Doctor Who_ Cat's Cradle_ Warhead Part 8

But Ma.s.soud didn't catch the grenade.

It took him by surprise and his hand jerked up awkwardly. He caught the grenade on the point of his wrist, knocking it to the floor. As the grenade rolled across the packed dirt Ma.s.soud jerked his feet away from it. For a moment there was an unmistakable look of fear on his face. Ace saw it, and, much worse, the other men in the room saw it.

The Kurds were laughing. One of them reached down and picked the grenade up, dusting it off. He pa.s.sed it to his friend, who examined it. Ace registered all this at the edge of her attention. Ma.s.soud was looking at her now, with no expression whatsoever. She felt a sinking feeling in her stomach and thought of the Doctor. Sometimes he'd speak about the way events took shape, the future growing invisibly around you. And every action you took contributed to that shape, like putting your fingers to wet clay spinning on a wheel. Except the clay hardened impossibly quickly. Harder than concrete. And you were stuck with what you shaped.

Ma.s.soud was staring down at his hands, clasped tight. She could see his knuckles showing pale under tight skin. She knew she would have to deal with him. She could feel events accelerating, the wheel spinning its wet clay faster, her fingers digging in and forming ugly designs she could never change. The air around her was hot and close. When he thought she wasn't looking, Ma.s.soud flashed a look at her in the halflight of the warehouse. Ace caught the look. She was beginning to regret leaving her handgun at the hotel.

The man who was holding the grenade was gesturing for Ace to join him. He opened a wooden crate and stood back so Ace could look inside. There in a nest of shredded fax sheets was a tray of objects, wrapped in twists of soft opaque plastic featuring Turkish printing and pictures of lemons. The man unwrapped one and grinned proudly at Ace. It was a hand grenade, identical to the sample she'd brought with her. Miss David had done her job well. Unless some of the objects actually turned out to be pieces of fruit, this crate would contain about thirty highexplosive grenades. More than enough. The man opened three more crates for Ace. The first one contained folded Afghan carpets. He'd opened it by mistake. The second contained tear gas cylinders and an antiriot dispersal system. The third contained a.s.sorted mismatched pieces of combat body armour and the Vickers nightsight vision enhancement system, as requested.

Ace picked up the Vickers and examined it. There was an adjustable chin strap and a band inside the helmet to adapt the head size. Like the bicycle helmets She'd worn when she worked as a courier. Ace made some adjustments and checked that there was a fresh battery fitted. Then she lifted the helmet on to her head. It smelled faintly of old sweat and a scented hair oil. The warehouse vanished from view as she adjusted the dead screens of the optical unit over her eyes, a gla.s.s and rubber blindfold. Operating the power switch on the chin strap was easy, like using a remote control on a portable stereo. Ace fingered the toggle then twisted it to the On position. The black shielding over her eyes began to glow faintly, turning a milky grey, light spreading out from a point at the centre. It was like watching a monochrome desert sunrise.

The glow spread across her field of vision accompanied by a faint buzzing noise. Then images began to swim up out of the pale grey. The outlines of her surroundings, the roof beams and the warehouse crates appeared and drifted for a moment. Then the distorted shape of human figures, Miss David and the mercenaries. Their outlines were sharpening and now they came clearly into focus. As Ace looked around the optical system inside the helmet tracked her eyes, reading every minute change. It calculated the desired focus by a.n.a.lysing the physical behaviour of retina and iris, zooming in when she looked at distant objects. A lowintensity beam of laser light scanned the eye, supposedly without damaging the tissue. It was a fairly crude system. Ace had had one demonstrated to her but had never used the device before. She didn't find the Cla.s.s One Laser Device warning sticker particularly rea.s.suring. Also, the sighting mechanism scanned only one eye and used the data to make adjustments for both. You'd get splitting headaches if there was much variation between your right and left field of vision.

Ace studied the roof of the old wooden building, saw a tiny movement on a beam. She tracked with it and the shape instantly blossomed into a bulge on the wooden rafter and then became closer still, a huge ma.s.s of moving spiked structures crawling with insects, like squirrels among oddly smooth conical tree branches. She relaxed her eyes and the system zoomed back, individual hairs and fleas dwindling into an indistinguishable glossy pelt on the mouse. Ace watched the creature running across the dark ceiling s.p.a.ce, its eyes glinting, small clawed feet in motion, unaware that it could be seen. She studied the wooden beam beneath the mouse, every scar and knothole visible. Ace examined a bent nail hammered into the wood and the helmet enlarged it relentless until it stood like a vast pitted metal tower standing drunkenly on a bare mountain plain. Ace grinned inside the helmet. She hadn't quite got the hang of it yet, but it would be fun learning.

She looked down from the rafters again. In the darkness at the back of the warehouse Ace could see Dfewar busy in the Suzuki. He had a battered Apple Mac clone set up on the back seat beside another computer of a different design. Ace concentrated on it and the nightsighting system zoomed in tight until the machine filled her field of vision like an artdeco office block. She could see the dirt and pits on the plastic surrounding the screen but she still couldn't find any kind of manufacturer's badge or serial number that she recognized. Ace panned down and the computer screen swept dizzyingly up and out of her field of vision. It was like falling from a window and watching the front of the building sweep past. She steadied herself and the auto focus on the eyepieces buzzed on either side of her head as they locked in. The keyboard of the computer she studied was attached to the screen unit by a thick umbilical wire, spooled like a telephone cord. It featured Cyrillic script on a black rubberized membrane. Dfewar had used Ace's cables to connect the two machines. Now he fed one of the disks into the front of the Mac clone. At some point in its life the computer had been exposed to extreme heat. The plastic sh.e.l.l surrounding its screen had melted and run, giving the machine a surreal look. The screen and keyboard seemed to be functioning normally. The only identifying mark on the fascia were two symbols embossed in the melted plastic. It took Ace a moment to make them out. The first symbol was a cartoon of a b.u.mble bee in flight. The other was a human eye. A bee and an eye. Now she looked more closely, Ace decided that the other computer had previously been fitted in a vehicle of some sort. It still had bent steel brackets holding heavy bolts fitted to the back of it, obviously wrenched from a bulkhead with considerable violence. Ace imagined the computer being salvaged from a bombedout tank on the Mongolian border and smuggled south.

