass with his swagger stick and said something. Another white face appeared at the viewscreen, speaking to the first. The officer nodded, his eyes darting round the darkened interior of the chamber. He tapped the glass again, once, and then both faces vanished from sight. Anand gave a relieved sigh and grinned at Jani.

They watched the officers climb back into the truck and drive away.

“I wonder what they wanted?” Jani whispered.

He shrugged. “They were simply curious about Max,” he said confidently. “Don’t worry, Jani-ji, they were not looking for you, I’m sure.”

“I hope so,” she murmured.

One hour later the flat-bed lurched, and a succession of clankings sounded along the chain of the carriages as the train eased itself from the goods yard and through the station. Anand peered out at the platform, counting at least a dozen soldiers. He wondered if they were looking for Jani, and if so, why.

They left the grey, distempered northern suburbs of Delhi in their wake and were soon rolling through open countryside. Anand peered out at a flat, limitless expanse of maize and corn fields, at the tiny brown figures and their oxen toiling on the land.

He thought fleetingly of papa-ji, and the sadness he felt at his passing was soon eclipsed by the idea of the adventure he was embarking upon. He stared at Jani as she combed her fingers through her long, luxuriant fall of hair, and his heart beat like a tabla.

“Now, Jani-ji,” he said, “will you please tell me what the bloody hell is going on?”

Jani smiled and, as the train steamed north on its hundred mile journey to Dehrakesh, Anand sat in amazed silence as she told a story of crashed airships, her meeting with a strange creature, and her abduction by the Russian spies...

CHAPTER

TEN

Alfie sallies forth – The wreckage of the warehouse –

In pursuit of the Russians – “This is worse than I feared...”

A
LFIE
L
ITTLEBODY SAT
in the back of the taxi and gazed out at the chaotic street scene. He was still light-headed with euphoria at the turn of events in Brigadier Cartwright’s office. He had expected a dressing down at least – a court-martial at worst – but to gain the brigadier’s tacit approval of what he’d done in Allahabad, and then to be tasked with tracing the missing Chatterjee girl, went beyond his wildest dreams.

He fingered the light-stick and the skullcap in his pocket, still marvelling at the demonstration of their capabilities he’d been treated to in the lab. The photon-blade was a marvel enough, but the invisibility skullcap – or the Visual Camouflage Amplifier, as the boffin Tennyson had insisted on calling it – was mind-boggling. Watching Tennyson touch the control on the chin-strap and vanish into thin air, Alfie had almost passed out in amazement. Then Tennyson had popped into existence again, on the far side of the room, and laughed at Alfie’s reaction. “Always gets people the first time. Amazing, what?”

“I... I presume it’s fuelled by Annapurnite?” he’d stammered.

Tennyson had chewed his lip for a time before replying. “Bit more complicated than that, old boy. But away you go. I haven’t time to stand here chattering all day.”

Now, in the back of the taxi as it sped north to Old Delhi, Alfie considered what Brigadier Cartwright had told him and the fact that he’d been entrusted with the photon-blade and the VCA.

He’d embarked on what he considered more important missions in the past, equipped with no more than a file report and his trusty Enfield revolver. Now he was trying to track down a missing girl, and had the very latest technology to help him do so. Granted, the girl was the daughter of the late Minister of Security, but Cartwright’s line that it would be bad form if she went over to the Nationalists seemed a bit thin to Alfie. Was there more to the girl than Cartwright was letting on? Was that why he’d been equipped with the weapon and the skullcap? But why, then, had Cartwright sent him on the mission alone? Of course, Alfie didn’t know for sure that he was working on this case alone. Perhaps Cartwright had other officers looking for the girl.

The whole affair was more than a little mysterious.

The taxi edged down Gupta Road, the thoroughfare blocked with pedestrians, street-vendors, wandering cows and bad-tempered rickshaw-wallahs wholly reluctant to give ground. The late morning heat was punishing, and to add to Alfie’s discomfort the taxi driver insisted on thumping his car horn every three seconds. At last, his patience in shreds, Alfie leaned forward and tapped the driver’s shoulders. “Ah-cha, baba. No problem,” he said in his stumbling Hindi. “I’ll walk from here.”

He passed the driver five rupees and slipped from the cab.

He hurried down the road and turned right into a relatively quiet side street that had the added benefit of being in the shade. The fact that he was British, and in uniform, assisted his passage through the crowds, which parted for him as if he were contagious.

Roopa’s Tea Rooms on Lal Singh Road was an ancient, timber-fronted establishment that had been a favourite – according to the report – of Janisha Chatterjee’s father. It was also, according to a police report, the last place where the girl had been seen – in the company of a European gentleman.

He quizzed the owner of the Tea Rooms, a proud old Brahmin with a distracting array of gold teeth, who described the European. “He was very fat, sir. Very fat. So fat that he must be very wealthy. He was dressed in a white suit and spoke English very well, sir. He was also German.”

