E-Branch - Invaders Part 39

Now, an original lieutenant out of Starside is a very dangerous creature, much more so than our old friend Bruce Trennier, and you know what he was like. So I'm just reminding you, it's possible that one of these things is up there, too.'

T.

he map on the big wall screen had changed. Trask pointed to it again, said, 'Here's Xanadu; you know where it is, for of course you've all flown over it and seen it for yourselves. And anyway the b.l.o.o.d.y place is signposted! A resort, as we've seen. The perfect cover, yes. Which also makes it difficult for us to deal with the creatur e or creatures that we'll find there. Why? Because this time the master vampire is hiding in a crowd!

'That's my next job: finding a way to get the people - I mean the ordinary people - out of there before Monday night.

'And so, gentlemen, that's it for now. Now you can go work out your harbour areas, decide where you'll locate your men and vehicles as they start to come in. The one good thing about it: they won't have much spare time on their hands, won't lose their edge or get bored. They'll no sooner be in situ than they'll be in a firefight. And I think I can promise you that where Xanadu is concerned, that last is guaranteed. Take it as a foregone - or at least a foreseen - conclusion.'

The SAS Commanders left the ops room, and Trask was alone with his own people.

'So, as you can see,' he said, 'the techs and I have had a busy day. But fruitful? Judge for yourselves.'

He gave Jimmy Harvey the nod, and the big wall screen displayed the group of islets again. And Trask continued: 'This island in the Capricorn Group - it's such a rock it doesn't even have a name - is the hom e of wealt hy philanthropist Jethro Manchester. Like many another rich do-gooder before him, he's something of a recluse. Five years ago, in return for his patronage and a whole lot of money, the Barrier Reefs Marine 442.

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Park Commission gave him the island to live on. He owns it, or as good as. But that's not all he owns .. .'

Trask paused and glanced at Harvey, whose fingers tapped at his keyboard. And now the big wall screen was divided centrally between the islands and a map of the dog-leg fold in the Macpherson Range. Trask glanced at the screen, and nodded his curt nod. 'Hands up who knows what I'm talking about.'

And Liz said, 'He owns Xanadu, too?'

Trask looked at her. 'Used to, ' he said. 'But now he has a partn er. Nine months ago Manchester signed doc.u.ments that transferred fifty per cent of Xanadu to one Arist otle Milan, an alleged "shipping magnate " of mixed Greek and Italian descent. We might perhaps a.s.sume - or rather, I be lieve we're su pposed to a.s.sume - that his surname derives from the city of his origins in the old Italian fashion. But I don't think so. The coincidence is just too great, not to mention the r est of the story.

'First: there is no record of a ny Aristotle Milan as being the owner of any ships! Ergo: the man isn't a tyc.o.o.n - though I can easily understand how the idea of being one would appeal to such as him - and as for his name ...'

'... Not Milan but Malin,' Jake came in. 'Instead of using "ari" as a suffix, to denote "son of," he's using it as a prefix, denoting "first of. Meaning that on this world, he's the first or highest of his kind. And so for Aristotle Milan, read Malin-ari. Malinari the Mind!'

'Exactly,' said Trask. 'What's in a name, eh? So, how did Malin ari make his connect ion with Jethro Manchester? Ah, well, here's another name for you: Martin Trennie r. Bruce Trennier's brother, a marine biologist employed by the Marine Park Commission until Manchester - our philanthropist, conservationist, recluse, and latter-day Jacques Cousteau - stole him away from them to be his very well-paid odd-jobs man, skin-diving companion, and general dogsbody.

This happ ened about the same time that Manchester and his family got away from it all and retired to the island. Bruce Trennier would have known all of this when Malinari vampirized him at the Romanian Refuge, the said knowledge going second-hand to The Mind himself.

Which begs the same question we've all worried about before: what else did Malinari learn on that... on that terrible night?'

Trask's face w as grey now, and all of his people knewwhy: that his concern wasn't just for Zek - who was gone now - but also for them. For Zek Foener had known as much as anyone about E-Branch and its workings.

