My Brother's Keeper

by Charles Sheffield

  Dixie shrugged. "Ask Casanova there. She's his bit of stuff."

  Zan flashed him a look of loathing. If she was Scouse's mistress, he had chosen fire over comfort. "You simple-minded fool. Can't you see what a complication this introduces? We know his background, where he came from and who might look for him. What about her? Where is her family?"

  Dixie had flushed at her tone. "How the fuck am I supposed to know where her family is? She come in the door with him, right, an' we've never seen her before, right? I don't know who she is, but you don't need to be a mind reader to know who's screwing who—just look at 'em. If her family don't mind that, they're not likely to be worryin' when she's not home by teatime. Why don't you use your bloody loaf, instead of tellin' me I'm stupid."

  "Steady on now." Pudd'n used a carefully neutral tone. "The main thing is, we've got him. That's what Scouse told us to do, an' we've done it. Zan, why don't you get him on the phone, sharpish, an' tell him? You an' Dixie can't afford to be fightin'—we've all got work to do."

  Zan looked at him thoughtfully. Her eyes were shielded by heavy lids, and it was hard to know how she reacted to his comments.

  "Did you search them?" she said at last.

  "Yeah," said Dixie.

  "No," said Pudd'n. "I mean, all I did was look for weapons. You mean papers an' other stuff, don't you, Zan?"

  "Naturally." Again her look at Dixie held only contempt. "If we come seven thousand miles to seek the Belur Package, we ought at least to look for it. I would be surprised if he is carrying it on him, but we cannot rule that out."

  "But we know he doesn't have it," objected Dixie, "or he wouldn't ever have come back here."

  "Logical, but not necessarily true." Zan stepped forward to Ameera. "Dixie, you keep them both covered." She began to search Ameera carefully and unhurriedly, exploring each item of clothing down to skin level, while Pudd'n did the same thing to me.

  "Here's something," he said after a few minutes. "Look, it's got the old Belur phone number on it."

  He was holding the paper that Leo had left for me, with its cryptic message. If they could read any more out of it than we could, good luck to them. First Pudd'n puzzled over it, then the other two each had their turn.

  "Arabic, is it?" said Dixie. "Can't Scouse read that for us when he gets here?"

  Zan shook her elegant head. Something about her gave me shivers, but I couldn't be sure whether the feeling was pleasant or unpleasant. All I could say for certain was that when she brushed against me as she was searching Ameera, a tingling wave had run like cold water up my spine.

  "Scouse speaks Arabic, but he never learned to read it or write it," she said.

  "We don't need Scouse." Dixie nodded his head at me. "Not with 'im here to do the work for us. Give me an hour with him, alone, and I'll get you a translation."

  "No." Zan moved to stand in front of him and they stood, eye to eye.

  Dixie was the first to flinch. "All right, let's see what Scouse has to say about that," he grumbled, and moved away. "When are you going to call him, anyway?"

  "Now. He should be able to take an overnight flight and be here by noon tomorrow." Zan set off purposively towards the door, pausing only to give first me and then Ameera a strange and speculative look. Again I felt the vibration up my spine.

  "What about these two?" said Pudd'n.

  "They can stay here." She turned in the doorway and slapped her hand against the jamb. "You checked this place out properly, didn't you? No way they could break out of it?"

  "The door's metal lined, and the walls are concrete block," said Pudd'n. "They're safe enough, but there's no lavatory. And no food. We didn't expect two of them—what do we do with her?"

  "We'll worry about that after I've called Scouse." Zan and Dixie left. Their relationship had not improved during the last interchange, and they carefully avoided looking at each other. After an apologetic glance at the narrow bed, and a shrug of his heavy shoulders, Pudd'n followed them out.

  The door boomed shut with a clang of finality, and a second later the light went out. The switch must be outside the room.

  This time, Scouse's mob was taking no chances.

  The darkness was harder on me than on Ameera. To her, a light haze had simply become darker haze. We groped our way forward for a few seconds until we located the bed, then while I sat uselessly on it Ameera explored the room using her hands, feet, tongue and nose.