Dfewar was bent over the screen of the Mac clone. Some simple cartoon graphics pulsed, showing data transmission. Ace zoomed in close enough to see the coa.r.s.e staircasing on the pixels, smooth curves turned jagged by the extreme resolution. Then she zoomed out in time to see Dfewar turn and walk towards her, smiling. He'd a.s.sured himself that the disks and cables she had given him worked. Now the Kurds could download software from the halfmelted machine and process it. The disks she had brought with her contained communications protocols and software links and the cables were universal adaptors for connecting different models of computer.

Dfewar was saying something to Miss David, speaking quietly.

'They're happy.'

Ace held out her hand. Dfewar returned the cables and disks. Now he'd confirmed that the merchandise was sound, Ace would retain them until it was time to make payment. Keep them somewhere safe. In this part of the world communications software had replaced gold or hashish or weapons as the universal currency.

Miss David was tapping her foot impatiently. Ace took out the black envelope containing charts and several pages of instructions on yellow legal paper. She left the drawing inside. The instructions had been written in fluent Turkish in a spidery slanted hand with an old fountain pen. The fatter envelope contained a letter of credit from a Luxembourg bank and two folded sheets of paper which had been typed using an old manual typewriter. Ace could feel the impression of the type with her fingers. Both folded sheets had been sealed with wax. She gave one to Miss David and the other to Dfewar. Miss David tucked hers away. Dfewar broke the seal on his and glanced at the instructions. He spoke to Miss David in Turkish. 'He says it's all fine,' said Miss David. 'They'll meet you on the boat in Marmaris.' She pressed a switch beside a fuse box on the wall and the large rear door of the warehouse began to creak open. A band of pale evening light appeared at the bottom of the wall and widened steadily upwards. 'They can go now,' said Miss David. 'Don't you think?'

Petrol fumes boiled in the warehouse, blue smoke clouding from the exhaust of the Suzuki as the engine revved and the Kurds climbed in. Only five of the men were seated in the vehicle as it drove out of the warehouse. Ma.s.soud remained, still sitting on the crate. He got up, moving casually and slowly, and advanced on Ace and Miss David. He came so close to Ace that his elbow slid up across her ribs when he suddenly lifted his arm. He reached above her and pulled a leather jacket down from the top of a stack of crates. He looked Ace in the eye as he zipped the jacket and murmured something. 'He's apologizing,' said Miss David. 'He doesn't mean it.'

She and Miss David left the warehouse by the side door, Ma.s.soud sauntering after them. A string of helicopters hung in the darkening sky like geese straggling home. Good target for a groundtoair missile, thought Ace. She was aware of Ma.s.soud behind her, his eyes following her. He walked to a motor scooter leaning on a wall of the courtyard and kicked it to life. As he rolled down the cobbled yard towards the street, he glanced back at Ace. 'You can wait here a while before you leave,' said Miss David, watching Ma.s.soud. 'I can make you more tea.' The engine sound of the scooter was diminishing, the buzzing of a big insect caught between the stone walls of the old buildings.

'No. I'd better make a move. Thanks anyway.'

Ace made her way down hot twisted streets that smelled of the sea and blossoms. She walked past Ottoman houses and Roman ruins. On the broad avenues of the modern section of the city troop carriers rumbled past, freshly painted UN insignia stencilled beside the Turkish markings on their armour. Old diseased horses pulled twowheel carriages with tourists in them. Dutch and Germans, unperturbed by the promise of war. Everywhere Ace went it seemed she could hear the buzzing of a motor scooter one street away.

At the intersection of c.u.mhuriyet and Ataturk Caddesi there was a narrow street lined with restaurants where she'd eaten lunch. Now Ace paused there to buy a kebab, marinated vegetables grilled and wrapped in unleavened bread. From the sealed private rooms of restaurants above her she could smell the forbidden meat grilling and touts wandered the street offering blackmarket meals of mutton, beef and chicken. The government directives were having little impact on a nation of seventy million carnivores. Ace waited for her kebab, standing by the hot coals of the open grill. On a table nearby she saw a Turkish daily newspaper spread open, a beer bottle anchoring it in the breeze. The cover featured an advertis.e.m.e.nt for lottery tickets beside colour photographs of an actress in a bikini and an aircraft carrier sinking in a sea of burning petroleum. They gave Ace her kebab wrapped in an earlier edition of the same paper. Vegetable oil soaked through images of soldiers in dune buggies and sitting on tanks. Smiling for the camera from behind mirrored sungla.s.ses. Gungho, young and immortal. Most of them would be dead by now. The darkening stain on the newsprint obliterated their smiling faces. Ace burned her fingers, picking fragrant onion rings out of the pitta bread.

She was wolfing down the kebab when she stepped off the pavement and heard the distinctive engine note of a motor scooter in a cross street. She looked up and saw a girl on a yellow Vespa drone past. Ace realized that the muscles in her shoulders were bunched and tense, elbows held in tight to her ribs, ready to tight. She forced herself to relax. It was a lovely evening now that the motor traffic had thinned. Smiling people walked past, couples kissed, arms and legs bare under pastel shorts in the warm Mediterranean air. In a dark restaurant silver clinked and a waiter wrestled a bottle open. Ace heard the pop as the cork came free. She smiled. Then she heard the buzzing of another motor scooter and looked up in time to see Ma.s.soud swoop around a corner. He stopped then glanced up. Ace was looking directly at him. Ma.s.soud did a U-turn and went back the way he'd come. Ace stood for a moment, then hurried down a side street. Now the streets seemed to be narrowing in on her in the heat. She couldn't read the words on the shopfronts or street signs, their meaning locked away in alien lettering. An old horse tethered at a stone trough had a white film over one of its eyes. A thick cloud of flies lifted from its mane every time it stirred. Ace was still clutching the warm newspaperwrapped bundle in her hand. It felt like a small living thing. The food she'd eaten was shifting greasily in Ace's stomach. At the first litter bin she pa.s.sed she threw the rest of the kebab away, the newspaper greased to transparency, the war pictures lost to sight.

