Chapter 16.

Danny Calabas was so shaken up by Gorski's needles, that no amount of licking himself could draw him from his waking nightmare: he needed something else. His dragged his sorry figure upstairs to the Swinging Hammocks and unlocked the door of one of the cells. He'd had his eye on one of the new Eastern Europan 'exchange students' since the day she arrived. Her name was Beatrise, but Danny didn't know or care. She had been studying to be a clinical psychologist in Riga, when she had been approached by one of Pechev's a.s.sociates in the mafia, who lured her to London with the promise of a budding career in a mental inst.i.tution in Camberwell. Here she was, however, cowering - more like patient than doctor - in the corner of her cell. She looked like she hadn't slept, eaten or washed in days, but Calabas didn't mind. He even preferred his girls that way, and grabbing her viciously by the wrist, he swung her pet.i.te frame on to the bed. She tried to protest, crying out in her own language, but Calabas only gave her a few light slaps around the face to shut her up. Beatrise whimpered as he pulled up her filthy dress, ripped off his jacket and undid his belt and zip with one hand, awkwardly pushing his denim shorts down to his knees. She wasn't ready for him, would never have been, but Calabas pressed the weight of his bloated body against her and forced himself inside, blotting out the sickening thoughts of Gorski, his b.i.t.c.h and the sordid deal as he did so. The whole sick affair lasted only a matter of minutes before Calabas grunted in pleasure, broke wind poisonously and rolled off Beatrise. 'Get out,' he mumbled, and when she didn't move, but instead lay sobbing next to him, still half-trapped underneath his bulk, he screamed the words in her face, spittle flying from his lips, and she pulled herself away and ran from the room. He didn't care where she went, or even if she tried to escape. He pulled the grimy sheet over his head and fell into a fitful sleep.

Vidmar was already beginning to feel the sting of pressure when Pechev beeped him. He went to the skypephone just down from the Mash-Up, thumbprinted and called him straight back.

'Any progress?' Pechev asked.

'I'm sitting outside The Shangri-La - you know, Calabas' club on Upper Street? a Gorski's inside.'

'Why is he there?' Pechev sounded genuinely confused.

'He's been having some ooh-la-la with one of Danny's dancers, a woman named Crystal Purcell. My guess is he's trying to cut some kind of protection deal for her, or maybe for both of them. I can't quite work it out.'

'Well, Vidmar, my boy, I suggest you go in there and see if you can work it out. There's half a million cred in this for you, in case you had forgotten. I'd like to see a little - how do you say? a hussle. Otherwise I might have to let every two-bit hired street-thug know that Doctor Gorski is fair game. Where's Delia?'

'Probably a million miles away. I've got to go.'

He crossed the street and approached the two uniformed bouncers standing with their hands crossed in front of them. One of them, Stanislav, recognised Vidmar and almost smiled when Vidmar pushed a couple of vials of Torox into his outstretched hand.

'You want in?' rumbled the doorman.

Vidmar nodded.

'You carrying?'

Vidmar nodded again, pushing his jacket back to show the 38 Bertruzzi at his waist.

'No trouble in there, Vidmar. OK? Bring it outside if you have to.'

'That's the plan, Stan.'

The bouncer tilted his head towards the doors and Vidmar walked in.

Any hopes he had of finding Lek and Crystal evaporated as he stepped into the darkness. At this time of the day, the majority of clubbers were already inside and the booth selling nocto-goggles and phono-gloves had already closed. Vidmar shuffled blindly through the crowd, keeping his hand on the pistol at his hip. He closed his eyes and tried to stay focused, but he felt the press of the clubbers and the sense of failure closing in on him. Pechev's words were still ringing in his ears. Pushing his way through the throng, through the din of plucked electro-zithers and droning digiteridoos, he made his way to the bathroom.

Lek stood stock still and held Crystal close as he watched Vidmar feeling his way through the crowd towards them, his frowning face floating in the electric green of the nocto-vision. He walked so close by, Lek felt Vidmar's hand touch his arm, watched him turn and look straight into Lek's eyes, but see nothing. His scar looked as livid as a fresh whiplash, and Lek felt a shiver of revulsion.

Vidmar stared for a moment at the young women on the other side of the two way-mirror, touching up their make-up and pouting as they applied fresh lip-skins. A sense of calm and purpose washed over him as soon as he rubbed some Bloodhound into his gums, but then, he felt something more: a tingling, an itching in the palm of his hand told him that Gorski had been within reaching distance - they had touched! - and he turned and ran from the bathroom and back into the blackness of the club.

Chapter 17.