  She had slipped off her shoes. I heard her padding around quietly, sniffing curiously in one place, rubbing her hand or foot against the floor or wall in another. At last she came back to where I lay and snuggled beside me on the bed.

  "No good?" I said. Somehow it seemed right to whisper, even though there was no one to overhear us.

  "It is no good." Ameera moved closer to me. "It is solid, the way that the man said. Lee-yo-nel, what will they do with us?"

  "They will let you go—maybe tomorrow." I tried to sound confident. "But they want to keep me here and ask me questions about Belur."

  "But you do not know about Mr. Belur."

  "They don't believe that."

  "What will they do to you?"

  Burn me with cigarette ends. Beat me to death and then stick me in the river, the way they had handled Valnora Warren. Torture me to learn my secrets, and then fry me to a crisp on a high-voltage wire, the way they had treated Rustum Belur.

  "Lee-yo-nel?" Ameera interrupted my gloomy introspection. "Why did the man with the scratchy voice say that you were using the Nymphs with me? That is not true. I am a full-grown-up woman, not a child."

  "Eh? How do you know about Nymphs?"

  "Everyone here—every girl in India—knows about them. Lee-yo said that most of the nymph-et-a-mine tablets for the whole world are made near Calcutta. But why do the men here say that you use Nymphs?"

  "Ameera, you shouldn't be thinking about that sort of thing." I lifted myself higher on the bed. "People who use this drug are sick—sick in their minds. Let's talk about something else."

  "Lee-yo-nel!" Her body jerked against me. "How can you say that the Nymphs are bad? What is wrong with them?"

  "Everything. They make little girls want sex." I didn't want to talk about it, but Ameera would not change the subject.

  "How can it be right," I went on, "when men drug children and force them to have sex? It's wrong, and it must be stopped."

  Ameera was silent against me for a long time, then she sighed. "Lee-yo-nel, you do not understand anything. You think I am blind, but you see less. My sister will marry next year. I will give her a wedding gift of Nymphs."

  "You will do what?" I wondered if the Madrill treatment was making my brains into mush. "Ameera, you are insane even to think of that. What will her husband say?"

  "He will never know." Ameera's voice was angry now. "You do not understand our ways—Lee-yo was the same. My sister is ten years old. The new laws say she is a child, and she is too young, but my father says she is not too young. He wants a rich husband for her, and she will find one only if she marries soon. So she will marry. Without the Nymphs, she will have soreness, and bad hurt, and bleeding, and bad fear. Her wedding night will be all pain, as it was pain to me. I was married at ten, and widow at twelve. All the nights then were fear and pain."

  She was weeping against my chest. I suspected that the tears were not for herself, they were for all the young girls of India. I stroked her hair gently, and waited. She had never made such a long speech to me before.

  "We will not need Nymphs when the men are changed," she said at last. "Lee-yo-nel, you are not like this, I know it. But four years ago, I would have starved to get those Nymphs you tell me are so bad."

  She was silent for many minutes. At last her regular breathing told me that she had fallen asleep. I lay awake beside her, wondering what tomorrow might bring. No matter what I had told Ameera, I was sure that they would not let her go either. To leave this house alive, we would have to escape from it.

  How?

&
nbsp; My head was aching again, but I dared not lose time in sleep. The room we lay in was silent as a grave. As the night wore on I reviewed again and again what we had seen of the house, what I knew of Pudd'n, Dixie, Zan and Ameera, and how I might put that knowledge together to free us. It was slim pickings, but after a couple of hours I could see only one hope.

  Reluctantly, I woke Ameera. We whispered for many minutes, huddled close in the unrelenting darkness.

  - 13 -

  "What time is it?"

  My eyes wouldn't focus and my head was bursting, but when the door to our little room creaked open and the overhead light went on, that was the only question my lips could frame. A lot depended on the answer.

  "Just after midnight," said Pudd'n's voice. His broad and amiable face was better to wake up to than Dixie's vicious leer. "Eyes open now. Zan's talked to Scouse, an' she needs a few words with you."

