“I know that you spun Beth a yarn about coming to London solely to seek your wayward offspring.” Gilford swung his legs over the edge of the bed. “It’s my feeling, and one that old Becky of Scotland Yard apparently shares, that you’re really in Blighty to track down the Unknown Soldier.”
Crossing to the table, Jake picked up his stungun and shoulder holster and strapped it on. “Nice to have met you.”
“Allow one to give you a bit of advice, old man. It would be much safer were you to allow old U.S. to go about his slaughtering.”
“Oh, so?”
“Besides which, most of the rascals he’s rid the world of so far richly deserved being chopped up.”
“You serve in either of the Brazil Wars?”
“One was a dashing frontline correspondent in the final go-round,” answered Gilford, standing up and stretching. “I ran into a great many oafs back then who were ripe for quartering. One sometimes wonders why our Unknown Soldier has waited so long to pay them off.”
Jake opened the door. “Goodbye now.”
“I did inform Beth, when the dear girl buzzed me earlier, that I strongly doubted that you were the sort of fellow I’d hit it off with.”
“There’s another example of your astuteness, Gilford.”
“However, Cardigan, old man, if you actually are seeking a lost child and need any information, do get in touch.” Smiling lazily, he strolled past Jake and into the corridor.
As they drove along the Champs-Élysées, which was part real and part simulation, Gomez asked Madeleine more about the young man they were en route to visit.
She said, “I don’t know Michel Chasseriau at all well. Even though he was associated with my husband at the International Drug Control Agency, I was quite surprised when he phoned me this morning.”
“You’ve met the lad before?”
“Yes, once or twice.”
“So you’re not exactly an expert on his character? He could be conning you, maybe even setting you up for another encounter with goons.”
“That’s possible, yes, which is why I want you along,” she answered. “You’ll want to turn right up ahead, Mr. Gomez, and get onto the Avenue de Friedland.”
“Let’s go over again what he told you over the phone.” Gomez made the indicated turn.
“Chasseriau seemed sincere—sincere and extremely nervous. He’s young, not more than twenty-five, and he strikes me as rather a timid person,” said the widow. “He’s been away from the office since Joseph’s death, with the excuse that he was ill. He told me, however, that he’d been staying home so that he could do a great deal of soul-searching.”
“Sí. I used to do a lot of that when I was in my twenties.”
“He claims to know something important about my husband’s death. He’s made up his mind he must tell me.”
“But he didn’t supply any details over the phone?”
“He was vague. He insisted he wanted to tell me in person.”
“He must’ve sounded convincing.”
“He did,” she said. “You want to turn onto this side street ahead, then park.”
Gomez did that.
The young IDCA agent had a flat on the third floor of a narrow brix building.
“What sort of music would you like to hear, madame and monsieur?” inquired the elevator.
“Let’s try silence, por favor.”
“As you wish,” said the voxbox in the dark neowood ceiling of the rising cage.
When Gomez saw that the door of Chasseriau’s flat was a few inches ajar, he caught Madeleine’s arm. “Wait here,” he cautioned.
He pressed himself to the plaswall next to the opening, listening as he slipped his stungun out. Nothing but the routine hums and murmurs of the flat reached his ears.
Nodding once, he reached out and shoved the door open wide.
Nothing happened.
After counting to thirty, in Spanish, he risked a look inside the quiet flat.
There was no one in the small living room. On a plastiglass bench sat an open suitcase with some clothes wadded into it.
Gomez let out his breath, went walking in. The flat consisted of the small living room, a small bedroom, a small bathroom, and a tiny servokitchen. There was no sign of the young IDCA agent in any of them, but it looked to the detective as though Chasseriau had done some hasty packing and departed. Left in such haste that he’d neglected to take along the suitcase that was still sitting in the living room.
Gomez went over toward the door of the flat to communicate his findings to Madeleine. As he neared the open doorway, he heard voices in conversation.
Stungun ready, he dived into the hall.
