She sat down in the deep velvet of an ancient armchair and began to read. Watching her quickly bored the detective, who looked very annoyed, but withdrew, tortoiselike, into the bustling efficiency that had taken over the hall as they checked and rechecked the contents of her luggage. Vaguely, Natalie thought this was what it would have been like in the old days when grand families had staff. A right pain.
When Natalie understood the scale, the ambition, and the sheer bloody arrogance of Guskov's plans she sucked in air through her teeth with a regular carpenter's whistle and shook her head.
“You'll never get away with that, mate,” she whispered to herself in her best builder's voice. “You'll need more than a few two-be-fours and a nail gun.”
The plan, for all its complex detail, was simple. Guskov was going to use the military superpowers to fund his personal crusade against the incursion of regulation into ordinary lives and the spread of global politics with its increasing trend towards dictator-like legal and social measures. Mappa Mundi was the culmination of years of his hard labour, a tool that he intended to use to empower individuals to choose their own destinies, their own personalities, and their own minds in the face of what he saw as an inevitable development of centralized control methods.
Natalie didn't get the whole picture in a single pass but she realized what it meant for her in the short term: either she was about to be recruited into the private army he was building to finish the dream, or she was going to be the lab rat who served the governments and she would also, potentially, be his victim. Her choice, and there was no third way. Unspoken laws of omertà permeated every suggestion in the document. Now she was in the game whether she liked it or not.
She put the Pad away and wondered instantly if Guskov had had a hand in Bobby's experiment—to such a person nothing was too extreme. And if he had, was his interest in her only as a subject for test? But there were too many questions and no answers: even if he succeeded and Mappa worked as he hoped, how would he disperse it? How would he get his hands on enough NervePath? How would he get it past the authorities? How, how, how?
She decided Jude could forget his guilt for having involved her in this. She'd been involved a long time before. And there were others also implicated—her father, of course, who'd never bothered to inform her if he knew of the greater goals of the project, for one. And Dan, for another.
Where was Dan?
Natalie stepped out into the hall and marched between two dark-clothed armed officers, to their waiting car. She'd had enough of playing their tunes. If she was going to join Guskov, she was going to do it on her terms.
“Take me to the Clinic,” she said. “I forgot something.”
They began to protest but she was adamant that her oversight was vital—a data source file she'd forgotten to copy—and so they took her into her offices. As the officer with her looked around in a bored, frustrated fashion, she made a show of copying something off the Clinic system and meanwhile began to search her desk. Fooling him was child's play. He wasn't really paying her any attention.
She was looking for her second Pad, which she found easily. She wiped dust off it, checked its power, and then put it down opposite the new Pad, leaning on the transmit button as she moved to use the desk system, copying what she could of the new one onto it, omitting all her personal identification documents and auto-registrars. This Pad contained older codes that she was betting the Ministry wouldn't be monitoring, and instead of the Erewhon service it was programmed to auto-direct enquiries and calls through a different ‘pilot.
Closing her clinic account took a few seconds. She held up her usual Pad in her right hand, waved it, grinning, and said, “Got it. Sorry.” At the same time she slid the old Pad into her pocket, and added, “I'll just go to the loo and then we're off, okay?”
The toilet escape had to be the oldest trick in the book, but she knew it was the best chance she had. They thought she was a willing participant in this job, after all, and the man set to stand guard over her wasn't really thinking that he should be watching her for signs of deception.
“Okay,” he said, shrugging. “But be quick. We're late already.”
“Sure.” She went directly to the Ladies' and had cause to be glad she worked on the ground floor.
The frosted glass of the toilet windows opened into the inner courtyard where the waste bins for everything that wasn't to be incinerated on site were managed. It was sealed to the outside world but there was a door leading to the furnace room that she could get through. As soon as the door had closed Natalie walked across, undid the window catches, got a hygiene bin out of one of the cubicles and upended it, so that she could step up easily onto the ledge. It was a narrow window, one that would have stopped most people, and the drop on the other side was a good five or six feet, but she could see immediately how to get through.
She put her head out first, ears scraped back and eyes bulging for a second, then wriggled her small, flexible frame until her chest and hips had cleared the gap. There she hung for a moment, stuck fast by her legs as they wedged tight, giving her time to stretch out her arms and walk them slowly down the wall in support of her weight, watching the brickwork closely as she tipped further and further upside down…With a few contortions she managed to hang by her feet until she was able to touch the gritty surface of the yard and then easily plucked one foot free after the other and up into a comfortable balance. She walked a few steps on her hands and then dropped back to her feet once more.
Never in her life had she done a thing like that. It was as easy as breathing.
She marvelled at it, even as she remained alert, passing into the shadow of the heavy rubbish skips and the service laundry's plastic containers where the furnace door stood open to allow a straight gangway into the yard itself for the orderlies' carts. The furnace itself was in constant use. Its gas supply made a low hissing noise that masked voices and the sound of shoes in the big room until you were within a few feet of someone. She was able to walk behind the caretaker without being noticed and let herself out into the corridor of an entirely different wing. Bargaining on the fact that none of the staff knew she shouldn't be here as usual, she walked out of the side door and along the staff entryway onto Huntington Road where the security system had no trouble opening the gate for her.
