Great North Road (56 page)

“Fine. We’ll find another supplier.”

“You won’t. This is specialist shit, man.”

“I will. Then you’ll be left with a product you can’t sell, and us looking for you. We don’t take kindly to being dicked around with.”

“Ten percent. Ten percent more. That’s all. And I still don’t make any profit.”

“We pay you the agreed price or you start drowning in shit.”

“You’re killing me here, man.”

“Oh please, I’d never kill you.”

“That’s good, man, we can talk. This is reasonable. We can sort this out. I’m thinking eight percent.”

“I’d never kill you, because if you’re dead you won’t be able to suffer.”

“Fuck you, man.”

“The price we agreed is the price we pay. You’ll be contacted to arrange delivery. I’d advise you follow the instructions.”

The next time Jede used the secondary e-i he was in a pub on Granger Street. Ian obtained the local cell log and ran a comparison with the Percy Street records. There was one access code that occurred in both. They had Jede’s secondary—or at least one of them. The intercept order was loaded into the transnet management AI using Elston’s authority, and all subsequent calls Jede made were routed through the Market Street network, which skimmed them off into the classified investigation subsection—directly into the Apple console in Ian’s flat. As well as Jede’s secondary, the AI also intercepted the calls to and from the other transnet address codes Jede had called.

“It’s Sunday night. Usual place.”

“You don’t get it until the money is registered in my secondary.”

“Remember who you’re dealing with. You don’t get sweet shit until we’ve checked it. And, kid, we have an expert.”

“It’s good. This is the real thing, okay.”

“I’m okay, because I don’t have anything to worry about. Eleven o’clock tomorrow. Don’t make us come look for you.”

Ten fifty-five on Sunday night: the chill rain was coming in hard from the North Sea just as it had been for the last two days. The deluge was slowly sluicing away the ice and snow that had accumulated across Newcastle’s buildings and streets all through winter. Overwhelmed gutters across the city were spilling cascades of freezing water directly onto pavements. Water running freely across ice made driving and walking extremely treacherous. The accident and emergency departments of all the city hospitals were reporting five-hour waiting times for fracture victims, so many had slipped as their familiar city roads morphed from frigid to fluid. And there Sid was, in the middle of all the wet subarctic misery, sitting in a car signed out from the police fleet, privately registered so no one passing by would know law enforcement officers were in there waiting should they run a sneaky check on the license. He was parked on the corner of Beechwood Gardens, just outside Last Mile, waiting for the exchange. Whatever the exchange was. It had never been named in the intercepts, where Jede and his unknown supplier talked in phrases they’d surely pilfered from cheap crime dramas. Ian and Eva were also loitering in a fleet car, but on Herford Road at the south end of Last Mile.

“Boss, I think we’re starting,” Eva said. “Ruckby’s car just turned into Kingsway.”

Sid’s windshield display showed the erratic grid of Last Mile’s roads, with plenty of dark areas where the macromesh had failed. A purple symbol appeared at the south end of the Kingsway road that cut straight through the center of Last Mile. “Got him,” Sid acknowledged. “Anyone with him?” Ruckby drove a big Ford Turusse saloon, registered to a North Korean business address—matte-black paintwork, but easy enough to eyeball.

“Can’t tell, but he won’t be alone. We’re following now.”

Sid pulled away from the curb. He drove into Last Mile, level with the gateway, and started cruising up the sharp neon glow and hazy hologram sparkles that besieged the air down Kingsway’s length. With all the adverts reflecting off the rain-slicked tarmac, it was like driving through a wriggling tunnel of light. Even at this time of night there was still traffic about. Big HDA lorries rumbled toward the gateway, still faithfully carrying equipment and supplies for the expedition, though there weren’t so many of them now. Company trucks with their iconic logos nestled up to store loading bays. Decade-old vans with scratched and dented bodywork made the nightly resupply run to small independent shops and outlets. Scooters with panniers big enough to carry a body. Even bicycles were towing carts. A big shiny-new Toyota six-wheel J-Cruise headed down toward the gateway, piled high with St. Libra survivalist goodies. Sid was mildly surprised to see the migrants hadn’t abandoned their dream despite the expedition, a reminder that outside Newcastle and his investigation the great community of trans-stellar worlds and nations was carrying on as normal. He watched a little group of the poor sods trudging along, pulling ancient supermarket trolleys loaded with their possessions, hunched against the freezing rain, their coats slick with water as they drew closer to the gateway and the promised Independencies beyond. A quick check on the windshield display showed him closing on the purple symbol. When he looked up, he caught Ruckby’s big dark Turusse turning off just ahead of him.