Lek and Crystal were out of the door, past the bouncers and sprinting along the street to the car-park hand in hand, when Delia's bike came hurtling round the corner. Lek dragged Crystal back into the shadows of a shop doorway just in time. His heart was pumping and he cursed his own audacity: it had been a bold move visiting Calabas, something he wouldn't have considered doing the day before. But Lek was trapped in a corner and had to change his tactics. Had to change who he was. 'This isn't a game,' he said to himself under his breath, but he knew deep down that it was exactly that: a game of life and death. He had stayed too long in one place, taken too many chances and now they had found him. It was their move. He peered around the doorway, convinced, as he had been all afternoon, that there was somebody watching them. He saw Delia approaching the entrance to the club, checking a textabeep as he went.

'Delia,' said Stanislav 'What's with you guys today?'

'What do you mean?' Delia asked, his speech still slurred.

'Your buddy Vidmar's already inside. What's going on?'

Delia pushed past them and ran into the darkness, breaking the rhythm of the sensual chill-out groupthink as he sent clubbers clattering into one another and knocked a couple to the ground. He had to get to Gorski before Vidmar had him in mistress-cuffs, had him back in Pechev's office, had his hands on the half-million cred. Delia took a look at the flashing figures on the iHound - Gorski had to be close. He barrelled his way through the crowd, found the back door marked 'Private' and was bathed in light once again. Upstairs a the iHound vibrating in his palm as it sensed the iHare close by - sixty feet away - taking the steps three at a time a thirty feet away a the doors of the Swinging Hammocks' cells a twenty feet a the skinny blonde girl, crying, sitting on the floor, pointing a the iHound finding its mark and letting out a high-pitched electronic bark as Delia burst through the flimsy door and only saw the shape of a man hiding beneath the bed-sheet.

Delia, his pulse thumping in his eardrums, his head still bleary and his judgement clouded from the sloth-extract, thought only of taking revenge on Gorski and stealing his precious recipe book. For an instant, Delia saw a vision of his own future: Pechev's drug empire in the palm of his hand: more women and cred and goji berries than he could ever wish for, and he pulled the Meisters from their holsters and unloaded two whole clips into the body on the bed. The sound was deafening in such a cramped s.p.a.ce. He stood in the mist of cordite and watched the blood stains blossom like camellia flowers, before taking his clasp-knife out of his pocket, reaching under the sheet and pulling out the corpse's right hand. He placed the dead hand against the bedside table and hacked the thumb off in a few b.l.o.o.d.y strokes, wrapped it in a sc.r.a.p of fabric ripped from the sheet and placed it in his pocket. The iHound was still barking: the only sound in the eerie silence which followed the gunshots. There, in the inside pocket of a jacket discarded on the floor, Delia found the bundle of 5000 creds; the iHare transponder tucked neatly between the bills. Waste not, want not, he thought, picking up the cash, and left.

Vidmar was standing outside, sniffing the air and questioning Stanislav the bouncer when Delia walked out of the club looking like the cat who had got the cream.

'You're too late, skidmark. It's all over,' Delia announced proudly.

'It that so?' Vidmar replied, unfazed. 'Where is he then, wise-guy?'

'Sadly,' said Delia, enjoying the moment, 'the good doctor has pa.s.sed away. Time of death, oh, about five minutes ago. What were you doing out here? Biding your time?'

'Nice move, s.h.i.t head. Have you forgotten the deal? Pechev's going to have your head on a plate for this.'

'f.u.c.k Pechev. I've got bigger things in mind.'

'Oh yeah? Like what?'

'Like Gorksi's recipe book, all the secrets to Pechev's empire, stashed in a locker at the train station. Mine, all mine, baby. Not to mention the hundred K. Pocket change, but still. Some you win, some you lose, scarface. See you around.'

And with that, Delia jumped on his Plasma, gunned the engine and sped away.

'What was all that about?' Stanislav asked.

'He thinks Gorski's dead,' Vidmar replied.

'The guy you're looking for? But he just ran out of here, like, five minutes ago.'

'I know,' Vidmar said, with a grin. The bouncer had only confirmed what he already knew: the Bloodhound coursing in Vidmar's veins told him that Gorski was still very much alive. He shook a cigarette out of his packet and was about to light it, when Stan grabbed his hand, 'Sorry Vid, you can't smoke out here. You know the law. You'll have to go inside.'

Chapter 18.

Lek and Crystal stole an urgent kiss in the cool of the underground car-park before getting into the Proto. 'Where are we going?' said Crystal.

'It doesn't matter. They have no way of tracking us now. I gave the bug to Calabas.'

'Of course you did,' she replied, shaking her head. 'That's what you were doing. I should have known you were up to something. It wasn't about me.'

'It wasn't entirely about you,' said Lek, smiling.

'You're not just a pretty face, Lek Gorski,' she said and leaned over for another kiss. 'So, where to?'