Despite the relative ease of this escape Natalie knew there was no time for a mistake and she didn't make one. Knowing what to do and then doing it was an easy, fluid flow that came unhurriedly to her.
She ran towards town and turned into Haley's Terrace by the old baths, using her old Pad to hail a taxi. As it drew up to the curb at her side a few moments later she paused only long enough to send it an instruction to get lost on the ring road and fling the more modern Pad, her friend until a few minutes ago, in through the door.
As her police minders came running around the side of the building looking for her she was already at the bus stop two roads away, getting on the first bus she caught sight of going anywhere. By the time they'd figured out that she wasn't in the taxi she was walking fast down Coppergate, heading directly for the King's Arms.
It had occurred to her that she did know one person who was capable of giving her a temporary change of identity and who wasn't a fussy feeder. He might even know where Dan was, and she might spare him an audience with the local police about it if he did.
The back bar was dim and smoky but she caught sight of Ray's form immediately, recognizing him from Dan's descriptions: thick coat, slick hair, self-satisfied, belly-out air of a man in complete control of the pond. Some small, bent-over person was hunched opposite him, caught between the rosy glow of the fringed lamp and the orange ripple light of the fake fire. They were pleading ineffectually about something. Ray was grinning and his forehead was sheened with a mix of sweat and hair oil.
Natalie knew that her hours of listening patiently to the area's psychotics had been well spent. She put her hand on the whiner's shoulder and told him to piss off in a
kind but authoritative voice, which he did, without even looking at her. She heard his scuttling as he made the turn for the door and his cut-off cry as one of Ray's heavies cuffed him in passing.
“Who the fuck are you?” Ray said with an amiable smile, waving a hand to suggest she take the vacated seat; all the largesse of a rich man welcoming a friend in his body language, all the good intent of a rattlesnake in his blue eyes.
“I'm one of Dan Connor's friends,” she said, turning the chair around and sitting astride it, glad she was wearing her leathers and not some work trousers that day.
“Oh aye?”
“You don't happen to know where he is?”
“What's it worth?” Ray dropped his friendly arm and signalled his man for drinks. “You want anything?”
“No.” She got an eyeful of his thick fingers and triple gold signet rings, one of them a sovereign. No taste, but they probably hurt when he hit you. She knew that he had no more idea about Dan than she did. She didn't know if she should be relieved.
“And what do you want if you don't want a drink?” he said suddenly, leaning in on her, his beery breath hot and faintly tainted with onion.
Natalie had to struggle not to flinch back, but she held her ground. “I want a temporary six-hour identity change with full international pass documents and a plane ticket, first class, on the next parabolic out of Leeds to Washington, DC,” she said.
Ray sat back with his grin restored.
“Don't want much, do yer?” His thought process had a stage that passed visibly across his face, very finely. She could see him calculating. Then he grunted and adjusted his position to something more comfortable. “You're that doctor bird aren't you? The one that Connor shacks up with when he's not lifting shirts. Work for the MoD. I bet there's good money for not sending you on your way. Better than—”
“Mister Innis,” she said quietly, maintaining a pleasant smile and eye contact. “I have a perfect record, crime-free. I am also the most wanted woman in Europe at this moment. When I tell the police that you kidnapped me outside the Clinic and have been planning to hold me to ransom, they aren't going to be impressed with your long list of convictions, nor your attempts to set up lab staff to feed you with illegal medical technologies. The disappearance of Dan Connor, who owed you money, will look like something other than a coincidence. I can assure you also that the US and European governments are so keen to find me that anyone causing the slightest delay wouldn't be so much compensated as erased. I have fifteen thousand pounds. I want a six-hour pass and the flight. I know you have contacts who can provide them. Get them for me right now, or I will drop you in the shit when the military police arrive. You've got about five minutes, max.”
She could see him struggling to believe her, not knowing if he could delay, wondering how to stall her. He badly didn't want to believe her, but she knew that her performance was convincing and with the extra force of personality that the Selfware seemed to have given her since she woke up that morning he wasn't able to stop himself, even though it must have seemed most like a bad joke to him.
After about ten seconds he nodded.
“Fifteen?” he said. “That'll get you four hours on the pass, should get it in a few minutes. There's a flight in one hour from now. Think you'll make it?” He sat and stared at her, the left side of his upper lip curled in a snarl that was almost comic, daring her to protest.
“Fine.” She beamed the access code for the money across to his Pad before he had time to argue. “It'll clear as soon as I leave the ground.”
As long as she could get past Immigration she didn't care when the damn' thing expired. This transaction would make her doubly vulnerable. It would also seal Ray's fate, although he wasn't fast enough on his feet to realize that yet; he still thought that the banks' encryption suites were as good as they claimed.
As he waited for someone else somewhere else who owed him favours to sort it out, Ray looked her over with a casual air, belly-confidence restored.