The desk clerk at the Novotel gave Ace the same look she'd received when she checked in that morning. It was not a look of approval. The clerk was a woman dressed in an immaculate man's evening suit, white shirt and black tie. On her lapel was a small crescent badge, the symbol of the new Turkish nationalism. Tourists were welcome in the new Turkey but at the Novotel they were looking for the right kind of tourist. Ace wore torn khaki culottes, a Rohan teeshirt knotted to form a bra, and plastic sandals. She was dirty and sunburned and her hair, tied in a bun, was greasy from a week's travel in buses along the Turkish backroads. The clerk made her wait while she doublechecked Ace's Visa rating on the frontdesk computer. The credit card was in the name of Ms J Smith, but the validating thumb print and the recorded pa.s.sport photo on the Visa database were Ace's. The clerk moved her light pen around and punched keys, trying to get the computer to ring some bells, but she couldn't find anything wrong. Finally she clucked and looked up and reluctantly handed Ace a rectangle of plastic embossed with the hotel's crest and a machinereadable barcode.

Ace slid the plastic key through the reading unit beside her door and went into her room. The air conditioning made a soft noise in the darkness. 'Lights,' said Ace, and panels of recessed halogen bulbs came on silently in the ceiling. The thick hotel carpet of the corridor had given way to even thicker carpet inside the room. She kicked her sandals off and felt the soft fibre on her sore toes. She walked to the closet opposite the bed. Her airline bag was still there, untouched. In the bathroom the fat chrome taps gleamed in the bright white curvature of an immense bathtub. Ace could see her reflection in the taps. At one touch hot water would pour into the tub. Ace turned to the sink and gathered up her toothpaste and toothbrush, sweeping them into the airline bag.

Looking at the clean smooth sheets of the bed Ace felt the weight of exhaustion settle on her. For a week she'd been travelling this alien coast, riding in old dolmuses dolmuses thick with Turkish tobacco, ringing with Western music. She'd followed the winding backroads across mountains, her ears popping with the sudden pressure changes. For a week she had hustled, organized, made preparations. She'd met arms dealers, boat builders and blackmarket software hustlers. Dealing with a foreign language and the eyes of men on her all the time. Now she was in a quiet room sealed away from the world, looking down at this soft wide bed. She'd be asleep as soon as she climbed under the covers. Her head was full of dreams waiting to happen. Ace sighed and dragged the Frenchstyle bolster out from behind the pillows. She bent it in half and stuffed it deep under the quilt, halfway down the bed. Out of her rucksack she took the life jacket with the compressed air cylinder. The life jacket went into the bed snugly above the bolster and when she triggered the cylinder the quilt shuddered and slowly lifted, a shape growing under it. The inflating life jacket began to give roughly the contour of a human torso under the quilt. The bolster would pa.s.s for legs. thick with Turkish tobacco, ringing with Western music. She'd followed the winding backroads across mountains, her ears popping with the sudden pressure changes. For a week she had hustled, organized, made preparations. She'd met arms dealers, boat builders and blackmarket software hustlers. Dealing with a foreign language and the eyes of men on her all the time. Now she was in a quiet room sealed away from the world, looking down at this soft wide bed. She'd be asleep as soon as she climbed under the covers. Her head was full of dreams waiting to happen. Ace sighed and dragged the Frenchstyle bolster out from behind the pillows. She bent it in half and stuffed it deep under the quilt, halfway down the bed. Out of her rucksack she took the life jacket with the compressed air cylinder. The life jacket went into the bed snugly above the bolster and when she triggered the cylinder the quilt shuddered and slowly lifted, a shape growing under it. The inflating life jacket began to give roughly the contour of a human torso under the quilt. The bolster would pa.s.s for legs.

'Off.' The halogen bulbs went off instantly above Ace, dimming to warm orange for an instant before they died. She stood in the dark room listening to the hiss of the inflation apparatus and the sighing air conditioning. Then she locked the door and descended in the elevator, leaving the hotel through the restaurant entrance.

The automatic gla.s.s door slid open for her and she stepped out of the air conditioning into a solid wall of Mediterranean heat.

The pension where she slept that night was called the Blue House. It was a residential dwelling converted to a small hotel, centred on a system of narrow ancient alleys. Her room was high ceilinged, with tall cupboards and gleaming wooden floors. The sheets on the fourposter bed smelled of mothb.a.l.l.s. Outside there was an old iron lamp post and a tree full of sleeping birds. From the buildings on every side Ace could hear televisions and, later in the evening, the mosques starting up. From across the dark city the recorded prayers blared, echoing and frail with distortion. Ace listened at the window that looked out on to the tree, the eerie rise and fall of the voices raising the hair on her forearms. A bird moved in the dark foliage outside. Someone shouted around the corner in an alley, followed by the frantic slap of running footsteps. Another cry.

Trouble, but someone else's. Ace listened dispa.s.sionately. She stood at the window a long time but she didn't hear any motor scooters.

The shower was a thin lukewarm drizzle, coughing rust before running clean. It was wonderful. Ace stood under it for half an hour. Her fingertips were pale and shrivelled when she came out. She wrapped her hair in a towel, pulled on a baggy teeshirt big enough to act as a robe. 'Thirteen Years Left,' said the teeshirt in heavy black lettering. Ace unzipped the airline bag, dumping it out on the bed. The pistol was a modified Python, a heavy American handgun with a distinctive flared sight running along the top of the barrel. This model had a MIDI control system which allowed linkage with the Vickers helmet. The gun could fire upon a target selected in the helmet system. You didn't have to pull the trigger. You just blinked your eye. It was a terrifically dangerous arrangement and a lot of people had been killed by mistake. Banned by military organizations all over the world, the system was still a best seller in the private sector.