  He may have looked friendly, but the gun in his great hand told a different story. Ameera and I sat up wearily. I blinked and squinted at the unshaded light, a single forty-watt bulb in the multisocket bracket.

  "Couldn't it wait until morning? We need to get some sleep."

  "We want to finish this before morning," said Zan. She was standing in the doorway, just behind Pudd'n, and despite the hour she looked fresh and alert. She had changed from blouse and skirt to a clinging purple robe that hugged her figure and showed off her clear olive complexion, and her eyes and lips were freshly made up. She moved forward to stand in front of Pudd'n, always slightly to the side so that we were covered by the gun.

  I touched Ameera on her arm. She sat up on the bed and swung her bare feet lightly to the floor.

  "Please. I must go to the lavatory. Now."

  Zan and Pudd'n looked at each other. "Take her," said Zan after a moment.

  "What, me?" protested Pudd'n. "She's a woman, you oughter do it."

  Zan shook her head. "I have to talk to Salkind—Scouse's orders. You can leave me the gun, if you're worried about him getting awkward."

  "An' what about me? You know we're not supposed to be unarmed."

  Zan looked from Pudd'n's great frame to Ameera's five-foot nothing, and gave a slow and lovely smile. "Pudd'n, if she beats you up I'll look after the wounds myself."

  Pudd'n was not amused. He handed the gun to Zan, stepped forward, and took Ameera by the hand. "Come on, Missie. Let's get you taken care of an' back here. Hey, Zan, Dixie ought to bring her back. You know I've got to get stuff ready for Scouse. I'll be up all night as it is."

  Zan frowned. "I suppose so. Tell him to bring food for these two when he comes."

  "Yeah." Pudd'n grinned at me. "He'll love doin' that. Don't worry, I'll keep an eye on him an' make sure he doesn't try an' poison yer."

  Zan waited until he was out of the room and the door had been closed before she spoke.

  "I think I have a surprise for you. Scouse believes your story."

  "It's not a story."

  "He believes that Leo Foss is dead, that you are his brother, and that you truly do not know where the Belur Package was left. Why would you come back here, he argues, unless you were trying to find the Belur Package?"

  "Full marks for Scouse. So far he's spot on."

  Zan nodded thoughtfully and leaned forward. "But he knows there must be more. First, you know that the package exists."

  "Damn it, your bunch told me that, back in London."

  She ignored the interruption. "Obviously, you also know the value of the package. And in order for you to come here, you must have received information about where to come. Leo must have told you that. Perhaps at the time of the helicopter crash? That detail is less important. Scouse wants to offer you a deal. We will pool the information, yours and ours, and look for the package together. You will share in the profits from its sale."

  "What makes you think that I have more information?" This conversation was not going the way that I had planned. Instead of convincing Zan to break with the gang, I was being recruited myself.

  "When you left England, you disappeared for two weeks. You could have been travelling around India, but Scouse is convinced that you actually went to Leo's house, the one we have never been able to locate."

  I felt a surge of satisfaction. At least one of my brother's plans had worked out as he intended. His hideaway was still hidden.

  "You're making an awful lot of assumptions."

  "Scouse is an awfully intelligent man. Somewhere in that house there will be the evidence to show what your brother did with the Belur Package. He is convinced of that. You realize that the chips are worth hundreds of millions, and that we can hold a secret auction for them once we have them? So which is it to be—prompt cooperation, or agony for you and the girl until you agree to take us to the house?" She licked at her full lips and shivered a little as she spoke.

  "Not much of a choice, is it?" I tried to sound calm. "But I'll have to think about it for an hour or two."

  "No." She shook her head firmly, as cool as though we were discussing the choice of dishes for a lunch menu. "You will decide at once. You were left here alone long enough to think about this situation. Decide now."

  She slapped her hand firmly on her thigh, and as she did so Ameera reappeared in the doorway with Dixie scowling behind her. He had no gun, but his knife blade was poised a couple of inches from her kidneys.

  I sighed, and stood up slowly. Ameera and I could have used another few minutes alone, but that would be denied to us.

