House of Dust (50 page)

The administrators gathered round the screen with its network of coloured lines and building outlines.

“Another unit's gone down,” Dawkley said. “On Beaumont Street. He's approaching the faculty. Should we not intercept him?”

Raphael shook her head. “Let him be.” She glanced at me. “Remember that he has Citizen Dalrymple's female friend with him. We don't want any harm to befall her, do we?”

The science administrator's face suggested otherwise, but he didn't have the balls to stand up to his leader.

We waited for the Grendel's next move. I could feel the sweat running down my arms. Then I heard heavy footsteps behind me and turned to see Davie approaching.

“Armed and dangerous?” I asked.

“Oh aye.” He patted his breast pocket gingerly. “This supermax thing looks like a pen, but apparently it can melt a man's heart at fifty yards.”

“Did you give it a trial run?”

“Uh-uh,” he said, his eyes locked on the Hebdomadal Council members and his jaw jutting. “But I will do soon. These bastards deserve—”

I raised a hand to stop him. “Save it till we've got Katharine back, eh?”

He nodded reluctantly.

There was a loud blast in the distance to the west.

“What was that?” Connington demanded.

“The Martyrs' Memorial, junior proctor,” said Harriet Haskins from the large vertical display. “A charge at the base has brought the column down over St Giles.”

“I wonder why he chose that?” Davie said.

“Showing this lot what he can do,” I replied. “And making a statement about the replica in the House of Dust.”

I looked back at the screen. Yellow crosses denoting surveillance cameras had been extinguished outside the former Balliol College.

“He's only a hundred and fifty metres away,” Wood-Lewis said, his voice taut.

Raphael looked round at me and Davie. “It's time we cleared the Council building.” She turned to Dawkley. “Everyone out except Citizen Dalrymple and the commander. Now!” Her voice was low but it didn't brook contradiction.

In a few seconds the three of us were on our own.

That was the way I wanted it.

“Why are you doing this?” I asked Raphael while we waited. “Why's the Mark Two Grendel so important?”

The chief administrator of New Oxford was standing by the screen, watching as the yellow crosses along the line marking the near end of Broad Street went out one by one. She glanced at me and I saw that her eyes were glinting and her cheeks were suffused. I'd never seen her so passionate.

“The Mark Two Grendel is our future, citizen. It has evolved since it was released into the world, it can survive the toxins from the Poison Fields. We must find out how that process occurred so that we can replicate it.” She gave a single laugh. “Of course, the fruits of our labour will only benefit the intellectual élite. The subs are already doomed.”

“See what I mean, Quint?” Davie said from the position he'd taken up by a window. “The lunatics in charge of this hell-hole aren't human.”

Raphael laughed again, a dry, unpleasant sound. “Being human is greatly overrated, commander,” she said, looking back at me. “I'm not afraid of the Grendel, citizen. It isn't the first time I've been his target. But your old colleague from the Edinburgh guard will find the tables turned when he enters this chamber.”

Davie shot a glance at the screen. “He – I mean they – are within twenty-five yards.” He turned away from the window and faced the door. “Stand by for fireworks.”

There was a gap that couldn't have been more than half a minute, but which seemed to go on for several lifetimes. Then I heard a dull thump and the door burst open. A figure flew backwards and skidded across the varnished floorboards. From the dark suit I saw that it was a bulldog, though there was no sign of a bowler hat. The head had disappeared too, in a welter of crimson. If Trout had stayed on the door to protect his leader, he'd made the wrong career move.

Katharine appeared in the doorway, her expression neutral but her eyes moving from side to side. I watched as she turned her head and spoke quietly to her unseen captor. After a few seconds she moved forward slowly. An arm was clamped round her midriff. Dirty Harry had obscured as much as he could of his oversized body behind her slender frame.

Raphael gave the slaughtered bulldog a brief look then took in her visitors. “There is no need for caution, Number Three,” she said. “We will not be disturbed.”

The Grendel's head stayed behind Katharine's for a few more moments. “All right,” he said, straightening up and pushing her aside as far as the umbilical link allowed. He looked up from his matt black device. “I can see that the nearest dogs are over by the Noxad building.” He gave Raphael an unwavering look. “Let's hope for your sake that they stay there.”

I stepped forward. “Well, well. If it isn't Jamieson 369.” I gave him a smile to obscure the fear that was threatening to engulf me. “How are you doing, Harry? Sorry I didn't recognise you earlier.”

The former guard commander grunted, one hand on the explosive charges on his chest. “The fucks in New Oxford fixed me up, didn't they? Off with the beard, in with the bodybuilding compounds. The plastic surgery took months.”

“Aye, you're quite a piece of work, Harry,” Davie said, staying by the window. “What happened to your eye?”

The first time I met the Fisheries Guard leader back in 2022 he was wearing a patch on his face; a smuggler with a death wish had put his eye out. Later Harry got a glass eye from the Medical Directorate that didn't match the colour of the surviving natural one.

“Oh, they fixed that too,” he said, staring at Raphael again. “They fixed both of them. They can fix anything in this sewer.” He shook his head. “Not that I like the colour very much. Black eyes, black heart, my granny used to say.”

The chief administrator was nodding. “You're right, Number Three. We can fix anything. We can even fix your future.” She returned his gaze. “But first, why don't you explain what you've been doing? Citizen Dalrymple is desperate to know.” She stepped closer to Harry and Katharine. That made my heart pound even more. “Why did you follow me to Edinburgh? Why have you been picking off my colleagues?”

I glanced at Katharine. She seemed to have her breathing under control, but her eyes were still moving continuously. I could only hope that she would bide her time. Davie and I stood a better chance of helping her if I could show Harry that I was on his side rather than Raphael's.