Ace put the gun into the bed, deep under the sheets where it would be difficult for someone to see her reaching for it. The ritual reminded her of putting her teddy bear to bed, down deep where he'd be warm, when she was a child. She unknotted the towel and sat in front of the window, feet up on the cold iron radiator. When she went to bed she slept deeply, dreaming of eyes that were just holograms.

Ace woke up when she rolled over in the bed and felt the cold solid shape of the pistol pressing against her naked stomach. It left an imprint in her flesh when she got up. The echoing morning prayers drifted in through the tall windows as she dressed. She breakfasted on eggs and bread in a pideci pideci near the pension, then walked in the direction of the sea, the direction of the Novotel. At the hotel she crossed the airconditioned lobby without glancing towards the front desk. The elevator was programmed to understand English. She asked for her floor and the smooth sudden rush of acceleration dragged the blood from her brain. She rode up alone, counting the flashing lights on the indicator. In the dim quiet corridor on the seventh floor fat men and women moved between the rooms, silent on the thick carpet, pushing trollies full of cleaning equipment and freshly laundered towels. A squat robot vacuum cleaner bearing the Novotel crest dogged their heels, scouring the floor. Ace took out the electronic key and turned the corner that led to her room. She could hear the voices as soon as she stepped around it. near the pension, then walked in the direction of the sea, the direction of the Novotel. At the hotel she crossed the airconditioned lobby without glancing towards the front desk. The elevator was programmed to understand English. She asked for her floor and the smooth sudden rush of acceleration dragged the blood from her brain. She rode up alone, counting the flashing lights on the indicator. In the dim quiet corridor on the seventh floor fat men and women moved between the rooms, silent on the thick carpet, pushing trollies full of cleaning equipment and freshly laundered towels. A squat robot vacuum cleaner bearing the Novotel crest dogged their heels, scouring the floor. Ace took out the electronic key and turned the corner that led to her room. She could hear the voices as soon as she stepped around it.

The woman desk clerk from downstairs was arguing with a cleaning woman. They stood in the doorway of Ace's room, exchanging rapid, low Turkish. The cleaning woman was holding up the quilt from Ace's bed. Draped over her trolley was the life jacket, deflated and limp, air cylinder swinging at one corner. Ace didn't wait for the desk clerk to look up and see her. She turned and walked quickly back the way she'd come. When she pushed the b.u.t.ton for the elevator her hand was steady. But as she descended in the highspeed metal cage her stomach turned over. The quilt and the life jacket had been riddled with holes. Bullet holes.

Down by the harbour she went into a yachting shop and bought a new inflatable life jacket. Then she walked through the Old Town to the coach station to catch a bus to Marmaris. She listened for motor scooters all the way.

8.

A large turtle was crawling sluggishly across the road, trying to make its way back to the water. A car thundered past, only just missing it. Ace trotted out into the road and scooped the animal up. She carried it to the water's edge, its blunt feet flailing helplessly, and set it down. The turtle crawled to the edge of the sea and studied the glittering water for a few moments. Then it looked up at Ace, tiny eyes in a shrivelled face, and turned in a slow circle and started back towards the road. Ace sighed and left it.

In Marmaris the docks had been converted to a Europeanstyle marina at one end of the bay. At the far end she'd find the boat she'd hired for the use of the Kurdish mercenaries. They'd all be on board already, along with the equipment she'd inspected in Miss David's warehouse. And Ma.s.soud would be with them.

Ace walked among the yachts. The wind whipped the lines of their sails against the masts with a sound that reminded her of flagpoles. Young Germans and New Zealanders lounged on the decks, rich kids recording themselves with camcorders, drinking and tanning in the brilliant lethal sunlight.

On the mahogany deck of one boat a tattooed teenage boy with long blond hair was sprawled out on a towel. He looked up and called out to Ace as she walked by. Despite herself Ace turned to him and immediately he reached into a plastic icebucket and pulled out a bottle of Polish vodka. Ice and water dripped off the bottle, glittering in the intense sea light. The boy brushed his long ragged blond hair back from his face. He smiled at her, white teeth in tanned face. His eyes were invisible behind sungla.s.ses but then he took the gla.s.ses off and looked at her directly. His eyes were shy. He called something again, in German. He laughed at himself and shrugged, shaking the bottle. He gestured for Ace to come up on to the boat. Ace felt the nine kilos of her rucksack dragging at the sunburn on her shoulder. She could imagine the fat satisfying splash the rucksack would make when she threw it into the harbour. The German boy's boat was called WitchKraft WitchKraft. It was lolling gently on the water, a metre away from the rubber tyres nailed to the jetty. She could jump across in one smooth motion. The muscles in her legs rehea.r.s.ed the action. They ached to move. Her sunburned skin itched under the abrasion of the rucksack. Ace stood on the splintering wood of the dock, flagpole noise all around her.

Two of the Kurdish mercenaries were lounging in the shade of the cabin structure, smoking and talking. Ace couldn't make out their faces. She climbed on board, lifting her rucksack carefully over the drop to the water. The boat was moored among the excursion vessels that ferried tourists among the islands, to visit the tombs and eat packed lunches. Some of the tour crews looked more piratical than her Kurds. The thought didn't make Ace smile.

Two other mercenaries were loading gear from the back of a Mercedes van, swearing and laughing. One of them, the man who'd shown her the hand grenades in the lemon crate, called a greeting to Ace. Aboard the boat now Ace could see Dfewar in the shadows of the c.o.c.kpit, bent over some kind of small portable work station, typing at a keyboard. She had felt a lump of ice forming in her stomach as she walked along the jetty. Three times she almost turned back to the German boy and his Polish vodka. On the docks the rear doors of the Mercedes slammed and the men loaded the last of the equipment. They cast off and jumped on board. The men who had been smoking in the shade got to work securing the boxes and crates. Ma.s.soud was not amongst them. He was not amongst the men who had been working on the dock. He was not with Dfewar in the c.o.c.kpit. The engines of the boat came alive, pushing it away from the jetty in a growing wake of foam. The marina shrank behind them. The mercenaries were all busy around her. Dfewar was working on his computer. Ma.s.soud was not on board. Ace felt shaky as relief began to set in. She leaned out over the side of the boat and let the sea breeze push into her face. When she smiled she could feel the wind pressing cold against her teeth. The German boy wasn't such a lost opportunity. Ace didn't like tattoos anyway. Eagles and tigers and hex signs on his gold skin. Nice muscles, though. The water was deep and blue, the shadow of the boat moving across it at speed. Ace's own shadow skimming the water as she raised her arm to wave at a tourist boat. It was cold in the breeze.

