Spiral (47 page)

‘Langan isn’t far away,’ said Natasha softly.

Carter nodded.

Jessica was seated some way off, staring out across the sand. Her pyjamas were stained, torn, and looked a sorrowful sight. Carter caught her attention and she moved over to him, accepting his canteen with a smile of thanks.

‘How is it that you know about the QIII processor? It’s a top top secret project,’ she said, lips glistening with water.

Carter shrugged. ‘Long story, love, and believe me, we don’t really want to burden you with the information. Feuchter was the man with the answers and now he’s cat meat. Fried cat meat.’

‘So the building blew?’

‘Oh yeah,’ said Carter, smiling nastily. ‘Tell me, does the QIII thing really work?’

‘The QIII? Oh yes. It works all right. It is awesome in what it can do, what it can predict.’

Feuchter’s words came back to Carter.

‘The QIII. It is so powerful, so incredibly powerful - the WorldCode threw up a list of names that could compromise the very existence of the processor. It used probability equations, worked out which of the DemolSquads was the most dangerous and who we should take out. Your name was on the list.’

Carter started to get a crystal-clear picture: Feuchter and this other man Durell were acting as renegades against Spiral on information thrown up by a future-predicting processor in order to give itself longevity and them power and command. The Nex were sent in to kill him, and to kill other DemolSquad members who were considered a threat by Feuchter and Durell. They tried to take out Gol because he had the schematics for the QIII processor - and so could replicate this military device and fight them with a copy of their own weapon. And they had got to Gol; murdered him. Murdered lots of others in their quest for power ...

But what next? Where would they
go next?

What was their ultimate aim?

Fuckers, he thought sourly.

‘I wonder if you could tell us something about the Nex,’ muttered Carter, rubbing at his tired eyes.

‘The Nex? You mean the people with the copper-coloured eyes?’

Carter licked his lips, focusing on Jessica. ‘You know about them?’

She shook her head. ‘They were the ones sent to kill the Spiral_Q staff.’

‘Really...’ Carter scratched at his heavy stubble; it was making him itch bad and he could smell his own stink. Gods, for a decent basic toilet! And a shower! And a cold beer! Or sweet Lagavulin ...

‘Holy shit,’ hissed Natasha, scrambling at her pocket and leaping to her feet. She pulled free the ECube.

They all stared at it.

‘It bite you or something?’ snapped Carter. ‘You made me fucking jump, woman. Spilled my water all down my shirt!’

‘It’s vibrating,’ said Natasha.

‘So what?’

‘It’s a receiver and it’s receiving now.’

‘Shit,’ agreed Carter. He peered warily into the distance, and checked the skies. ‘So whoever is sending knows exactly where we are?’

‘Possibly.’

‘I thought the Spiral mainframes had been destroyed?’

‘They have, but someone must be routing through another ECube. They can work like that, independent of main servers in case the impossible happened and Spiral London HQ was destroyed - which it was.’

Carter ducked his head, looking warily around the nearby desert and scrub. He could see nothing very suspicious but that did not mean it wasn’t there. ‘Well then, you going to answer it?’ he said as Natasha continued to stare at the little machine.

Natasha squeezed the ECube. It came to life with soft blue digits. Nats squinted at the tiny data stream. It read:

CLASSIFIED FUS100176510/ ENCRYPTED SIU

SEND: MOLYNEUX, G, SIU23446

REC: MOLYNEUX, N, SIU42880

‘Oh my God,’ said Natasha softly. ‘It’s from Gol.’

‘That’s impossible,’ said Carter softly, wearily. ‘We all saw what happened in Kenya.’

‘Wait - think about it, Carter. If this was coming from the enemy, the Nex or whoever, then we would be dead now, yeah? We wouldn’t be reading a fucking ECube transmission. We’d be fighting for our lives...’ There was hope in her voice, and her eyes had become suddenly bright. The deflation he had witnessed earlier had gone, like dew burned off by the sun.

Carter looked suspiciously at the ECube, then at Natasha.

‘I don’t like it,’ he said.

‘And you think I do?’

