Spiral (29 page)

‘A man must work out,’ said Marcus. ‘You not want to turn to fat; to grow old and fat and weak and plump. I stay trim; I run and I fight. They say you are a fighter, Carter - this true, man?’

‘I used to box, once. In the army.’

‘Maybe one day we spar?’

Carter shook his head. ‘Don’t know about that.’ He reached over; felt Marcus’s huge bicep. ‘Hmm. Maybe another time, Marcus - you understand? - I’ve got a broken rib at the moment...’ The last bit was spoken in the voice of an injured squeaking schoolboy.

Marcus grinned. ‘Look forward to it. Gotta go, man, or Gol will cut off my dreads.’ He stood, hoisted his AK47 and stepped from the room. He peeped back in. ‘Thanks for the coffee.’

‘Our pleasure,’ said Nats, smiling as the door closed. ‘A mathematician, eh? I wonder just what the hell my illustrious father is up to down here in Kenya under the Spiral umbrella?’

‘I’m sure its not legal,’ said Carter.

‘With Gol, it never was.’

They dressed and, stepping outside into the early-morning sunshine, saw Gol sitting on the porch steps. He turned, smiling up at the couple and stroking his greying beard. ‘Looks like we’ve been lucky,’ he said.

Carter stood, stretching his back. He lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. ‘Lucky?’

‘No signals have been triggered; we’ve scanned the ECubes via our hacked satellite links. There are reports of you - both of you - fleeing the UK but there is no mention of your destination, no traffic referring to Africa. If your enemies -
our
enemies - are coming here for us, then they are extremely quiet about it.’

Carter snorted. ‘Don’t get lazy, Gol. Just because you can’t see them, doesn’t mean they are not there.’

Gol frowned, his face hardening. ‘I know that, boy. And we have been making preparations. This operation is far bigger than you - or anybody - suspects. It would appear we are safe from discovery, for now; and you, therefore, can help
us.’

‘Help you? How?’

Gol smiled down at Natasha. ‘I know for a start that you are a little hacking genius; you worked on the QIII Proto at its integral stages, and you know the Spiral mainframes like the back of your own hand. We have a little problem decoding information that we could use your assistance with ...’

‘Just what the fuck is it that you are doing here?’ asked Carter. He sat down on the steps, looking out over the orange trees, which swayed gently in the caress of some warm breeze.

‘This is Spiral_F,’ said Gol. ‘We are the secret police of Spiral. The secret within the secret. The central layers of the onion, surrounded by outer layers and outer layers and outer layers. Spiral watches Spiral, who watches Spiral - we are a central mechanism to stop
bad
things happening.’

‘Hmm.’ Carter rubbed at the back of his neck, easing the tension, ‘I knew there was a secret police,’ he gave Natasha a long sideways glance, ‘but I didn’t realise you were involved.’

‘Not many people do. Our cover is that of a research centre; and yes, we do research in the name of Spiral. But we are so much more than that... ironically, we are the people who are supposed to have all the answers, and yet there are things happening here and we’re at a loss to discover the real reasons. This QIII, this military processor - something is out of place, a discordant note, and I’m not sure how deep it goes. You want to know what we do here, Carter? We solve problems. Pure and simple. And then we hunt.’

‘Hunt?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Gol, dark eyes gleaming. ‘We hunt.’

It was night.

Gol had spent some of the day showing Natasha and Carter around his private world within the rocky canyon; the orchards flourished with the loving care of a small group of village women who travelled in by foot to tend the trees and harvest the fruit.

Now they were seated outside, around the side of the house, where a small fire had been built. Carter sat with his back to the wall of the house, Natasha beside him. Gol was seated across the fire, large chunks of meat on a skewer before him sizzling fat into the flames. Also present - some of them meeting Carter for the first time -were a few other members of this Spiral_F operation whom Gol slowly introduced.

‘This is Marcus; I think you have already met.’

Marcus grinned, reached over, and shook Carter’s hand, his dreads swinging near to the flames.

‘Careful, mate, or your hair will fry.’

“S all right, Mr Carter. It happened before.’

‘This is Shanaz; our resident computer expert and presently on the hack with the newly updated Spiral mainframes - or she was, until the HQ was stomped into chemical oblivion. She learned her computing trade at BUET - the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology in Dhaka.’