Ace moved away from the side of the boat, turning in time to see Ma.s.soud come out of the hatchway that led down to the galley.

The motion of the boat was lazy and gentle, despite their relatively high speed of travel. The deck rocked slightly under Ace's feet. Ma.s.soud looked at her, then away. He walked out into the sunlight on deck and unb.u.t.toned his shirt. He was stretching his arms up, barechested in the sunshine, when something landed at his feet. Ma.s.soud reached down to pick it up. It was an inflatable life jacket. The one Ace had bought before leaving Antalya. She stood with her rucksack open, waiting, pleased with the accuracy of her throw. Ma.s.soud was lifting up the life jacket and Ace moved across the deck towards him, swaying a little with the motion of the boat. Ma.s.soud stood holding the jacket and when he looked up she saw his eyes and she knew.

It was Ma.s.soud who had gone into the Novotel, riding up in the silent elevator, gone into Ace's room and fired bullets into the bed where she was sleeping. Where she should have been sleeping. Now he stood in front of her and smiled. Ace smiled back. She had something else in her rucksack to show him. But Ma.s.soud reached out and grabbed the belt that held up Ace's jeans. He pulled hard, tanned fingers locked on the leather band, and swung Ace around. She stumbled across the deck, off balance, and collided with a tarpaulined crate, almost falling. She was still clutching her rucksack. Ma.s.soud didn't even turn to look at her. He called an order to the men at the rear of the boat. Ace was reaching into her rucksack. Except for Ma.s.soud's voice, there was silence on the boat. Ace had the pistol out. Ma.s.soud turned and saw it. Now there was complete silence.

'Jump into the water,' said Ace in Turkish. The grammar might be wrong but the meaning would be clear enough. It was one of two phrases she had memorized on the road from Antalya. Working with a Berlitz book and a flashlight in the dark bus while tourists snored on either side of her. Ma.s.soud stared at her for a moment. Ace squeezed the handgrip on the Python, holding the pistol with both hands, and thumbed the safety catch off. Ma.s.soud watched her calmly then strode back down the boat, coming towards her. Ace repeated the phrase, clearing her throat. Ma.s.soud was laughing. He was close to her, his open shirt flapping in the breeze, lazily scratching his bare chest. Then Ma.s.soud stopped.

He was looking down at his chest. There on his dark skin was a pale green lozenge of light. Ma.s.soud looked up at Ace. The light was coming from the sighting mechanism on the Python. It indicated exactly the path the bullet would follow if she pulled the trigger. It moved when Ma.s.soud moved. He scratched his chest and he watched the spot of light ripple and flow across his fingers. When he moved his hand away it hovered just over his heart. Ma.s.soud looked at Ace. The other mercenaries were all watching them. Dfewar had come out of the c.o.c.kpit and was standing in the doorway. For the third time Ace repeated her phrase. Ma.s.soud didn't move. Ace lowered the Python, the spot of light sweeping down to rest on the deck between Ma.s.soud's bare feet. The bullet blew a neat hole in the plastic imitation teak veneer deck surface. Ma.s.soud didn't flinch.

Ace began to raise the pistol again. Ma.s.soud showed no sign of fear. It was Ace who was afraid. She was still lifting the pistol. The only thing left to do was to take aim and fire a round into the bare brown skin of his chest. Ace couldn't do it. If Ma.s.soud knew she couldn't do it then she had no room left to manoeuvre. Ma.s.soud wasn't moving. Ace hesitated. When she hesitated the gun barrel paused halfway in its upwards arc. The spot of light came to rest exactly on the crotch of Ma.s.soud's saltfaded jeans. Ma.s.soud looked at the spot of light and he was instantly in motion. Across the deck, over the side and into the water. It took Ace an instant to register what had happened. Then she was at the side of the boat, looking out. Ma.s.soud was swimming, doing a strong crawl away from the boat, headed back for the marina. Ace scooped her inflatable lifejacket up off the deck and threw it after him. When she turned around the rest of the Kurds were gathered in a group on the deck behind her. Their faces didn't have any expression she could read.

'Anyone else?' said Ace. It was the other phrase she had memorized, feeling a little nauseated as the flashlight beam bobbed with the motion of the bus. She still had the Python in her right hand.

Dfewar moved away from the group of men. The others watched him. He kneeled beside a crate, glanced up at Ace, frowning for a moment. Then he opened the crate, flipping up metal catches. Inside there was a densely packed white substance. Flakes of it glittered in the sunlight. Dfewar dug his hand into the ice and pulled out a can of beer. He threw it across to Ace. She almost dropped her pistol catching it. The Kurds laughed. Dfewar grinned, kneeling by the cooler, digging out cans.

Ace could see the tombs on the island hillside, caves with ornamented openings, old ruined pillars surrounding the entrances, shadowy in the heavy orange light as the sun descended. The boat rode at anchor, three kilometres from the island, riding the swell while they waited for nightfall.

The mercenaries were quiet, smoking kif, stripping their weapons and preparing for the a.s.sault. Ace found the Python's nylon shoulder holster and dug out the bubbled plastic bag containing the communications lead. She set the holstered revolver on the deck at her feet and popped the plastic bubbles, pulling out the cable. It was a flat wide wire that thinned to a tough narrow lead terminating in a DIN plug. The DIN plug jacked into the pistol grip like a lanyard. She fitted the connection at the pistol end, then got the Vickers vision system out of its box. For a moment Ace thought someone had taken the Vickers and subst.i.tuted a different, cheaper unit. Then she realized that the helmet had been repainted for combat, streaked crudely with black and tan emulsion in a broken camouflage pattern. Ace tucked the flat section of the wire around the inner circ.u.mference of the helmet liner and gently worked the flat tongue connection into the output slit.

