The Mandel Files (99 page)

Teddy had eventually turned up in their ageing Belgian Air Force Black Hawk support helicopter, flown by a shaken, terrified pilot. Greg didn’t learn until much later how Teddy persuaded the man to fly into the heart of a grade three fire zone. There would have been a court martial, except the pilot refused to testify.

Eleanor’s right, I do dwell on Turkey too much.

But he was bloody glad it was Teddy in the second ghost wing.

The orange circles took him round the north of Gunthorpe. Here the basin mud had surged along a slight depression between Walton and Werrington, engulfing roads and buildings. It was only a metre deep, but the relentless pressure eroded bricks and concrete, exploiting every crack and crevice.

Foundations were eaten away, day by day, year by year, cement pulverized, reinforcement prongs corroded, bricks sucked out. Roofs had collapsed, the abraded walls sagged then fell. Even now the piles of rubble were still being assaulted from below, dragged down by the unstable alluvial substratum, a pressure that wouldn’t end until the entire zone was levelled. Weeds and reeds choked the rolling mounds in a mouldy mat of entwined tendrils. The satellite image had shown the whole area crisscrossed by paths worn by adventurous children, glimmers of metal detritus peeking through the limp foliage.

The virtual simulation had shaded it in as a lightly nicked pink desert.

One hundred metres in altitude; and five hundred metres up ahead the tunnel of rings had dipped down at a steep angle, narrowing like a whirlwind to touch the apex of an old factory warehouse.

Greg dimmed the simulation, reducing it to a geometric lithograph. He banked the Westland to starboard, preparing to overfly the warehouse roof. The tunnel twisted into an impossible helix. He throttled back the propeller speed to idle, and glided in.

At last he thought he saw something through the scudding fog. Down below, a pale blur, broken by dark irregular smudges. According to the simulation he ought to be over the factory’s yard. Big squares of cracked concrete with abandoned gutted lorries, a scattered cluster of railway van bogies in one corner.

With a bit of imagination the dark smudges below could be rusted cabs.

The simulated green skeletal outline of the warehouse was upon him. If it corresponded with the actual structure the Westland should take him six metres above the roof apex.

Solid surfaces suddenly materialized between the green lines, as if the building had been edged in neon tubes. Greg received a fast impression of breeze blocks smeared in rheumy ribbons of algae, and a corrugated roof, red oxide paint flaking away. He laughed as he twisted the throttle grip, shooting back up into the veil of fog.

“Morgan? Tell your programming team they’ve got a big drink coming. The guido virtual is perfect. I’ve just surveyed the landing site.”

“Glad to hear it. Could you see anybody waiting?”

“No. It looks clear. I’m going around.”

He made a leisurely turn, and headed back towards the warehouse. This time he came in lower. The orange tunnel stretched out ahead, perfectly level. It terminated halfway up the slope of the roof.

He saw the corrugated panels again, four seconds before he reached them. Legs running in mid-air. Then the rubber soles of his desert boots slapped down.

Every nerve was raw-edged with tension. If the panels couldn’t take his weight he was in deep shit and no messing. The satellite image interpreters swore they would hold.

The noise of his running feet sounded like a drum beat after the graveyard silence of flight. He could feel the panels bending slightly under his heels. The apex was three metres ahead of him. Still the panels held.

He yanked savagely at the throttle grip, reversing the propeller pitch. Tilting the wing back up as he fought to kill his forward momentum. The sudden backward impetus nearly toppled him.

“Shitfire! Tell you, next time we do as Julia says and send in the cavalry.”

“Greg?” Teddy called. “You down, boy?”

He was crouched a metre short of the apex, balancing the wing precariously. Fog swirled beyond the guttering, cutting off any view of the yard below.

“Yeah. Wait one.”

He killed the virtual simulation overlay then activated the Westland’s retraction catch. There was a wet slithering sound as the wing folded. The steering bar hinged up and back. He grappled with the frame, slapping the harness release. The ghost wing finished up as a fat damp cylinder three metres long, which he could just hold under one arm.