  "All right. I know when I'm beaten. We'll cooperate with you. But let's do it upstairs, away from this damned room, and you can give us some food. We're starving down here."

  I moved forward, slowly enough so that Dixie wouldn't get the wrong idea, and stood in the middle of the room a step away from Ameera. Dixie and Zan moved to cover my back, knife and gun both ready for use.

  "When can I start walking?" I asked, and as I spoke I lowered my hands a few inches towards my pockets.

  "Stop that," barked Dixie. "Get them hands up above your head, where we can see what you're doin' with 'em."

  "Oh, take it easy." I looked over my shoulder at him. My pulse was up about a hundred and fifty, but some detached corner of my intellect controlled my actions and made them smooth and precise. "You know we're not armed. What do you think we're going to do, fly away?"

  As I spoke I followed his orders and raised my arms high over my head. The light fixture was directly above me.

  Now or never! Don't stop to think about consequences. As my right hand went up I slid the short length of bedspring out of my sleeve and thrust it up hard into one of the empty light sockets in the ceiling bracket.

  There was a sputter of hot sparks onto the back of my neck, and a tingling shock through the cloth that protected my hand. Then all the lights went out.

  I had used the last moment before darkness came to fix my attention on Ameera's position. As Dixie swore behind me, I grabbed her hand in mine and squeezed it hard. We had agreed that neither one of us would speak unless we were absolutely forced to. She turned and we began to run back along the corridor, as I allowed myself to be drawn in whatever direction she chose.

  There was a flash as the gun went off behind us, and a shrill scream of fear from Dixie—I could see his point of view, he wasn't holding the pistol. Then Ameera hissed "Stairs," at me, and we were staggering up the long flight as fast as we could go. We had removed our shoes before Zan and Pudd'n arrived, so our run made little noise. One of my big fears was that Pudd'n would be waiting for us on the ground floor.

  A turn, a mad dash scraping along the wall of a corridor, and then we were moving down another staircase. Another one of my fears was ready to be tested—it seemed certain to me that Belur's lab would be on its own circuit, even if everything else in the house came through a single fuse. We might have to face the danger of a lighted corridor.

  We came safely past that area. All the lab lights must have been turned off.

  The dusty glass panel in
the front door gave me my first sense of position. As Ameera ran towards it and halted, gasping and shivering two feet from the threshold, I squeezed her hand again.

  "Me now, Ameera," I panted—my first words since we had left the cellar. "Let me get past and open the door."

  Unlocked. Thank God for that. Dixie and Pudd'n had expected no surprises coming from outside. We slipped through as quietly as we could, and were suddenly together in the cool, moonlit midnight.

  Ameera and I had made no plans past that point. In the gloom of the cellar it had seemed to need a miracle to take us this far. But now we needed another one to help us to the railway station.

  This time I was the leader. We scurried around the big house, panting and frantic, our feet cut by the sharp stones and gravel. Surely the gang would have rented a car to get to and from the station? I couldn't see Dixie doing much walking.

  "Is there, Lee-yo-nel?" gasped Ameera. It was doubly hard for her, not able to look for the ways we might get away.

  "Here, on this side of the house." I led her to the shiny Toyota and opened the driver's door.

  Useless. There was no ignition key, and although Leo might have been up to hot-wiring the engine I knew it was beyond me. I left the door open and ran on farther around the house, guiding Ameera to run along the softer grass.

  The second car was old and battered, a relic of the eighties, and it looked as though it would never see thirty miles an hour again. But to me it looked better than a Rolls—the key was sitting in the ignition, and the car was already pointing in the correct direction, towards Cuttack.

  "Here. Inside." I helped Ameera through the door and she lay down on the back seat. "If I am not back in a couple of minutes, don't stay here. Get out and go, anywhere away from the house. Wait for daylight. When you meet people, show them your railway ticket and ask to be taken to the station."

  "Lee-yo-nel! Where are you going?"

  "The other car is much faster—they will catch us easily. I must fix it so they cannot drive after us. It will take only a moment."

  "Lee-yo-nel!" Her cry was low-pitched, and she kept her head low on the seat.