'All we have to do,' said Lek,' is lie low. So somewhere quiet. Anywhere. Just drive for now.'

Crystal turned the engine over and the new biorg purred willingly.

Arid Bomani was the fifteen year old son of a well-to-do family from the Ivory Coast. His father was in shipping. His mother was a primary school inspector. He had a sister too, Elona, who was studying geology at the University of Madrid and had once played netball for England. He had enjoyed a sheltered upbringing in Notting Hill. He liked cinema-shows, snake-boarding and playing the clarinet. At weekends, his father often took him to the horse-races in Epsom and Ascot, and occasionally monster truck rallies at the Crawley Exhibition Centre. At school, he had many friends and was well liked by his teachers. He excelled in languages and mathematics. He liked a girl in his biology cla.s.s called Sarah Howarth, and they had kissed once at a disco organised by the local youth centre. Arid Bomani knelt in front of the toilet, rolled a five cred note into a straw and snorted a line of raw Hyenarc off the toilet-lid. He always washed his hands after using the bathroom. Arid Bomani was a good boy.

'What have you been doing?' his father snapped, as Arid reappeared in the lounge with his party hat, which he had forgotten he was wearing, sitting at a new jaunty angle on his head. 'We are waiting to cut the cake.'

Arid tried not to laugh at the ba.n.a.lity of the situation, but the giggles just bubbled up and out of him. 'Look at you!' said his father, 'You're a buffoon! Why can't you be more like your sister?' Elona, home for a few days, was busying herself with the children around the table. It was some cousin's birthday and Arid's parents had agreed to throw the party at their house, where there was more s.p.a.ce for the kids to play. Arid looked out of the window and managed to stifle another laugh when he saw a grown man dressed as a clown, sitting on a giant bouncy castle in the garden, taking a spare moment to smoke a cigarette. Arid's father slapped him once around the head a he knew his son had been upstairs masturbating again, and was about to berate him for it, when he saw the disapproving look in his wife's eyes and thought better of it. 'Take some digisnaps, buffoon!' he commanded instead, and handed Arid the camera to record the occasion of some kid, surrounded by some more kids, in somebody else's house, blowing out the candles on a c.r.a.p caterpillar cake. Arid Bomani burst out laughing and inadvertently took a digisnap of his own shoes.

The phone rang. His mother answered it. 'Arid!' she called, 'it is Osaze on the phone.'

Thank John Lennon, thought Arid and ran upstairs. 'I'll take it in my room!' he shouted.

'How's it going Bro?' said Osaze, Arid's best friend.

'Jambo Osaze man, what is happening?'

'Tonight's the night, bro. Are you coming?'

'Yes! Yes!' The excitement in Arid's voice reaching fever pitch.

'Come now then. We are at my house!'

Arid put up a few weak arguments which Osaze merely batted away, until he finally agreed to leave. He changed into a leather vest, wet-dry-shorts and seal-skin pumps. He tucked a knife into the inside pocket of his vest, picked up a wad of creds from his console drawer and headed back down to the party.

He had hoped to slip away unnoticed, but his mother was in the hall, gossiping with the mother of one of the other children.

'Are you going out?'

'Yes mother. To Osaze's house. To play Liteball.'

'Good boy. Don't be late home,' said his mother, and she cupped her hands around his face and kissed him on the forehead. He is growing up, she thought sadly, as she noticed the hairs around his lips and chin, and the firm set of his jaw line. He will be a fine man.

Delia stood before the bank of Smarte Storage Lockers at Victoria Station and realised his mistake. There must have been a thousand or more, and he had no idea which one contained Gorski's book and the cash. He wished he'd asked the doctor a few more questions before he had shot him. He took the severed thumb from his pocket, looked around him and briefly considered pushing it against a few readers at random. There were Terror-Guards all around the station concourse, however, and although Pechev had the Met Police in his pocket, even they couldn't turn a blind eye to a skinhead trying to rob a locker with another man's dismembered digit. There was only one solution: Delia would have to wait until the Smarte Locker automatically popped open when the cred in its clock ran out, otherwise he would have to wait until there were fewer people around before systematically working through the readers. a.s.suming Gorski was planning to leave on the first available train off the island, thought Delia, he was unlikely to put more than the required amount of cred into a locker.

Rather than merely sit and wait, he had an idea. He approached the Europatrans desk and when he was sure n.o.body was listening but the a.s.sistant behind the counter, he said, 'A man is... was... is supposed to be leaving on a train today. His name was...is Gorski. I need to know what train he's catching.'

'I'm sorry sir,' said the a.s.sistant unapologetically, 'we can't give out information on our pa.s.sengers.'

