The Code War

by Ciaran Nagle

  She knew she presented a nice image. Slender, medium height, long brown hair. Pretty enough, but not too beautiful. That was a good thing, she hoped. Beautiful people were too easily noticed and remembered. Not good in a crime organisation. And anyway she wanted to be treated seriously, not taken for a bimbo.

  Fatty's assistant, Ko-yee, was sitting on a sofa behind her. Ready to protect his master in case she attacked him. Well, if you're a crime boss you can't be too careful.

  'Habby speak very highly of you.' Pretty good English.

  'Habby? Oh, you mean Habib. Yes.'

  'So. What you want, Nancy?'

  Nancy was ready for this. 'Well, I enjoyed working for Habib in Africa. I thought I did a very good job there in difficult circumstances.'

  'You killed one of my men.' Fatty wasn't going to make it too easy.

  'No, actually,' Nancy bridled. 'He killed himself with his own stupidity. And he was cheating you by running his own operation on the side.'

  The glean of a smile lightened up Fatty's face. He liked that.

  'But you not speak Cantonese. What good you to me?'

  'No.' This was proving harder than she thought. Had they flown her from Israel to Hong Kong just to turn her down flat after five minutes? 'But I speak perfect English and this is a colony with an English-speaking government, right? And English laws? And where a lot of important business is done in English?'

  'So? I not need English people in my company so far. Why I need you now?'

  This was going badly. She needed to break out of her defensiveness, take the initiative.

  'I am good at organising things. Getting things done.' Damn, she thought, what have I really done except talk my way across a border and run into the sea? 'Look, give me something to do. You must have a challenging problem right now that no-one else can fix.' Shot in the dark. 'Put me in charge of something. I can learn Cantonese as I go. I'm best when I'm dropped into something, at the deep end.'

  Fatty frowned. 'At the deep end?'

  'Yes, it means without warning. Without preparation.'

  'Hmm. You not look like member of Brother. You look too… innocent.'

  'Oh? You just told me I killed someone.'

  Fatty grunted again and looked at Ko-yee. Did he like that too?

  'What you know about…eh…newspapers, television. I mean about talking to newspapers, what you call that?'

  'Oh, do you mean PR?'

  'Yes. PR.'

  'Not very much. But I'm good with customers. I'm good at selling. I could learn on the job. Give me a try.'

  Fatty turned to Ko-yee and spoke to him in Cantonese. 'You know we talked about how Brother is growing up. Maybe we need someone to be our face to the rest of the world. We need to be international like a proper corporation. We'd set ourselves apart from other triads. What do you think?'

  Ko-yee was hesitant. 'She's never run a brothel, or a casino. What does she know about heroin? Is she going to run to the police when she wakes up to what we're doing? We don't know anything about her, Fatty.'

  'Hmm.' Fatty thought for a minute. He turned back to Nancy and spoke in English.

  'Here's what I think. Maybe we could use an English girl. Or maybe not. But first, we need to see you how you work. Stand up.' Nancy stood. 'Now turn around.' Nancy did as she was told. Fatty leaned forward over his desk and scrutinised her body all over as if he was looking at a horse. Nancy wondered if he was going to come over and put his hand in her mouth and inspect her teeth. He turned to Ko-yee.

  'Get her fitted with a cheung sam. And nice shoes. And get Ah Mui to put some make-up on her.' He turned back to Nancy. 'Tonight you work in my Golden Luck casino. Hostess. Greet customers and make sure they spend money. Show you can sell. We see if you like Brother. We see if Brother like you. Find out very quick.'

  Oblivion Bar, Naxela's Squawhouse, Inferno

  Bezejel slapped Kodrob so hard on the back that it nearly broke his spine. His nitro-top benzene went flying across the bar, some of it splashing into a Poseidon's trident of burning torches. A flaming whoosh went up to the top of the ceiling cone.

  A loud cheer came in response from all the squaws and demons present who had joined in Bezejel's celebration. She was buying the drinks to mark a significant moment in the progress of the Nancy project. Two drums boomed in the background in time with each other.

