by Tom Holt
‘Hiya, Mr Lundqvist,’ Links yelled happily. ‘How ya doing? You on a job right now?’
‘Yes.’ Lundqvist closed his eyes and tried to find a little scrap of patience he’d overlooked previously, clinging with limpetlike tenacity to the bottom of the jar. ‘That’s right, Links. That’s why I want you to keep your stinking voice down, okay?’
‘Sure thing, Mr Lundqvist. Can you tell me about it, or is it a secret?’
Not for the first time, Lundqvist found himself asking why in God’s name he’d allowed himself to take on a skinny, mush-brained adolescent as an apprentice. The answer was the same as always. Teenage males being, fundamentally, weirder than a lorryload of stoned ghosts, sooner or later you’ll find one who’s prepared to hero-worship anybody, even Kurt Lundqvist. In Jerome Jotapian, five foot eleven of virtually unfleshed bone and hideously bezitted complexion from Pittsburgh, Lundqvist had found his Robin the Boy-Wonder. And in this life, you’ve got to do the best with what you can get, so when a middle-aged hit-man gets a fan letter from out of the blue (Dear Mr Lundqvist, you don’t know me, I’m sixteen years old and live in Pittsburgh Pa, I really admired your last assassination and can you help me get into this line of work, I expect to get satisfactory grades in Math and English Literature and I have my own throwing knife) he finds it hard to resist writing back.
‘I finished the correspondence course stuff you sent me, by the way,’ burbled Links. ‘It was good. You want me to read you a bit of it now? How about the question about what plastic explosive you’d use to blow up a Roman Catholic cardinal in a small Latin American republic? I thought a lot about that, Mr Lundqvist, and finally I figured Semtex, because—’
‘Not now, Links.’
‘Okay, boss. Actually, Semtex isn’t the answer I finally said, but you’ll see when you read what—’
‘Links.’ Lundqvist drew a deep breath. ‘I need your help.’
‘Hot damn, Mr Lundqvist! Really? You mean really help, in a job?’
‘Yes.’ Lundqvist’s face was twisted into a hideous mask of self-contempt. ‘Yes, Links, and it’s very important. I’m in a bit of a jam and I need you to get me out. Look, I want you to hijack me an airliner . . .’
‘Wow!’ The boy’s whoop of joy seemed to fill the room and large parts of the surrounding outback. ‘Hey, I know how to do that, it’s the part you sent me the week before last, only I think that’s in with the stuff Mom made me put down in the basement last week. You want to hold while I go see if I can find it?’
‘No, Links, just stay where you are and keep your mouth shut for a minute.’ Lundqvist stopped and herded his straggling thoughts. Talking to the boy for more than fifteen minutes was like trying to gather up a ream of A4 paper in a Force 9 gale. ‘You get the plane, right? Nothing fancy, just something with enough legs to get to Australia and back. You take the thing to Australia, which is where I am now, you dump it out in the desert somewhere, you get a chopper, you come in, you get me out of here, we split. Now, do you think you can manage that?’
There was a short pause. ‘I figure so, Mr Lundqvist. You’d better tell me where you are.’
Lundqvist told him.
‘That’s a long way away, Mr Lundqvist, do you think we can do this so that I’ll still be back by half-eleven? Mom doesn’t like me being out after half-eleven, you see, and—’
‘You leave Mom to me,’ Lundqvist interrupted, ‘you just get the plane and hurry. Before that crazy bitch spends every last cent I own.’
‘I beg your pardon, Mr Lundqvist?’
‘Just do it, okay?’
A glider careened through the night air like a giant owl. The side door slid open, and three parachutes blossomed like inbred magnolias, drifted through the blackness and slowly folded on to the ground.
‘We’re here then, are we?’ enquired the first spectral warrior. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and brightly coloured knee-length shorts and carrying a suitcase.
The Captain nodded and pulled the brim of his huge straw hat down over his eyes. ‘Oh yes,’ he muttered. ‘We’re here all right.’
‘Great,’ said the first spectral warrior. ‘Can you let us in on the surprise yet? I mean, yes I know it’s a surprise works outing, to make it up to us for having to go after Lundqvist and all that, but . . .’
The other spectral warrior looked around him and felt the desert sand between his toes. He sighed happily.