“Visual now,” Sid reported. “He went into Sixth Avenue.”

“Okay, boss,” Ian replied. “The macromesh has him, too. We’re turning into Eighth Avenue; if we park on the junction with Dukesway we’ll see him when he comes out.”

“I’ll turn around at the end of Queensway and wait.” As he said it, Sid saw a dark red Kovoshu Valta pass him; hologram prism stripes along the side sparkled and wiggled as it went. Boz was driving the big rock-star car, his massive profile highlighted by the brilliant façade of a farm store whose lights were shining down on a camel pen. And he was staring directly at Sid’s car.

“Shit, shit.”

“What’s happened?” Eva asked.

“I think I just got made by Boz.”

“Ah crap on this, man,” Ian said. “The macromesh just lost Ruckby.”

Ian saw that the purple symbol had vanished from the windshield’s display. “Crap, Boz warned him.”

“I don’t know about that, man, the macromesh is seriously screwed around here. We’ll cut along Dukesway and try to get a visual.”

“Right. I’ll double back,” Ian said. He told his e-i to monitor the functioning segments of macromesh down Sixth Avenue to see if Ruckby had switched the Turusse’s license code to avoid observation. No vehicles were registering. “Ruckby must have turned off.”

“Yeah, that’s what we think,” Eva replied.

“Okay, Boz is going to be watching for me; you guys take a drive along Sixth Avenue.”

“Turning in now,” Ian said.

Sid studied the grid of Last Mile’s roads trying to work out what to do next. Any decent, legitimate surveillance operation would have backup cars, a team of fifteen detectives, complete smartdust coverage, even a few small airborne micro drones to track the suspect. This half-arsed campaign they’d thrown together was bordering on farce. He abruptly turned the car down Eighth Avenue, which was an ambitious term for a long gap between two stark carbon cliff walls of modified commercial blocks. The photonic deluge of adverts was muted here, reduced to a few signs flickering behind grilled-up windows. Overhead photopanels cast a dusky green-tinged light that illuminated the monotonous rain. Blocked drains had produced an overspill along both gutters that was now swelling out to cover the cracked tarmac. The car’s tires generated a small grubby wake as he drove cautiously, sending chunks of ice bobbing about.

“I’m not surprised the macromesh can’t find anything here,” he muttered. The smartdust must have degraded and failed long ago under this kind of climatic abuse. He turned again, going down Princesway South. “Crap on it!” He braked hard. The grid on the windshield, data taken directly from the Newcastle civic highways department, showed Princesway South as a direct connection between Eighth and Sixth Avenues. Not in the real world. Seventy meters ahead of him was a gray composite wall, stitching together the buildings on either side. It had the etched resin web pattern of a structure fabricated by automata, a simple skin spun over a hexagonal stress frame. A long roll-up door was directly ahead, its base swallowing up the old road.

Sid twisted the joystick and reversed out of Princesway, back onto Eighth Avenue. “I can’t get through.”

“We’re on Sixth now,” Ian said. “No sign of him.”

“He could have cut down to Western,” Eva said. “Or gone into a warehouse. Just about every store here has a loading bay.”

Sid turned out into Dukesway. A couple of lorries rolled past, their fat tires sending dark ripples scudding across the waterlogged road. Impenetrable shadows occluded the end of countless doors and narrow alleyways on either side of him. Only a few overhead photopanels worked. It was a gloomy, sinister road that Sid suddenly found he didn’t like being alone on. “This is stupid,” he said. “If we drive around looking for them, they’ll spot us for certain. Get back to the station, we’re through here.”

“Aye, man, good call,” Ian said.

Sid accelerated as hard as he dared, sending a wash of water surfing over the pavement. He just wanted to be out of Last Mile now. The district with its unruly delight of chaos, decay, and greed had defeated them.

