Something Coming Through

43. Gone

Mangala | 25 July

‘I really thought it was Nevers in that 4x4,’ Chloe said, ‘but now…’

‘Now you’re trying to rationalise it away,’ Henry said. ‘Me, I can’t think of any reason why not. Anyone with enough money can buy a ticket on a shuttle these days — and think of all the publicity the Met would get for the first interplanetary arrest. If he did follow us, though, it means someone must have leaked our travel plans. Maybe I should phone home, ask them to look into that.’

They were cruising the area on the far side of the construction site where Fahad had been snatched — blocks of warehouses and factories, silos and empty lots — looking for white vans while they tried to work out what had just happened. The nature and extent of the disaster.

‘If he knew we were coming here,’ Chloe said slowly, thinking it through, ‘then it’s possible that the McBride family knew too.’

‘It’s possible that everyone knows more than we do,’ Henry said.

‘So it’s possible that they snatched Fahad. They were following us, they saw him break away…’

‘The kid played us,’ Henry said. ‘Strung us along with bullshit about ancient ruins while all the time he was working on his own agenda, waiting for the moment when he could make a run for it. It was very nicely done. The only problem is that when he broke away to go looking for the people who killed his father, they found him instead.’

‘The ruins are real,’ Chloe said.

‘But are they really what he says they are? Let’s hope the people who snatched him think so. Otherwise he’s going to be in real trouble. Turn here,’ Henry told Hanna Babbel. ‘We’ll do one more block.’

Hanna made the turn. She’d hardly said a word since Chloe had come running back to the car park of the McDonald’s. Distancing herself from this monumental fuck-up.

A long road between two chemical plants. Rows of squat tanks. Pipes lagged in dirty white insulation. A chimney feathered brown fumes into the clean sky: a human stain on the clean breast of this new world. Hanna slowed when Henry pointed to two men unloading a white van behind a chain-link fence, but it was the wrong kind of white van, smaller than the one Chloe had seen.

At last, they gave up on the search and drove back to the compound. Chloe raised the possibility of calling the police; Henry shot it down at once.

‘We have no evidence that the kid was kidnapped, who kidnapped him, or why. And before they do anything else, the police would check our backgrounds, find out we have fake IDs…At least we know that Nevers hasn’t talked to them. Otherwise they’d already be all over us.’

‘If it was Nevers.’

‘I believe you saw what you saw, even if you don’t,’ Henry said.

He asked Hanna about Cal McBride, where he lived, what business interests he had.

‘How should I know?’ Hanna said. ‘I have never heard of him before you ask me to check out that site.’

‘There has to be the equivalent of Companies House. A place where businesses and their directors are registered. Also an electoral register. Or don’t you have elections here?’

‘Of course we do. For the mayor and the city council, and so on.’

‘Give me your phone,’ Henry said to her. ‘I need to start searching for this Cal McBride.’

He poked at it, muttering, holding it up at one point to show Chloe an image of an old bruiser with white hair and a face like a fist, dressed in a white tux and a shirt that was mostly yellow and blue, a beautiful young woman on his arm.

‘Mr Cal McBride,’ Henry said. ‘At some charity do. Despite his shady business dealings and his spell in prison he’s quite the man about town. Love the Hawaiian shirt.’

‘It’s Versace,’ Chloe said. ‘A Hawaiian shirt would be better, but not by much.’

Henry poked and prodded some more, saying at last, ‘Sky Edge Holdings, the company that took out that excavation licence, is into property development. Should be some leads to uncover there. And here’s Mr McBride’s address, on Rue du Alain Blanchet. I’m looking at a map. This little district with lots of greenery in it, all the streets have French names. You know where that is, Hanna? If you don’t, I can show you.’

‘Is Bel Air. Very rich neighbourhood.’

Chloe said, ‘Are we going there? Seriously?’

‘Just to eyeball it,’ Henry said casually. Too casually for Chloe’s liking. ‘When you need to find out about someone,’ he said, ‘start with where they live.’

It was on a street of large detached properties, a long low house set in a green garden behind a wall. Hanna parked opposite the arched gate and Henry studied the place with a monocular screwed to his right eye, turning the focus ring this way and that. Saying, ‘No white van, but that doesn’t mean anything. If I’d just snatched a kid off the street I wouldn’t bring him back to the place where I live. Security cameras, strands of razor wire on top of the walls…A warning that they’re electrified. And check out that watchtower. Mr McBride likes his privacy.’

‘There’s someone at the gate,’ Chloe said. ‘Watching us.’

‘So there is.’ Henry rolled down the window and gave the guy a cheerful wave, told Hanna they could leave. ‘Now they know we know. Which they probably already knew, but still.’

He seemed grimly pleased. Beads containing alien eidolons that got inside people’s heads and gave them visions of ancient wonders were the stuff of fantasy stories. Dealing with bad men who did bad things was something he understood. Something he could deal with.