The first beer can landed too close to the boat and floated back towards her. The second one she halftilled with sea water so it was heavy enough to travel a decent distance when she threw it. The can splashed as it hit and the motion of the water carried it further away. Ace watched it twist and adjust itself in the moving sea. When the can was out of sight she put the Vickers helmet on.

The stereo eye screens offered glowing grids and menus superimposed on the image as Ace called up the scanning option. Using the switch on the chin strap she quartered the expanse of sea behind the boat, dividing it into a series of search areas. It took so long that Ace began to wonder if the can had gone under. But after three seconds the helmet had located it, still bobbing upright, weighted by the water already in it. Ace zoomed in closer until the j.a.panese brand name began to fill her field of vision. A smiling baseball player beamed at her above the lager logo, winding up to pitch a fastball. When she could read the tiny lettering of the ingredient list on the can, swaying in her vision with the water turbulence, she lifted the Python and let the system sight it for her.

The accuratesighting icon flickered in front of her eyes, a ghostly smiling elf making an 'OK' sign with thumb and forefinger curled together. Ace locked on to the target. At this distance the act of pulling the trigger with her finger would disturb the aim of the weapon. The icon of the Vickers elf flickered on and off as she adjusted the aim to allow for the motion of the can, the motion of the boat and the muscle tension in her arm. She used her eyelids to cut the trigger out of the firing circuit, took the software safety catch off, then blinked her eyes to fire.

The bullet tore into the middle of the lettering describing the beer's specific gravity. Metal twisted under impact, enormous sharp edges sprouting, apparently so close to her eyes that she instinctively blinked and the pistol automatically fired again. The second bullet drove the can under a shallow wave. The can turned over, spun and sank, drifting down to the ocean floor to join ten million others.

Ace was careful to switch the system off before she blinked again. When she took the helmet off the sea breeze was cool on her scalp, sweat heavy in her hair. That was one of the dangers of using the system in the daytime. Ace remembered the photographs of Australian soldiers in Indonesia. They always wore raffish silk scarfs spun into thin cylinders and tucked around the edge of the helmet, to keep the sweat out of their eyes, and out of the vision system's circuitry. Ace wouldn't have that problem. She'd be wearing the helmet in the chill of the night. Ace unplugged the cable from the handgrip of the Python. She set the pistol down on the deck between her feet, mechanical safety engaged. The helmet was resting on top of the beer cooler where she'd left it. Ace reached down and picked it up with her left hand. The cold of the chiller box had left a slick of moisture on the smooth plastic of the helmet. It slipped as she lifted it. She lost her grip entirely and the helmet fell towards the deck. Ace grabbed with her right hand and missed.

It shouldn't have mattered. The helmet itself was virtually unbreakable. Only the gla.s.s blindfold of the vision screen was vulnerable. As the helmet fell it spun neatly in midair so the screen was towards the deck. Even then it wouldn't have mattered if the pistol hadn't been lying there. But the helmet landed on the Python, the delicate gla.s.s of the viewing system connecting with the steel frame of the pistol with a sickening intricate crash.

Ace picked up the helmet. The wide curved bar of gla.s.s that formed the optical unit hung loose from the helmet's rim. A thin band of cable was visible connecting the two.

Ace hit the On switch. The miniature screens of the eyepieces remained dark, but the laser lighting mechanism glowed faintly above them. Then the retina scanning beam flashed out, a hairline of intense hot red. The beam sliced across the interior of the helmet, taking a bestguess route directly through where the wearer's right eye should have been. The laser scorched a stinking brown burn in the plastic lining low in the back of the helmet. A tiny hole bubbled in the outer surface of the helmet. The glowing thread of the laser beam broke through the back of the Vickers and shot across the boat. Ace hit the Off switch before the beam could encounter some ammunition or a fuel tank. She swore savagely. 'Buy British,' she said, and threw the helmet to the far side of the deck, where it rolled away into an open hatch of the bilge.

The tombs on the island were still visible, but as she watched they were disappearing against the hillsides in the gloom. Using her flashlight Ace took the black envelope from her rucksack. The word Ace Ace glowed on it, milky and luminous. She opened the envelope and had a final look at the map the Doctor had provided. Then she read his instructions again, a single page of his scratchy fountainpen handwriting. On the sheet the Doctor described the general disposition of the enemy encampment, their equipment, including weaponry and a generator, and the probable numbers of personnel. Ace read the last paragraph several times then folded the sheet and put it back with the maps in a waterproof plastic case. Then she studied the drawing the Doctor had made. It showed what Ace had come to think of as glowed on it, milky and luminous. She opened the envelope and had a final look at the map the Doctor had provided. Then she read his instructions again, a single page of his scratchy fountainpen handwriting. On the sheet the Doctor described the general disposition of the enemy encampment, their equipment, including weaponry and a generator, and the probable numbers of personnel. Ace read the last paragraph several times then folded the sheet and put it back with the maps in a waterproof plastic case. Then she studied the drawing the Doctor had made. It showed what Ace had come to think of as the object the object, with approximate details of its size written beside the drawing. She folded the drawing and put it with the maps.

One of the Kurds had a radio playing, music quietly drifting out over the silent water. The mercenaries made no attempt to shade their lights or stay out of view, except when they were handling weapons. From the sh.o.r.e or a pa.s.sing vessel their yacht would look like any other pleasure boat breaking its journey before taking a lazy route among the islands.

They were picking up a UN armed forces radio transmission out of Izmir, broadcasting to the American marines in the Mediterranean and Aegean. It was Bo Didley playing 'Mona'. Ace changed into a black longsleeved shirt and a combat vest. She remembered the first time she'd heard the song, played on scratchy vinyl in a tiny hot room in a boys' college. Years ago and on the other side of the world. Her boots on the floor heavy with mud beside the boy's. His older brother had been in the Bromley Contingent. Gas fire on high and the door locked.