“I was just explaining to Mrs. Bouchon, Gomez, that even though you’ve broken yet another vow and continue to ditch me, which is something I’d really take to heart were it not for the fact that I have a very positive image of myself, I’m still willing to play ball with you,” said Natalie Dent, eyeing him in a not completely cordial manner. “By the way, the fact that I’m here should indicate, even to someone as peabrained as you sometimes appear to be, that my sources are as good as yours. If not actually better.”
Madeleine asked him, “You do know this young lady?”
“We’re longtime pals.” Gomez put his stungun away inside his coat.
Natalie said, “I take it Chasseriau isn’t at home.”
“Nope,” said Gomez. “The evidence indicates that he has flown in some haste. I don’t think he was snatched.”
Natalie poked her pretty chin with her forefinger. “I’m wondering.”
“About what, Nat?”
“Whether or not,” she said, “I should tell you what it is that’s been bothering poor Mr. Chasseriau.”
18
EARLY IN THE MORNING the Barset-London express had deposited Dan at the Marylebone Station, which stood in a secure section of the great city. There was a thick gray fog lying over Marylebone Road as he started making his way along it. The half dozen gilded robots, dressed in nineteenth-century costumes and singing Xmas carols in front of a squat brix church, looked insubstantial and sounded faraway.
Dan adjusted his muffler, then took yet another look at the slip of paper Jillian Kearny had given him. He’d consulted a map at one of the village shops and he knew he had to get over to the Edgware Road and then follow Park Lane along the border of Hyde Park. From there he’d have to find a way to slip into the unsecure zone where Nancy had gone.
“At least I think that’s where she must’ve gone.” Dan, hands deep in his trouser pockets, walked determinedly along the quiet, misty streets of early morning London.
He was aware that he was sort of trying to imitate his father, that he was trying to be a detective. Yet he really didn’t have that much confidence in himself. Sure, he’d acted brave and wise in front of Jillian, but he sometimes had doubts that he could handle this.
He wasn’t even certain Nancy was really here in London someplace. If he did find her, he wondered if he would be able to persuade her to come back to Barsetshire with him.
The one thing he was sure of was that he had to try to find her. He had to see her again.
Following him through the blurred morning was the person who’d been tailing him since last night. A person who was betting that Nancy Sands was indeed in London and that Dan Cardigan would lead the way straight to her.
A short distance beyond Hyde Park Dan encountered a weathered barricade built of faded neowood planks and rusted barbed wire. Stenciled on it in shaky white letters were the words gang-zone! keep out! extreme danger! Scanning the barrier, he noticed there’d once been a forcefence in operation here, too, but the projectors for that were broken and corroded.
He was thinking about trying to climb over the five-foot fence, wondering if he could do that without getting all snarled in the spiky wire, when a raspy voice behind him spoke.
“Away from there, m’lad,” it warned, “or it’ll be deep trouble you’ll be getting i
nto.”
Standing nearby, broad gunmetal chest misted by the fog, was a large robot bobby. He had a truncheon built into his right hand and a stunrod in his left.
“I was only looking at it, officer,” Dan told him in a tone he hoped sounded polite. “I’m—you know—a tourist.”
“From America by the sound of you,” said the copbot. “Well, this isn’t a safe place for any tourist. Scoot along home to your hotel—off with you now!”
“Yes, sir. Sorry.” Giving the robot a casual salute, Dan walked away.
As soon as he was out of sight of the mechanical man and shielded by the heavy fog, he began exploring the area. There were barricades blocking all of the streets leading into the zone dominated by the kid gangs. Finally, though, near Belgrave Square, he spotted a narrow lane where the barrier had recently been smashed down.
Dan went darting into the lane, the thick morning fog seeming to close in on him.
In the first block the buildings were gutted and empty. A soft, damp silence filled the street. Though he struggled to fight against it, Dan started shivering as he walked along. He found he was moving more slowly, his head turning from side to side to scan the dead, silent structures that floated in the fog.