Carter said nothing, merely gestured with the Browning for Natasha to read the message. She read:

I KNOW YOU THINK I AM DEAD: I AM NOT. I SURVIVED, SAVED BY SPIRAL AT THE LAST MOMENT; BUT THE DISK WITH THE QIII SCHEMATICS WAS LOST TO ME.

I AM IN LOS ANGELES, CAN MEET YOU AT FOLLOWING CO-ORDS 034.626.555 CALIFORNIA IN 48 HOURS SPIRAL_F STILL LIVES!

I KNOW YOU WILL THINK THIS A TRAP. IF CARTER STILL LIVES TELL HIM ABOUT OUR CONVERSATION, IN AFRICA, WHEN WE SHARED CIGARETTES UNDER THE ORANGE TREES; TELL HIM I SAID I FORGAVE HIM BECAUSE OF HIS LOVE FOR MY DAUGHTER. IF YOU MAKE IT TO THE MEET, ASK FOR A MESSAGE FOR CARTER AT THE DESK// OUT //.

‘He said he forgave you?’

Carter nodded. He walked up a nearby sand dune and stood in the BMW’s tyre tracks, staring out across the barren hot wilderness. Cigarettes. He scratched his stubble. Damn, he thought, what I would give for a cigarette right now ... trust a fucking ECube to remind me at the wrong fucking time.

Natasha moved up behind him. She took his arm.

‘You OK?’

‘Hmm. Maybe.’

‘It’s a trap, right? Gol is dead. We saw him jump.’

Carter nodded, looking down into Natasha’s eyes; and he saw it, the desperation, the need for her father still to be alive. And yet ...
could
Gol be alive? Could he have survived that terrible fall into the river? Could he have been rescued by Spiral at the last moment and even now be on the trail of the traitors to Spiral’s cause?

Gol had been a
very
resourceful man. Maybe he had landed on a rocky outcropping; or used some sort of grappling device? And Natasha, Carter thought sombrely. If Feuchter was telling the truth; if you really do work for the enemies of Spiral - the ‘traitors’ - then you’re a fucking good actress.

‘We will go.’

Natasha squeezed his arm. ‘Really?’

‘Yeah, but don’t get your hopes up - and we’ll do it my way. You understand?’

‘Carter, I know you think I—’

‘Shh.’ He placed a finger against her lips. ‘Feuchter was lying, I know. But I’ve got a bad feeling about this -and yet, if Gol still does live, if the mad motherfucker survived that fall and managed to escape the Nex
and
reformed with other Spiral_F members ... well, they’re just about the only allies we’ve got. It’s not as if Feuchter was any great enlightenment... all we got from him was a name: Durell.’

Jessica had come up behind the two and Carter whirled, his gun in her face. He smiled weakly. ‘Sorry, force of habit.’

Jessica waved his apology away. ‘You said a name then, didn’t you?’

‘Yeah, Durell. He is -
was
- a Spiral top dog; originally based in Austria, near the German border, he was some kind of scientist researching genetics and medicines. His link with the QIII is probably on the semi-organic side -have you heard of him?’

Jessica nodded. ‘Heard of him, met him, turned down an offer of sex with the slimy reptile. Thought I was going to get fired.’ She laughed softly. ‘Wish I had now.’

‘What do you know about him?’

‘Very little. He visited the Spiral_Q Division on numerous occasions. He was a taut little cockroach of a man. Tough, rough and hardy - but you should see his eyes.’

‘Sounds like a nice guy,’ said Carter, staring away over the sand again.

‘You want to know the other amazing coincidence?’

Carter met Jessica’s gaze. She smiled gently. ‘Sorry, I’ve been eaves-dropping. But I think you’d like to know this ... Durell, well, several times when he visited us, I overheard conversations with Feuchter - said he’d come straight from the US.’

‘California, by any chance?’ said Natasha, frowning.

‘LA,’ said Jessica.

‘What a coincidence,’ said Carter grimly.

‘So what now?’ asked Natasha; Carter could see it in her face. She knew the dangers, knew the odds, knew the possibility of the whole thing being a set-up, a trap, a plot to ensnare them. But she wanted - needed - to know if her father was still alive.

The bait was laid.

And the carrot was a juicy one.

