Peter Hamilton - The Mandel Files

“I thought it was all right,” he said. “Fits the image of an English gentleman farmer.”

Eleanor tsked in disapproval.

“It’s not as if I’m going to a social function with the Prince.”

“Don’t I know it,” she mumbled.

Greg went and sat beside her on the bed, his arm going round her shoulders. Eleanor’s head remained bowed, focusing on her hands.

There was none of the old pre-mission exhilaration that used to fire his blood. He’d thought there might have been, the one final deal, proving he could still hack it. He knew plenty of married officers in the Army, combat deployment was something their wives accepted. But family had come after that stage of his life, there was no way the two could be reconciled now.

“If you don’t want me to go, then I won’t,” he said.

“That’s blackmail, Greg. Putting it off on me. You know you have to go.”

“Yeah.” He kissed her on the side of the head, tasting hair.

“And you behave yourself around that Suzi.”

Greg laughed and gave her a proper kiss.

Eleanor responded hungrily, then pushed him away. “Don’t, you know where that sort of thing leads.” She looked down at her belly, smile fading.

“Tell you, it’s funny,” he said quietly. “Even five or six years back I would probably have pleaded with Julia for the chance to do this. I mean, Royan missing, in trouble. What could be more important? But now… I resent it, this being ruled by the past. And I think Suzi does, too. That was a nice girl she’s living with. Pregnant, as well.”

“Suzi?” Eleanor exclaimed.

“No, the girl, Andria. Not that Julia and I were actually told. But you can’t hide that from a psychic.”

“Oh. That ought to be interesting. Suzi, a parent.”

“Yeah.” He went over to the dresser and picked up the Event Horizon cybofax Julia had given him yesterday. “For your own safety,” she’d said. “It’s got a locater beacon for the security crash teams to keep track of you. If you need hardline help, just shout, they’ll be there in minutes. And I’ve loaded one of my personality packages into the memory. You never know, I might actually be of some use to you.”

Greg slipped the palm-sized wafer into his breast pocket. God alone knew what else her security division had squeezed into its ‘ware.

He drew back the honey-coloured curtains. Cool early morning sky, halfway between grey and white. A narrow spire of smoke rose from the dead ashes of the Berrybut estate’s bonfire on the opposite shore. Heavy dew coated the grass of the paddock. The pole jumps for Anita’s pony made sharp splashes of colour among the pale blades. They wanted a fresh coat of paint, he saw, and the grass was too long.

“I’d better get off,” he said. “This is going to be a long day.”

Rutland Water’s high-water level was marked by a thick band of quarried limestone blocks thrown round the entire shoreline to prevent erosion when the reservoir was full. But it had been a hot summer, the farms and citrus groves of the surrounding district had siphoned off a lot of water for irrigation. The vertical water level was already two metres below the bottom of the limestone; on the Hambleton peninsula that produced a broad expanse of mudflats which had dried as hard as concrete under the relentless sun.

Greg and Eleanor walked down the slope from the farmhouse to the limestone, and stood on the top of the crumbling blocks. The travellers’ camp was just beginning to stir.

They heard a shout as Christine came running down the slope after them. “Dad, you were going to leave without saying goodbye,” she accused.

Greg saw the Event Horizon Pegasus hypersonic sink out of the wispy cloud band and skim across the reservoir towards him.

“I’ll only be gone a couple of days, at the most,” he said.

Christine threw her arms round him and gave him a wet kiss. Eleanor’s peck on the cheek was more demure.

The three of them watched the arrowhead-planform Pegasus slowing; a hundred metres from the shore its nose pitched up. Slats opened in its underbelly, venting the compressor fans’ efflux straight down. The undercarriage unfolded, and it settled on the rusty-coloured mudflats in a swirl of dust. A flock of swans drifting on the water behind it rose into the sky, wings pumping frantically.

Greg gave Eleanor a final kiss, and clambered down the nettle-swamped limestone.

There were two security division hardliners waiting for him at the bottom of the hatchway stairs. Pearse Solomons and Malcolm Ramkartra; depressingly young, healthy, and respectful.

“Good morning, sir. We’ve been instructed to provide you with backup should you request it,” Pearse Solomons told him.

Greg’s espersense picked up a hint of resentment in the man’s mind. Not a total cyborg after all, then. He went up the stairs in an improved frame of mind.

The windowless cabin had fifteen seats, a compact rosewood cocktail bar at the rear, and a flatscreen on the forward bulkhead beside the door into the cockpit.

Suzi and Rachel Griffith were sitting at the back. Suzi lounging lethargically in her chair, dressed in a dark purple shellsuit. Her mousy hair had been given a crew cut. At least she didn’t dye it mauve these days.

“Christ, you look keen,” she said.

Greg sat in the seat beside her. “You know me.”

“Yeah. Me too. I feel like I’ve been press-ganged.”

Greg gave Rachel an apologetic shrug.

“I gave up hardlining ten years ago,” Rachel said. “Exec assistant suited me just fine.”

“Just point her out to us,” Greg said. “Your job ends there.”

“Yes,” Rachel said; she looked troubled.

Pearse Solomons and Malcolm Ramkartra came up the stairs and sat in the front two seats. The belly hatch slid shut.

Malcolm Ramkartra picked up a slim phone that was built into his armrest. He turned to Greg and Suzi. “Is Monaco still the destination?”

“Yeah,” Greg said. “And tell the pilot to put the nose camera image on the screen after we lift.”

“Yes, sir.” Malcolm Ramkartra spoke briefly into the handset.

“We travel on these planes when we go on holiday with Julia,” Greg said. “I never can get used to not having a port. I grew up with aircraft that you can see out of.”

There was a gentle whine from the fans as they spun up. The deck tilted back slightly.

Suzi grunted. “Didn’t know you went on holiday together.”

“Sure. The kids are all big mates. And I sometimes think Eleanor and I are the only ordinary people Julia knows.”

“You’re ordinary, huh?” Suzi grinned evilly.

“More than you, dear, that’s a fact.” He felt a press of acceleration as the Pegasus surged upwards. The flatscreen lit up, showing blue sky, splashes of white cloud piling up in the south, and a big pink-gold sun lifting over the horizon.

“It was bad at the start,” Greg said. “People thought we were an easy route to her. The rich and the social climbers. We couldn’t move for presents and invitations. The way they behave, it’s ridiculous, disgusting really. Say hello to one, and you’re a lifelong friend. They don’t know what shame is. One birthday the drive looked like the end of a car factory production line; Jags, Ferraris, Lotuses, MGs. Two of them had a ribbon tied round, for Christ’s sake. I sent them all back to the garages. That type just don’t know when to give up. And I couldn’t count how many times I’ve been asked to be a non-executive director-” He became aware of Suzi’s silent unsympathetic stare.

“It’s a hard life, isn’t it?” she said.

The Pegasus flew at an altitude of twenty kilometres, turning south above the North Sea and passing over the English Channel at Mach two. They hit Mach four heading into the Bay of Biscay, then went subsonic to cross the Pyrenees.