The Mandel Files, Volume 1

by Peter F. Hamilton

  Greg calling, apologetic but firm, ruled by duty. Idiot, she’d answered; trying to disguise a jumble of secret worries and heartwrenching concern with stiff resolution. He respected toughness. Both refusing to yield.

  He’d promised, she’d told him, promised solemnly. But he’d shaken his head, saying it wasn’t like that. She’d cried herself to sleep, imagining terrible things happening on the di Girolamo yacht.

  How silly it all seemed now. Words spoken, never meant.

  Eleanor gave Rusty a submissive thumbs up and headed for the surface, too weary to rush, a few wriggles with her flippers every couple of metres keeping her ascent steady. Rusty orbited her laggardly.

  The hireboats had all returned to the fishing lodge at Whitwell, away down the other prong of the reservoir. Even the windsurfers had packed up. The Berrybut estate’s bonfire was sending flames shooting into the neutral sky, a spectre-light swarm of sparks lingering above the rectangular clearing in the still air.

  Rusty insinuated himself between her legs, and she hugged his dorsal fin gratefully. The ride back to the shore was nothing like the usual turbulent dash. A slow smooth glide. Now why couldn’t people be like dolphins – sympathetic, gentle, perennially happy. Magnificent creatures.

  The sun had fallen behind a pearl crescent horizon piled high with lacy clouds when Rusty let her off. She stroked his head and bent to kiss him. Rusty would understand. He chittered wildly and sank below the surface, suddenly leaping up again five metres away, twisting in midair and landing with an almighty splash. She laughed, first time all day.

  The pebbles on the drying mud cut into her feet as she walked out of the water, her skin like soft crinkled putty after such a long immersion. It’d been midday when she’d begun harvesting. Greg had sworn he’d be back by early morning. Eleanor had waited until lunchtime for him to return, then her tolerance had snapped, and she’d dived into the water, sulky and furious.

  Duncan was fire warden this evening. He lived two chalets down from number six. Eleanor stopped to say hello, letting the bonfire’s ruddy furnace heat dry her puckered skin, welcoming the warmth permeating through her limbs. Duncan gave her a couple of baked potatoes out of the raw clay oven-tunnel which ran through the heart of the bonfire, eyeing her chest as the flames threw liquid orange ripples across the dull-sparkle nylon of her one-piece costume. She thanked him, straight-faced, and juggled the hot potatoes back to the chalet. Duncan was sweet. And his covert schoolboy glances started her thinking about how she and Greg could spend the evening making up.

  The Duo hadn’t returned. Eleanor almost dropped the potatoes. Greg had been gone for thirty hours now. No matter how big their row he wouldn’t have done that without telling her.

  She dumped the mirror lung and the potatoes on the porch, blipping the lock. Inside, and the snug familiarity of the little lounge offered no comfort at all. She activated the Event Horizon terminal, loading Greg’s cybofax number.

  The delay warned her. Connections never took more than a second. After fifteen seconds the flatscreen printed: THE UNIT YOU HAVE CALLED IS CURRENTLY OUTSIDE EUROCOM’S INTERFACE ZONE.

  Now the dark worry she’d held back really began to mount. She didn’t even hesitate before loading Gabriel’s number.

  THE UNIT YOU HAVE CALLED IS CURRENTLY OUTSIDE EUROCOM’S INTERFACE ZONE.

  The heartflutter of panic didn’t come from fear, it was not knowing what to do next. Instinct cried out to call the police. But snatching that Katerina girl was incredibly illegal. Eleanor wondered if they’d got caught, flung into prison. She could hardly ask. Then she remembered Gabriel had been with him all the time. Nothing could go wrong with Gabriel there to provide advance warning. A doddle, he’d said, a late, lame attempt to reassure her.

  Then why wasn’t he back here, her cold mind screamed silently. The ludicrous notion of him running off with Gabriel intruded. Dismissed instantly. She thought for a second, then raced for the bedroom and her cupboard. The Trinities would know – maybe where he was, certainly what to do next.

  The card Royan had given her was still in her bag. She showed it to the terminal, praying. The flatscreen remained blank, but she heard scuffling sounds from the speaker.

  ‘Yeah?’ The voice was male, flat and uninterested.