  Kodrob recovered his composure and watched his boss with some concern. It was an incongruous sight. Bezejel the siren princess, confidante of the Leader, elegantly coiffured in her dazzling red dress and high heels amidst a throng of beery, leery cut-throats in drab uniforms who would husk each other for a snoutful of grog.

  Even now he could see some of them weighing up their chances, doubting the rumours about her, thinking that maybe they could catch her alone later in the night and force themselves upon her.

  They'd be stupid to try. She could snap them in two as easily as breaking a match. Even a gang would stand little chance.

  'She's in, dammit, she's in,' shouted Bezejel raucously to the adoring crowd. 'We've guided that woman into Brother surer than a Pecheneg arrow into a Byzantine eye. This is more exciting than watching Scythian heads torn from their shoulders with a shredded shield. Who can stand against us?' She was on her feet now. 'WHO CAN STAND AGAINST US?'

  Another huge cheer assailed the rafters while hands all around the room held up jugs of diesel in grateful salute. She looked around her. 'Come here Holzman you maggot-eating Schwabian goat-molester. Come here you great wart hog.' Bezejel grabbed Holzman by his collar, pulled him bodily off his chair and kissed him full on the lips. But the next moment she swiped him on the side of his head with her left hand sending him crashing to the floor.

  'Don't touch me again,' she shouted at the prostrate form in fury. Kodrob dropped from his chair and threw his body in front of Holzman, protecting his squad member. 'I'll take care of him ma'am. I'll punish him.' He half-pushed and half-dragged Holzman out of the way and sat him on a distant table before returning to the bar. It wouldn't do for Kodrob to absent himself from Bezejel's side at this stage of the party. All he could do was hope that the storm had passed and Bezejel's fiercesome exuberance would abate.

  There was a wide berth around Bezejel now and even she seemed to realise she had gone too far. 'More drinks, on me,' she shouted and this time the cheer was slightly less loud than before as demons acknowledged her gesture out of fear but deigned to meet her eye.

  'Ma'am, I can't thank you enough for your leadership,' said Kodrob obsequiously, looking for a way to calm her down. 'We've rarely known such success as you have brought us. Holzman just got carried away, that's all.'

  'I don't hold it against him,' said Bezejel defiantly.

  'Thank you ma'am.' Kodrob glanced around him and saw Lafarge, Zhivkin and Pu Gash looking anxiously his way. He winked at them that all was fine then turned back to Bezejel. 'Ma'am, this may not be the right time and place to discuss this, but if we look forward to the rest of the project, there is still much to do.'

  'This is a perfect rime and pace,' mumbled Bezejel who had herself drunk plenty and was beginning to show it.

  'Zhivkin has approached me with an idea that I believe is worthy of consideration. It involves giving the arrogant angels,' he paused to turn his head and give an obligatory spit on the floor, 'a bloody nose that they won't forget in a month of Hallowe'ens. It will need co-ordination and planning. May I come and talk to you about it tomorrow when we've got some Hades coffees in front of us?'

  Bezejel looked at Kodrob and for the first time he noticed the abject misery in her eyes. Bezejel was lonely, he realised. Like all of them. But she was a female in a wholly male environment and the only way she knew how to cope with male company was either to dominate and hurt them or else use them for pleasure and then destroy them. In her current mood she was very dangerous indeed and could easily turn on him, thoughtlessly, in a furious rage.

  From the doorway came a sudden hubbub followed by a loud cheer and a s
tamp of feet. Demons were rushing to the exit in excitement as a voice shouted 'Banshees at the ski jump, it's a spectacle.' Soon more voices were shouting 'Banshees at the ski jump' and 'Come on lads'.

  It was just the distraction Kodrob needed.

  'Come on ma'am, let's see this,' he said. 'It'll be good for our spirits.'

  Bezejel rose from her seat and they followed the crowd outside.