‘Who careth?’ he observed. ‘Jutht tho long ath we’re at the theathide, it doethn’t really matter where, doeth it?’
‘Exactly,’ said the Captain. ‘Right, we’d better be making a move before it starts getting light.’
Number Two looked at him. ‘Getting light?’ he said.
‘Spoil the surprise,’ said the Captain quickly. ‘Now then, the, um, hotel is this way. Follow me, and, er, keep the noise down.’
‘Tho ath not to wake the other guethtth, you mean?’
‘Something like that.’
In the darkness some way in front of them they could just make out the outline of a long, low building, something like a cross between a garage and a cowshed, only bigger.
‘Thith ith the hotel?’
‘Yes, and keep your voice down, will you? They’re very fussy about—’
‘Here, skip.’
‘Yes?’
‘Look at all these empty packing cases. Like the sort of thing furniture comes in.’ An unpleasant thought crossed Number Two’s mind. ‘Hey, skip, you’re sure this hotel’s actually finished? I mean, you hear stories, people turning up, hotel’s still being built . . .’
The Captain made a noise in the back of his throat.
‘It’s not exactly a hotel, chaps,’ he observed in a small voice. ‘It’s not, um, quite that sort of holiday.’
‘It’s not?’
‘No.’
‘How d’you mean, thkip?’
‘It’s more . . .’ The Captain paused, choosing his words with care. ‘More a sort of, well, adventure holiday really.’ As he spoke he unbuttoned his jacket, drew out a .44 Super Redhawk and, from sheer force of habit, spun the cylinder.
‘Cor,’ said Number Two. ‘It’s one of those paintball things, isn’t it? Where you run about with paint guns pretending to shoot people. I always wanted to try one of them.’
The Captain breathed out through his nose. ‘Great stuff, Keith,’ he said. ‘Now’s your chance.’
‘Doethn’t look like a paint gun to me, thkip.’
‘That’s all you know.’
‘Yeth, but thkip, thothe paint gunth, they’re much bigger and bulkier than real gunth, and that lookth like a real gun to me, don’t you think . . .’
‘Yeah, well.’ The Captain grinned nervously. ‘We want to win, don’t we?’
‘Okay, skip, if you put it that way . . .’
‘I do. Vern, break the window, I’ll cover you.’
‘What with, thkip?’
‘What do you mean, what with?’
‘I’th got a blanket in my luggage, thkip, if you want to uthe that. To thtop the glath from the window. That ith what you meant, ithn’t it?’
‘Shut up.’
Links Jotapian had one quality that made him stand out from the crowd. Well, two; but there was still a reasonable chance that he’d grow out of one of them. The other, the useful one, was a quite disproportionate quantity of beginner’s luck.
The first time he did anything, he did it well. The next time, maybe not so hot, maybe even a complete and utter disaster; but the first time, no problem.
Fortunately for all involved, this was the first time he’d ever flown a helicopter.
‘Depress joystick,’ he read aloud, mumbling slightly because of the torch gripped between his teeth, ‘while simultaneously engaging left rudder flap.’ He stared hard at the control panel for a moment - why didn’t they write the names of the various controls on the panel, you’d think they’d do that, there were so many little knobs and levers. He sighed, and leafed back throu
gh the instruction manual to the diagram at the end.
‘Okay,’ he said aloud. ‘The third from the left, just down from the cigarette lighter.’ He tried it. It worked. The helicopter stopped in mid-air and hung there.
He turned to the index.
Holding the stick steady with one hand, he leafed through the manual with the other. 43, 44, 45, 46 . . .
Page 47 was missing. Or at least, it was there, in part; but there had been a coupon (‘Why not enter our grand spot-the-rotor-blade competition and win the holiday of a lifetime?’) on page 48 which some previous reader had clipped out and sent off. All that was left of the paragraph on landing procedure was the headline.
‘Nuts,’ said Links, annoyed.
He’d just have to work it out from first principles.
Lundqvist froze, one leg over the window-sill, and put his hand in front of his eyes.
‘That you, Links?’ he shouted, but his voice was drowned by the roar of the whirring blades and the rush of the downdraught. Blinking furiously in the glare of the chopper’s landing lights, he threw out his rucksack and prepared to follow it.