  ‘I want to speak to Teddy – Father.’

  ‘No shit?’

  ‘Now!’

  Eleanor thought she’d blown it, there was only aching silence. Cursing her brittle nerves.

  The screen cleared to show Teddy’s face. ‘Eleanor, right? What’s up, gal?’

  She let out a sob of relief.

  Teddy’s frown grew as she explained. She wondered if she was coming over like a hysterical jilted girl. He had to realize how important this was.

  ‘Greg didn’t leave any message for you at all?’ Teddy asked when she finished. And he was taking it seriously. Her confidence rose a fraction; she wasn’t alone any more.

  ‘None.’

  ‘That ain’t right,’ Teddy said. ‘Greg would always cover himself, standard procedure. And Gabriel’s cybofax is dead too?’

  ‘Yes; at least, English Telecom says both of them are outside the satellite footprint.’

  Teddy paused for a moment. ‘OK, my people left ’em going into the Event Horizon finance division office. I can’t believe the company would waste ’em. They knew they could trust Greg, and it ain’t that sort’ve deal anyway. ’Sides, they let my people get clear. Thing that bothers me is Gabriel. She’s like invincible, you know?’ He started typing on his terminal keyboard, looking at something off camera. Unintelligible voices stuttered in the background. ‘OK, I want you to call that Morgan Walshaw guy for me. You’ll get shoved around by secretaries and the like, don’t take no shit. Insist on speaking to him. Him only. Ask him if he knows where Greg is. Then call me right back; you’ll get straight through this time. I’m gonna see what I can find out about Gabriel, if she ever got back.’

  ‘How?’

  Teddy’s face melted into a fast keen grin. ‘I got friends everywhere.’

  ‘Oh.’ She felt foolish asking.

  ‘Eleanor, you did good calling me, gal. We’ll get him back for you.’

  And he was gone before she could thank him.

  Eleanor tugged on a silk blouse before she called Event Horizon, respectable from the waist up, twisting damp hair into a pony tail. Morgan Walshaw’s number was in the terminal’s memory core.

  The screen lit with a polite-looking young man in a neat powder-blue business suit.

  Eleanor swallowed. ‘This is Mandel Investigative Services,’ she said. ‘I’m returning Mr Walshaw’s call on a case we’re covering for him.’

  He shrugged; friendly, she thought.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘We can’t reach Mr Walshaw at the moment.’

  ‘If you check you’ll see our company is cleared for direct access.’

  ‘Hey, I’m not giving you the run-around, not someone as pretty as you. Mr Walshaw really is out of touch.’

  ‘Isn’t that unusual?’

  ‘Very. There’s some big glitch in our communications net right now, really shot it up. It’s headless-chicken chaos around here at the moment.’

  ‘I see.’ But she wasn’t sure she believed.

  ‘Listen, if it’s really urgent why don’t I call you back as soon as the glitch has been debugged? We’ve got Mandel Investigative Services number on file. Who shall I ask for?’

  ‘Eleanor, Eleanor Broady.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you Eleanor, I’m Bernard Murton.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you to offer, Bernard. Have you any idea how long it’ll take to debug this glitch?’

  ‘Nope, sorry.’ He smiled ingratiatingly. She wondered if he’d have enough courage to ask her out for a drink. Struck by how bizarre this all was, being chatted up by a randy assistant while God knows what was happening to Greg. Sliding her mind back on to the problem.

  ‘This data package I’ve got for Wal
shaw is very important,’ she said. ‘I don’t suppose you could tell me where he is, I could hand deliver it.’

  ‘Er, sure, no ultra-hush about that. He’s with Miss Evans at her home. But you won’t be able to get in. It’s sealed up tight, something to do with the communication glitch. They don’t tell me anything.’

  ‘Thanks, Bernard.’ She broke the connection before he could say anything else.

  There was a number for Wilholm in the terminal memory, listed as private.

  Should’ve done this to start with, Eleanor thought as the connection was placed. Greg always said go straight to the top for real results.

  The terminal’s flatscreen dissolved into a tricolour snowstorm, red, green, and yellow specks skipping about. The speaker hissed with static.

  Eleanor stared at it uncomprehendingly, then cleared the order, ready to try again.