He scrambled up to the apex, and walked down to the end. When he peered over he could just make out the base of the wall, lined with tufts of grass and sickly dandelions. There was a monotonous dripping from the broken guttering. The roof would give them ample clearance for a swoop launch after they had completed the mission, a genuine running jump. Of course, they had both been trained to launch from a much lower height, and a shallower slope. But those lessons had been an uncomfortably long time ago now.

“OK, Teddy. The panels are solid, and our take-off run is clear. I’m on the southern end of the roof. Come in when you’re ready.”

“Gotcha.”

Greg unslung his pack, and riffled through it, looking for the climbing gear. The propeller noise of Teddy’s Westland was just audible as he overflew the warehouse on his guido check pass.

“Hell, Morgan, this ‘ware is ultra-cool,” Teddy exclaimed. “The virtual matches clean down the line.”

“All Event Horizon gear works like that.” Morgan sounded slightly indignant.

“Yeah? Man, I wish we’d had this in Thrkey. Would’ve shown ‘em Legion bastards.”

Greg found the vibration knife, a slim black plastic handle with a telescoping blade. He crouched down and pressed it against the breeze block just below the edge of the roof. Grey dust spurted out as the blade drove in, buzzing like an ireful wasp.

“Comin’ round,” Teddy said. “Here we go. Jesus Lord protect your dumb-ass servant.”

Greg shoved an expander crampon into the hole. It clicked solidly, locking into place.

Teddy’s feet banged loudly on the roof, an elephant charging across sheet metal.

“Teddy!”

“Jeeze.” Teddy was wheezing; an indistinct figure slouched over the apex. “Greg, I ain’t no flicking bat.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Everything all right?” Morgan asked.

“We’re down,” Greg said. He clipped a climbing rope into the crampon’s eye, and let the coil fall down the side of the wall. Behind him he could hear Teddy folding his Westland ghost wing.

“Roger,” said Morgan. “The security team is on alert.”

“We’ll shout if we want them,” Greg said. Just knowing the hard-line crash recovery team was waiting, that their tilt-fan could be with him in minutes if he hit any hazards, was a heady boost. Rule one: always sort out your escape route first.

He fed the rope through the krab attached to his belt, then swung himself out over the edge, and abseiled down to the yard.

Teddy landed lightly on the nicked concrete and unclipped the rope. He was dressed in mart-black combat leathers, a tiny Trinities emblem on his epaulette, ‘ware modules attached to his belt, the slim metallic-silver photon amp band around his eyes, navy blue skull helmet. There was an AK carbine strapped tightly to his chest, an Uzi hand laser in a shoulder holster.

Greg was dressed the same, except he was carrying an Armscor stunshot instead of an AK. He wondered what the pair of them would look like to some poor unsuspecting sod who saw them emerge out of the fog.

He had considered wearing civilian clothes, but decided they were impractical; there was too much gear to carry. Besides which, the fog and the night should provide enough cover. The Blackshirts guarded their territory’s boundaries tightly, but inside Walton they could move about with a reasonable degree of freedom. And his espersense would warn them of any random patrols.

“OK, Morgan, we’re on the ground,” Greg said. “Put Colin on, please.”

Colin had insisted on being included, even though he really was too ill for an operation which required sustained gland use. But Greg didn’t have it in him to say no, not to that brave, silently pleading face. More bloody guilt.

“I’m here, Greg.” Colin’s voice was reedy, anxious and eager.

He imagined them all in Morgan’s ops room: Eleanor silently worried, Gabriel staring grimly at the communications console, Morgan keen-eyed and serious, Colin sitting in front of a flatscreen displaying the satellite image of Walton, technical support staff hovering around. The hard-line security team commander secretly hoping to be ordered into the fray.

“Where’s our man?” Greg asked.

“He hasn’t moved. It must be his house.”

“Right, thanks, Colin.” Greg requested the virtual simulation again. Featureless green toytown houses blinked in, marking the perimeter of the factory yard sixty metres away. He tilted the display to vertical, and reduced it until it was a panoramic model of the whole district. The house where Colin had said Knebel was staying flashed a bright amber. It was seven hundred metres away, due south. A route graphic slid out from their warehouse, an orange serpent bending and twisting down the smaller streets and constricted alleys.

“Let’s go,” Greg said. The display reverted to its real-scale superimposition, the route a path of tangerine glass.

“I’ll keep you updated,” Colin said.