*

They never did find Iyel. Vance Elston kept the search going for two days. Legionnaire squads combed the surrounding land out to the edge of the jungle. The remaining camp personnel examined every tent, pallet, and vehicle. All three Land Rovers and both MTJs drove around the nearby jungle, crunching over the smaller bushes and tearing down the tangles of vines strung between every trunk. Wukang’s three Sikorsky CV-47 Swallows, light scout helicopters, spiraled farther out above the lush, impenetrable tree canopy, firing constant high-power pings to try to trigger Iyel’s bodymesh responder code. They also activated their infrared scanners, hunting for any body-sized hot spots. Elston never said anything to the pilots, but he was a damn sight more eager to uncover moving alien monsters than he was a stationary cooling human corpse. It didn’t matter; the Swallows didn’t find either. A pair of Raytheon 6E-B Owls were flown along the closest rivers by the AAV team—a long shot, in case he’d been swept away by the fast water.

After the second complete search of the camp, the personnel not flying or on foot patrol outside the perimeter went back to their normal duties. The Daedalus flights resumed and continued to build up the camp’s inventory. Iyel’s official status was moved to missing on duty. Officially, as there was no body or evidence of foul play, he wasn’t dead.

Camp rumor had a very different view, concocting brilliant elaborate and improbable theories about how he’d been eliminated.

It was evening when Vance finally admitted defeat and changed Iyel’s file status. The aircon in the Qwik-Kabin was straining with the load of another sweltering St. Libra day, and outside the camp personnel were gathering for the Sunday-night barbecue, which was fast becoming a tradition for the expedition camps. He told his e-i to establish a secure link to Vermekia. A secure connection through a six-thousand-kilometer e-Ray relay above the jungle, then an undersea cable, followed by another four-thousand-kilometer landline with dozens of civilian relays and cells was something of a joke, but the call was audio only and AIA encryption was still the best.

“Two deaths?” Vermekia asked.

“One death, one missing,” Vance said, wishing he didn’t sound so defensive.

“So what’s happening?”

“Mullain I can just about write off as the victim of some illegal activity he’d stumbled across. Iyel looks a lot more suspicious.”

“Was it an alien abduction?”

“I don’t know,” Vance admitted, which was tough to say. “There’s no evidence either way.”

“What’s your hunch?”

“All I’ll say is that I’m pretty certain that it wasn’t Angela Tramelo. Although I have to admit none of the other camps have had incidents like this. Not yet, anyway.”

“There can’t be anything else going on,” Vermekia said. “I won’t accept that much coincidence.”

“I’d point out that Wukang has responsibility for the primary defense mission,” Vance said. “If the aliens found out about that, they might begin with an incursion. And Iyel was on the xenobiology team.”

“But he wasn’t part of the defense mission.”

“I know.”

“And how could the aliens possibly know?”

“We don’t have any idea about their true capabilities. But we do know one of them might have been in Newcastle.”

“So you believe they do exist?” Vermekia asked.

“This is starting to make me think it’s possible, yes. But of course there’s no proof, only circumstantial evidence. As always, we need something concrete. How is Detective Hurst doing?”

“Still backtracking those stupid taxis.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Statistically, he should have found it by now. If you ask me it’s a complete waste of time.”

Vance experienced a strange pang of sympathy for the poor detective, plunged into a nightmare investigation with way too much pressure applied from everyone. “He’s doing the job we asked him to.”

“Whatever. It’s you we’re looking to now to provide the answers.”

“I understand.”

“When will you start genetic sampling?”

“Wukang is up to full strength now, so I’m sending the first convoy out into the jungle tomorrow.”

“Glad to hear that. We need some results.”

Vance signed off, and spent a long minute in the confined cubicle staring at the one narrow slit of window his status had gained him. It framed the edge of the rings, which were beginning to shine brightly as St. Libra’s rotation carried Brogal into night. Two deaths—he was convinced Iyel had been killed—was beyond coincidence. He was sure
something
was out there in the jungle. It unnerved him, because he couldn’t understand the reason for the creatures staying hidden. And he was just beginning to appreciate how isolated Wukang was. The Lord’s universe was a lot bigger than the human soul was comfortable with.

Music started playing. Some guitar rock track that sounded tinny and lost inside the Qwik-Kabin. It would sound the same out in the jungle, an alien noise, absorbed and broken by the vast sprawl of vegetation, completely insignificant.