“So, you don't know where Connor is either, the lying tub of shite,” he said. “Run away, has he? After that accident or whatever it was. Some poor bastard dead on the slab somewhere having his grey stuff poked at because of you, are they? Or did he die on the table and you're all covering it up? You make me sick, you know that? I'd rather stick you in the river with lead boots on than help you do whatever it is you're doing. It's a crime against human nature.” His smile became a snarl. “And you can tell that cunt Connor that he'll get the same if he doesn't deliver soon.” He sent her Pad the relevant files with a heavy slam of his index finger.
Ray's man arrived with his pint on a tray.
Natalie, standing up to go, picked up the glass and made to put it down for him. Then, making eye contact, she smiled with heartfelt hatred and poured the contents over Ray's head.
“Thanks for the lecture.” She put the glass back on the tray as both men, stunned, watched her, their shoulders rigid with disbelief. Foam and ale dripped from Ray's chin. Globules ran, mouselike, through the stiffly waxed tufts of his hair.
“I'll see myself out.”
She expected to have the tray smashed down over her skull forthwith, but she was a fast mover these days and they weren't quick enough. She made it to the public bar and the street unscathed.
Her exultant, teeny victory over sad-twat Ray didn't last, however, not least because he'd still got her money and it was all she'd had. As she joined the express train service to the airport she tried calling Dan again. And again his Pad told her he wasn't available and took the message of her long, uncomfortable silence.
Jude in the office was a very unproductive worker. He turned the vial over in his fingers but it wasn't helping him think. Despite the air-conditioning he was sweating under his arms and the cold patches where his shirt stuck to him felt like dead skin. He couldn't stop seeing Tetsuo's surprised face and the flat, happy whiskers of that wretched cat, big eyes like twin dishes able to pick up Jude's thoughts. Those eyes had seen the shooting, he'd bet on it. If only there was a way to stick cats in some kind of scanner and read their minds…They'd have found Jude's DNA lurking in the apartment by now, be readying themselves to come and talk to him, or kill him, one or the other.
He'd submitted his reports on Atlanta to Perez. She was reading them now. But it was the Mappa Mundi project that bugged him even more than the cat. He worried about White Horse and her sketchy assurances that the people who'd kidnapped her wanted an investigation. All he had to do to set that in motion was write another report and use the file as evidence, with White Horse as the witness. All he had to do…
Or he could hang fire until Mary got back and let her in on it. He'd feel better if she knew. Somebody had to know, or the whole lot was likely to get blown away when they sprayed his brains all over the sidewalk one of these fine days. Thinking of dying made him hungry. It was afternoon and he hadn't eaten yet today.
He was in the middle of paying for a street hot dog, mustard, no onion, when he got a call from Natalie Armstrong. Juggling the ‘dog and the Pad he moved to a patch of grass where a ginkgo tree gave shade next to the sidewalk and sat there cross-legged.
He didn't recognize Natalie in the vidlink at all, except for the half-face beneath the big, dark glasses and baseball cap, showing a dark mouth which was sincere on one side with a slight cynical upcurl at the other.
“Give me your address,” she said. “I'm coming to visit.”
“What…never mind.” He sent it. “When?”
“Real soon.” She broke the line.
Jude ran a check on it, but even Nostromo couldn't get a trace. Groaning, he raked through his hair, took a bite of the ‘dog, and tasted nothing but the turmeric and vinegar of mustard exploding in his mouth, which was the way he wanted it so he didn't have to think of Tetsuo's cat and its rose-petal tongue.
He dumped the ‘dog into the nearest trashcan and went back to the stand for coffee. The guy gave him a tired, seen-it-before look. Jude left him
with the change and turned back to the steps leading into his building. His boldness felt like it was coming to an end.
He called in to Perez and said he was going to interview a witness, then went home.
When he got there White Horse had left him a note written on paper in her tough scrawl, “Gone to meet lawyer at office downtown. Back p.m. Will call you if needed.” She gave the address, which he checked against the city listings. It looked okay. The firm had a history, financial reports, tax records, famous cases, all above board.
Jude sat down on a stool at the breakfast bar and wondered why he didn't feel so good. He figured it was the ‘dog and went to watch TV for ten minutes while he thought about actually calling the lawyers to see if she'd arrived okay. He moved his thumb over the Pad controls and played back Natalie's message a couple of times.
There was no doubt, she was wearing a disguise. That didn't leave a lot of time.
He was thinking that there wasn't a lawyer in existence who could touch this one. He wouldn't have. Who could he tell?
Working fast on the Pad he put together a list of tantalizing clues and information, rushed off a quick analysis, and put it on standby in the “message send” waiting list, addressed to the premier investigative journalists he knew operating out of Independent Networks in Manhattan. They'd gone into China undercover, scraped out alive from Libya. They'd try.
But then, on the verge of sending it, he hesitated, not even sure whose surrogate finger was on his, ready to press the key. The dark faction of government topplers? White Horse's own brand of deception and deceit in the name of the People? His own fear, trying to get anyone to help out?
In the end he left it sitting there and went to look for the Pepto-Bismol. He thought he'd wait until Mary got back and then tell her all about it. For the time being he was going to sit tight and do nothing except use what he already had to try and link detail from the CDC vial and Ivanov's other lives.
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