The Mandel Files

by Peter F. Hamilton

  “Ranasfari can’t have said that. It doesn’t fit.”

  Seeing him like this, exhausted, wounded, and cripplingly despondent she felt an overwhelming surge of affection for him. The case had been taxing him; punished by the gland, driven by his own ruthless brand of determination, beaten up by Kendric’s bastards. Maxed out. All she wanted to do was help, ease the burden. If only he didn’t have this stupid code of his, always giving a hundred per cent. It was too much of him.

  “Well, Ranasfari did say it. And it’s time you were in bed, Greg Mandel.”

  “No, no, you don’t understand. The blitz was a vengeance attack.”

  “Yes, you said. You proved Kendric ordered it.”

  “Yeah, well, sort of.”

  “The Merlin,” she said, beginning to understand.

  “If the Merlin was deliberately sabotaged,” he said, “then the blitz was part of a kombinate spoiler operation.”

  “You are concussed. There’s nothing to say the Merlin shutdown couldn’t be vengeance, too. Kendric wanting to wipe Philip Evans, and damage Event Horizon at the same time by undermining confidence in the giga-conductor cells. Hit Julia from both sides at once. After all, we know he’s already used a top-grade hotrod against Event Horizon to pull the security monitors. He probably used the same hotrod to shut down the Merlin,”

  “Oh, yeah, right.”

  It was obvious he wasn’t convinced. She began to speak with slow deliberation, voicing her thoughts almost as they formed. “The motive for launching the blitz depends on whether Kendric knew of Philip Evans’s NN core. If he did, it was him out for vengeance; if not, it was a kombinate spoiler. Right?”

  “That’s about the size of it.”

  “Good. So, how bright is Katerina?”

  “What?”

  “Don’t you see? It all hangs on her, whether or not she knew about the NN core. And from what you’ve told me about her before she met Kendric, she sounds like the all-time champion bimbo. Could she have worked out what was going down at Wilholm?”

  His eyes closed, face pained. “Dunno. She had a good education.”

  “Means nothing. Who would know if she’s got enough brains?”

  “Julia, I suppose. Certainly poor old Adrian. I knew it would happen, that she’d dump him. Should’ve warned him, given him the benefit. He wouldn’t have listened.”

  Eleanor ignored his ramblings. Knowing the sense of excitement derived from solving human intricacies. Finally appreciating how Greg could become so wrapped up in his cases. There was a certain addictive quality to unravelling the carefully crafted deceits of other people, it was a form of conquest, outsmarting them. “Then you’ll just have to ask Julia. But not today, I think.”

  CHAPTER 28

  Wilholm’s lawn sprinklers were working at full strength, their long white plumes adding a faint coppery tang to the dry pollen-clogged air. Julia ran down the garden path, giggling wildly, trying to dodge the spray shooting out of the rotating nozzles. The cotton of her emerald-green dress was already damp. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Adrian had almost caught up. A shriek, a last triumphant burst of speed from her legs, and she reached the gravel drive ahead of him.

  OtherEyes Access Request.

  Adrian yelled behind her, cursing, and she turned, cracking up at the sight of him caught full square in one of the foamy jets. He slopped on to the gravel trailing dark footprints.

  “I’m bloody drenched,” he wailed, laughing with her.

  He was too; T-shirt and tennis shorts clinging to his skin. She draped her arms round his neck, kissing him exuberantly. “My very own Mr Wet T-shirt.” The giggles set in again, unstoppable.

  OtherEyes Priority Access Request.

  His hands found her rump, squeezing with interest. “Do we have enough time before he gets here?” His breath was hot in her ear. He’d begun to nuzzle her neck, aiming for that place he’d found which was exceptionally ticklish.

  She let out a heartfelt sigh, squirming in his arms as his tongue licked below her ear. “Not this morning. Busy.”

  “Afternoon?”

  She nodded eagerly. Adrian was insatiable. Wonderfully, fabulously insatiable.

  Alaka had been disappointed by the non-appearance of their star guest at most of the functions after Friday night. But she didn’t give a flying fig about that. This was love.

