E-Branch - Invaders Part 36

Morning found Jake in an introspective mood. But before he was up and about Liz took the opportunity to have a word in private with Trask about her experience of the previous night.

They were out in the grounds, walking under the high wall, breathing easy while still the sun hung low in the east. It was early, and the dawn chorus of variou s parrot species was clatterin g in the still air. Another hour or two, the air would be dry and 'subtropical' Brisbane baking in furnace heat.

Trask heard Liz out, was silent a while, thinking it over. Then he asked her: 'He was definitely using deadspeak?'

'I don't think so ... but does it matter? I mean, the way I understand it, as a Necroscope - or the Necroscope - his very thoughts are deadspeak. Unless he's shielding his thoughts, the dead will hear him thinking. And they will always know where he is. It's like an extra sense, their only sense. They can't see, hear, feel, taste or smell, but they'll know when he's near.'

Trask shook his head defeatedly. 'I probably know as much about deadspeak as anyone else,' he sighed. 'Indeed, more than anyone else. But I still don't know about it. I talk about it, yes - I know it exists - but sometimes it's hard to believe in it.

So 406.

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don't ask me about it, because I don't know. h.e.l.l, Liz! You're the telepath!'

'It was deadspeak,' she said. 'Or at least, he was listening to deadspeak . Listening to - my G.o.d! - to dead people, conversing in their graves. And they were talking about him. That was all I got: the fact that he could hear them and was trying to join in their conversation, but they wouldn't let him.'

'Huh!' Trask grunted. 'Who can blame them? Neither would I "let him in" if I could help it. His b.l.o.o.d.y att.i.tu de ...'

'But to mature, to be the Necroscope, he has to be able to talk to them, right?'

'That's part of it, yes. Well, let's just hope it comes to him, as everything else will have to come to him - the good and the bad. And meanwhile you keep an eye, or an ear, on him.'

'You're still hot sure of Jake, are you?' Liz said.

Trask shrugged. 'I'm not sure he's sure of us! And despite what he has said, I know he still has his own agenda. Anyway, I spoke to Premier Turchin about that, and I'm hoping he can come up with some answers. If we can just find a way to lay that one ghost - kill off the one thing that's burning a hole in Jake's brain, this revenge thing, this course he's set on-maybe it will leave him with an open mind.'

'You mean with Castellano out of the way, Jake would more easily be able to concentrate on the job in hand?'

'Right. So Turc hin will try to dig some dirt on this fello w, see if he can get something solid on him. If we could lock him away it would be a start. But lan doesn't think that would be enough, not for Jake. And the h.e.l.l of it is I understand: I know how Jake feels. Think yourself lucky, Liz, t hat you don't know the kind of hatred we're all capable of. What if I should tell you that I would gladly give my right arm at the shoulder just to see Nephran Malinari writhing, burning on a cross, and to revel in the stink of his smoke? Well, now I'm telling you. And I mean it.'

'And Jake's no different,' she said, with a small shiver.

'Neither was the Necroscope Harry Keogh,' Trask told her.

'And neither am I. Few men are, when the crime and the pain it brings are nasty enough. An eye for an eye, Liz.'

'But in fact, Jake hardly knew that girl.'

'He knows that she was raped and tormented and died horribly, because of him. He knows it was fixed so that he'd take the blame, and that Castellano tried to have him killed in the jail in Turin. That's enough. It would be enough for me, too.'

'Yet you're still hard on him. You think hard on him.'

But the other shook his head. 'He's hard on himself. Anyway, let it go now. And let's hope Turchin comes up with something.'

Hearing footsteps on the gravel drive, they look'ed toward the house.

It was the precog, lan Goodly. He came in his accustomed, long-legged lope - with a long face, too - for all the world a cadaverous mortician. 'Fresh coffee's on the go,' he said in his piping fashion. And: 'Did I hear someone mention Turchin?'

'What about him?' said Trask.

'It was on the early news,' the precog answered. 'He'll be attending a couple of conference sessions this morning, but tonight or tomorrow he's out of her e and back to Moscow.'

'What?' Trask frowned. 'Moscow is the last place he'd want to be right now. What happened?'

