Against Gravity (24 page)

Kendrick wasn’t in the least surprised to see Max Draeger waiting there for him. Candice stood by the window, dressed in a dark wool trouser suit.

“Mr Gallmon,” said Draeger. “I’m not going to waste any time before getting to the point. You’re here simply for your own protection.”

Kendrick gaped at him. “What?”

“Caroline Vincenzo has been snatched in order to persuade you to do as Los Muertos wish. I can’t allow that to happen.”

“Fuck you.”

Draeger nodded to Smeby. The two gunmen dragged Kendrick backwards, forcing him awkwardly into a seat, still aiming their pistol at him. Smeby stepped forward and punched Kendrick, hard, in the
stomach.

“Hardenbrooke – tell me about him. Everything you haven’t said already.”

Kendrick sucked in air, swallowed and shook his head. “What happened to the friendly style of chat we had out there in the jungle?”

Draeger stepped forward, his expression intense. “There isn’t the time for niceties any more. I could shoot you full of drugs that would have you telling me all I want to know, but
I’d rather let you tell me for yourself. It’s your choice.”

“For Christ’s sake, he hasn’t said
anything
to me.”

Draeger shook his head. “I don’t think you understand the danger you’re in, Mr Gallmon. There are agents of Los Muertos already in this city, and I might be the only friend you
have.”

“I don’t find that likely.” Kendrick’s hands were clammy with sweat. A dull nausea throbbed in the pit of his stomach and in the back of his throat.

Draeger stepped a little closer. “I thought you might have connections with Los Muertos.”

Kendrick laughed, a harsh, nervous bark. “Are you fucking crazy?”

“They don’t have your best interests at heart.”

“And you do?”

“Los Muertos merely want to kill you. They don’t offer you something in return for information.”

“All right,” said Kendrick. “How about getting these two away from me?”

Draeger cocked his head. “You’re telling me that you’re prepared to cooperate? Fully?”

“Fully, yes.”

Draeger studied Kendrick coolly for what felt like a long time. “If you’re lying, my employees are going to hurt you very, very badly. You won’t be in any condition to walk,
let alone enjoy a space flight. I want you to remember that before we continue.”

“I understand that. I just . . . I don’t want what the others want.”

Kendrick knew that he could never bring himself to tell Draeger anything. But buying time was all he could think of.
There has to be a way out of here
.

It was an effort to meet Draeger’s gaze, but after a few moments the other man’s attention shifted to the two gunmen. Kendrick heard them step away from him.

“Wait downstairs,” Draeger told them.

“Sir.” Smeby stepped forward, “I’m not sure—”

“Do what you’re told, Marlin. My rules.”

“Sir, I must
seriously
fucking protest—”

Draeger snapped him a look, and Smeby shut up and stepped back. But Kendrick registered the cold anger in the ex-mercenary’s face.

Kendrick was seated facing towards the windows, and the door was behind him. He took careful note of where everyone was positioned in the room. Draeger himself stood near the middle of the room;
Candice and Smeby stood at almost opposite ends of it, facing towards him.

He heard the door
snick
shut as the gunmen departed.

“I went looking for Caroline,” Kendrick told Draeger, “and found that somebody had taken her out of her home by force. You’re saying that was Los Muertos?”

Draeger nodded. “I suspect the only reason they have abducted her is to try and lure
you
into some idiot attempt at rescuing her.”

“Look, I’ve already seen one other Labrat die in the past couple of days, and do you know who I blame? You. None of this would be happening if it hadn’t been for
you.”

“Under the circumstances, the only reasonable precaution is to have you return to Angkor Wat with us and work with us there from a safe base of operations.”

Kendrick nodded carefully and stood up. Smeby’s gaze followed him, but he did not move. “I guess that’s it, then,” Kendrick said. “You’re sure this is the
best way?”

“I’m glad you’ve decided to cooperate.” Draeger cast him an appraising look.

“I was . . . I . . .” Kendrick bent over, gripping the side of his head and gritting his teeth. “Oh fuck, no,” he gasped.

“What is it?” asked Draeger. Kendrick could hear the suspicion in his voice.