Shanaz smiled, a wide beautiful smile; of Bangladeshi descent, she wore her hair long, a silken web that descended to her waist and which she plaited and decorated with interwoven wooden beads. Her lips were a deep red, shining in the glow of the flames.

She reached over to shake Carter’s and Natasha’s hands; Carter’s gaze met the intelligent bright look of the woman and he licked his lips; there was wildness there, true animal wildness that promised nothing less than a true roller-coaster thrill.

When she spoke, her words were a soft purr, a luxury sound, the husky growl of a hunting animal. ‘I have heard many things about you, Mr Carter. Gol speaks with -shall we say, passion - about your exploits.’

‘I am sure he does.’

‘Are you everything he promises you to be?’

Carter was entranced by that beautiful gaze and that throaty, husky, magical voice. He realised that their hands were still touching, her skin warm against his, the fingers stroking his hand with gentle pressure.

‘I... I am not sure.’

‘Come, do not be modest, Mr Carter.’ Shanaz licked her gleaming red lips. She turned, winked at Gol, then back to Carter. ‘He says that you really are an
animal
.’

The men chuckled; Natasha glared, first at Shanaz, then at the side of Carter’s head.

Shanaz broke the handshake. She licked her fingers. Carter swallowed.

‘And this is Jahmal; another professional computer hacker. He used to be wanted by the FBI, no less, until he taught them a few things about data protection; bought us freedom and their respect.’

‘Yo, man,’ said Jahmal, grinning. He was a slim black man, his head completely round and shaved as close to the scalp as the clippers could go; his whole face seemed to be one huge grin. He shook Carter’s hand energetically.

‘Nice to meet you,’ said Carter.

‘And you, and you; ignore Shanaz, she’s a weird bitch. It’s nice to have some new faces round here, we’re stuck down in that dump and we hardly ever get some new blood to tell us stories around the fire and liven up the evenings …’

‘Jahmal!’ snapped Gol, frowning.

‘Sorry!’ he said. ‘They don’t know?’

‘Not yet. I am saving it,’ said Gol. He smiled at Nats and Carter over the flames; the heady scent from the orange trees flowed down and around the group. ‘Our struggle - it is the struggle to keep Spiral from becoming what it aims to destroy. Within any corporation there is always corruption; it comes from a myriad of different sources. You can never know from where. We are here to try and stop that; we have been specially vetted; we are about as pure as you can get.’ Gol laughed at that. ‘Fucking funny, hey? Spiral_F is a collection of people who have been brought together for that special purpose. To keep the good good. To keep Spiral pure. We operate external to Spiral policy. We are the hidden camera behind the grille and it spreads much further than this little gathering you see here ... I am merely a small cog in a huge machine that watches another huge machine.’ Gol held his arms wide and grinned. When he spoke again, his voice was low, eyes staring into the fire where fat dripped sizzling and spitting to be consumed and spat out as black smoke. ‘Spiral operates as cells; individual cells so that no one person can be in total control. But that system is breaking down ... one or maybe more of the cells have turned against Spiral. And they are powerful.’

There was silence. The flames crackled. Gol stared into the fire, melancholy descending on him.

‘I never fucking thought it could happen so fast, or so bad,’ he said. ‘Two bases wiped out; the DemolSquads being tagged left, right and centre. We’ve sent out warnings but it is too little too late. And there are other, wider implications. Strange events have been happening all over the world - you may have seen them on the news. A malicious new computer virus, nuclear submarines going missing, power cuts, jet fighters crashing, gas plants powering down, the deactivation of a Russian weapons depot, financial institutions losing millions of dollars, digital interference in the stock exchanges ... all sorts of shit, being blamed on software bugs and human error - but this is not the case. We are linking many of the cases, chasing them back to their source, but the paths are not clear. But there is one thing we
are
sure about - all these world events, all these fuck-ups on a global scale - they are not fuck-ups, they are a test of some sort, an initiation - and they all stem from the same source.’

‘The QIII,’ whispered Carter.

‘Yes.’

‘They are testing it before it becomes fully operational?’