It deepened Chloe’s sliding feeling that they were moving inexorably towards some kind of bullshit macho confrontation. She said, ‘Do you think you can rescue Fahad single-handed? Deal with these kidnappers and Nevers on your own?’

‘Of course not. I’m going to hire some help. A couple of local soldiers who know the country. But first, I need to gear up. Hanna, do you have a gun?’

‘Of course. A hunting rifle. You need protection, in the back country. And not just from biochines and other fauna.’

‘I need something a little more inconspicuous. Something I can carry in a pocket or stick in my waistband. A Glock 17 for preference, but any semi-automatic will do in a pinch.’

’You will need ID and a licence to buy it,’ Hanna said. ‘And it takes two weeks to get the licence, after you apply.’

‘But I bet someone like you knows someone who can help speed things through. Someone who deals in guns, or someone who prints them. Explosives would be good too. C-4 if you can get it. Gelignite or plain old blasting powder if you can’t.’

‘I will ask,’ Hanna said. ‘But you must be patient. People who deal in such things are suspicious of strangers.’

Back at the compound, Hanna made several phone calls, told Henry again that he must be patient, and went off to feed and water her pets. Henry used her tablet to do more research on Cal McBride, telling Chloe that he had been implicated in several murders.

‘Men found with burn marks, scrambled brains…Two of them, quote, known associates of notorious businessman Cal McBride, unquote. A reporter asked him if he had an Elder Culture weapon; he said that if he did, he’d sell it and retire on the proceeds. Cute guy, our Mr McBride,’ Henry said, clicking on a sidebar link and looking thoughtful.

‘What is it?’

‘A report of a body found near the shuttle terminal yesterday, an unidentified man apparently with his brains burned out.’

‘You think it has something to do with us?’

‘The story implies it was something to do with McBride. It’s definitely something I’d like to ask him about. Police won’t confirm the manner of death, say they are making good progress, blah, blah, blah…’

‘And now McBride has Fahad.’

‘If he took the kid, it’s because he needs him. Fahad’s safe for now, and we’re going to find him.’

Hanna came back after an hour or so, saying that the boy had taken a knife and her bolt pistol from the laboratory.

‘I thought you only had a hunting rifle,’ Henry said.

‘It is not a pistol as such,’ Hanna said. ‘It uses compressed air to fire a length of metal into the brain of a biochine. Those that have brains.’

‘The crafty beggar,’ Henry said. ‘He went equipped.’

‘He escaped the sea fort with his sister,’ Chloe said. ‘He stayed hidden for several months before I came along. He’s resourceful. A survivor.’

‘I hope so. Because we need him and that bead to find what we came here to find.’

‘I have other news,’ Hanna said, and told them that someone, a friend of a friend, was willing to sell Henry a pistol.

‘It’s always a friend of a friend,’ Henry said. ‘Well, no point hanging around. You come too, Chloe. We’ll stick together for now, in case the bad people have another pop at us.’

They drove out of the city into the low hills. It was a hair past midnight, but the sun shone as it had done ever since they’d arrived. A long day getting steadily worse…

Hanna turned off the blacktop and the Subaru wallowed up a dirt road that snaked beside a dry river, climbing past a string of shacks and trailer homes to a chicken farm in a clearing hacked out of native vegetation that grew in thickets of stout white zigzags. There was a big prefab barn, a mud-brick shack with a pitched roof of corrugated iron. A wind turbine reared above the tops of the zigzags, one of the new vaneless types: it looked like a giant Polo mint on a stick.

They climbed out into silence and cold dry air. And as they walked towards the shack men came out of the barn, cutting them off from the Subaru, and the door to the shack opened and a man with a shock of white hair came out, walking up to them with his hands in the pockets of his quilted gilet, surveying them like a farmer assessing new stock.

‘Mr McBride,’ Henry said, standing still with his arms folded, giving the man his best deadeye stare.

‘Mr Harris. And Ms Millar. A pleasure to meet you at last.’

Chloe said, ‘Where is Fahad?’

‘We need to talk about that,’ Cal McBride said. ‘We need to talk about a lot of things. Not you,’ he told Hanna. ‘I don’t need you any more.’

‘She sold us out,’ Henry said, sounding philosophical. ‘I was wondering about that.’

‘I am doing you a favour,’ Hanna said. ‘Mr McBride will help you. You will see.’

‘Then why don’t you fuck off,’ Henry said pleasantly, ‘so Mr McBride can explain himself.’

Cal McBride stepped up, pulling a torch from the pocket of his gilet, saying, ‘Before you do, here’s your reward. Hold her still, boys.’

Two men grabbed Hanna’s arms and as she struggled Cal McBride raised his torch and jammed it against the side of her head. There was a flash of blue light and Hanna collapsed in the men’s grip, her head crowned in flame.