'A fist fight, apparently,' Goodly answered. 'In Turchin's hotel bar last night. An Australian delegate got drunk, accused the Premier point-blank of lying about Russia's soft ecological policy, went on to call him a puppet mouthpiece for his industrial and military masters back home.'

'Which right now is true as far as it goes,' Trask nodded.

'Mainly because he has no other choice. So what else?'

'Turchin got a drink thrown in his face before his minders stepped in and started throwing their weight around. The upshot is that he'll speak today - state Russia's case, protest about his treatment and what have you - and take the first plane out tomorrow. Tonight, if he can get one.'

Turning it over in his mind, Trask stroked his chin. 'That 409.

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doesn't sound like Gustav Turchin to me/ he said. 'Long before he made Premier he was a diplomat, could talk his way through a minefield. Something like this happens ... I just can't see him letting it happen.' He shook his head. 'Not unless he wanted it to happen. In which case ... it has t o be a ploy.'

'A ploy?' Goodly looked surprised.

'An excuse to g et him out of here,' Trask said. 'He has a couple of things to organize in Moscow. I made a deal with him, gave him one or two problems to solve on our behalf. It's possible that the only place he could work on it is back in Russia. And isn't there another Earth Year Conference starting in Oslo in just a few days time? Acid rain or some such? I'll give you odds that's his next stop. He's something of a fox, Gustav Turchin. I'm betting he'll go home, set a few wheels turning, then head for Oslo.

And of course, with the rest of the world baying at his heels, it will make him something of a hero with his own people. A temporary thing, but it ought to distract his enemies a while.

Anyway, and whatever's going on, wish him luck. Gustav has come through for us in the past and he probably will again. I'll brief you on our conversation later.'

'Gustav?' said Goodly. 'First-name terms?'

'Right,' said Trask. 'It's called detente, my friend. And with the Opposition, as it happens. Well, it won't be the first time.'

'Tell me more,' said Goodly, wide-eyed.

'Later,' Trask said again, as they headed back towards the house...

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN.

Mindsmog!

In general, Trask's briefing would be the very simplest thing. As yet he wasn't speaking to a full team - and he wasn't about to mention his private arrangement with Premier Gustav Turchin to any others than core members of E-Branch - but in the current lull he knew that he needed to keep his people sharp, keep them in the picture and give them some sort of incentive. Thus, while he intended to stick to a loose broad- screen scenario or overview, still he would remind them of what they were dealing with here, emphasizing the extreme dangers of the job in hand.

His audience included everyone available, which left only the technician Jimmy Harvey doing Duty Officer in the Ops Room; but in fact Trask's words were directed mainly at the Australian Military contingent. Dressed in casual, lightweight summer 'civvies/ and while for the moment they didn't much look like soldiers, in fact these young special-forces officers were the best that their vast country had to offer. Which was to say (in their own down-to-earth terms, and as members of an elite Australian regiment) they were 'b.l.o.o.d.y useful in a sc.r.a.p, mate'.

'I know we've been over some of this before/ Trask began, 'but I just want to make it plain what we're dealing with. That job we did in the Gibson Desert - Bruce Trennier and his creatures - it wasn't big stuff. Trennier was a lieutenant, a righthand man, but he wasn't the boss by any means. Just what he and those others 411.

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were doing out there in the middle of nowhere, we still aren't sure. Maybe that entire set-up was just a bolthole, somewhere that the big chief could run to if things went wrong. But as for the boss himself- who incidentally could as easily be herself - he or she is here, not far away from us even as I speak. At least that's our belief. It's what our experts are telli ng us.

'Now, that night when we camped out in the Gibson Desert.

After the fireworks were over, one of you - no names, no pack drill - asked me a question. Normally it would be a perfectly reasonable question: why couldn't we take a lesser creature, a thrall, captive in order to talk to him, study him, and try to see what makes him tick? Which as I've said would seem reasonable ... if we were dealing with an entirely human enemy. But circ.u.mstances being what they are, and our enemy being what he is, your question told me that you were either poorly informed, or you hadn't understood your original briefing, or you really didn't appreciate what you'd been dealing with that night. And for all I know, it mightn't be just one man I'm speaking about here, but all of you could have th e same problem.