And Malinari?

lan Goodly determined to change the subject, take Trask's mind away from it. 'What if we're wrong and it's all coincidental, circ.u.mstantial? This pseudonymous-names business, our various hunches and observations, and everything else we've come up with?'

'A h.e.l.l of a lot of coincidences, I'd say!' Trask frowned at him.

'But what if)'

Trask shuffled notes he'd made earlier, and said, 'Well, there is one more thing. In Xanadu, the pleasure dome or casino has a smal ler, upper most dome like a blister on top of the main structure. It sits on a spindle and revolves like certain fancy restaurants on their high towers. But in the nine months since Mr Milan moved in half of its windows have been painted black, both inside and out. Oh, and incidentally, the dome's rotation was originally designed to track the sun, letting in the light that the higher solar-panelled surfaces necessarily exclude. So it would appear that our Mr Milan has an aversion to strong sunlight...' Pausing, Trask looked at Goodly.

The precog was quiet now, saying nothing, but his alleged 'concerns' hadn't fooled Trask one bit. For in its way Goodly's subterfuge had been a lie, a diversion to take Trask's mind off his lost Zek and get it back on track, and of course Trask knew it. A lie, yes, but a white one. And: 'So thanks, anyway,' he finally continued, looking directly into the precog's eyes, 'but I think we can safely conclude that 445.

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here ...' he pointed a steady, resolute finger at the locations displayed on the wall screen, '... that here be vampires!'

When no one had anything further to say, Trask finished up with: 'Very well, and now we have plans to make ...'

Later that evening, Jake was sitting on a bench in the cool of the garden, lost in his own strange, meditative thoughts, when Lardis found him and sat down beside him. After he had sniffed at the air for a while, the old man said, '

Carypsu?'

Oddly enough, Jake understood. 'Eucalyptus?' he answered.

'It's a tree, growing outside the wall.'

'Yes,' Lardis nodded. 'Carypsu. We have them on Sunside.'

And, after a moment or two's thought: 'May I ask a question?'

'What's on your mind?' said Jake.

At which Lardis smiled. 'But I might ask you the selfsame thing! What's on, or what's in, your mind?'

Jake frowned. 'Some kind of word game?'

'No,' Lardis shook his head. 'No word game. But I have to admit, I'm curious.' 'About what?'

'About you. About how you knew that in Starside in the old days a Lord of the Wamphyri might occasionally add "ari" to his father's name, denoting that he was his father's son.'

'You mean like Lord Malin was Malinari's father?'

'Indeed. And now that you mention it ... how you knew that, too?'

Jake frowned again, deeper this time. But then he relaxed, and shrugged. 'You must have told me,' he said. 'Or maybe I've read of it somewhere. In Ben Trask's files, perhaps?' But: 'No,' Lardis shook his head, smiling in that knowing way of his.

'No, I haven't told you. I've had no reason to mention it to anyone. And as far as I know it isn't written anywhere.'

Then, creaking to his feet, the old man yawned and said, 'Well, goodnight, Jake. And pleasant dreams ...'

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE.

A Dream And A Word-Game But in fact Jake's dreams were anything but pleasant ...

It wasn't so much what had happened, though that was bad enough, but that he had been made to watch it happening.

More than anything else, that was what had preyed on his mind... until he'd made it up to put things right. Perhaps he'd hoped that by killing the cause he might kill the memories, too.

O O.

But such a lot of memories, burning,like acid in his head, until he'd thought they would burn his brain out.

Memories, yes.

That fat, pallid, slimy-looking b.a.s.t.a.r.d - the second one of those pigs that Jake had got back at - the way he had taken Natasha in the cla.s.sical or orthodox position, but scarcely an act of love. Rape, yes, and his long, slender grey d.i.c.k in her r.e.c.t.u.m according to his taste.

Memories, those G.o.d-awful memories ...

