Jon Grimwood - redRobe

The Job was finished. Even His Excellency couldn’t deny that. What remained of Joan’s life was hidden deep in his pocket. Ready for the Cardinal to gut. The old bastard could ask no more.

The only thing to sour the taste of a job well done was the echo of Kate’s slaps. Every which way he processed the memory of what happened it still didn’t make sense. So he’d been caught groping some half-naked street kid and that was enough to make Kate Mercarderes look like she wanted him recycled into body bits? The hatred that burned from the eyes of Clone; the contempt that kept Ketzia on her knees in the kitchen, silent and facing away from him…

So maybe he was missing something and maybe whatever he was missing was big, but Axl told himself he didn’t care. He had enough. And more to the point, he had all that His Excellency could need. Who needed puzzles?

Axl’s happiness lasted as long as it took a sour-faced Leon to bring Axl’s horse and announce that Clone and Tukten would be riding with Axl to see him safely out of the valley. Now vultures spiralled overhead like soot from a fire and Axl felt less safe with each passing mile. His bladder was bursting, his throat was dry and cold clung to him like the smell of fear. And all Clone did was act like he didn’t care. Which was fine, because he didn’t.

And then, trotting between two tangled banks of wild rhododendron, Axl suddenly tripped over the answer to what he’d been missing. Wetware. He found it in the body of a naked boy draped over a blood-red boulder.

Beyond the dead kid sprawled other figures. A few had been quartered with an axe, the rest clumsily disjointed by scavengers: abdomens were ripped open and coils of half-eaten viscera dragged from their bodies.

And then Axl knew exactly why he had to get back to Cocheforet.

‘Stop.’ Wheeling his mare in front of Clone, Axl put up one hand. It took all his will to ignore the revolver the black-haired boy pointed at his head but Axl managed it. All his attention was on Clone. Axl didn’t trust him but that was hardly the point. This wasn’t about trust. It was about getting back in the game.

‘I don’t want to leave without giving Kate this.’ Axl pushed a hand deep into his pocket and snapped a wire on Mai’s soulcatcher, freeing one bead. Using the cloth bag that had held his Red-Cross issue DNA chips, he trapped the bead inside and handed the bag to Clone.

‘I found this.’

For a second, Axl thought the huge man might not take the bait, but he nodded at Tukten to keep the revolver pointed at their prisoner. Because somewhere between leaving the Inn and reaching the high plateau a prisoner was what Axl had become, he had no illusions about that.

Clone’s eyes widened with shock as he peered into the bag, seconds sliding by like hidden assassins. Then, grudgingly, he let the Tibetan boy take a look. And as they stared at each other, neither had the slightest idea how close they were to being dead.

A snap of the boy’s wrist would have given Axl the revolver. One of its black-powder slugs could rip open even Clone’s thick skull. A few split brains, two more bodies, nothing that would make much difference to the charnel house around him.

But Axl wasn’t planning to kill anyone. He was going back to Cocheforet to talk to Kate, whether the bitch wanted to talk to him or not. And if losing a bead was the price he had to pay to get rid of Clone, that was fine. Axl had every intention of getting it back later.

Axl wanted to shout aloud, punch one fist into the air, all those WarChild responses he no longer allowed himself. His Excellency was going to get his prize. And he, Axl Borja, was going to bring the Cardinal back Joan herself. Had an imprint ever been tried for the crimes of its original? Why the fuck should he care? She might not look the same but let some fuckwit Vatican lawyer deal with that.

Instead of punching the air or grabbing Tukten’s revolver, Axl kept his hands relaxed at his side and watched arctic wolves casually do things to corpses that would have got AIs terminated and humans locked up as insane.

Defences could be made from anything. The wolves protected Samsara.. As did the rare white elephants, obscure mountain cranes and the last sixteen snow leopards not in cryo. One aid agency’s ‘fugee might be some metaNational’s financial terrorist, but no one got stressed at the Dalai Lama providing refuge for animals. Rumour said the animals got higher corporate donations than the starving, sick and homeless, but no one really knew. Some subset of a subset of Tsongkhapa ran the banking routines.

‘I found it in the stable.’ Axl liked the way both figures suddenly jerked their attention away from the cloth bag.

‘We searched there,’ Tukten announced. The Clone said nothing, but then he couldn’t. What he did do was stare hard at Axl.

‘Yeah,’ Axl shrugged, his voice bored. ‘Well, that’s where I found it.’

The Clone gurgled something and the boy nodded.

‘Where?’ demanded Tukten.

‘In the trough,’ Axl said, remembering a crude waterbox that took rain from a downpipe off the stable roof. That they hadn’t searched the water trough was obvious from the expressions of hope that flicked across the two very different faces.

It was Clone who reached a decision first, jerking his chin towards a track that threaded between bodies. Translated it meant, ‘you take him’. At least that was what Axl figured it meant. The boy didn’t want to, that was equally obvious. He wanted to ride back with the good news, but Clone was already wheeling his mount about, Axl forgotten.

It couldn’t be better. Not for Axl anyway who watched as Clone yanked roughly on the reins of his horse and galloped back the way they’d all come. A minute or so later he vanished behind a low bank of scrub and Axl was left alone with the Tibetan boy, who was now looking more nervous than ever.

‘Ride,’ the boy demanded, scowling at Axl.

No way. Axl was going to negotiate his way out of this one. Only when Axl smiled and shook his head, Tukten lifted the heavy revolver with both hands, fingers of his left hand steadying those of the right, just like you saw on NVPD/Live.

The long barrel shook so badly it looked like the boy was running a fever.

Fear did that to you. Fucked up the adrenal levels without damping down neural feedback. Not that understanding this was any consolation to Axl who sat right in the path of any bullet. The kid was frightened and the kid was armed, no one had to tell Axl that this wasn’t a good mixture.

From the wrong end of the revolver it looked like the thing packed a 250 grain, conical bullet, soft lead with no jacketing. Which gave the revolver a muzzle velocity of 900 feet per second. More than adequate. And mechanically the gun looked so simple there was little chance it was going to jam any time soon.

But what worried Axl most wasn’t the revolver’s .45 calibre or its muzzle velocity, it was the amount of shake Tukten was giving to the barrel. Rock solid told you the guy with his finger round the trigger was either a psycho or had done it before, probably often. Rank amateurs Axl identified by the dangerous level of hand-jive their fear imparted to the barrel. The ones in between presented no problem to anyone, being slower, less clued-up and a lot less mean than they’d like to believe.

‘Point it somewhere else,’ Axl suggested, and kicked his mare into reluctant action, heading back towards Cocheforet. It looked like good advice wasted. The bullet didn’t come, but then nor did Tukten. And Axl turned to find the Tibetan boy holding the revolver with straight arms, as far away from his own body as possible. The barrel still shook as if Tukten was running a come-down but the revolver was very definitely pointed straight at Axl.