She checked the Python for the fourth time, unloading and reloading bullets as she listened to the ghostly harmonics of Bo Didley's guitar. This riff had first been played in a studio in Chicago in 1954, travelling out through the pickup of an electric guitar, coded as phantom patterns on magnetic tape, decoded through loudspeakers and radio towers. The song she listened to was coming at her out of the past, out of a tobaccostained room half a century away. In a sense it was still the original signal, still coming out of that boxshaped guitar with the Gretsch neck in Chicago in 1954, still travelling. The sound waves had moved on spreading outwards but the electronic signal still propagated, along a less predictable route.

Ace watched the red dot of a burning cigarette travelling back and forth amongst the Kurds. Dfewar came forward holding the stub of it between his fingers, politely offering it to Ace. Ace bobbed her head, lifting her chin. For the first few days in the country she had still been shaking her head in response to questions. In Turkey that meant Yes. It was a common mistake which had almost led to some difficult situations for Ace when she'd been haggling with the Cypriot twins for the software.

Dfewar shrugged and showed her his wrist.w.a.tch. When he pressed a stud on the side the animated a.n.a.logue hands blurred for a moment and displayed a new time. Dfewar released the stud and the hands on the watch reverted to their old position. He walked back to his men, still holding the cigarette. Ace checked her own watch. They would go in and land on the island in an hour's time.

The radio played another song by Bo Didley, then another. The armed forces DJ seemed to have fallen asleep. The CD kept spinning on its transport, decoded by laser, sending its data out from a radio control room five hundred kilometres away.

I'm just twentytwo and I don't mind dying.

The moon was up when they launched the dinghy. The black rubber shape slapped the water as they lowered it over the side, settling then riding the swell. Ace was the second person aboard, sitting in the front beside Dfewar. She had a flat metal can of black dubbin she used for waterproofing her DMs. Now she thumbed the can open and applied the dark grease to her cheeks as the men behind her paddled. Dfewar studied her blackened face and nodded with approval. He borrowed the can and then pa.s.sed it back to his men. When the blades of the paddles touched sand they slid over the side of the dinghy and pushed it in through the last metre of shallow water to the sh.o.r.e.

The Kurds were professionals. They dispersed in silence, the only sound the water on the beach and the faint hydraulic punching of the gasoline generator near the encampment. Dfewar touched Ace on the elbow and she moved off with him, up the hillside, away from the sound of the generator.

When the moon emerged from the film of clouds you could see the sentry quite clearly. He was moving along the skyline, holding some kind of automatic weapon with a jutting magazine. The weeds were stinging Ace's eyes. She moved her face back out of the clump of long stems. The sentry was looking away from her now. She slithered silently back down the slope. Dfewar moved with her, taking a parallel course through the dirt and dry gra.s.s. They stopped, crouching among some large shattered stones, and waited while Dfewar listened and studied his wrist.w.a.tch. They could hear the sentry and, when they peered over the rim of the stones, see him following his route.

They watched for a long time, watching until the pattern was definite. He was patrolling a measured interval, walking away on the hill crest until he reached a patch of heatstunted trees, then turning and walking back towards the ring of stones where Ace and Dfewar were waiting.

Dfewar had drawn a knife from a sheath on his webbed belt. The blade was dim, blue steel, chemically dulled so it wouldn't reflect light and betray his position. The blade was an unusual slim shape, tapering symmetrically to an acute point, like a thin flattened spike. No sawing or carving teeth on either side of the blade. There was really only one thing you could use a knife like that for. Ace moved away from it when Dfewar set the knife on the ground between them.

Dfewar rolled over on his back and lay looking up at the night sky. Particulate pollution drifting across from the mainland made the stars look faint and blunt. Dfewar didn't move or check his knife again. He was relaxing, preparing himself. He wouldn't need to move until the sentry turned and came back. He just lay there on the hillside staring upwards as though he could see the constellations. He didn't look at Ace again.

Guthrie patrolled the hillside, walking just fast enough to keep his body heat up. He remembered the photographs of Turkey they'd studied when they were planning the operation. They showed the hot blues of sky and water. n.o.body mentioned how cold the nights would get.

From where he stood now Guthrie could see the encampment, the three tents, two for personnel and one, a smaller leanto, for the generator. In the minute or so he spent watching no one moved between the tents. He could see lights on in two of them, a soft glow through thin orange canvas, and the bare bulb burning beside the generator.

At the other end of his hilltop patrol he had a good view of the best natural harbour on the island. If trouble came it would come from that direction. Perhaps a landing on a night like this. Guthrie felt a p.r.i.c.kling of antic.i.p.ation. He would watch for boats coming in. In a moment he would turn back and walk that way. But now he paused among the stand of dwarfed and twisted trees. He was supposed to maintain a steady sweep of the hilltop until three o'clock, when Sean would come and take over the watch. He should be starting back to survey the other end of the island. By now he should already be watching over the bay. But Guthrie felt suddenly lazy. There was no particular hurry. He flexed the muscles of his arms and adjusted his gun so it rested more comfortably in his grip. He leaned back against a tree. The dry old wood creaked under his weight. He moved away, following the path through the weeds, but still not swinging back towards the other side of the hilltop. Why hurry? Maybe he wouldn't bother with the other sweep at all. Leave it to Sean. He was moving in the opposite direction now, feeling the ground under him beginning a gradual downward slope. Down, towards the camp.

The path led him down among the wild herbs growing on the hillside. After the heat of the day their fragrance was intense. The smell made him feel slightly nauseated. Warren always used those herbs when he cooked for them. Warren was ridiculous. Even a girl would have been more use than the fat idiot. They'd actually discussed the idea of bringing a girl along to cook for them. It had been voted down. So they were stuck here with Warren feeding them. He had even once cooked them fish, thinking that the Mediterranean would be cleaner than his native American waters. Presumably because you didn't find syringes on the beaches here. Yet. There had been illness in the camp for days after the fish. Guthrie had been doubled over with stomach cramps. If he hadn't been so weak he would have smashed Warren's face in with a rifle b.u.t.t.