'So, despite that I've had experience of these things in the past - or maybe because I have - and you people are newcomers to the game, I tried to p ut myself in your shoes. Maybe it had seemed too easy.

Unpleasant, yes, but not really difficult. And I began to see what the problem was. You've probably seen yourselves as men with a nasty job to do ... but someone has to do it, right? I mean, maybe it seemed to you that these people you were killing were like, what - escapees from an isolation ward somewhere? - and you were putting them down simply to ensure they didn't pa.s.s on the infection. A pretty effective preventative measure, certainly, but perhaps a bit drastic to your way of thinking.

'So, let's go back to that perfectly reasonable question: why don't we just immobilize these things, lock them away, and study them? And wouldn't that be a far less drastic solution?

'Well, let me tell you again - let me remind you - about vampires: 'Oh, they can be downed. Shoot at them with bullets, especially silver bullets, and you can knock them down ... even if they don't always stay down. Burn them - burn them entirely - and they die. Lock them up in silver cages, and keep their systems topped up with garlic so that they can't work up a head of steam, and you might even manage to confine them - for a little while. But as for studying them ...

'Only make a mistake - your first mistake, just one - and you become the prisoner. And you don't get a second chance.

'Think of it this way. Men have devised chemical and biological weapons, toxins and living viruses, that could wipe us all out - destroy Mankind itself- if they were to get loose. We keep these things in secure laboratories where we study and even develop them. Well, when I say "we," I mean men: "scientists," in outlawed lands mainly, dabbling in a mainly outlawed science. For happily a majority of governments have long since banned all such agents; they deem them simply too terrible for study or development, and they're right.

'But the unpleasant fact is that because some people continue to experiment with this stuff, our people are obliged to follow suit in order to find vaccines and antidotes. They don't want us to be caught with our immune systems down, as it were. So yes, these terrible poisons still exist in just about every country that's capable of handling them. But by G.o.d, you'd better believe they take d.a.m.n good care not to spill this stuff!

'So then, why am I bothering to tell you what you probably already know, and what does it have to do with vampires and the Wamphyri? Well, it's this simple: 'If you think of the Wamphyri and their works in just such terms of reference you won't go far wrong. That is, you have to think of them as something that must be destroyed. But whatever you do don't think of them on the same scale of danger! I mean, we all know that the Richter scale is a yardstick for the power of earthquakes. But if it was a scale for all potential disasters, then to cover man-made biological weapons it would have to stretch from 412.

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the current nine to ninety, and to cover the Wamphyri it would need to carry on from ninety to infinity! That's by my personal scale of reckoning, and I am not wrong.

'And remember: our man-made toxins and viruses aren't bent on escaping; they can't think !Rut only imprison a vampire, and from that moment on he's thinking of ways to get free. He wants to be free, like you, and wants you to be a prisoner, like him. The prisoner of something growing inside you, that will gradually make you someone - something - else. Something other.

'So then, now maybe you can see why we can't suffer a vampire to live. The point being, we really won't suffer a vampire to live. Be sure of this: if you get infected, there's no cure. Which means we'll kill you. Oh, it'll be clean, but it will happen.

'So remember, a moment or so after one of us - I include myself- shows up positive, he also shows up dead ... 'And on that point, enough said ... 'Now let's move on: 'We think it's likely that our quarry has a hideout somewhere in the mountains. Where they come from, the Wamphyri are very fond of their aeries - the places where they live - and the higher the better. Unfortunately that doesn't tell us very much, doesn't narrow down his or her location. For as you know as well or better than I do, there are mountains galore around here. But there's also a paradox in that the Wamphyri don't go much on sunlight. And right now we've rather a surfeit of that, too! Weird, wouldn't you say, that our alien friend has chosen to set up shop here? Well, maybe not.

'You see, he's not dumb. He knows that we know his habits, and that we've known about his "invasion" from square one.

That means he also knows that normally this would be one of the last places we'd expect to find him. So where better to hide himself away and do his thing, whatever that thing is? The only problem is, he might also know that we found and dealt with Bruce Trennier, and by now he could well be expecting us to come looking for him here.

Indeed, he could already know that we've arrived. And if so he'll be doubly dangerous, because there'll be little or no element of surprise.