  ERROR, flashed the flatscreen as she punched up the menu.

  An icy dread settled on her skin, like a fast autumn-morning frost. Piercing clean into her heart. This was something to do with Greg, she knew it was. Greg, Event Horizon, Julia, Gabriel, Walshaw, Katerina, all bound together in some devil’s tangle. Thoroughly spooked, she punched up the menu again.

  ERROR.

  ERROR.

  ERROR.

  The flatscreen went dead, not even that absurd will-o’-the-wisp nebula.

  Eleanor snatched up the Trinities card and ran out into the twilight. ‘Duncan!’ People turned to look at her, pale ovals of surprise and concern. ‘Duncan!’

  He was abruptly standing in front of her, face rapt with a mixture of eagerness and trepidation.

  ‘Your terminal, I have to use your terminal!’ she cried.

  Duncan seemed startled, her frantic urgency taking a moment to sink in. ‘Right-on, sure.’

  Eleanor wanted to grab him and shake him as he fidgeted through his cards, eventually finding the right one for his door with a shy apologetic grimace. ‘Is it Greg? Is he all right?’

  ‘Yes. No. I’m not sure, that’s why I need the terminal.’

  The door swung open. ‘Here we go.’ Duncan had an old Emerson terminal, the keyboard worn, some of the touch tabs completely blank. He tapped the power stud.

  Eleanor punched out the phone function with a pulse of anarchic energy, then showed her Trinities card to the key. Duncan’s face went white when he saw the bold fist and thorn cross emblem, eyes widening. ‘I’ll er … be outside.’

  Teddy’s face appeared, leaning forwards, squinting. ‘Hell, what’s happened with you, gal?’

  She told him, barely coherent, words falling over each other in her rush to expel them. Made an effort to calm down.

  ‘Not good,’ he scowled. ‘Gabriel never made it home either. We wanna find out where they was headed, we gotta talk to Walshaw or that Julia Evans gal.’

  ‘Can’t. The security man said Wilholm was sealed up, that I wouldn’t be able to get in.’

  ‘And they ain’t taking no calls, neither,’ Teddy said. ‘Hostile to ’em, even. Strange. Something in there they don’t want no one to see. Ask me and it’s something plugged into whatever the Christ is going down. Gotta be. Lay you down good money on that, gal. You know what?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Reckon we oughta take a look see.’ There was a dense gleam of excitement in his eyes, some of his tension draining away.

  ‘Yes, but – how?’

  ‘Ain’t nowhere God can’t reach, not if he reaily wants to. Can you get to Wilholm tonight?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘OK, I’ll round me up a few troops, meet you outside the main entrance in an hour. How’s that grab you?’

  ‘Great.’ And she was lumbered with the problem of transport.

  ‘Everything all right?’ Duncan called as she ran down the slope to the water.

  ‘Fine.’ Lying. Curious eyes tracking her flight.

  There were three rowing boats tied up at the Berrybut estate’s little wharf, one of them was Greg’s. She unwound the painter from its hoop and hopped in. The floating village was three kilometres away, an impossible distance. Why oh why didn’t the marine-adepts even have a cybofax between them? Isolation was fine, but not to that extreme.

  Eleanor began to row, lifting one of the oars out every ten or so strokes to slap the water three times.

  The marine-adepts had a van, an old Bedford pick-up they used to take the water-fruit down to Oakham station. They’d help, and keep silent.

  She hadn’t gone a hundred metres when the dolphins surfaced around the boat, three of them; agitated, tuning in on her distress. Just in time. The surge of adrenalin that’d got her this far was fading rapidly, arms already leaden.

  Eleanor chucked the blouse and dived right into the chilly black water, shockingly aware she’d never been swimming at night before.

  The dolphins clustered round, snouts butting her gently. She brought her hands together, making a triangle then pressing her palms together: home fast. Again.

  Loud chittering, then one of the sleek grey bodies rose under her. She hung on grimly and they began to slice through the water, curving round Hambleton peninsula towards the floating village.

  36

  Cold turkey was a bitch. It was convulsive shivering, with hot flushes, cold flushes, dryness burning like vitriol in his gullet. Nothing made sense, light and darkness alternating, noise and silence cartwheeling around each other. Nightmares and nirvana trips entwining, indistinguishable.