  A few hundred yards from Naxela's squawhouse lay a volcanic lava plain in-between where the Slothmire and Miser's Folly fingers joined the Pentacurse region. The flatland steamed and simmered in the dim light of Inferno's atmosphere. Here and there in the plain, the barely solid crust on the molten rock would open up for a minute or so exposing the flowing red magma underneath. Clouds of sulphur spewed upwards from the vents and drifted lazily across the torn landscape towards the fingers. The plain was a couple of hundred feet lower than the finger promontories and a steep embankment led down to its tempestuous red and black bubbling surface. In one place the embankment had been worn smooth, like a slide, and at the foot of the slide, whether through natural erosion or through the deliberate working of demons' hands - no-one could remember which - there was a hockey stick-like short upward incline in the rock. The whole resembled an Olympic ski-jump.

  An armed unit of jager imps had captured a foraging party of banshees and was preparing to roll them down the slide. Banshees were lower-caste female demons who had been unable to obtain work in a squawhouse, liquor shed or roadside shebeen or even one of the mean flesh farms that served the needs of undiscerning male demons. They banded together in sisterhoods of up to a hundred strong and roamed the remoter districts of Inferno to rob the unwary.

  They also launched daring co-ordinated attacks against buccaneers and marauders, robbing them of their captured loot after they had relaxed their guard upon returning to Inferno from a scavenging trip. In this way they earned the enmity of all Infernals from the lowest to the highest. On this occasion an entire commando of banshees had been captured by jager imps after an ambush they set had been observed and pounced upon. The banshees had been taken prisoner and brought, moaning and screeching as banshees do, to the ski jump site. Now the group, over fifty females strong, were bound and perched on the edge of the ski jump having been trussed up in balls and bound tight with sargasso seaweed ties. Cahuatl, a former Aztec chieftain and leader of the jager imps now sent his troopers around the crowd demanding a half pint of diesel fuel from every demon who wanted to watch the spectacle. Most paid up and only a few were reluctantly turned away, out of funds.

  Watching the scene, Bezejel had considerably perked up and lost her maudlin tearfulness, much to Kodrob's relief. She was starting to shout and jeer at the banshees along with the loud macho figures among the dominant band leaders. Because of Bezejel's rank, she and Kodrob had managed to make their way to the front of the crowd close to the cliff edge around the volcanic plain. They were joined there by the rest of the squad, even Holzman who was holding his hand protectively to his cheek.

  Cahuatl had brought up several drums and these now began to boom out across the fingers, raising the tension and excitement even more. The first banshee was brought to the edge of the ski jump and the crowd hushed in anticipation. The drums fell silent and a wailing moan was heard from the tied figure. This caused the crowd to laugh. The moan grew louder as the banshee reacted to the mockery and wailed all the more. Soon all the banshees were moaning in unison making a sound like an invasion siren. The watching demons held their claws in their ears but didn't dare tear their eyes away from the imminent spectacle. This entertainment would be remembered for a long time.

  Cahuatl kicked the first banshee-containing sargasso ball with his foot and all eyes followed it as it pitched over the lip of the embankment and began to roll down the slide and pick up speed. As it hit the bottom curve and shot up into the air the banshee's moan turned into a piercing screech that made the crowd roar with laughter even more. Cahuatl's purpose became immediately apparent. He was attempting to aim the banshee so that its trajectory curve would take it neatly through one of the openings in the plain's crust and straight into the boiling magma. As it fell through the last thirty feet of its journey the opening that Cahuatl had aimed for abruptly closed and the first banshee crashed into the smoking rock. There its sargasso ties smouldered and burnt away after a few minutes allowing the indignant banshee to escape. She jumped up pulling her smouldering skirts up around her and hot footed it across the sulphurous plain in an effort to get away. The watching demons were so incapacitated by their laughter that none of them bothered to try and catch her.

  Cahuatl, cashing in on the fun he had created, now began to auction off the chance to aim and push each sargasso ball. Commanders and section leaders, urged on by their men, began to step up and pay large amounts of liquor for the chance to boil a banshee. Bezejel was urged by many to take a shot but couldn't bring herself to execute another female.

  All night long the entertainment continued with each moan, screech, scream and splash into hot magma being greeted by roars of approval and cheering. In the end about fifteen of the banshees had been successfully sautéed into the liquid rock, some having been launched and recaptured several times. Once submerged in the molten lake they were carried underneath the crust to emerge aeons later in another part of Inferno husked and reduced to lower status. Some banshees had managed to escape but even the jager imps who caught them originally had had so much fun that they didn't really care. Maybe they'd capture them again another day and repeat the spectacle?