‘Freeze!’
He turned towards the voice, and saw a dark shape silhouetted against the glare of the lights. The barrel of a large-calibre revolver flashed as it swung up on target.
‘Hey, thkip. Thkip!’
‘I said be quiet. Okay, nice and steady . . .’
‘But thkip, it’th him. Lundqvitht. Let’th get out of here, thkip, the bathtard’th obviouthly following uth.’
‘Look, for the last time, will you shut up? You, Lundqvist, nice and easy, throw down your—’
‘Hey, skip.’ Lundqvist could hear the anger in the voice above the scream of the blades. ‘You knew, didn’t you? You bleeding well set us up!’
‘Yes, fine, later. Just now I’m busy, okay? Throw down your weapons, nice and . . .’
The helicopter landed.
There’s beginner’s luck and beginner’s luck. In this case, it consisted of Links being very, very lucky indeed to be thrown clear of the chopper before it hit the deck and blew up.
A quick status check told Lundqvist that he was being hurled violently through the air by a shock-wave of hot air. That was all right by him; he’d been there before, he knew exactly how to roll with it when he landed. The good part about it was, once he landed he’d be back on even terms. And being on even terms was, in his experience, a very unfair advantage in his favour.
By contrast, the Captain of Spectral Warriors came round from a moment of temporary unconsciousness to find himself sprawled full length, still holding the revolver, on a green satin Chesterfield. Further investigation revealed a large piece of corrugated iron between him and the cushions of the sofa, the result of his having entered the house via the roof.
‘Will you get off that sofa immediately,’ said a cold, hard voice behind him. ‘Look, you’re getting blood all over it. Have you any idea how hard it is getting blood off satin?’
The second spectral warrior, for his part, came to rest halfway through a solid pine door; his head on one side, the rest of him on the other. He wriggled, tried to free himself.
‘Oh shit,’ he said.
And stopped, dumbfounded.
‘Hey skip, skip!’ he yelled. ‘Hey, skip, you know what? The fall, it must have done something to me, it’s cured my speech impediment, listen, I can say esses and everything . . .’
His colleague, lodged high in the shattered rafters, sighed wearily.
‘That’s because you’re dead, idiot,’ he explained.
‘Oh. Hey, what a bummer, the first time in my life I can speak properly and I’m dead. You’re sure I’m dead, Keith?’
‘Believe me.’
‘And that’s what’s cured my . . . ?’
‘Dead men don’t lisp, old son. Well known fact. Don’t worry about it, though, they just reincarnate us back into new bodies. Any old new bodies,’ he added bitterly. ‘I know. I’ve been there.’
‘You have?’
‘Sure.’ He indicated his own body, what was left of it.
‘You think I chose this?’ he complained. ‘Arms like bloody coat-hangers, but do they listen?’
By now, Lundqvist had landed. He opened his eyes and assessed the situation.
‘Help,’ he said.
There was a scuffling noise down below. ‘Is that you, Mr Lundqvist?’
‘Yeah. Links?’
‘Right here, Mr Lundqvist.’
‘Marvellous. Help me out of this tree, will you?’
‘Tree?’
‘Yes. This tree here.’
‘The thorn tree, you mean?’
‘That’s the one, Links. Try hurrying, will you?’
‘Coming right up, Mr Lundqvist.’
Links Jotapian scrambled to his feet and looked around. Lesson Three had been all about using your initiative and improvising material out of unlikely objects found in the vicinity. He found the page and followed the relevant line with his finger.
Under combat conditions, he read, a makeshift ladder may sometimes be improvised out of a broken segment of helicopter rotor blade, using only a Bowie knife and three feet of stout cord. Full instructions are given in Lesson Twelve . . .
‘Mr Lundqvist?’
‘Yes?’
‘You still there, Mr Lundqvist?’
‘Reckon so, Links.’
‘Do you think I’m ready for Lesson Twelve yet? Only I remember what you said about not taking the lessons out of sequence, because each one led naturally on from the previous, and . . .’
‘Rules were made to be broken, Links. Right, listen carefully.’
Right. Fade out on Lundqvist, cut to . . .
. . . Two seagulls, black drifting shapes against a velvet sky, circling before coming in down on the glide and pitching on the remains of the roof.