‘Yes.’ Gol nodded. ‘It is flexing its muscles; running internal diagnostics; seeing how far it can go. But it is little things, the odd submarine here, a power station there, wipe the computers in a bank in London - and then replace the data in a “freak occurrence” ... when the final push comes, it will come in a sudden rush. Everything will happen at once, and this fucking processor can do it.’

‘Why haven’t they done it yet?’

‘A couple of reasons,’ said Gol softly. ‘One, we know about them, this Spiral splinter group, and we have agents searching for them as we speak. Two, the QIII isn’t quite finished - it’s working, and is running its own diagnostics but it isn’t quite complete. A premature attack might fail. And finally, we have the schematics. We understand how it works. And we can stop it.’

Carter looked from Natasha to Gol. ‘You have the schematics for the fucking QIII processor? How the fuck did you get them?’

Natasha smiled bitterly. ‘It was a long, hard fight, Carter.’

Carter shook his head, rubbing at his tired eyes as Natasha moved over to Gol and placed her hand on his shoulder. ‘Are you all right, father?’

Gol looked up and smiled weakly. ‘Yes, but soon you must leave this place. The reports are coming in. They will be here in the early morning; a force of Nex with heavy armour support. It would seem that they want what they think is rightly theirs.’

“We will not leave,’ said Natasha.

‘We will fight,’ growled Carter. ‘You say the Nex are coming? Well, we have fucking run for long enough. We will not flee any more - there are only a few of us, but we can make a difference. Shouldn’t we be working now?’

‘I have a hundred people working on this thing - we can do no more than we are already doing,’ said Gol softly. ‘But that is for later. Now, now we must relax, we must drink, and then - then we will prepare. We cannot evacuate this place because there is nowhere to run ... and our research cannot be moved without many days of labour. We must defend ourselves against these infidels ...’ He rubbed at his beard thoughtfully, his stare fixed on Carter. ‘You say you are ready to fight with us, Mr Carter ... but I wonder?’

‘What?’

‘Is your soul ready for Heaven?’

‘If not,’ Carter growled, ‘then I’ll see you fucked up in Hell.’

Carter groaned as he was shaken awake. His sticky eyelids opened and he could picture the jug - the jug of sweet golden liquid that he had enjoyed so thoroughly the night before. Images of flames crossed his mind; good food; good drink; humorous bantering company. The glistening face of Shanaz ...

He groaned again and stared hard at Gol.

‘Yeah?’

‘Get Nats up. Meet me outside in five.’

‘You got some cigarettes?’

‘I have,’ rumbled Gol. ‘Come on, move yourself. It’s almost dawn. We have little time left. The Nex are coming.’

The sun was just rising, a weak grey pre-dawn light gently caressing the horizon. Natasha followed Carter, grumbling about their lack of sleep and touching tenderly at the healing wound in her throat, and then at her shoulder. ‘Gol’s painkillers are working, but not well enough.’

‘You still bad?’

Natasha gave a weak smile. ‘I’ll survive, I’m sure.’

She moved across the porch, linked arms with her father. ‘What can I do for you, daddy? You taking us out on safari?’

‘I wish we could have such fun,’ rumbled the large greying man. He rubbed Natasha’s hair. ‘It’s good having you here, girl; it’s good having you around me again. It makes me feel younger!’

‘Me too,’ smiled Natasha. ‘You make me feel like a child again.’

‘You’re certainly not that,’ he said softly, glancing over at Carter who was leaning against a wooden support and smoking heavily. ‘Hey, Carter, come on. I have something to show you.’

‘Does that something include a bed?’

‘No. But it has something to do with the Nex.’

Gol led them around the back of the battered, rundown white-walled house with its peeling paint and dilapidated appearance: a clever mask, a wonderful disguise. He led them a little way into the trees, and then out across scrubland and through another stand of orange trees until they came to a rusting iron hatchway half concealed by vegetation, small scrub bushes, fallen leaves and branches. ‘This is no longer classified,’ said Gol, ‘because our security has already been breached by the impending Nex visit. We must prepare. We must be ready.’ He was serious, deadly serious, standing above that rusted iron covering. ‘While I commend your skills in searching me out, you really, really have no idea what you are dealing with ... you really do not understand what you are
fucking
with here ... you see an old house, but it goes much, much deeper ...’