  Kodrob's team were all motivated more than ever before. They believed in their ability to steer Nancy away from the angelic threat and deliver her safely to the gates of Hell.

  Bezejel returned to her chamber, this time without even trying to find a young satyr to accompany her.

  Lafarge came and walked beside Kodrob as they trudged back to Naxela's for more booze.

  'Guv'nor, you know you were telling me about the caste ladder and how all demons and demonesses gradually slide to the bottom?'

  'Yes, Lafarge. Why do you find that so hard to understand?'

  'It's not hard to understand. It's just that I was thinking about Nancy. We all know that Bezejel will make sure that Nancy ends up here in Hell. I just wondered how long it might take before Nancy gets husked down the ladder and becomes a banshee. It would be more fun to roll someone down the ski jump if you actually know them. More personal, like. See what I mean?'

  Kodrob's imagination filled with a picture of Nancy trussed inside a seaweed ball, screaming in fear as she trajectoried into a molten bath. He stopped and scowled at his subordinate.

  'Shut up Lafarge. Go and buy yourself a hangover. I've had enough to drink. I'm going to bed.' He abruptly changed direction and trudged off into the gloom, pausing only to punch a passing troll.

  Kowloon, Hong Kong

  Jabez swung the Fundial lightship down beside the British Airways Boeing 747 as it continued its glidepath over mid-Kowloon towards Kai Tak airport. He brought it up alongside the cabin and looked in, so close that he could almost reach out and touch the pilot on the shoulder. Then he swung it around the other side and brought it just in front of one of the engines, peering inside till he could see the turbine spinning and the spout of blue flame from the jets. It was primitive technology and yet so very advanced compared to his own time on Earth only 3000 years before.

  Jabez could have flown above Earth with his own wings but the lightship was even more effortless and fun. He took the craft down just above ground level and overflew the main thoroughfare of Nathan Road at 1000mph. Then he took it around again and this time brought it down at walking pace. He took in the bustle and traffic noise, the ferocious buying and selling in streets and stores, the cooking and eating, the trade in heroin and sex and the sheer energy of this middle part of the colony.

  It was time to do some work however so he looked for a suitable place to park. Leaving the invisible lightcraft two floors
up attached to the outside of a building in Yaumati district, he dropped to the ground. Jabez's mission would involve placing the 1.11 number where Nancy would be able to see it. He was not just observing humans, he had chosen to walk among them, visibly, and so had tightly folded his wings behind him under a thick hoodie.

  Walking along Yaumati's main streets he spotted Lafarge standing outside a foreign exchange booth. Lafarge saw him too. But this was no place for an open conflict. Both Fifth Dimensioners exchanged glances and then looked away and ignored each other disdainfully, like cold war spies in Beirut.

  Jabez set about his task. He walked into restaurants, stores, clothes shops, jewellers and grocer shops. He scanned hawkers' trolleys, food stalls, bins, office signs, stairways, bus stops, taxi ranks and security guards' uniforms. He made mental notes of everything he saw and then gradually widened his search taking in backstreets and harbours, boats and parks till he had covered every street in Kowloon from Tsim Sha Tsui to Sham Shui Po and Yaumati Typhoon Shelter to Tsz Wan Shan. Returning to Yaumati with his reconnaissance accomplished he saw that Lafarge had been replaced by Holzman who appeared to have a large bruise on one side of his face. Jabez summoned the invisible lightcraft with his thought. He waited for a moment when Holzman was looking the other way, stepped inside it and was gone.

  It had all been so easy. He'd come back the next day and continue his work without fear. Demons were dim.

  Golden Luck Casino, Yaumati, Kowloon, Hong Kong

  Nancy stood beside her new friend Jenny Ling inside the door of the Golden Luck Casino. Westerner and oriental, both were an oasis to male eyes in their stunning and identical blue cheung sams.

  Nancy had survived her first week at the Golden Luck Casino. She had learned several Cantonese words and phrases and was beginning to understand how the place worked.