Guthrie turned away from the herb smell, starting back on the other sweep of his patrol. He marked the end of this perimeter by a cl.u.s.ter of huge broken stones just down the hillside. As he walked he imagined the obese figure of Warren in front of him. In the sights of his weapon. The thought led to other images of combat. Adrenalin mixed into his blood, waking him up fully. Again he thought of an a.s.sault from the sea, by night. All his senses sharpened. Now Guthrie imagined that he was about to be attacked. He felt for the safety on the gun he carried. It was a weapon developed in South Africa for riot applications. The magazine held 512 rounds which could be dispersed in less than seven seconds. It wasn't accurate but it was thorough. Guthrie rehea.r.s.ed combat scenarios in his head, excitement releasing more adrenalin inside him. He imagined the enemy rushing in out of the dark. He imagined dim figures surging up the hillside.

He was ready for them.

Ace flinched as Dfewar moved. The figure of the sentry had appeared on the hill above and Dfewar was already on the last metre of the slope, running silently. In the moonlight he became an indistinct grey shape against the grey rocks of the hillside. The sentry turned just as Dfewar swept on to him.

The shapes of Dfewar and the sentry merged in the colourless light, then flattened as the two figures tumbled to the ground. Ace heard abrasive scuffing noises as heels dug frantically into dirt, digging for grip, then a single grunt. Then silence.

Nothing moved on the hilltop. Ace waited a moment, bracing herself. Then there was a burst of sound so strange it had Ace on her feet and racing up the slope.

Dfewar crouched on the ground over the sentry. The sentry's eyes were moving quickly, specks of reflected moonlight shooting across them. They fixed on Ace, wide with fear. Dfewar had one hand tight over the sentry's mouth. The other hand trembled a little, holding his knife. The blade, still clean, was pointing away from the sentry's body. The sentry had been wearing a Walkman and the headphones had come loose when Dfewar had slammed him to the ground. Now a tinny insect ringing came out of the tiny foam beads. An American thrash guitar solo, some longhaired blond playing his Viking brains out. Loud in the stillness on the hilltop. Ace grabbed the headphones and yanked the cable out of the tape player, silencing them. She stared down at the sentry's face, now looking from her to Dfewar in terror. The sentry was, at the most, fourteen years old.

Sean was nuking Indonesia. He was in the c.o.c.kpit of a Loki fighter plane on a night flight, using full heat modelling and starlight vision enhancement. Black forest shot out of sight under the jet and suddenly the glowing grid of a city flared up below him. His equipment read temperature gradients rather than light and darkness, so residential areas registered as bright scarlet, office buildings as orange and bodies of water a dull rust brown. An urgent synthesized tone rang in his ears, stereo imaging making it sound as if the noise was directly behind his head. Behind and low, in that vulnerable area near the back of the neck. Sean resisted the urge to look over his shoulder. He tongued a control and instantly the image of the city below squeezed and flattened, forming a narrow band occupying the lower edge of his visual field. Directly before his eyes, front and centre, was an image from the sentry cameras situated behind the c.o.c.kpit of the Loki. Sean grinned. Better than a rearview mirror. Not that he had much to grin about. Six Indonesian Hawkers were locked on behind him, coming in for the kill. Sean blinked his left eye once and his right eye twice. The fuselage of the Loki shimmered around him, orange mist coming off the metal. It was terrifyingly as if the plane had begun to smoke and burn. But the orange steam thickened and solidified, conforming to the shape of the Loki. The orange was rising steadily upwards, a second Loki jet, ethereal and glowing, lifting out of the metal of the plane. Now it was directly above him, a plane identical to his except insubstantial, a little ragged at the edges, like an afterimage on your retina. Sean checked the rear view. The Hawkers were closing fast. He blinked his right eye twice. The heat ghost of the Loki accelerated and streaked away. The real Loki dived. Sean watched as the six Indonesian fighters shot above, ignoring him, their primitive software deceived by the decoy. Sean was grinning again. He launched six Valkyrie airtoairs. They hovered in front of his c.o.c.kpit for a moment then shot away in pursuit of the Hawkers. One and a half seconds later six plumes of flame lit up the Indonesian sky in simulated nightvision colours. Sean allowed himself a single moment of grim satisfaction then returned to the business at hand. A quick status check on the Loki, and then the final missile run. He read off all the instrument outputs. The energy used to create the heat ghost had been a major drain on the system, but all flight functions were still well in the green. He cancelled the headup a.n.a.logue displays and proceeded to begin a visual inspection of the fighter's fuselage.

The first things he noticed were the white monkeys.

Dozens of quickmoving snowwhite shapes, writhing on his wings, scrambling up the sidewall of the jet, pressing their obscene, debased, subhuman pink faces to the c.o.c.kpit. Writhing like a giant cl.u.s.ter of huge maggots, they closed in on him from all sides. The c.o.c.kpit was covered with their degenerate idiot faces. Drooling, squamous genetic garbage .

'Warren!' Sean tore the gaming set off his head. He knuckled at his eyes and screamed again. 'Warren, you little suck!' The set hit the canvas floor and rolled across the tent, bouncing against Calvin's ankles. Calvin was beginning to remove his own gaming set, moving a little slowly, his fingers clumsy. Calvin had been piloting the Hawkers Warren had shot down and no doubt he was still recovering from the brilliant highresolution colour graphics and true stereo surround sound involved in a fiery death in the air. But it wasn't Calvin he was after.

'Warren!' The fat little b.a.s.t.a.r.d was nowhere to be seen. Calvin had removed his headgear now and he was blinking, disoriented in the dimness of the tent after the garish colours of the virtual reality Indonesian airwar. He got up from his canvas folding chair, still a little shaky, and came over towards Sean. 'What's the matter? I '

'It's Warren. He's ruined the game.' Sean got up and kicked his own canvas chair over. His leg muscles ached from hours accommodating themselves to an imaginary c.o.c.kpit. Warren was nowhere in sight. 'What did he do?' said Calvin. 'I didn't see anything.'

'Of course you didn't see anything. You were dying.'