Into the Fire (21 page)

That went on for the best part of the day. I forced myself to go out for a while, returning an hour or more later, but I don't think he'd even noticed my absence.

Finally he turned to me. “What's her name?”

“You know her name—”

“Surname!”

“Oh . . . Oh Jeez, I dunno—how many Lenas are there?”

“None.”

“Shit! No record of her?”

He shrugged. “Maybe—some odd names here. Could be he's the soul of discretion. Or maybe he's just covering his tracks.”

“She told me once she was of Swedish extraction,” I suddenly remembered. “Does that help?”

“Mm,” he said, obviously looking through a list of names. “Karllson?”

“Maybe.”

He handed me the screen. The name Sonia Linekar was highlighted.

I shook my head, not understanding. “What's this?”

“It's a crude kinda encryption. He alters the syllable order, then plays around with the letters, like here. Lena Karllson: the ‘son' at the end goes at the front and she becomes ‘Sonia.' ‘Lena Karll' becomes ‘Linekar.'”

Jesus, I was impressed—if it'd been left to me, we would've been there 'til Doomsday.

“Take a look,” he told me. “It's private—I don't think I should.”

I tapped the screen and up came a lot of details: age, description, medical notes. Much as it pains me to say it—exasperating little cuss that he is at times—once again I was reminded that the guy was a genius, no two ways about it.

“What does it say?” Gordie asked.

I looked up and realized four eager faces were staring at me, waiting for my news.

“Nothing very interesting.”

“Must be something,” Delilah said.

I went over it again. No allergies, no problems, no . . . “special talents or gifts.” Then suddenly I stopped and started laughing.
Well, well. So Jimmy does get it wrong sometimes.

“It's not her,” I said.

“Must be,” he said, immediately on the defensive.

“It's not,” I said, handing him back the screen.

I sat there while he studied it, smirking to myself, waiting for him to see, but he didn't react the way I'd expected.

“Jimmy, it's not her!” I said, annoyed that he always found it so hard to admit to his mistakes. “It can't be, can it?”

“Well, obviously I don't know her as well as you do, Big Guy,” he replied, his words fairly dripping with sarcasm, “but I certainly remember the cut she got on her throat from that kid who broke into the tunnels.”

I stared at him for a moment, at the expression on his face, then grabbed the screen back, scrutinizing every little detail.

“Well,” Jimmy said, “are you going to tell them, or am I?”

In a world of bombshells and bolts from the blue, a society where nothing surprised me, I gotta say, that really took the ground out from beneath my feet. I mean, dumb old big guy or what? I'd been saying for ages how well she was looking, that she was blooming—I'd subconsciously put it down to escaping from the Island . . . If I hadn't read that screen, it would never have occurred to me, not for one moment, but there it was: Lena was pregnant . . .

Pregnant! . . . Jesus, she's gonna have a baby!

My first reaction was shaming—believe me, it said everything about me and not a thing about her.

“Who's the father?” I asked.

They all stared at me like they couldn't believe their ears, then Delilah burst into laughter and Jimmy swiftly followed suit.

“Who the hell do you think the father is?” Delilah cackled, and Gordie had the cheek to say he'd tell me the facts of life one day.

“Ten weeks pregnant,” Jimmy said, reading off the screen.

I just continued to gape, knowing my mouth was wide open but unable to close it. Like I said, my reaction was all about me, nothing to do with Lena. I wasn't accusing her of lying or sneaking out the tunnels to meet someone, or anything like that—never even crossed my mind—I just—well, I'm gonna say this just the once and please do excuse me—I just didn't think I had it in me any more!

I admit, we'd never used a condom. I'd never even seen one on the Island—well, not a new one; 'course, there were plenty of used ones around but I wasn't going there, washed out or not. In any case, neither Lena nor me had slept with anyone in years, so there weren't any dread diseases we could pass between us. And—well, like I said, I didn't think I was up to getting anyone pregnant.

Jimmy looked at me, the biggest smile I ever seen on him spreading across his face like a sunrise. “You're gonna be a dad, Big Guy.”

It was the most disturbing thing anyone'd ever said to me, and for any number of reasons. I never dreamed I'd have a kid—not at that stage of my life. And yet, there I was, a father-to-be, but a father who might never get to see his baby, nor see again the woman he created it with.

And it wasn't just me who didn't know how to react either. Jimmy mentioned about getting out this half-bottle of whisky he took from the Superfood-7, proposing a toast, but Delilah shook her head at him. Instead she came over and putting her long, skinny old arms around me, told me it was going to be all right. And yet once again it was Hanna who came up with the most comforting words.

“I think it's great,” she said. “It'll make you stronger. More able to fight.”

And you know, the moment she said it, I did feel stronger, more focused, more determined. It wasn't just Lena being held in that place now, it was
our child
too—and come hell or high water, I was gonna get them both out.