'Okay, we have a couple of days before our back-up squads and the big ops vehicle are in situ. And that has to be one of our first priorities: to find suitable and preferably non-obtrusive sites, with access to princ.i.p.al mountain approach roads, where we can harbour these men and vehicles as they arrive. So as of noon today we'll be air-mobile again, but not in the jet-copters that you've grown used to. They may have been great in the desert, but to Brisbane's civilian population - not to mention our quarry - aircraft that look like they do are bound to attract attention. So for the time being they'll be on standby in hangars at the airfield where we came in.

'So, there's a firm in town that does aerial sightseeing trips by helicopter, north along the Coastal Range to Gladstone, and south over the Macphersons and along the Richmond Range as far as Grafton. Which is ideal for our purposes in that it covers the ground we're interested in, and the pilots know all the routes by heart and have first-cla.s.s local knowledge. Alas that we can't simply commandeer this firm, its men and machines; but no, that would be to give the show away, and so we'll be paying our way. But I will try to get us a bit more clout than the average tourist. Obviously we have to have the final say on where we fly and what we look at. So later this morning I'll speak to Prime Minister Lance Blackmore and see if he can sort something out for us. 'Very well, so a.s.suming we're airborne again, what will we be looking for? Military commanders, you'll be looking for naturally concealed campsites for your contingents, harbour areas, and access routes. And you'll also be checking your maps, doing an aerial reconnaissance of the entire area. As for my people: 'We'll be scanning the mountain heights for our quarry. In truth, we don't really know what we're looking for; we can only hope we'll know it when we see it. But it isn't all blind luck. Two of my men, Lardis Lidesci and David Chung, 414.

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are specialists in this regard. One of them will travel in each chopper.

'Okay, that's it. From midday or soon after we should have these plan es at our disposal. Get your maps, cameras, and whatever else you'll need sorted out now. As for myself: well, much as I'd like to be going with you, my duty for the time being is right here. Someone has to watch the shop.

'A final reminder. This is a covert operation. Try not to give anything away to these civilian pilots. Have a set of answers ready to hand. For instance, you could be fire chiefs carrying out preliminary aerial surveys, ensuring there won't be a second Great Fire of Brisbane. Something along those lines.

I'm sure you'll think of something.

'That's it, and I hope I didn't bore you too much. Gentlemen, thanks for your time and attention ...'

Brisbane's Skytours helicopters were small, conventional pleasure machines custom-built for the job. Capable of carrying four pa.s.sengers, they had wraparound plexigla.s.s side windows which allowed for superb viewing, but would prove a shade vertiginous for people with height problems. As the Old Lidesci would later describe it, it was like flying in a bubble!'

- and he didn't much like it. The only other problem was their range. Two hundred and eighty miles was their safety limit without refuelling; which meant that a chopper on the northern route must land at a small airport in Gladstone, and on the southern route in Grafton. The good side of that was that it gave the pa.s.sengers time to take on food and water to see them through the return trip.

The pilots were isolated up front behind see-through bulkheads, and they communicated with their pa.s.sengers on headsets. But since in the main their commentaries consisted of monologues learned parrot-fashion over years of flying the same routes, pretty soon the drone of their voices became one with the whirring of rotors and ceased to have meaning. If pa.s.sengers didn't want to listen they removed their headsets; when they wished to converse or ask questions, they replaced them. A simple system.

In the early afternoon, Jake flew south toward the Macpherson Range with lan Goodly, the Old Lidesci, and an Australian Major whose rank was never on display or used to unfair advantage; he had his job to do and was simply another member of the team. But truth be told, it was a strange team. The precog was there in the uncertain hope that should they fly over an 'aerie' - in whatever shape or form - he might catch a glimpse of some significant future event and recognize it for what it was. The SAS Major had his own tasks to perform; he understood that Jake, Goodly, and the old man were 'specialists' in their own right, but in what specific areas he neither knew nor cared.

As for Jake: ostensibly he had been sent along so that he could 'get a good look at the lie of the land,' but he a.s.sumed that in fact it was to keep him out of Trask's way. And he was partly right: Trask hadn't wanted him around cluttering up the place, asking awkward questions, generally getting in the way. But that wasn't the whole story. Mainly Jake had been sent out with Lardis and lan Goodly in the hope that something of their team spirit might rub off on him.

