Peter Hamilton - The Mandel Files

“Bugger. Next time I’ll take you along. Someone who can think straight.”

Her heart fell. “Oh, Greg, you’re not thinking of going back there are you? Wasn’t this enough?”

“No, I’m not marching up to confront Kendric again; I’ve learned my lesson. From now on the macho routine is all down to Morgan Walshaw and his hardliners. Hopefully, all I have to do is wait for Royan to backtrack Wolf’s payments to O’Donal, find out who the hell he is. Then we can start establishing how Wolf is plugged in with Kendric. The proof’s there, somewhere, like you said, another intermediary between Wolf and Kendric, maybe two. But I’m convinced it’s him at the end of the trail. Does that sound paranoid to you?”

“No, I believe your intuition works; and like you say, having Katerina on his yacht explains how he knew about the NN core.” She consulted the Event Horizon terminal. The first-aid kit’s diagnostic was plugged into it, the cube showing a white-shadow schematic of Greg’s body. His pain points glowed a mild amber; she’d treated all of them. He was relaxed now, growing drowsy from the general tranquilizer she’d given him earlier. She held open his right eyelid, shining the pencil light directly on the pupil, then away, watching the dilation. The terminal said it was within acceptable limits. “Have you been overdoing the gland?”

“Used it a bit, nothing much.”

She thought he sounded defensive. Not that she could even begin to give a qualified opinion on neurohormone abuse. Just a feeling, though; he appeared enervated, more than the cuts and sprains could account for. Why did men always try and disguise their weaknesses? “I think you might be slightly concussed. A hospital check-up wouldn’t hurt.”

“No need to bother them. I’ll spend tomorrow resting.”

“Promise?”

“All that’s scheduled is a trip to Wilholm Manor to check out Gabriel’s prediction of a second attack against the NN core.”

She peeled the diagnostic pick-up from the nape of his neck where it was interfacing with his cortical node and coiled up the fibre-optic lead. The compact unit slotted neatly into the moulded foam of the first-aid kit; a well-worn aluminium case, Army green with a big red cross painted on. Surplus to requirements, Greg had told her. There was a comprehensive range of dressings and medicine inside, all top quality. She’d thought he was a hypochondriac when she first saw it.

“That’s all right then,” she said, “providing your new billionaire girlfriend doesn’t excite you too much.”

“Please! Give me a break.”

“Oh, I almost forgot. Dr Ranasfari called this morning, charming man, left a message for you.” She licked her lips at the memory. “He made a pass at me.”

“Shit.”

“Greg!”

“Sorry. You’re kidding. Ranasfari? He made a pass at you? Never.”

“He did. Men have been known to.”

“Impossible, my dear. Ranasfari doesn’t like people, any people. We’re not rationally precise data packages.”

“Don’t be so bitchy, or are you just jealous?”

“Neither, simply observant. So what did the good doctor want to tell me?”

“There was definitely an outlaw instruction beamed up to the Merlin, shutting it down. Seven seconds are missing from the uplink’s log, an hour before the shutdown. He said it was a very sophisticated interruption. They probably wouldn’t have spotted it if you hadn’t told them to search for it. They’re reviewing the Institute’s ‘ware memory cores to see if someone snatched the Merlin codes. But so far they haven’t found any trace of a breach. He says whoever did it must be the best hotrod in existence, covering their tracks like that. The Institute ‘ware has premier-grade data-guardian programs, the security programmers thought they were unbreakable.” Greg was staring at her, confusion and disbelief tugging at his face. Lost. “Something wrong?”

“Ranasfari can’t have said that. It doesn’t fit.”

Seeing him like this, exhausted, wounded, and cripplingly despondent she felt an overwhelming surge of affection for him. The case had been taxing him; punished by the gland, driven by his own ruthless brand of determination, beaten up by Kendric’s bastards. Maxed out. All she wanted to do was help, ease the burden. If only he didn’t have this stupid code of his, always giving a hundred per cent. It was too much of him.

“Well, Ranasfari did say it. And it’s time you were in bed, Greg Mandel.”

“No, no, you don’t understand. The blitz was a vengeance attack.”

“Yes, you said. You proved Kendric ordered it.”

“Yeah, well, sort of.”

“The Merlin,” she said, beginning to understand.

“If the Merlin was deliberately sabotaged,” he said, “then the blitz was part of a kombinate spoiler operation.”

“You are concussed. There’s nothing to say the Merlin shutdown couldn’t be vengeance, too. Kendric wanting to wipe Philip Evans, and damage Event Horizon at the same time by undermining confidence in the giga-conductor cells. Hit Julia from both sides at once. After all, we know he’s already used a top-grade hotrod against Event Horizon to pull the security monitors. He probably used the same hotrod to shut down the Merlin,”

“Oh, yeah, right.”

It was obvious he wasn’t convinced. She began to speak with slow deliberation, voicing her thoughts almost as they formed. “The motive for launching the blitz depends on whether Kendric knew of Philip Evans’s NN core. If he did, it was him out for vengeance; if not, it was a kombinate spoiler. Right?”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“Good. So, how bright is Katerina?”

“What?”

“Don’t you see? It all hangs on her, whether or not she knew about the NN core. And from what you’ve told me about her before she met Kendric, she sounds like the all-time champion bimbo. Could she have worked out what was going down at Wilholm?”

His eyes closed, face pained. “Dunno. She had a good education.”

“Means nothing. Who would know if she’s got enough brains?”

“Julia, I suppose. Certainly poor old Adrian. I knew it would happen, that she’d dump him. Should’ve warned him, given him the benefit. He wouldn’t have listened.”

Eleanor ignored his ramblings. Knowing the sense of excitement derived from solving human intricacies. Finally appreciating how Greg could become so wrapped up in his cases. There was a certain addictive quality to unravelling the carefully crafted deceits of other people, it was a form of conquest, outsmarting them. “Then you’ll just have to ask Julia. But not today, I think.”

Wilholm’s lawn sprinklers were working at full strength, their long white plumes adding a faint coppery tang to the dry pollen-clogged air. Julia ran down the garden path, giggling wildly, trying to dodge the spray shooting out of the rotating nozzles. The cotton of her emerald-green dress was already damp. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Adrian had almost caught up. A shriek, a last triumphant burst of speed from her legs, and she reached the gravel drive ahead of him.

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Adrian yelled behind her, cursing, and she turned, cracking up at the sight of him caught full square in one of the foamy jets. He slopped on to the gravel trailing dark footprints.

“I’m bloody drenched,” he wailed, laughing with her.

He was too; T-shirt and tennis shorts clinging to his skin. She draped her arms round his neck, kissing him exuberantly. “My very own Mr Wet T-shirt.” The giggles set in again, unstoppable.

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His hands found her rump, squeezing with interest. “Do we have enough time before he gets here?” His breath was hot in her ear. He’d begun to nuzzle her neck, aiming for that place he’d found which was exceptionally ticklish.