‘Anybody home?’
Helen of Troy stopped and looked up. She had been rubbing at the cushions of the Chesterfield, trying to get the blood out with half a lemon steeped in vinegar.
‘Larry?’
‘We’re on the roof. Do you need rescuing?’
Helen considered for a moment. ‘Not rescuing, no. I could use a little help in here, though.’
‘Coming in.’
As the seagulls dropped down through the hole in the roof, the Captain of Spectral Warriors woke up. He had been sleeping peacefully ever since Helen had bashed him on the head with a copy of Mrs Beeton’s Everyday Cookery.
‘All right,’ he said, staggering to his feet and levelling the Redhawk. ‘Nobody move or I’ll . . .’
The barrel of the gun became suddenly heavy, its weight augmented by a perching seagull. By the time it accidentally went off, it was pointed directly at the Captain’s left foot.
‘Oh my God, the carpet!’ Helen wailed. ‘Look, for pity’s sake, just get out of my way before you damage anything else.’
‘But . . .’
‘Out!’
The Captain wilted. It wasn’t, he decided, one of his good days. Slowly and painfully he hobbled out of the room and through the front door, and was therefore just in time to be directly under the thorn tree when Links Jotapian’s makeshift ladder broke.
‘You all right, Mr Lundqvist?’
‘Sure, Links. I think something broke my fall . . .’
(‘You knew, didn’t you, skip? You knew all along, and you pretended . . .’
‘Look, I had no choice, they threatened me . . .’
‘I trusted him, Keith. When he said it was a holiday, I actually trusted him . . .’
‘Hey, lads, now come on . . .’
‘Keith, will you tell your friend that when I get reincarnated, I’m putting in for a transfer . . .’)
‘Gee, that was lucky, Mr Lundqvist. I guess I didn’t use enough cord where it said bind together tightly with cord, only it didn’t say exactly how much cord to use, and . . .’
‘Never mind.’ Lundqvist pulled himself to his feet,
looked round and saw Helen framed in the doorway. ‘C’mon,’ he hissed, ‘let’s get out of here before she has the whole goddamn place done out in rose damask.’
Two or three hours later, Lucky George came by with the Transit to pick them up.
‘You’ve been enjoying yourself, haven’t you?’ he observed.
Helen shrugged.
‘So?’ she said. ‘I like nice furniture and things, you know that. George, don’t you sometimes think it’d be fun if we had a little place of our own that I could do up and make all nice and—’
‘No.’
‘You could have your own little study,’ she said wistfully, ‘for all your books and magic stuff and things, and we could—’
‘No.’
‘Oh.’ Helen clicked her tongue. ‘Never mind,’ she said, ‘it was only a thought.’
‘Good.’
‘Anyway,’ she said, producing a lighter and a can of paraffin,
‘I think Lundqvist’s gone off the kidnapping idea. Curious,’ she went on, splashing paraffin, ‘how anyone could be so dozy . . .’
‘You missed a bit.’
‘Did I? Oh yes. I mean, kidnapping me. After the last time and all . . .’
George nodded. ‘All brains and no intelligence,’ he said. ‘Can I do the setting alight? You know how I love setting light to soft furnishings.’
Helen smiled fondly. ‘Go on, then. Only George, the labels all said Fire retardant and Specially treated for your safety and peace of mind, do you think they’ll . . . ?
George grinned. ‘If I say so,’ he replied.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The half-life of Time is notoriously long.
Being neck-deep in boiling shit is the mother of invention, as the chronological technicians say, and some of the things they’ve tried have been quite staggeringly ingenious, if futile. Sealing toxic temporal waste up in lead-lined cylinders and burying it is completely passé now; recently the trend has been towards boiling it, sending it back through hairline dimensional faults in the hope of setting up a Moebius effect, or selling it to the gullible citizens of Plato’s Republic in big wooden crates marked ‘Tractor Spares’. These devices have taken small deposits out of circulation; however, in the time it takes to get rid of, say, 4,000 metric tonnes this way, twice as much of the loathsome stuff has built up and is leaking merrily away into the environment, poisoning the fish and causing innocent parties all over the cosmos to seduce their great-grandmothers and be late for their own funerals.