Greg saw Teddy’s face turn towards him, blank band concealing his expression.

“No, Colin, just give us another scan when we’re a hundred metres away to confirm he’s still there.”

“I can manage, Greg.”

“Yeah, but if he starts to go walkabout you’re going to have to track him for us. I don’t want you overstressed.”

“Yes. Sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”

“OK, call you when we’re in place.” he summoned up a secretion from his gland, then set off down the orange line, feet sinking into the placid current of photons up to the ankles.

The fog was sparser out on the streets, broken by walls and a light breeze coming off the basin. Visibility had increased to fifteen metres. Greg switched the virtual simulation back to outlines, the photon amp image shaded in the actual walls and roads a smoky grey and blue.

Spook town, and no messing.

There were no streetlights. Public utilities in Walton didn’t receive much priority from the city council these days. Chinks of biolum light escaped from some houses, glimmers from shuttered windows. The amp showed them as near-solid blades probing out across the street.

Pro-PSP graffiti was splattered on every wall. They walked down one alley with an elaborate mural of People’s Constables and socialist-stereotypical workers sprayed on the fence, bold uplifted faces and stout poses; rotting wood had left vacant jagged gashes, mocking the artist’s vision.

Black bags like swollen pumpkins and kelpboard boxes full of rubbish formed a humpbacked tide-line along the pavements. The corrupt smell of putrefying vegetation was strong in the air, mingling with the brine from the basin.

Greg saw rats crawling around the bags, gnawing at soggy titbits. Tiny black glass eyes turned to watch him and Teddy pass, quite unafraid.

They had to sink back into the shadows and gaps between buildings several times as Greg perceived people walking towards them. Walton’s residents invariably stuck to the centre of the road, as if they were afraid of the buildings and what they contained. They never once heard or saw any kind of powered transport, though bicycles nearly caught them out a couple of times, rushing up silently from behind.

A street-corner pub produced the biggest obstacle. Bright fans of light shone out of its windows and open door, illuminating a broad section of the road. Men were lounging against its walls, drinking in small groups. Jukebox music reverberated oddly across the street, country rap, hoarse vocals booming against a background of a solitary steel guitar.

Greg halted on the fringe of the light field consulting his virtual simulation. He pointed at the entry of a narrow alley on the other side of the road from the pub, and they edged off the street.

“Recognized some active Blackshirts back there,” Teddy muttered.

“Mark it off for the future,” Greg said.

“Sure.”

One of the reasons Teddy agreed to accompany him was because the opportunity to scout round enemy territory was too great to pass up. Greg knew the detailed satellite images stored in the guido’s memory would be handed over to Royan who would integrate them with the Trinities’ existing intelligence bytes. Lieutenants would pore over the resulting package, fine-tuning tactics for the final assault. Teddy hadn’t said anything, but he knew the fight wasn’t far away now.

The alleyway they had skipped down brought them out into a cul-de-sac. One side was a brick wall backing on to some gardens, the other was a row of garages, their metal swing-up doors were either broken open or missing entirely. Walton’s perpetual tide of rubbish had swollen to form a rancid mattress underfoot, bags rose like lumpy organic buttresses against the bricks. Rats scampered about everywhere.

Greg’s espersense found the cluster of minds, just as he heard the low bubbling laughter up ahead. Something about the minds wasn’t quite right, their thought currents wavered giddily, emotions burning fiercely. One of them was emitting a mental keening, gibbering with psychotic distress.

“Shit. Teddy, it’s a bunch of synthoheads. And they’re juiced up high.”

“Where?”

“Ten metres. One of the garages.” He drew his Armscor stunshot, a simple ash-grey pistol with a solid thirty-centimetre-long barrel. “I’ll take them, cover for any runaways.”

“Gotcha.”

The stunshot was only accurate up to twenty metres. If one of the synthoheads got away, Teddy would have to use the Uzi on them, providing the target laser worked in the fog.

Tension clamped down hard; this was supposed to be a stealth infiltration. People being killed just for getting in his way wasn’t part of the deal.

It was the third garage from the end of the cul-de-sac, a dim yellow glow spilling out on to the sludge of rubbish. Greg flattened himself against the wall, checked the stunshot, then spun round the corner.