They'd piled pillows under her, raising her hips, and two of the others had held her legs under her knees, to allow this fat slug standing at the side of the bed to get into her. That had made it easy for him, because unconscious as she was - or between bouts of consciousness and unconsciousness - she'd been likely to flop and eject him. But holding her like that, Natasha had been a lot more accessible; accessible to viewing, too, for Jake had been tied to a chair where he could see all of the action. Of course, he could have closed his eyes, and from time to time he did just that, but he could still hear it even if he couldn't see it.

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That grunting pig! His d.i.c.k like a long finger poking into her, in and out with the heaving and clenching of his fat backside.

And this sweaty, grunting, slug-like slob - this giggling queer - oh, it was obvious why he liked it like this. With any normal woman in an y natural act of intercourse he'd be lucky if that pencil pe nis of his touched the sides. But this way ... at least he would get some satisfaction, however minimal At least he would know he'd had it into something. And Jake had to watch, he had to, because long before that too-long night was over he'd known that if it was the very last thing he did he would avenge her.

But the worst thing was when it was over, and the fat b.a.s.t.a.r.d zipped his fly and waddled over to Jake, saying, 'A shame she wasn't awake, eh, English? It would have been so sweet to know she'd felt that last big bang, and to feel her guts spasm as I greased her dirt chute! Ah well, there's time yet. Oh, ha, ha, ha?

He had a strong German accent. And when he laughed he put his face close enough to Jake's to cause him to recoil from the stench of cigar smoke and senf, hot German mustard ...

But Jake didn't even know the pig's name - didn't know any of their names - except Castellano's and Jean Daniel's.

Well, Jean Daniel was dead now, of an unequal argument between his soft guts and the alloy core of a plastique- propelled steering column.

And the fat f.a.ggot had been number two ...

Jake knew the route the fat man took from Castellano's place on the northern outskirts of Ma.r.s.eille to a gay bar on the Rue de Carpiagne which he visited regularly on Friday nights. He knew, too, that the fat swine was a little shy to admit openly of his predilections (that it didn't sit too well with him that he was both a hoodlum and a pervert), which was why he invariably approached Le Jockey Club down a narrow side street.

It was raining on the night in question, and Jake had parked his car so as to block off one side of the rain-slick cobbled alley on the fat man's approach route. The other side was liberally sprinkled with inch-and-a-half spikes which Jake had laid down with malice aforethought and in great deliberation.

Jake was waiting in a recessed doorway when the fat man's fat tyres blew, and he was quickly into the alley as the expensive Fiat slewed to a halt and its cursing driver slammed open his door, got out, and creased his belly as he bent to hear the front nearside's last gasp. A moment more and Jake was standing over him.

The fat man was suddenly aware of him; he had time to say, 'Uh? Bitte? Was istP' before Jake sapped him behind the ear ...

In a deserted copse on a wooded hillside over the motorway near St Antoine, Jake wafted a small bottle of smelling salts under his victim's nose until he twitched, moaned, and came out of it with a series of useless, spastic jerks. Useless because he was tied up - literally tied up - and spastic because he was tied by his ankles and wrists, so that all he could do was shake and shiver like a great, globular white spider in its web.

Jake had woken him up because in his position, upside down, the fat Kraut might easily die without ever regaining consciousness of his own accord. And that was the last thing Jake wanted ... that he should die easily.

The man's legs were spread wide; at a height of about seven feet, his ankles were roped to a pair of springy saplings which were just strong enough to hold him in position. His wrists were likewise tied to the bases of the twin trees, which formed his body into a fat, totally naked 'X'. He was gagged with his own underpants, tied off at the back of his neck, and the rest of his clothing lay in a neat pile close by.

At first the fat man struggled a little, but since that was pointless he quickly gave up and hung still, watching Jake pour a hip flask of fiery Asbach Uralt brandy over his heaped clothing.

'A waste of good German liquor, eh?' Jake said. 'But that's not the only G erman thing I'll be wasting tonight.' Then, stepping closer: 'You don't remember me, do you?'

