‘Not yet.’ Will stared out of the window, watching the bars of light streak past. ‘Westfield was building killers, Peitai is too. Maybe it was a kindred spirit kind of thing?’
Cat MacDonald raised her hand, as if asking permission to go to the toilet. ‘She was trying to see if the textbook model of serial killer development was valid, yes?’ Cat picked at the Field Zapper in its holster. ‘Perhaps they thought they could hijack her research?’
Will nodded. ‘That’s what I thought.’
There was a small lurch as the shuttle left the main net and clacked onto the Monstrosity Square branch line.
Will checked the destinator. Almost there.
‘Lock and load, people.’
He pulled his Whomper upright and popped the power cartridge out into his hand, checking the contacts were clean and the charge was full, before racking the battery back into place. Watched as Brian and Cat did the same.
They coasted the last fifteen feet into the shuttle station beneath Sherman House in absolute silence. Their car bumped to a halt against the station buffers and, with a soft hiss, the doors slid open, letting in the bitter reek of stale urine. Faded sodiums flickered incontinence-yellow against the grubby concrete as Will stepped out onto the deserted platform.
‘Which way?’
Brian wrinkled his nose. ‘Jesus…It honks in here!’ He peered at the tracker’s screen, then did a slow, lumbering pirouette, holding the device in front of him as he turned. At last he lifted a grey-clad arm and pointed off the end of the platform and into the dark of the shuttle tunneclass="underline" back the way they’d come.
‘Goin’ to have to walk.’
Constable MacDonald almost choked. ‘You’re kidding, right?’ She looked at the shuttle and then the black hole. ‘Do you have any idea what speed these things go at?’
Will pulled his Whomper round into firing position and started towards the platform’s far edge.
‘Sir, if we’re in the tunnels when a shuttle comes we’ll be spread all over the walls like pâté!’
Brian shrugged and slung his rifle over his shoulder. Holding the tracker in front of him, he followed Will down the ladder at the end and onto the trackway, leaving Cat alone on the station platform, clutching her massive Bull Thrummer and spluttering.
‘Am I the only one who sees how stupid this is?’
‘Aye,’ said Brian, ‘Looks like it.’
Will marched into the darkness, the hot green circle of his lightsight sweeping the track in front of him.
The room sparkled like a surgical blade. Harsh light bounced back off the wraparound mirror, illuminating the figure strapped to an interrogation chair. Sneaky bitch was slumped sideways, trying to pretend she was still unconscious, but the monitoring equipment told a different story. She was awake and they knew it.
The old man rested a hand against the observation suite window, staring through the glass at William Hunter’s girlfriend.
‘Have you managed to glean any information from our guest?’ His voice was soft, but Ken could hear the menace in it: like a teddy bear full of razorblades.
‘Well, sir, we had a friendly little chat and it seems Hunter knows a damn sight less than we thought he did. That or he’s not told Pocahontas here the whole story. Either way…’ Ken flexed his hand, feeling the tight pull of fresh skinpaint on his scraped knuckles. ‘She’s been very cooperative.’
‘You persuaded her?’
Ken nodded, pointing at the monitors. ‘Chemical, electrical and kinetic. She’s got nothin’ more to hide.’
The old man turned his back on the observation window and pulled the test tube from his pocket, sending it dancing between his fingers, keeping the thick, liquid contents moving. ‘You still haven’t found Mr Hunter.’ It wasn’t a question.
‘We’re lookin’ for him, sir. I got three teams sweepin’ the city as we speak.’
‘And are they going to be using the tracking beacons we implanted under his skin to find him this time? Or have you got them charging around like headless chickens again, wearing low-light goggles instead of infrared?’
Ken could feel his cheeks flushing in the darkness. ‘We couldn’t use the trackers in the park, sir, the jammer blocked the-’
‘I don’t like excuses, Ken, you know that.’
Tokumu Kikan smiled and placed a hand on the back of Ken’s neck. The old man was easily a foot taller than him-even with the Cuban heels-and Ken had to try really hard not to flinch as the long, cool fingers wrapped around.
‘I would so hate for this to come between us, Ken.’ Pause. ‘Don’t let it come to that.’
‘Yes, sir. Definitely, sir. I’ll get onto the teams and make sure they know-’
‘Find Hunter for me. Maybe we’ll forget all about your errors of judgement.’
‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.’
The test tube stopped its dance and Ken watched the liquid inside slide back down the sides of the glass into a thick green pool.
‘And if you can’t…’ Kikan shrugged. ‘If you can’t, well, we always need people to help us test the formula.’ He slipped the test tube into Ken’s top pocket and patted it gently.
‘It’s not goin’ to come to that, sir, I swear it.’
‘Good lad.’ The old man smiled again and turned back to look through the window at Detective Sergeant Jo Cameron pretending to be unconscious.
Interview terminated.
Ken got the hell out of there as fast as his cowboy boots would go. If the old man was pissed at him it might be better to keep on running. Make himself disappear before an assault team broke his door down in the middle of the night and did it for him. Maybe hop a Trans-Atlantic shuttle, set up shop in one of those half-assed redneck republics. Get a new name and a new face and keep his head way down. Not even the old man could live forever…But Ken knew it wouldn’t work, the Newnited States wasn’t far enough: they’d still find him.
No choice then. Have to see this out to the end.
The control room was quiet, the bank of monitors covering one wall flickering from apartment to apartment in the building above. A mousy blonde in a headset sat behind the large, crescent-shaped desk. Ken parked himself on the edge of it and demanded a progress report.
‘Not much, sir.’ The controller hit a button and the monitors flickered, all the pictures merging into one. An aerial shot of Finneston slid past, the distinctive pug nose of a Hopper just visible on the left of the frame. ‘Team two is doing a segment sweep, but they’re not getting anything on the tracker.’
She hit another button and a Network Dragonfly shot across the wall, its navigation lights winking red and green in the rain-drenched night.
‘Team three picked up this blip fifteen minutes ago: the codes don’t match, but.’
‘That’ll be Lieutenant Brand: the one that crippled Arkwright. Forget about her, she’s…’ Ken stopped, remembering the old man’s fingers wrapping around his neck. ‘Second thoughts, stay on her: she’s wired for sound. If Hunter tries to get in touch I want to know.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘What about team one?’
‘Spiral search pattern out from Network Headquarters. He was in Glasgow Royal Infirmary for a couple of hours getting his head stitched back together, but we couldn’t touch him: too much security. He took a shuttle to Network HQ an hour ago. Twenty minutes later we lost the tracking signal.’
‘God damn it.’ Forty minutes-bastard could be anywhere by now. ‘You pull in every extra man we’ve got. I want to know where this sonuvabitch is.’
‘There we go.’ Brian’s voice was little more than a whisper, but it still echoed uncomfortably loud in the dark, empty hollow of the shuttlenet tunnel. Up ahead, just visible as a faint semicircle, was an unmarked branch off the main line.
Will swept the green beam of his lightsight up the nearside wall and then snapped it off, leaving them in absolute darkness.