“Seizure,” said Kendrick. “Help me. I can’t . . .” He sagged, his knees touching the floor, then let out a bellow of animal pain and covered his face with his
hands.

“Get him up,” he heard Draeger say.

Kendrick glanced between his fingers to see Smeby approach, reaching towards Kendrick’s shoulder to yank him back upright.

Through the windows, Kendrick briefly saw that the earlier rain had given way to harsh, bleak sunlight.

He moved with unnatural speed, stabbing upwards with the fingers of one hand held rigid, aiming for Smeby’s throat. Smeby saw it coming but not soon enough. Kendrick caught him under the
chin and the other man stumbled back against a coffee table.

Smeby yelled in anger and pain as he hit the floor. A coffee urn that had been resting on the table toppled over onto the carpet. Kendrick moved quickly, aiming a vicious kick at Smeby’s
head. Smeby gave a brief
uk
sound and lay still.

Kendrick himself sprawled as something hard slammed into his back. As he hit the floor he rolled, knowing instantly that his attacker was Candice. She followed his movements, hammering at him
with her fists. As she caught him on the jaw, his teeth clicked together and he tasted blood.

He managed to block her next punch by slamming a foot into her stomach, but she twisted away and pulled herself upright with blinding speed.
Augmented too
.

Kendrick noticed Draeger speaking quietly into his databand. What followed happened so fast that Kendrick was still remembering lost fragments of it over the next several hours.

While he’d been looking towards Draeger Candice had darted towards him before he could get up again. Grabbing his head, she dug her thumbs and fingers into his eyes.

Kendrick screamed and struggled as she wrapped him in a deadly embrace, pinning his arms to his sides and pressing him down with a knee in his back. He squirmed desperately, but she held him in
a vice-like grip. Panic drove him to lash backwards with his foot.

The kick caught her on one shin, and she lost her footing, her grip loosening. Kendrick pulled himself free and stumbled towards the window just as Draeger’s gunmen crashed into the room,
weapons drawn. One took aim and Kendrick ducked to the side, hitting the ground rolling once more as the glass behind him exploded outwards.

Kendrick yanked himself up again, waiting for the bullets, catching a glimpse through the shattered window of the street several storeys below.

Panicking, he turned, desperate for some escape route that he knew wasn’t there. Just then, Candice launched herself at him again with renewed fury. The force of impact drove him backwards
against a weakened pane that had not yet shattered. In that same instant, which seemed to last for ever, Kendrick felt the glass give way. Sky and concrete tumbled past his vision.

Free fall was followed by a sudden, jarring impact like nothing he had ever imagined, as if some giant had gone walking across the Earth and caught him under its heel. In that moment he felt
something beyond pain.

Several seconds passed before Kendrick realized that he was still alive. But the world felt remote and distant, like a cinematic projection on the inside of his skull.

An instant later he snapped to, re-emerging into a universe of noise and confusion. The streets of Edinburgh revolved around him in a drunken whirl. He managed to sit up, his mouth full of
blood. He coughed and spat, and then looked down.

Kendrick and Candice had landed together on the roof of a parked car, their joint impact bending its roof badly out of shape. The air around them was filled with the cacophony of its alarm.

I should be dead,
he realized. But Kendrick was a Labrat, which had made just enough difference.

He’d obviously landed on top of Candice, who had softened his landing. Her back was broken and her neck was twisted at a sickening angle. He heaved himself off the wreckage, collapsing
into a heap at the roadside.

Already the initial shock was wearing off. Kendrick glanced up shakily at the smashed window of the hotel suite. It looked a very long way up. Cars had screeched to a halt all around him, as
their computer brains registered an accident of some kind.

He lurched to his feet like a drunkard, distantly aware of people nearby standing and watching him, their expressions stunned and disbelieving.

One man came towards him but Kendrick waved him away. Then a woman tried to take his arm. He was scarcely aware that she was advising him to remain still before he injured himself any
further.

He pushed her away, but not too roughly, assuring her that he felt all right. Somehow he managed to make his way to the other side of the road, then slowly worked his way down the street and
away from the Arlington’s entrance.

Limping badly at first, after thirty seconds or so he began to pick up speed. Soon he was startled to realize that he was already a couple of blocks from the hotel.