The fat white spider had begun to shake its web again, 449.

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however hopelessly, but now it paused to say, 'Umph? Uh- umph?'

'But I'll bet you remember the girl. That night at Castellano's place? The Russian girl, Natasha?' Hearing that name, and finally recognizing his tormentor, the fat man commenced yanking on his ropes with a vengeance, his eyes blinking rapidly in a face as round as the moon, all bloated with pooling blood.

'Oh, sure, you remember her,' Jake said, as he got to work.

Though it had stopped raining, he was still wearing a lightweight raincoat. From one side pocket he took out a small paper parcel, and from the other several indeterminate items.

The fat man, being inverted, couldn't make out what they were; but perhaps he recognized a certain marzipan smell when Jake unwrapped the stained paper parcel and weighed a blob of grey, dough-like stuff in his hand. At any rate he began shaking the trees furiously, and did a lot more serious umph-umphing.

But Jake wasn't listening; he wasn't the least bit interested in his victim's complaints. Stretching a pair of thin surgical gloves onto his hands, he stepped closer and began molding plastic explosive into the fat man's a.n.a.l cavity. And: 'I might have expected it,' he said, finishing the job just as quickly as possible, 'that a fat, ugly thing like you would have a hole like a horse's collar. You've done your fair share of time in the barrel, right? But this time -1 mean this last time - it's a little different, eh?'

He showed the fat man a small bra.s.s cylinder the size of a pencil-slim torch battery, with copper wires protruding from one end, said, 'Detonator,' and rammed it home. And connecting the wires to a miniature timer, he said, 'Which gives you maybe, oh, fifty seconds? As of right ... now!' And he pressed a tiny b.u.t.ton.

Then, in no special hurry, he stepped to the neatly piled clothing, stooped and applied the flame of his cigarette lighter.

The pile caught with a small whoosh! and blue flames flickered on the hillside.

And starting to count, 'Five, six, seven ...

' Jake set off through the damp undergrowth, down the uneven, wooded slope to where his car was parked on a rutted farm track.

'Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two ...' He looked back up the slope. Thirty or thirty-five yards away, the fat white spider- thing vibrated in its web, looking luminous in the darkness of the wooded hillside. And Jake - who had fairly danced down the slope, his face fixed in a mad grin as he counted off the seconds through clenched teeth - suddenly Jake felt nauseous.

But at a count of thirty-two he realized he was probably too close and couldn't afford to be sick. It had been his intention to stand there and shout back up the slope, remind that poor fat sod of what he'd said that night: something about Natasha feeling the last big bang? And her guts going into spasm? But there wasn't enough time left - and maybe not enough hatred left - for any of that now. Or could it be simply that he didn't want his car covered with ... with whatever.

Feeling his gorge rising, but still counting, he started up the car and no sed off down the t rack. 'Thirty-eight, thirty-nine, forty ...' And when he was on the level, heading for the motorway, he applied the brakes and looked back - felt obliged to look back - like the night when he had looked without wanting to at something else.

Looked back because this was what he thought was needed to burn that memory out of him.

'Forty-six, forty-seven, forty-...' But that was as far as he got.

Obviously he'd been counting just a little too slow ly.

Jake saw the ball of fire leap up and out from the trees on the hillside, pictured in his mind's eye a hideous rending, and then heard the bang. The only mercy was that the fat queer himself couldn't possibly have heard it, and there had been no time at all for a spasm ...

Then for a time Jake just sat there in his car, until the sweat began to turn cold on him. But d.a.m.n it to h.e.l.l, the horror and the hatred were already creeping back, sated for a while but by no means done with. And Jake knew that they always would be there, 451.

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until he tracked down the rest of those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds and finished what they had started.

He gave himself a shake, put the car back in gear and made for the motorway. But- -something was obscuring his interior mirror, something that had got itself stuck to the rear window.

Something round, that once was fat but now was flat, dripping scarlet from its ripped rim. And its eyes hanging out, and its mouth still stuffed with its own underpants!