They’re either extremely clever and manipulative bastards, thought Carter. Or Gol is onto Durell... he’s alive, and onto the leader of those dedicated to bringing down Spiral...

Decision time.

Decisions.

He scratched his stubble. He patted Natasha’s arm.

‘We’ll go,’ he said softly. And smiled. ‘I have a lot of friends in LA.’

Night was falling as the BMW desert-bike reached the rendezvous. Langan was there and had lit the smallest of small fires, his almost trademark pan of coffee bubbling gently over the flames.

‘Hey Carter, you break your nose again?’

‘Long story,’ said Carter with a glance at Natasha. ‘Is there any of that coffee going? I think we could all do with a caffeine fix.’ Langan nodded, and dished out three mugs.

He raised his gaze in Jessica’s direction, and winked at Carter. ‘You been a saucy devil, eh?’

‘Hmm. Langan, can you fly us to America?’

‘You want my gold fillings as well, Carter?’

‘I can pay you. As much as you want, whatever it takes.’

‘I work for Spiral; Gol wanted you helped, and so help you I will. I don’t need your money, Carter.’

‘You’re in luck, then,’ said Carter softly, his gaze meeting the pilot’s. ‘We’ve had a message from Gol. He’s in LA. He wants to meet.’ Carter watched Langan’s face closely. The man looked a little shocked.

‘Well, I’ll be damned - that tough fucking insect.’

‘Can you confirm this? Through your Spiral_F contacts?’

‘I can try,’ said Langan softly. ‘But the whole Spiral_F network has been off-line, smashed along with the main Spiral grid. I think we can assume that security has been breached, yeah? The idea now is this: Spiral_F will contact me with updates and further missions when they think it safe, unless superseded by Spiral when they get their shit back on-line. Believe me, there’s a lot of pissed-off people back in London ... those that survived the explosion.

‘So you’re temporarily cut free from your duties?’

Langan sighed, scratching the back of his neck. ‘It would appear that way, my friend. About LA: I can’t take you to the city, it’s a fucking nightmare there now - especially after the wars. It’s so busy, there are LAPD choppers everywhere, military presence on the streets, you name it.’

‘A little like London, then?’ Carter smiled grimly.

‘A little,’ conceded Langan. ‘Except amateur terrorists didn’t accidentally detonate a fucking micro-nuke in London. Look, I could probably creep up over Mexico, shunt you over the border, let you find your way from there ...’

‘Great,’ said Carter. He sipped the coffee, then held the mug out for more sugar.

‘Carter?’

‘Hmm?’

‘Sounds like a trap to me,’ said Langan.

‘Yeah, yeah. I know. Just what I need, guidance from another bloody advice merchant.’

‘Just trying to be helpful.’

‘Just get us out of this furnace alive!’

‘I’m going to need to refuel.’

‘Any more good news for me, Langan?’

‘It’ll probably have to be in Egypt.’

Carter muttered something nasty into his coffee.

The Comanche was built to accommodate two people, in relative comfort, for prolonged periods of warfare; with Jessica added to the numbers the situation was a little insane.

Carter had decided that she could be of use; after all, Spiral was linked closely with the QIII, and she happened to have the processor schematics in her rucksack - something which Carter acknowledged could probably come in quite handy.

As the Comanche buzzed low over the northern plains of Rub al’Khali, Langan focused and working hard to keep them out of trouble, it also occurred to Carter that
maybe
Gol was alive and had been captured by the Nex. If he had been tortured, blackmailed, whatever, then maybe the QIII schematics could be used in an exchange situation.

‘Jessica?’

‘Yes, Carter?’

Her nose was four inches from his own, her bottom planted firmly on his knee. He could feel her supple limbs through the thin cloth of her pyjamas, smell the curls that bobbed in his face. He tried hard not to get an erection.

‘You know the QIII?’

‘I helped build it and program it; you could say I know it...’

‘Don’t be flippant or you can find your own way out of Rub al’Khali.’

‘I concede - you are saving my life, even though it looked, from where I was standing, as though you were saying that you should leave me behind and take the QIII schematics at gunpoint. I’m just saying that it looked a little to me like it was Natasha arguing my case and therefore Natasha’s influential vote that has ended up with me hunched here on a pervert’s knee.’