It immediately set me thinking. Years ago, when the economy was entering its final death throes and the government was forced into selling off the family silver, they started phasing out the army and getting rid of its hardware. As long as you had the dough, they'd pretty well sell you anything, no questions asked. At the time, Mr. Meltoni was having a bit of a problem with this new gang of Eastern Europeans trying to move in on us. He knew it was heading for a showdown and decided to go out and get something to even up the odds a little.

You should've seen those guys: mean as hell, standing in a line across Union North, stony-faced and scowling, all holding these big businesslike automatics, forbidding us to enter “their territory.” Then they heard something approaching: this creaking and clanking, getting ever closer, all of them starting to glance nervously at one another. Finally, Mr. Meltoni came swinging around the corner, dressed in a general's uniform, ribbons and medals all over his chest, at the head of a column of four M1 battle tanks, 120mm guns pointing directly at those determined not to let them pass. I tell ya, you never seen negotiations concluded in such rapid fashion. By the weekend they'd all gone, just melted away.

That was what I needed to get me into Infinity: reinforcements of a truly spectacular nature. And yet, even if I'd had those M1s, I'm not sure how confident I'd have been. The whole situation was so fraught and frightening and I didn't have the slightest idea how to go about solving it.

What I didn't know was that Fate was about to throw one more ingredient into the mix.

I decided to go out, to give the others some talking space, intending to take another look at Infinity. If I could've found just one weakness with that place, no matter how small, you have no idea how much encouragement it would've given me.

I said the fires were starting to die down, but there were still plenty around—plenty of everything bad: fires, smoke, looters, mob rule, and everywhere I went, more and more corpses—always the elderly for some reason, as if, even in death, no one could be bothered with them, they had no value.

I thought I'd seen just about everything in terms of the fires, but I still gotta bit of a jolt when I turned a corner and was met by this burning office block. It was a tall, thin column of flame that had somehow ignited the same two adjacent floors in buildings on either side, so I was confronted by this huge burning cross. Christianity doesn't mean much anymore but you still couldn't help but see it in those terms, like it was some kind of sign. I stood there for several minutes, not only looking at the fire, but also at the expressions on the faces of the crowd gathering around me. It was as if they were still a touch bitter that God had let them down, at the way he'd disowned them all those years ago.

I was just about to turn around and head off when something hard was pressed into my back. “I wouldn't have taken you for a religious man,” someone said behind me.

I turned slowly. I hadn't recognized the voice, but I did the face. It was Van, Ray's main man, with his greasy little sidekick.

“And talking of religion,” he continued, “I know someone who'd love you to make a Second Coming.”

Talk about Fate conspiring—as if I didn't have enough to worry about. They handcuffed me to one of the armrests in the limo—no way was I going to be allowed out of their sight again. I spent the entire journey trying to think of a way to escape, but in the end accepted there just wasn't one and I might as well shut down and try to conserve my energy for whatever was waiting for me at Ray's.

They must've let him know they were about to pick me up 'cuz he didn't look in the slightest bit surprised when I was brought in—on the other hand, I've rarely seen a human being look more furious, more venomous toward another. He wasn't sitting in his armchair but in a hi-tech wheelchair, squat and powerful-looking with really thick tires, with his bloated legs cocooned in a weird projecting, almost pointed metal frame.

The moment I walked in he started screaming abuse at me, ramming his joystick forward and coming at me so fast I didn't have a hope in hell of getting out the way. My shins took the full force of the blow.

“You stupid fucker!” he screamed.

“Jesus!” I groaned, feeling like he'd swung a sledgehammer at my legs, but he just reversed back and accelerated forward again, this time hitting me so hard, I ended up on the floor. Jeez, that was why he was in that damn contraption: it was the Wheelchair of Death and he was going to ram me into oblivion.

“I told you not to fucking kill him!” he screamed, and suddenly he was that crazy kid again, all those years ago, beating the hell out of me, pounding me senseless on the sidewalk.

“I didn't kill him,” I protested. “He fell!”

“Fuck you!” he shouted. “Do you know how much fucking shit you got me into? She knew it was me right away.”

“It was an accident—!”

“Yeah, and so's this,” he sneered, hitting me with such momentum, I skidded across the polished floor and slammed into the wall, blood instantly running from a cut on my head.

“Boss,” Van muttered, plainly a little concerned that Ray appeared to be bent on killing me then and there.

Again that wheelchair whirled toward me and though I tried to scramble aside, it slammed into me once more, almost dislocating my shoulder.

For a moment I teetered on the edge of unconsciousness, the sound of his screaming voice, ironically, the only thing that stopped me from passing out altogether. I opened my eyes to see this slobbering mouth only inches from me, a rubber band of spit hanging from top to bottom lip, projecting over me as if he was about to vomit. The bile he was expelling was coming from somewhere much deeper and even more noxious than his body, as if all the shit—all the poison—he'd accumulated over the years had been building up to that one moment.