Somewhere in the distance he heard sirens. A lot of people must have seen him. They would be able to describe him and ultimately identify him.

To his own amazement, Kendrick managed to start running.

Kendrick waited until it was dark again, nursing coffee after coffee in the back of a small café buried in an ancient, twisting lane near Cockburn Street. Freezing rain
sleeted down outside and the shoulders of passers-by beyond the glass were bowed under the arctic wind blowing westwards. Every now and then he tapped through an eepsheet that had been abandoned at
the table he’d taken, one near the back amid plenty of shadows. He used it to scan science sites and article databases concerning zero-point energy, noting that a lot of the information
provided led back to research programmes instigated by Draeger’s various subsidiary companies.

To Kendrick’s considerable surprise nothing had yet appeared about the recent incident at the hotel. He briefly toyed with the idea that Draeger had the means to suppress news reports,
then wondered when he’d become so paranoid.

It felt appropriate to be waiting there as lightning flickered beyond the rooftops, to be waiting for the storm to approach and swallow the city in its fury. Eventually the café had to
close, and then Kendrick wandered the darkened streets, collar up, head down. Icy sleet turned the skin of his face red with cold.

Now he had more than enough time to think. He needed to find a way out of the city. But, whatever happened, he owed it to Caroline to find her.

Kendrick pulled out his wand for the thousandth time. Even if nothing had yet appeared on the grid about the incident at the Arlington Hotel, that didn’t mean people weren’t out
looking for him. And Edinburgh wasn’t that big a city.

It was possible that someone had tapped his wand’s grid address, in which case they’d know how to find him as soon as he used it. But he needed to speak to Todd and he’d
started heading for the Saint a couple of times before turning back. Draeger would know to look for him there.

The wand chose that moment to inform him that he had an incoming call from Todd. Kendrick watched the icon flash for a moment on the instrument’s screen. Then he hit
receive
, and
put the wand to his ear.

“Before you say anything, Kendrick, this line is encrypted. Took me ages to get it sorted out. I heard something about what happened. Unless that was somebody else who fell out of a third-
or fourth-floor hotel window and just walked away.”

“So we’re safe on this line? I thought maybe—”

“Just don’t tell me where you are in case I’m wrong about the encryption and someone can hear us. If anyone out there has good enough software they can probably break the
q-crypt code in a couple of minutes. So I won’t be long.” A pause. “I did as you asked.”

Kendrick forced himself to relax, to grip the wand less desperately. “You’ve found Hardenbrooke?”

“Sure. I’m uploading Hardenbrooke’s most recent co-ords to you now. By the looks of things, he’s on his way to New York. But, a word of warning, I found him the same way
he’s most likely to find you.”

“That’s fine to know, Todd, but I’m in a hurry here.”

“Sure, sorry Ken. Once you’ve checked out the stuff I’m sending, my best advice is to ditch the wand. If Hardenbrooke had ditched his I’d never have been able to track
him so easily.”

“Thanks, Todd. I owe you big time.”

Kendrick closed the connection and switched the screen to review Todd’s location data. He realized that he hadn’t yet told Todd about Malky – and he couldn’t make up his
mind whether this was a good or a bad thing.

His wand informed him that Hardenbrooke was somewhere over the Atlantic, heading west – towards America. Numbers scrolled in a corner of the screen, and Kendrick was pleased to see that
Todd’s coordinates constantly updated themselves in real-time.

And what if Hardenbrooke does have Caroline?
he asked himself. Does she run straight into your arms if you manage to rescue her? Almost certainly not. Draeger had told him earlier that
Los Muertos were behind Caroline’s abduction – which meant there was a good chance that Hardenbrooke had been involved. So if he could find Hardenbrooke, then he could find
Caroline.

A black wave of depression began to settle over Kendrick’s thoughts.
Admit it, this is all because of Robert. You killed her brother, and now you figure this is your chance to make up
for it.

Kendrick thought back to what Buddy had told him, and about what he’d managed to find out while he’d searched the grid for information about zero-point energy. He couldn’t even
imagine, remembering the few words he’d managed to digest, the sheer destructive horror that such knowledge could be turned to.