Delia pulled out the bundle of creds, making sure the a.s.sistant saw the Meisters at the same time. He peeled one, two, three bills off the bundle and laid them on the counter. 'Tell you what,' he said, adding two more to the pile, 'we'll make it an even C500. How about that?'

The a.s.sistant hesitated for a fraction of a second and then scooped up the cash as though he were making a normal transaction, tapped at his keyboard and printed off the information against a certain Dr. Gorski's thumbprint. He folded the paper, slipped it inside a ticket envelope and wished Delia a safe trip.

Delia bought a carbonate-free c.o.ke and sat on the benches in front of the lockers. He saw the gangs of station tramps watching him like packs of wolves, and spat on the floor to show his disdain for their kind. The print-out said that Gorski had bought two singles for the 22:05 train to France. Two singles, thought Delia, you've got some b.a.l.l.s Gorski. He checked the time on the station clock: 18:04. Four hours. Just four hours. Keep your eyes on the lockers, he told himself, the rest of your life depends on it.

Crystal's car pulled up the ramp out of the underground car-park, and the first thing that struck Lek was the setting sun. 'Beatlemania,' he gasped, 'when did it get so late? It'll be curfew in a couple of hours. We've got to make sure we're holed up somewhere safe by then.' Crystal drove slowly south, since Lek said he always felt safer there. She changed direction time and again, avoided staying on the main roads for too long and jumped the odd red light when she could. She had to make sure they weren't being followed, and to give anybody the slip if they were. She cruised across Waterloo Bridge at the height of rush hour and the sunset on the Thames was magnificent, the sun itself like a great blood orange sinking behind the ash-clouds over the Houses of Parliament. It seemed as if the sky was on fire, and Lek stared at it, taking it all in for as long as he could. He caught a glimpse of the couples in the distance walking beneath the palm trees along the Embankment, and remembered a time when he and Crystal had strolled there too, holding hands for the first time. 'This could be our last night in London,' he said with a twinge of sadness. After all, the city had been his home for twenty years. It hadn't always been a prison for him. He would miss the wide tree-lined boulevards of Chelsea and the wilderness of St James Park, even the seedy shaded canopies of Soho where the city's s.e.x-workers plied their trade. London, the refugee capital of the modern world: over twenty million inhabitants sweating under the ash-clouds, walking through the once concrete jungle which nature had reclaimed as its own. It was home to the largest exile camp in Europa: forty square kilometres of homemade yurts and ramshackle corrugated iron-roofed shacks, rivalling the favelas of Rio, the Casablanca ghettos, and the shanty-towns of Johannesburg. 'I would have been sorry if I'd missed this,' he sighed, taking one last look through the back window of the car as the sun dipped behind the skyline.

Chapter 19.

The Brixton Wolves patrolled the Angell Town Estate looking for prey a old people who had stayed too long at the clubhouse, or kids who had lost track of time on their way home from school - but when the sun finally set, the streets usually emptied and pickings were slim. People knew better than to stay out after dark in this part of town. Only the drug dealers pounded the pavements with any sense of security, for they knew they were a necessary evil. Occasionally, some junkie too far gone on Lupinex or Hyenarc drew a blade or a pistol and put a dealer out of business permanently, but there were always violent repercussions sent down from on high. Pechev's men were everywhere, skulking near Government controlled caged off-licences, near the Eight Ball Billiard Hall, and under the railway bridge, with b.u.m-bags full of cash and illegal scions. Late into the night, long after curfew, their coded calls could be heard: 'Bad Moon Rising!', 'Empire State!', 'Laughing Bag!'.

Raul 'Domino' Tyrell hadn't been working the block for long, only a couple of months, and now the nights were beginning to draw in, he had started to consider his own mortality, knowing as he did that there were killers on the streets. He leaned back against the wall of the Reincarn8 Gentlemen's Club and tried to look tough, but the junkies round this way could smell fear. No sooner had the thought crossed his mind, than Roma Bruce and her pack of hooded freaks rolled around the corner. Domino steeled himself, 'Keep it together Dom. Keep it together man,' he muttered under his breath. Roma walked a step ahead of the others, their glowing eyes fixed on the dealer and his bag.

'Domino...' she growled, 'How about you let me and my gang here have a few vials for free?'

Domino kept his hands in his pockets so she wouldn't see them shaking. 'No can do Roma. You know the rules. Cash on delivery.'

She gave a nod to Ronnie and Reggie, on either side of her, and without a word, they grabbed Domino, lifted him two feet off the ground and slammed his body against the wall of the club.

'Bend the rules,' said Roma, her eyes glaring at him from below her heavy brows.

'You know I can't, Roma. The big man....'

'The big man, the big man,' she echoed in a mocking tone. 'Yeah, his time will come.'

Just then, three men stepped out of the club: huge hulking men a two Torox thugs and an ape-man.