“Where's my fucking money?” he screeched, his bulging face redder than a baboon's ass.

“Gone,” I managed to grunt.

I wouldn't have thought it possible, but he got even angrier, reversing back as far as he could go, then racing toward me and
slamming me up against the wall, pinning me to it, revving his motor as hard as he could, trying to crush me.

“You useless fuck! I'll turn you into a fucking blood-and-bone smoothie!”

Plainly he still hated me as much as ever; time hadn't mellowed him one bit. He went back and fired himself at me again, the projecting front of that thing making it look like a damn missile was coming my way.

Van kind of cleared his throat, trying to calm Ray down, maybe to remind him that they didn't want a body on the premises.

I opened my mouth to speak, to beg for mercy, but it was full of blood and I started choking. “Stop!” I eventually managed to gurgle.

There was a momentary pause, but I couldn't clear my eyes enough to see why; was he trying to calm himself down or merely out of breath? Either way, I knew I couldn't take any more of this, that I had to save myself somehow, and suddenly words started pouring out of my mouth that I swear weren't mine, like the first I knew of them was when I heard them along with everyone else.

“I can get you more money than you ever dreamed of.”

“Fuck you!” Ray sneered, and reversed again, ready to slam into me once more.

“
Billions.
”

He just sat there glaring at me, joystick in hand, clearly wanting to launch himself again, but momentarily checked by the mention of such an enormous sum of money.

“It's the biggest heist in history, and only I know about it.” I'd overdone it—I knew that as soon as the words were out of my mouth. He shot forward again, pounding into me even as I yelled, “
It's true!
”

Again he paused. “Tell me—and if I think you're lying, this is gonna feel like a massage compared to what'll follow.”

“There's this woman,” I managed to croak out. “In the Infinity building.”

“Oh, fuck you!” he groaned at the mere mention of Infinity's name.

“She's blind—or she was.” I was panting now, trying not to rush my words, grateful for whatever respite I could get. “She lived underground on the Island for years—kinda developed these skills . . . They want to clone them and give them to the Specials—”

I didn't actually know if that was true, but I thought it the most likely thing for Ray to believe. “I was going to kidnap her . . . They'll pay anything to get her back.”

“
Infinity?
” Ray sneered.

“Yeah.”

“You wanna kidnap someone from Infinity?”

“They're not so great,” I told him, trying to summon up at least a pretense of confidence.

“Have you seen that place close up?”

“I've pinpointed a few weaknesses,” I lied. “All I need is a bunch of guys, some decent hardware.”

Ray didn't want to give the idea a moment's thought, I could see that, but his greed was already starting to nag. He glanced at his two guys but they remained expressionless. I didn't know what was going to come out of that snake hole of a mouth of his next—whether he'd take the bait or not—but at least I'd given myself a chance.

In the end he waved a dismissive hand and just reversed away from me. I grabbed the arm of a nearby chair and attempted to pull myself up, but it was a real struggle.

“Watch the blood!” he shouted, and I fell back to the floor rather than stain his furniture. “Whaddya think?” he said, turning to his two boys.

Van shook his head, like it was completely out of the question. “Place is a fortress,” he said.

Ray turned to the other guy, Van's moody little sidekick, but obviously decided his opinion wasn't worth waiting for. “If it's true . . .” he said, glaring at me, daring it to be otherwise.

Again Van shook his head. “Infinity?”

“For sure they wouldn't be expecting anything.”

Van grunted. If it had been up to him I wouldn't have stood a snowball in hell's chance, but Ray always was a greedy sonofabitch.

“Show us,” he ordered, and a screen started glowing up from one of the walls. He gestured for Van to help me up. “And don't think it gets you off the fucking hook either.”

I'm no expert when it comes to technology, and my case wasn't helped by trying to pull up a map of the Infinity complex and getting an immediate “NPI” (not in the public interest) classification. I had to draw it, best I could, but at least it gave me a few moments to recall all the stuff Jimmy'd told me. I went through the whole thing and it soon became apparent that they were grudgingly impressed by my thoroughness as I started telling them about the security cameras on the fence, the laser cannon on the roof and of course the dogs of war, the growlers.

“Shit! Shit!” Van kept muttering every time I came up with yet another deterrent.

“So where are these fucking ‘weaknesses'?” Ray asked, looking as daunted as his henchmen.

For a moment I just stood there, wondering what the hell I was gonna say. After all, that was exactly what I wanted to know, what I'd been trying to find out ever since I first clapped eyes on the place.

