Something rotten

'Good morning, Major. Today's assignment is the Museum of the American Novel in Salisbury.'

'Very . . . good, Agent Next.'

'Problems, Major?'

'Well,' he said, biting his lip nervously, 'yesterday you had me searching the library of a famous Belgian and today the Museum of the American Novel. Shouldn't we be searching more . . . well, Danish facilities?'

I pulled him aside and lowered my voice.

'That's precisely what they would be expecting us to do. These Danes are clever people. You wouldn't expect them to hide their books somewhere as obvious as the Wessex Danish Library, now, would you?'

He smiled and tapped his nose.

'Very astute, Agent Next.'

Drabb saluted again, clicked his heels and was gone. I smiled to myself and pressed the elevator call button. As long as Drabb didn't report to Flanker I could keep this going all week.

Bowden was not alone. He was talking to the last person I would expect to see in a LiteraTec office: Spike.

'Yo, Thursday,' he said.

'Yo, Spike.'

He wasn't smiling. I feared it might be something to do with Cindy, but I was wrong.

'Our friends in SO-6 tell us there's some seriously weird shit going down on the M4,' he announced, 'and when someone says "weird shit" they call—'

'—you.'

'Bingo. But the weird shit merchant can't do it on his own, so he calls—'

'—me.'

'Bingo.'

There was another officer with them. He wore a dark suit typical of the upper SpecOps divisions, and he looked at his watch in an unsubtle manner.

'Time is of the essence, Agent Stoker.'

'What's the job?' I asked.

'Yes,' returned Spike, whose somewhat laid-back attitude to life-and-death situations took a little getting used to, 'what is the job?'

The suited agent looked impassively at us both.

'Classified,' he announced, 'but I am authorised to tell you this:Unless we get |||||||| back in under |||||||| — ||||| hours then ||||||| will seize ultimate executive |||| and you can ||||| goodbye to any semblance of |||||||.'

'Sounds pretty ****ing serious,' said Spike, turning back to me. 'Are you in?'

'I'm in.'

We were driven without explanation to the roundabout at Junction 16 of the M4 motorway. SO-6 were National Security, which made for some interesting conflicts of interest. The department that protected Formby also protected Kaine. And for the most part the SO-6 agents looking after Formby worked against Kaine's SO-6 operatives, who were more than keen to see him gone. SpecOps factions always fought, but rarely from within the same department. Kaine had a lot to answer for.

In any case, I didn't like them and neither did Spike, and whatever it was they wanted it would have to be pretty weird. No one calls Spike until every avenue has been explored. He is the last line of defence before rationality starts to crumble.

We pulled on to the verge, where two large black Bentley limousines were waiting for us. Parked next to them were six standard police cars, the occupants looking bored and waiting for orders. Something pretty big was going down.

'Who's she?' demanded a tall agent with a humourless demeanour as soon as we stepped from the car.

'Thursday Next,' I replied, 'SO-27.'

'Literary Detectives?' he sneered.

'She's good enough for me,' said Spike. 'If I don't get my own people you can do your own weird shit.'

The SO-6 agent looked at the pair of us in turn.

'ID.'

I showed him my badge. He took it, looked at it for a moment, then passed it back.

'My name is Colonel Parks,' said the agent, 'I'm head of Presidential Security. This is Dowding, my second-in-command.'

Spike and I exchanged looks. The President. This really was serious.

Dowding, a laconic figure in a dark suit, nodded his greeting as Parks continued:

'Firstly I must point out to you both that this is a matter of great national importance and I am asking for your advice only because we are desperate. We find ourselves in a head-of-state deficit condition by virtue of a happenstance of a high other-worldliness possibility situation — and we hoped you might be able to reverse-engineer us out of it.'

'Cut the waffle,' said Spike, 'what's going on?'

Parks's shoulders slumped and he took off his dark glasses.

'We've lost the President.'

My heart missed a beat. This was bad news. Really bad news. The way I saw it, the President wasn't due to die until next Monday, after Kaine and Goliath had been neutered. Missing or dying early allowed Kaine to gain power and start the Third World War a week before he was meant to — and that was certainly not in the game plan.

Spike thought for a moment and then said:

'Bummer.'

'Quite.'

'Where?'

Parks stretched his arm towards the busy traffic speeding past on the motorway.

'Somewhere out there.'

'How long ago?'

'Twelve hours. Chancellor Kaine has got wind of it and he's pushing for a parliamentary vote to establish himself dictator at six o'clock this evening. That gives us less than eight hours.'

Spike nodded thoughtfully.

'Show me where you last saw him.'

Parks snapped his fingers and a black Bentley drew up alongside. We climbed in and the limo joined the M4 in a westerly direction, the police cars dropping in behind to create a rolling roadblock. Within a few miles our lane of the busy thoroughfare was deserted and quiet. As we drove on, Parks explained what had happened. President Formby was being driven from London to Bath along the M4, and somewhere between Junctions 16 and 17 — where we now were — he vanished.

The Bentley glided to a halt on the empty asphalt.

'The President's car was the centre vehicle in a three-car motorcade,' explained Parks as we got out. 'Saundby's car was behind, I was with Dowding in front, and Mallory was driving the President. At this precise point I looked behind and noticed that Mallory was indicating to turn off. I saw them move on to the hard shoulder and we pulled over immediately.'

Spike sniffed the air.

'And then what happened?'

'We lost sight of the car. We thought it had gone over the embankment but when we got there — nothing. Not a bramble out of place. The car just vanished.'

We walked to the edge and looked down the slope. The motorway was carried above the surrounding countryside on an earth embankment; there was a steep slope that led down about fifteen feet through ragged vegetation to a fence. Beyond this was a field, a concrete bridge over a drainage ditch and beyond that, about half a mile distant, a row of white houses.

'Nothing just vanishes,' said Spike at last. 'There is always a reason. Usually a simple one, sometimes a weird one — but always a reason. Dowding, what's your story?'

'Pretty much the same. His car started to pull over, then just, well, vanished from sight.'

'Vanished?'

'More like melted, really,' said a confused Dowding.

Spike rubbed his chin thoughtfully and bent down to pick up a handful of roadside detritus. Small granules of toughened glass, shards of metal and wires from the lining of a car tyre. He shivered.

'What is it?' asked Parks.

'I think President Formby's gone . . . deadside.'

'Then where's the body? In fact, where's the car?'

'There are three types of dead,' said Spike, counting on his fingers. 'Dead, undead, and semi-dead. Dead are what we call in the trade "spiritually bereft" — the life force is extinct. Those are the lucky ones. Undead are the "spiritually challenged" that I seem to spend most of my time dealing with. Vampires, zombies, bogles and what have you.'