  And Adrian felt the same ahout her, so enraptured he’d come back to Wilholm with her on Sunday night.

  “I’m afraid to let you out of my sight,” he’d said. “I can hardly believe a girl like you would even look at someone like me.”

  So she did her best to convince him, realizing his every wicked fantasy on her big apricot silk bed, and in the jacuzzi, the shower, dresser chair, deep-pile rug. And Adrian could be very wicked indeed.

  Her grandfather hadn’t said anything about Adrian coming to stay, not a peep. She hoped that meant he’d finally accepted her as an equal. Part of his kindness before, she knew now, had been the type a teacher shows a gifted pupil. That she could be groomed to manage Event Horizon was his driving concern. She forgave him that. Right now she could forgive anybody anything.

  OtherEyes Access Request: Please Juliet.

  “All afternoon,” Adrian growled insistently.

  “Absolutely.” He was going back to the college in the evening, which would give them a solid six hours to practice yet more of that rapturous sex. Then there was next weekend to look forward to. Thank the Lord Cambridge wasn’t far away. Although she would’ve travelled to Tasmania for him.

  Julia heard the sound of tyres on the drive, and began to disentangle herself. Suddenly wondering what the hell she must look like; hair tangled, front of her dress damp from where she’d pressed against Adrian, cheeks flushed, and grinning like a madwoman. Greg would hardly need his empathy to see what she’d been getting up to.

  Adrian kept hold of her hand as the little Duo pulled up in front of the portico. The car’s arrival frightened Wilholm’s flock of snow-white doves into flight above her.

  Open Channel to NN Core. Load OtherEyes, Limiter# Three. Sight and hearing only, so her grandfather wouldn’t be able to sense her racing heart, nor experience Adrian’s adventurous hands.

  Thank you so very much, Philip Evans said. So sorry to trouble you. In case it’s of the remotest interest, we think the Trojan program which Gabriel predicted has been loaded into the Event Horizon datanet. There was a highly sophisticated code melt in our Doncaster silicon-fibre plant ‘ware two minutes ago; they are scheduled to squirt their production data to me in another five minutes.

  Julia suddenly hated the real world for intruding on her private happiness, it seemed to delight in conspiring to reduce her time with Adrian-Greg’s visit, unseen hackers. Why couldn’t they leave her alone? Petty grubbing manipulators, all of them, pissing in the wind. They weren’t going to alter society, nor bankrupt Event Horizon, nor make the Sun revolve around the Earth, turn water into wine. The sum total of their activities was so near to zero as to be derisory. People were so bloody stupid, and insensitive; animals that’d learnt how to wear clothes.

  Her arm tightened instinctively around Adrian. He didn’t know how much of a comfort he was.

  Don’t be so sarcastic, Grandpa, it’s very unbecoming. Have Walshaw’s security programmers managed to backtrack?

  Not yet.

  Total surprise.

  Give them some credit, Juliet, that melt was hard to spot.

  If they’d written a decent guardian program in the first place there wouldn’t have been a melt through.

  Her grandfather answered with a reproachful silence. Surprising what could be read from emptiness.

  Greg climbed out of the Duo. Julia let out an involuntary gasp. His left eye was swollen and black, heavily bruised; a moulded white surgical dressing covered his nose; his hands seemed to be all blue dermal membrane; he was limping.

  Christ!

  “What happened?!” she demanded anxiously.
>
  He smiled heavily. “I had a little chat with your friend, Kendric di Girolamo.”

  “My God! He did this to you?”

  “His bodyguards.”

  “Oh, Greg. You shouldn’t even be out of bed. Come along with you, out of this hot sun.”

  Greg shrugged. “Not as bad as it looks.” His eyes were fixed on Adrian. Accusing, Julia thought, certainly not indifferent. My God, could he be jealous?

  Adrian stirred uncomfortably under the stare, gripping her hand that little bit tighter.