  It was dark when his fever broke. Greg was sitting uncomfortably on a hard floor, propped up against the wrought-iron railings of the tower’s stair. His hands had been pushed through the railings, and cuffed on the other side. He could slide them a metre and a half up or down, his entire range of possible movement. His bladder ached, his mouth tasted as if it’d been rinsed in copper soap. Somewhere along the line his shirt had got lost, that scratchy dinner jacket was tickling his skin.

  When he glanced round he saw he was in the tower’s first-floor storage room. Biolum light shone up from the basement and down from the lounge. Murmured conversation drifted out of both holes. The smell of cooking was making his stomach growl.

  Gabriel was sitting next to him, her arms embracing the railings. She was asleep, her mouth open.

  Greg nudged her with his toe. She shook herself awake, blinking at him.

  ‘Christ, Greg. I was worried about you.’

  ‘Yeah, Lord knows what was in that infusion Neville Turner gave me, bloody sight more than a relaxant, though. How come we’re still alive?’

  She grimaced and shifted closer. He leant forwards as much as his tethered arms let him. They got their heads within a foot and talked in whispers.

  ‘They’re checking out what you told them,’ she said. ‘From what I can gather, Armstrong has some kind of landline stretching over to Downham Market. He told his apparatchiks to launch another hotrod attack against Philip Evans’s NN core. He reckoned that without me there to warn Evans they’d have a good chance of success this time.’

  ‘Figures. What did I tell them?’

  Her lips depressed. ‘Sorry, Greg. Just about everything. Armstrong was fascinated by how you found Tentimes. Made you give him Royan’s life story. That really shook them, the way the Trinities have been killing off ex-People’s Constables. They thought the Trinities were an ordinary bunch of street punks. Irritants beneath contempt.’

  ‘Shit. That’ll start a bloody war, no messing. The Blackshirts will be screaming for revenge.’

  ‘If Armstrong tells them. He probably doesn’t want to draw public attention to PSP remnants right now. Besides, don’t write Teddy off so quickly. The Blackshirts would take a hell of a pounding if they ever went into Mucklands Wood.’

  Depression welled up. Greg felt useless, and worse, he’d betrayed his friends. A real twenty-four-carat Judas. ‘Did I mention Eleanor?’

  ‘Once or twice. But not in connection with anything important. They never showed any interest in her. She’l
l be all right, Greg.’

  One comfort. Bloody small, though.

  ‘Kendric was right pissed off with Julia,’ Gabriel said. ‘The way she manoeuvred him to clear Katerina from the field so she could nab Adrian for herself. Armstrong had a laugh at that, Kendric out-thought by a randy teenager with a crush. That girl isn’t stupid.’

  ‘I told them that?’ Greg was disgusted with himself.

  ‘Yes. They questioned you for over two hours. Don’t blame yourself, Greg. Interrogations these days are like punching out a data request in a memory core, the answers pop out quick and clean. There’s no way anyone can hold out. You should know that.’

  ‘Sure. Thanks.’ The only hope left now was Morgan Walshaw, and anything Ellis might’ve left behind. ‘Did I tell them that Walshaw and the Event Horizon security programmers were sifting through the files in Ellis’s Crays?’

  Gabriel screwed her face up. ‘I think so, yes.’

  ‘Did it kick anything loose? I mean were they worried about anything he might find?’

  ‘Not especially.’

  ‘Bugger.’ He’d banked everything on Ellis wreaking a silent posthumous vengeance. A folly whose magnitude was now painfully obvious. Even if Ellis had been told exactly who he was working for, he wouldn’t have known about this tower hideaway in Wisbech. Need-to-know was an elementary precaution, and Armstrong certainly wouldn’t have overlooked anything to do with his personal security. Hindsight must surely be the most useless function of the human brain, torturing yourself over the unalterable past.

  Gabriel shifted her knees. ‘One item which really got them stirred up was the Merlin,’ she said.

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Armstrong and Kendric weren’t the ones who meddled with it.’

  ‘Who did?’

  A smile ghosted her lips. ‘That’s what they wanted to know. They asked you three times if you were sure there had been a rogue shutdown instruction squirted up to it.’