He stepped on something, slipping, almost losing his balance.
What he’d put his foot down on was the severed head of a cat. Its dead eyes were open and staring, its teeth were bared in a rigid grimace.
Shaking himself as though he’d suddenly been splashed with something cold, Dan increased his pace.
He began noticing smells now. The pungent reek of potcigs, the strong odor of cooking fat, the smell of rotting flesh. Then he saw a child, a sexless kid of two or three, leaning in the gaping doorway of a ruined apartment house. Staring straight ahead, wide-eyed, with a bloody knife dangling in its pudgy fist.
From some of the buildings came the sounds of squabbling, lovemaking, fighting, laughing.
There were young people lounging on some of the porches, thin kids in their early teens, wearing patchwork outfits that didn’t fit. They showed little interest in Dan’s passing.
He turned another corner, cried out, stopped in his tracks.
There was the body of a naked girl of about sixteen lying in the street. Five large scruffy mongrel dogs were feeding on the corpse.
“Get away, get away!” shouted Dan, charging at them.
He was afraid it was Nancy.
But then he noticed that this girl was dark-haired and thin.
One of the dogs, a one-eyed gray with a bloody muzzle, slowly turned. It began snarling warningly at him.
Dan felt he had to scare the animals off, then see about getting the girl’s body to a safe place.
Another dog noticed him. It didn’t growl or bristle. It simply charged at him, trying to sink its jagged teeth into his leg.
Dan stumbled back, went down on one knee, and then scuttled across the pavement.
The dog, a battered black mutt, missed his leg, wheeled to charge again.
Dan managed to scramble to his feet. He looked around desperately for something to use as a weapon. There was a board lying in the gutter and he snatched it up. Gripping it like a bat, he swung as the dog leaped again for him.
The wood connected with the animal’s skull. There was a loud crackling noise. The dog yelped, whimpered as it fell to the ground. It lay still.
Two more of the wild dogs abandoned the dead girl to turn their attention to Dan.
“Get back!” He swung the board from side to side, causing it to whistle through the misty morning air. “Get back, damn it!”
The snarling animals hesitated, watching him.
Dan took a few slow steps backwards.
The dogs stayed where they were.
He tried a few more steps. Then he spun, started running away from them.
Someone, up in an unseen window, laughed.
Dan emerged from a dirty, twisty alley and into a commotion. Less than a half block away fifteen or more teens were circling a large, slow-moving robot. The bot had originally been enameled white and had the words bureau of welfare statistics lettered on his dented, dirt-smeared chest.
The kids, boys and girls, were whacking at the robot with lengths of hardplaz pipe, wooden clubs, and hunks of metal. That produced echoing bongs and bangs.
The metal man, oblivious, continued on his slow way along the street. “I’m only here to help you hooligans,” he said in his deep, rumbling voice.
“We don’t trust you, Stats!”
“You work for them.”
Dan stopped, watching the fracas and trying to figure out what was going on.
Stats told the group, “All you whelps have to do is answer a few simple questions.”
“Get back to your own zone.”
“Skarf yourself, Stats.”
A long, thin, black girl with orange hair took a swing at the robot with a rusty iron rod. She hit him square in his metal face.
“If you won’t answer questions,” explained the bot patiently, “there’ll be no dole for you.”
Just then the tip of a sharp blade poked into Dan’s back.
“It’d be best, love, if you just come along quiet,” suggested a whispering voice.
19
ARTHUR BAIRNHOUSE’S DESK WAS made of real wood and was at least two centuries old. It was piled high with folders, sheets of faxpaper, memos, clippings, photos. The plump detective was sitting behind it in a real wood chair. “One of our operatives,” he was telling Jake, “just talked to a young woman named Jillian Kearny. She goes to school in Barsetshire and knows your son. She admits to having talked to him immediately prior to his having run away.”
Jake asked, “Does she have any idea where Dan went?”