“German?”

“I was talking with my good friend Mr Choudry and I overheard him telling the girl that he was a German businessman. Then the girl fell ill, and the German assisted her from the premises. But I am assuring you that it was not the produce of my respectable café that was making the girl ill, sir.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t,” Alfie said. “And the taxi was one from the rank across the street?”

“That is correct, sir.”

“And you didn’t hear anything else the German and the girl were saying?”

“No, sir. Nothing more.”

Alfie thanked the owner, left the tea room and crossed the street to the taxi rank. After asking half a dozen drivers whether they had picked up a European and an Indian girl that morning, he was directed to a chair stall where a tiny Tamil in a brilliant white shirt was sipping chai and chewing betel nut.

“I am the driver, sir! I am the very man you want. I was driving the girl and the man from the tea rooms this very morning. The girl was very ill, sir. The big man had to be carrying her.”

“And what time was this?”

“Approximately eight-thirty, sir.”

“And where did you take them?”

“I was taking them to the Karnaka district.”

Alfie nodded, pleased with his investigations so far but worried for the welfare of the girl. “Do you recall the exact address?”

The Tamil joggled his head. “Yes, sir!”

“Jolly good. Be a good chap and take me there straight away.”

“Ah-cha! Hop in, sir!”

They crossed the road to the taxi rank and two minutes later were crawling along the packed by-ways of Old Delhi. The driver turned to him, grinning. “I was taking the gentleman and the girl to Mr Horniman’s, sir.”

Alfie repeated the name. “And just what is Mr Horniman’s?”

“Mr Horniman is powerful personage, sir. He is very rich. Mr Horniman collects animals in his warehouse.”

Alfie blinked. “Animals?”

“Yes, animals. I have delivered animals there myself.”

“Mr Horniman runs a zoo?” Alfie asked, bemused.

“Not a zoo, sir. No. You see, Mr Horniman kills the animals, sir.”

“Kills them?” Alfie was liking the sound of this place less and less.

Why should an elderly German, Alfie asked himself, take Janisha Chatterjee to a warehouse where the owner slaughtered animals?

Five minutes later the taxi halted. “The warehouse is down this street, sir. But there is some kind of commotion going on.”

“I’ll say there is,” Alfie said, peering out.

A crowd had gathered at the end of the street, blocking access. Above the massed heads, in the distance, Alfie made out a great billow of what looked like smoke, and he wondered if the crowd was watching a factory fire.

“And the warehouse is along this street? Do you know what number?”

“Ah-cha, along this street. No number, sir, but it has very bright pink walls. You cannot miss it, sir.”

“Very good.” He paid the driver, climbed from the car and pushed his way through the crowd.

The curious bystanders had moved down the street until prevented from going any further by a roiling cloud of dust and debris. He hurried through the crowd, wafting a hand before his face and trying not to choke. The problem was not a fire, he realised now, but something else entirely. An explosion, a collapsed building?

Added to the choking dust was a terrible chemical stench that had him gagging. The reek was sickly sweet and acrid at the same time, and became ever more overpowering the further he moved along the street. Fifty yards on he came to a great pile of rubble and, beyond, a gaping hole in the façade of a cavernous warehouse. The few bricks intact, on either side of the maw, were pink – and Alfie felt a terrible sense of hopelessness. He pulled out his bandana and covered his nose and mouth, more to stem the appalling stench than the choking dust that obscured the sunlight.

He made out stuffed animals scattered among the masonry – deer and bears and monkeys – and shattered glass jars that had contained pickled lizards, geckos and salamanders. Now the terrible smell was explained; he wondered if the spilled chemicals might have somehow brought about an explosion.

Across the street, on top of a wall, sat half a dozen runny-nosed street kids, giggling to themselves and obviously enjoying the show. He was about to pick his way through the scattered bricks and question them when he heard the sound of movement from within the collapsed warehouse. He turned and peered through the miasma of plaster and masonry dust. Fifty yards away, on the far side of the piled bricks and girders, he made out two dishevelled figures. They were picking their way through the ruins, clutching each other for support. As he watched, they stumbled over the debris and moved away up the street.

His heart leaped. One of the figures was grossly fat and garbed in the tattered remains of a surgeon’s gown. The other figure was thin and sported a bloody bandage tied around his head.

Alfie drew his revolver and stumbled through the debris after them, grimacing and side-stepping the grisly remains of stuffed or pickled fauna. He pressed his bandana to his face as he made his way over the bricks and girders, the reek of formaldehyde threatening to overpower him. His progress was slow, but then so was that of the pair up ahead. They were obviously suffering the effects of being caught in the blast – physical injuries as well as nausea from the airborne chemicals – which Alfie reasoned should make his task of apprehending them a little easier.