And tr uth to tell, Jake was actually developing a str ong feeling of kinship with the Old Lidesci, and he already acknowledged a growing measure of respect for Goodly ... this despite that the precog seemed as enigmatic as ever. As for the Australian Major: Jake wasn't about to mention (or invite questions about) his own brief 'career' as a member of the original British Special Air Service. For, after all, he had been 'required to leave' in rather short order, and compared to this professional would seem the veriest amateur. But at least he had remembered some of his training ... the useful, more deadly bits, anyway.

And there they sat, scanning the beautiful, sun-bleached coastal strip far below, the valleys and hills, but especially the rearing mountains, as the Skytours helicopter whirled them south, 417.

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and their pilot/tour-guide's monologue droned on and on in their headsets ...

Flying north along the Coastal Range, the locator David Chung shared a second Skytours helicopter with two SAS Wa rrant Offi cers and Liz Merrick. It said a lot for their personal discipline and commitment that these fit young Australians were able to concentrate on their work with Liz along. For her part, she was aware of the occasional appreciative glance at her curvaceous figure in tight-fitting jeans and loose shirt. But while the SAS men found this British 'Sheila' easy to talk to, frank and friendly, they also knew that she was a member of E-Branch and so must be special in ways other than the purely physical.

And she was treated accordingly, with the utmost courtesy.

Liz was part of this second team in her capacity as a telepath.

Not that her talent was in any way specific to vampires, but if David Chung were to detect mindsmog, that might provide her with a target area, a 'direction' in which to cast her mental net if only to corroborate the locator's find. Before letting her go, however, Ben Trask had cautioned her that that was as much as she could do, and had warned her: 'Liz, you'd better know what you could be up against. That stuff with Bruce Trennier? Child's play by comparison with what you could expect from a "real" Lord of the Wamphyri! I remember once over - oh, it seems like a million years ago - how Harry Keogh wouldn't hear of Zek using her talent anywhere near Janos Ferenczy. Janos was a powerful mentalist, too, but according to what Lardis has said about Malinari, Janos couldn't have held a candle to him] And it might well turn out that Nephran Malinari is our man, that he's the one we're dealing with here. It's unli kely to be Szwart, we're fairly certain of that, so it has to be either Vavara or Malinari. But if it's the latter, and if he really is better than Janos ...

'Listen, twenty-odd years ago I had a friend called Trevor Jordan. He was E-Branch, and a telepath. Janos Ferenczy caught Trevor spying on him and got into his head - I mean literally!

And later, at a distance of some seven hundred miles, Janos was able to invade and even inhabit Jordan's mind. And just to show us how good he was, he made Jordan put a gun to his own ear and pull the trigger! Now that... is mentalism!

&O.

'But this Nephran Malinari isn't just another telepath. In his own world, in Starside four hundred years ago, his own kind, the Wamphyri, called him Malinari the Mind. Doesn't that say it all? Anyway, we've learned the legends from Lardis, and the Old Lidesci's word is good enough for me. And even if it wasn't... well, I know I'll never forget the things that Zek showed me on the night she died. That b.a.s.t.a.r.d vampire thing, trying its best to leech on her mind. 'So I'm asking you, Liz. Please be careful. You... you're very special, and in my time I've lost too many special people. I just need to be sure you fully appreciate the danger. I don't want you locking on to something - and perhaps receiving something - that you don't want and can't get rid of.'

That had been some three hours ago, but now...

... Trask's words were still echoing in Liz's mind when the pilot's voice climbed a notch in her headset to declare: 'We're going down now, folks. Gladstone next stop. So if yer'll excuse me, I'll just radio a pal o' mine on the ground, tell him to get the beer out o' the cooler, and slice up a fresh batch o' sarnies.

By the time yer've all freshened up, I'll be done refuelling and we'll start back. A slightly different route this time, if yer'd like. We can stick more closely to t he coast and-'

'No,' Liz i nterrupted him. Tm sorry, but we're especially interested in mountains. On the way back, it would suit us just fine if you'd show us some mountains that we haven't seen yet.' And then, perhaps a little self-consciously, 'Er, sorry to be a nuisance.'