I took a deep breath. “First off,” I told them, “you're right: they won't be expecting anything. They're pretty good at throwing their weight around, but I bet it's never occurred to them someone might do the same to them.”

“That's for sure,” Van muttered sarcastically.

“The gates aren't that heavily manned,” I went on, clutching at straws.

“No need. All that automatic security,” he commented.

“Not without power,” I countered, again my mouth coming out with something I hadn't been expecting. All three of them turned to me, now looking just that little bit interested. “If we can knock out their power, they'd lose a lot of their advantages.”

“They'll have fucking backup.” Ray sneered.

“A generator? Sufficient to juice that place and all its equipment? I don't think so,” I said, though actually I had no idea. “There'd have to be compromises somewhere.”

Again there was silence and this time I could tell they were giving it serious thought.

“They might lose a few things if they have to go to a generator, I guess,” Van conceded.

“D'you know exactly where this woman is?” Ray asked. “That's a helluva big place.”

“I'm working on it,” I told him. “Gotta couple of people on the inside.”

That was it: I felt a distinct tug on my line. Now they
were
impressed.

“She's really worth all that dough?” Ray asked, like he wanted to hear the word “billions” again.

“Yep,” I assured him. “Think about it: it'd give them one helluvan advantage.”

“Yeah,” he snarled, as if it was his duty to at least make them pay dearly for that privilege.

Again they fell silent. You could see why they were struggling with the idea; a few moments ago I'd been a loose end that needed tying up, now I'd have to become—even if only temporarily—an essential part of their organization. After all, I was offering them the most lucrative job they'd ever handled.

We talked about it a while longer—I provided a bit more padding and a helluva lot more bullshit; mostly to do with Lena and her special skills, how she could virtually turn night into day—and finally Ray let me go. The last thing he said before I went out the door was that if I screwed up again, he'd kill me in the slowest, most torturously painful manner he could think of, and I didn't doubt it for one moment.

I gave him my word I wouldn't, and left. I mean, it wouldn't have surprised me if that was what he had in mind anyway, that as soon as he got his hands on Lena I'd get a quick couple of bullets or a burst of laser-fire in the back—but it still felt like my best, maybe
even my
only
, option. I just had to hope that somewhere in the confusion of the “rescue” I'd be able to steal Lena away. Oh, yeah, and that I'd never see Ray again as long as I lived.

With the inducement of a couple of the bucks I'd been keeping back for emergencies, I persuaded a delivery guy to give me a lift almost back to the churchyard. He wouldn't go the whole way—he refused to enter the destroyed neighborhoods—but took me as far as he dared. I didn't want to spend any of that money, but I'd tried walking and it was just too damned painful.

The expressions I was greeted with as I entered the shelter told me I probably looked every bit as big a mess as I felt.

“Clancy,” Delilah cried, “what the hell happened to you?”

“You been to Infinity?” Gordie asked.

I slumped down on my sleeping bag, doing my best to keep any expression of pain off my face. Hanna jumped up to get me some water.

“I'm fine,” I lied, all four of them staring at me with obvious concern. “I met Ray.”

“Whoa!” Jimmy gasped. “Not cool.”

“You know what families are like,” I commented, pausing before making my announcement, “He's gonna help me get into Infinity.”

The little guy just stared. “You serious?”

“I've thought of a few things—cutting off their power supply.”

“They'll have backup,” he said, as if a child would know that.

“I know, but I'm betting it'll still leave them short in some areas.”

He sighed, neither agreeing, nor disagreeing. “Big Guy!”

“I don't have any other options!”

“How many men does he have?”

“Not sure. Twenty or so maybe.”

“And how many in Infinity?”

“They won't be expecting us,” I replied, a little weakly.

Jimmy got this look about him like he was wondering how best to go about patronizing me, but I shut him up by asking if he could find out how to cut off Infinity's power—somewhere away from the actual building. I just wanted to get it over with in case Lena's
time was even more limited than we thought—not that I could push Ray anymore; in fact, I was worried that when he stopped and thought about it, he might just change his mind about the whole thing.

“I gotta talk to Gigi,” I told Gordie.

He shrugged. “I don't know any more than you. She won't say where she lives.”

I thought for a moment. “Then I guess I gotta get her to come to me.”

The state of the City, it shouldn't've been that much of a surprise, but it took me forever to find a store with any spray paints. And for sure it didn't help that every step I made was dogged by pain. I had no broken bones, but a whole bouquet of bruises, and my head felt like a boiled egg that had had the top sliced off. That damn wheelchair, I tell ya, it was a one-man armored vehicle—and not something I wanted to face again.

I went up to the Square and sprayed a message at the same place where Gigi used to leave them for me. It wasn't quite as artistic, but it got the point across.

On my way back, I sprayed it again, just along the street from where I'd first confronted her, then I returned to the shelter, my body still aching and telling me it needed to rest.