  “Adrian, isn’t it?” Greg asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  They reminded her of two stags, scraping hoofs before they locked antlers. Disturbing to think she might be the cause, but then again it didn’t exactly hurt her ego.

  Greg’s cut lips quirked slightly, breaking the spell. “The name’s Greg. Nice to see you again.”

  Adrian relaxed a little at her side.

  She gave him a huge sunny smile. “This conference won’t take long, darling. Would you see to Tobias, I’ve been neglecting him shockingly.”

  “Sure thing.” He pecked her cheek and gave Greg a quick curious glance before heading off towards the stables.

  Another thing about him, he understood the way Event Horizon business dominated her life, and made allowance, never making unreasonable demands. There weren’t many who’d do that. He was going to make a smashing doctor with that kind of sympathy.

  “Nice lad,” Greg offered as they reached the shade of the portico. There was sweat on his forehead.

  She slipped her arm into his, steadying his walk; glad to have someone trustworthy to confide in. “Nice? Greg, he’s gorgeous. And you should see him with his shirt off. Totally hunky!”

  “Lucky Adrian.”

  Doncaster is squirting, now!

  Julia nearly groaned aloud. How could she have forgotten about Grandpa? He would’ve heard every word. That bloody OtherEyes was going to have to be rewritten again.

  Greg was looking at her speculatively. A blush was rising up her cheeks.

  Morgan Walshaw was waiting for them in the study. He did a double take at Greg’s injuries, frowning, then signalled them to sit.

  Julia pulled out her chair at the head of the table. The dark polished surface in front of her was cluttered with gear modules and cubes. Morgan Walshaw was devouring information from three cubes fed by an elaborate-looking customized terminal. Next to her grandfather’s NN core was a Commodore bioware number cruncher, a maroon hexagonal block fifty centimetres across and twelve high. A thick bundle of fibre-optic cables linked it to the study’s communication consoles. Her grandfather called it junior; he’d unplugged his NN core from Event Horizon’s datanet, plugging in the Commodore as a replacement. It’d been loaded with a Turing personality responses program; and he’d spent the last three days reformatting it to shuffle Event Horizon’s data squirts in a routine fashion.

  “Will you look at that.” Her grandfather’s gruff voice rumbled around the study.

  The biggest cube on the table was displaying a schematic of the Commodore’s databuses, a nightmare mobius topology of fine turquoise lines binding together a miniature globular cluster of sparkling jade stars.

  A cadaverous pink stain had begun to wash through the image, spreading down the lines and branching at every star, tainting everything in its path.

  “Christ, the bugger’s expansion rate is phenomenal. About fifth power,” the directionless voice exclaimed.

  The cube showed an unhealthy homogenous pink blob.

  “Six seconds from reception to total domination. Incredible. Whoever they are, they’re serious. I would never have been able to stop it if it’d got into the NN core. That’s all down to Gabriel. Where is she, Greg?”

  “Her psi function takes a lot out of her. She’s at home recuperating.”

  “Well, try and get her back here. I want to thank her personally.”

  If Greg was aware of the irony he didn’t show it. “I’ll tell her.”

  “So. Kendric had you roughed up, did he, boy?”

  “My fault. I confronted him.”

  “Why?” Julia asked.

  “Taking a short cut. I wanted to establish that Kendric was the one who paid Wolf.”

  “Well, of course he is,” she exclaimed.

  Greg shook his head gingerly. “No. That’s the problem. Kendric isn’t directly behind the blitz. Not that I could prove, anyway. My intuition says he’s involved in some way, though.”

  “Well, there you are then,” she said.

  “I wanted something a little more concrete.”

  “What for?”

  She saw Greg and Walshaw exchange an edgy glance. It was so bloody annoying. Why couldn’t they speak in front of her?

  “Concrete proof for concrete action,” Walshaw said quietly.

  “Oh.” She put her hands flat on the table, studying the nails intently.

  “It wasn’t a complete waste of time,” Greg said. “I think I can prove Kendric does know about the NN core.”

  “Ah!” Philip said triumphantly.

  Julia suddenly realized Greg was staring right at her.