“It's all to do with the Grendel project, isn't it, Harry?” I said, risking another smile on him. “What happened to your crew?”

The assassin wasn't listening to me. He took another look at the device round his neck. He'd removed the brown wig he had on earlier and his scalp was now under a layer of unnaturally black, clippered hair. There was no sign of the dunt in his skull that used to pulse like a misplaced heart; presumably the Nox scientists had ironed that out too.

“It's a superb device, the Ghost,” he said, raising the unit. “I could never have got away with what I did without its anti-surveillance functions. It even got me through the Poison Fields without being spotted. That much I'll tell you for free, Raphael.” Then he dropped the device and his hand moved with bewildering speed to his belt.

There was a stomach-churning noise of honed blade entering flesh and the chief administrator collapsed to the ground clutching her left thigh. I could see the haft of an auxiliary knife protruding between her fingers.

“Everything else you want to know, you pay for,” Dirty Harry said, his face showing no emotion. “The currency is pain.”

Raphael was biting her lower lip, but she didn't cry out. Screwing up her eyes, she pulled out the knife and tossed it back towards Harry. Then she took out a white handkerchief and bound it round her leg. The fabric reddened but the flow of blood seemed to be staunched quickly.

“What happened to your men, Harry?” I said, watching as Raphael crawled to a chair and hauled herself into it. Davie didn't offer any help.

Harry stared at me then nodded slowly. “I did the right thing when I got you involved, Citizen Quint.” He laughed humourlessly. “I used to think you were a right fucking smartarse back in the old city.” He looked over at Raphael. “All right, bitch, you've put a down payment on the information you want so here it is – though I reckon you know most of it already. My guys and I deserted from Edinburgh in '25. There were sixteen of us when we sailed away. By the time we ran aground in the Wash five had gone; they were taken out when we stormed a container ship off Hull. Another couple were killed in skirmishes with headbangers on land. We found our way to the borders of this fucking state in the spring of '26. Then the nightmare really began.” He broke off and glanced at the Ghost in his hand. “Looks like your people are staying put, chief administrator. Obviously they don't care that you've been hurt.” He grinned vacantly.

“They have orders not to intervene,” Raphael said, her voice surprisingly even. “Under any circumstances.”

“That'll be right,” Harry said. He looked at me. “With me so far, Citizen Quint?”

“With you, Harry.” I could feel Katharine's eyes burning into me. She obviously wasn't with the former guard commander in spirit. “Go on.”

He nodded slowly, looking at me as if he were trying to figure out where I stood. “Aye, well, the bulldogs on the outer perimeter saw that we had some potential in the violence stakes, so we were airlifted over the Poison Fields and put straight into the Grendel training programme.” He glanced at Raphael. “Of course, back then it wasn't anything like as sophisticated” – he gave the word a heavily ironic emphasis – “as it is now. Afterwards we spent months patrolling the PFs.” His voice lowered in intensity. “Four of my guys died towards the end of that time, their lungs eaten away by new toxic strains.” He straightened his back. “That was when they started work on the Mark Two Grendels.”

Raphael pulled herself up in the chair. “There is no need to share any more technical information with these outsiders, Number Three,” she said in a firm voice. “Explain the murders.”

The Grendel shook his head, the loose grin back on his face. “I'm not taking any more orders from you.”

“I've got some thoughts about the murders, Harry,” I said, opening my arms. I had the impression that when Harry got on to what happened to the rest of his crew, Katharine would be in the middle of a lethal crossfire. “The first one, Ted Pym, was an experiment. You'd discovered that he was involved in the Cowley resistance with his brother Pete, so he was expendable. You left him down at Dead Man's Walk because it's in sight of the House of Dust and you wanted to register your interest.”

The former Fisheries Guard commander was nodding at me. “Not bad as far as it goes, citizen. I'm still listening.”

There was more to be said about Ted Pym's murder, but I wasn't clear about the motive for the dismemberment so I moved on. “You followed Raphael and her entourage – all of them being involved one way or another in the Mark Two Grendel project – to Edinburgh.” I shrugged. “I guess that the Ghost device enabled you to board the helijet unobserved.”

“That's right,” he confirmed. “I travelled both ways in the luggage hold.”

I stared at him. “Christ. How did you? . . . doesn't matter. In Edinburgh, you severed a Leith Lancer's arm to bring me and my team on board the case. Then you took a shot at the chief administrator here during the prison inauguration, where you would cause maximum disruption to the incarceration policy and to New Oxford's involvement in Edinburgh.”

“Fucking prisons,” Harry said. “They've turned this place into a prison factory and look how much good it's done them.” He paused and shook his head. “I didn't mean to kill the public order guardian. Even though the old bastard was never very keen on me and the Fisheries Guard. When I saw him move after I fired, I reduced the Eagle One's velocity and deactivated the explosive charge.”

“Lewis Hamilton's heart gave out,” I said.

Harry nodded slowly. “Aye. Another innocent victim of New Oxford.”

Raphael was staring at him, her eyes wide. “What about Raskolnikov? What about Verzeni and Yamaguchi? Why did you kill them before me?”

Harry laughed again, his eyes meeting hers. “After Edinburgh I changed tactics, you heartless cow. I wanted to make you suffer as you waited for the shot.” There was a high-pitched beep from the Ghost device. “What a surprise,” he said in a level voice. “Your people have decided to intervene after all.” He raised his right arm at her. “It's time for your suffering to end, chief administrator.”

I stared at him, trying to make out what he was doing with his right hand. Then my ears were filled with the pounding of heavy feet on the stairs beyond the door and every window erupted into blinding light.

It looked like everyone except me was playing their end game at the same time.

Chapter Twenty-Two