“She passed on some information as to the possible whereabouts of the Sands girl. She’s now very much afraid that Daniel disregarded her warnings and came to London.” From the desk-top clutter Bairnhouse picked up a map and spread it out on a small cleared area. “Take a look at this, if you will, Cardigan. This entire circled section of our city is a gang-ridden wilderness. Along here, at the end of Victoria Street, is the bailiwick of a youth gang that calls itself the Westminster Gang.”
“They’re near Westminster Abbey.”
“Near the ruins of the abbey,” said the plump detective. “According to Miss Kearny, the Sands girl has a friend who’s a member of this particular gang. That friend’s name in the civilized world was Mary Elizabeth Joiner. Now she’s known as Silverhand Sally.”
“Jillian Kearny told Dan that Nancy went to join this friend?”
Bairnhouse nodded. “She wanted him merely to pass the information on to the authorities—or to you. So that a search could be made for Nancy Sands. She apparently doesn’t trust the people the Sands girl is living with, a couple named McCay. Your son, however, chose to hunt for his missing friend himself, it seems.”
“That’s like him, yeah.”
“And like you, Cardigan,” pointed out Bairnhouse. “Let’s continue with this briefing, if you will. Here on the map you’ll notice Grosvenor Place. That’s where, in the shadow of what’s left of Buckingham Palace, the Tek Kids are headquartered.”
“Tek Kids?”
“Perhaps you haven’t encountered them yet in America, or perhaps they’re called something else.” Bairnhouse rubbed at his flat nose. “TKs are the unfortunate offsprings of Tek-using mothers. They suffer from the mutagenic effects that prolonged use of Tek seems to have on a certain percentage of addicts.”
“I think I did see a couple of reports on them,” recalled Jake. “They tend to be extremely violent, amoral, vicious, and very quick to anger.”
“Right you are. Too restless for school and virtually unbeatable in institutions,” said Bairnhouse, his thick forefinger tapping on the map. “What happens usually is that they gradually drift into the slums, ghettos, and ruins of our big cities. They form packs, and when they’re not fighting amongst themselves, they
prey on other gangs and pull off raids on the outside world. They unfortunately differ from other teen gangs in that a certain percentage of them have psionic powers. Some are teleks, others possess ESP powers. All of which makes TKs very dangerous, not the sort of people for either your son or yourself to become involved with.”
Jake was studying the map. “The TKs aren’t that far from the Westminsters.”
“Exactly, and to reach Silverhand Sally your son may try to cross the TKs’ sacred ground.”
Jake grinned briefly. “I know, Arthur, that you’re trying to discourage me from going in alone after Dan,” he told the detective. “Your lecture, though, has the opposite effect. I can’t let Dan wander around in there alone.”
“I thought that would be your position, Cardigan.”
“There’s no alternative, since I understand the police are reluctant to cross over into that part of London.”
“They make occasional trips,” said Bairnhouse. “We might be able to persuade them to mount a search for your son and the Sands girl.”
“After considerable red tape and circumlocution.”
“They wouldn’t undertake the job today, let us say.”
“I’ll do it alone.”
From his desk Bairnhouse picked up a sheet of faxpaper. “Here’s a small list of people who can provide you information, and dire warnings in some instances, about this part of London,” he said, handing Jake the page. “I’ve also included a couple of reliable contacts who live in the gangzone.”
Jake said, “Thanks, Arthur.”
“We’ll continue to work on this in our way, of course.”
“Good. I’ll continue to work on it in my way.”
Natalie Dent was sitting in a silvery control chair in Briefing Room 2 of the Paris offices of Newz, Inc. “Pay attention, Gomez,” she urged. “Sit up straight.”
He was slumped in a lower chair at her right, more or less watching the wall in front of them. It contained sixteen large pixmonitor screens, laid out in rows of four. “I’ve been drinking all this in, Nat,” he assured her. “Hoping against hope that we’d soon get to the point.”
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