  “Katerina Cawthorp is living with Kendric on his yacht,” Greg said.

  “Still?” Julia blurted.

  “You knew about it?”

  “I knew she’d gone off with him, I was there when it happened. I thought Kendric was another of her one-night stands. Kats is like that, you see. Bit of a bed-hopper.”

  “What I’d like to know is whether or not she’s bright enough to work out that your grandfather was planning to translocate his memories into the NN core,” Greg said. “She was here for a few days. The opportunity exists.”

  “A week.” Julia stared pensively at the leather-bound books on the wall shelving, not bothering to cut in the processor node. Remembering all those years she and Kats had spent together at school. Only time’s perspective gave them a totally different slant, like an old play whose plot she’d forgotten. They’d seemed like great days while they were happening, insufferably tedious now. “Kats never paid any attention to classes, too busy with boys,” she said slowly, reluctant to condemn. “But no, she’s not stupid. It’s just that I find it hard to believe Kats would bother listening to idle business chatter, let alone interpret it.”

  “She wouldn’t have to interpret it, Kendric would do that for himself,” Greg said.

  “I’m sure I never mentioned the NN core project in front of her. I wouldn’t have, there’d be no point, science and finance simply don’t fit into her world view. And Grandpa and I certainly never discussed it at meals.”

  “She may have overheard it being mentioned. There’s a certain thrill in eavesdropping on the conversations of someone as powerful as your grandfather. Even if she couldn’t make sense of it at the time she might remember what was said.”

  “True enough,” said Walshaw. “Though the Kendric connection is still circumstantial.”

  “Don’t be obtuse, Morgan,” Julia said. After all Greg had gone through he didn’t deserve disparaging observations. “Of course Kendric’s guilty, he reeks of it.”

  “I wasn’t disagreeing,” the security chief said mildly. “It is the degree of Kendric’s involvement which seems to be unresolved.”

  “Not the exact degree, no,” Greg said. “But he’s in deep, no messing. And I think we can rule out a mole now we know about Katerina.” He glanced at Walshaw for confirmation.

  “Yes.”

  “OK, that just leaves the question of why Kendric allowed Julia to buy him out. I still don’t understand that, and it bothers me. We know he’s in trouble with the family over the money he withdrew from Event Horizon’s backing consortium, and he’s working on some deals to try and fill the gap, provide the house with an equal return. That’s got to be the key, these deals of his, And they’re tied up with you somewhere.” He shot Julia a fast glance.

  She knew he meant his intuition again. It gave her a creepy feeli
ng, the way his suspicions about the spoiler had turned out to be true. Now Kendric was making unknown deals.

  “Raw materials?” Walshaw suggested. “Is he buying up the options on the compounds that go into the giga-conductor?”

  “No,” said Philip. “There aren’t any really rare minerals involved in any case. And I’ve made quite sure we have a safeguarded stockpile of the chemicals we use. That’s an elementary precaution, I did that even before we filed the patent.”

  Greg rubbed the dressing on his nose with a forefinger. “Tell you, my own impression is that Kendric has made some sort of alliance.”

  “With who?” Julia asked.

  He gave her a wan smile. “Don’t know. Someone, some organization, who would benefit from having your grandfather wiped. Kendric is an influence peddler, you see. Once he established that Philip Evans’s memories were stored in the NN core, he could barter the information in exchange for an investment opportunity that’d give the family house money a return equal to the Event Horizon backing consortium. Get someone else to do his dirty work for him, and make a profit at the same time. That’s his style.”

  “A kombinate?”

  “No, I never believed it was a kombinate behind the blitz, a month-long delay in introducing the giga-conductor would be a nonsense when you consider their cyber-factories would have to be totally rebuilt to produce the stuff.”

  “What, then?”

  “Sorry, I can’t tell you. That’s just the feeling I get out of all this.” He shrugged. “Kendric definitely has some sort of scheme in mind, the buyout is proof of that, as well as his hatred for you.”

  “Mutual,” Julia said automatically.

  “I know.”