World of Fire (Dev Harmer 01) (31 page)

Stegman, with an exasperated eye roll, raised his hand. “I was just –”

“I’ve got this. Trust me.” Dev turned back to Banerjee. “How is this all going to play out, prof? If you do shoot Trundle, what’s to stop me going for you after that? I can probably get to you before you can fire off another round.”

Banerjee turned the gun on Dev. “Why don’t we call him a human shield, then, rather than a hostage? I can just put one of these flechettes in you, and that’ll solve everything.”

“Fine. I’d like you to know, though, that I was on to you a while back.”

Banerjee’s grime-encrusted brow wrinkled. “Oh? I thought you said my acting was pretty good.”

“
Pretty
good, but not flawless. You were a bit too eager to please, right from the start. A bit too ready to cough up the goods. When you told us you’d been hypnexed by a Plusser but you were all better now, that’s when I really started to wonder about you. I asked myself, could he still be? Then there was the fact that you knew your way to his house when you’d only been here once before.”

“So?”

“So you were drugged when you came here that time. Remember? Ted spiked your drink. How come you were able to retrace the route when you weren’t even conscious on the night in question?”

“Because... because I remembered it from
leaving
the house, not arriving.”

“Yeah, but that’s not what you said earlier. Your excuse for being unsure was that it had been dark the first time. Originally, though, you’d said you woke up in the house, implying you had no memory at all of getting there.”

“Ah. I didn’t get my story straight, did I?”

“And all that ‘Is it a left turn? No, it’s a right’ business – that was just a bit too much. Too stagey. You shouldn’t have tried so hard. That’s why you contradicted yourself: you were getting too comfortable, making things more elaborate than you should have. The best kind of lie is the simplest. I’d already begun to have my doubts about you, and that clinched it. I knew I’d made the right decision in giving you that MPA pistol.”

Banerjee laughed. “You mean this MPA pistol? The one aimed at you right now?”

“The one whose ammo load you didn’t think to check when you got it. Would have checked, maybe, if you knew anything about handling weapons. There was only one flechette in it when I handed it to you – the one in Stegman’s leg. That means there aren’t any now. The magazine’s empty.”

“You’re bluffing.”

“Perhaps,” said Dev. “Want to put it to the test?”

Banerjee squared his jaw, narrowed his eyes...

...and pulled the trigger.

Click.

He looked at the gun. The ammunition counter read
00
.

Trundell made his move at the same time as Dev. The scientist swung his head backwards, with force. Though he stood a few centimetres shorter than Banerjee, he still was able to make contact with the moleworm expert’s face. His occipital bone whacked against the bridge of Banerjee’s nose, breaking it.

Banerjee reeled back, blood spurting from his nostrils.

Dev was on him in less than a second. Overpowering him was no challenge. The zoologist was in poor physical shape and, anyway, no fighter.

Dev spun him round, arm twisted up behind him. He grabbed a chair and rammed it into the back of Banerjee’s knees, forcing him to sit.

“I could have had him,” Stegman grumbled. “He didn’t know I was going for my gun-stun until you told him.”

“Point’s moot,” Dev said. “A gun-stun wouldn’t have made any difference, in the event. Besides, my way meant Trundle got his moment of glory. Didn’t you, Trundle?”

Trundell gave a nod. He looked shaken but quietly pleased with himself. “Felt good, that,” he said. “You’re a bad man, Professor Banerjee. A traitor. You shouldn’t have made that crack about scroaches, either. They may not be much to look at, but they’re as interesting as any moleworm. There was no need to be so snooty about them. Nor to hurt them.”

“Oh, piss off, you weird little nobody,” Banerjee sneered. His swollen nose made him sound like he had a severe head cold.

“Now, now, prof,” said Dev. “No call for rudeness.”

“You can piss off too, Harmer, you moron. You don’t honestly think you stand a hope of stopping Ted, do you?”

“I fancy my chances, yeah.”

“That only goes to show how misguidedly imbecilic you are. Everything is already in motion. Ted’s plans are so well advanced, it’d take a miracle to derail them.”

“I’m good at derailing. Ask Stegman.”

“Why do you suppose I was happy to give you all that information about the moleworm pup? It wasn’t just to convince you of my bona fides. It was bragging, in a way. Proving to you how little you know and how little you can do.”

“I know more than you realise,” Dev said. “I know Ted has been ’porting himself into the moleworm, overwriting its consciousness with his own. I can’t say I’ve heard of a Plusser doing that before, putting himself inside an animal, but I can see how it would work. Back when, they used human host forms, and remote-controlled animals. This is like a combination of the two.”

“But so much more. So much better and deadlier. You’ll see. Ask yourself why he had me take those samples from the elderly moleworm we captured, what he would want
them
for.”

“I could ask myself,” said Dev, “but making you tell me will be a whole lot more fun.”

He snatched up the hiss gun.

“Threatening me, Harmer?” said Banerjee. “That won’t help you. I have nothing to lose. My life is already over.”

“Not threatening, no.”

“I see. Torture.”

“Kind of. All right, yes. If you want to be pernickety. Torture. What I’m going to do is change the setting on this here hiss gun from lethal to knockout. Twist this knob. Lower the compression. Widen the aperture so that what comes out is less stiletto, more blunt instrument. Hey presto, we have a jet of air that hits like a baton round.”

He aimed the gun at Banerjee’s crotch.

“This may sting a little.”

Banerjee winced, bracing himself.

“Harmer,” said Stegman. “Hold on. You can’t do this.”

“Can’t use enhanced interrogation techniques on someone who is withholding crucial, perhaps life-saving information?”

“Yes. It’s illegal.”

“That’s as may be, but it’s efficient and saves time. And haven’t we established that time is at a premium?”

“I can’t be a party to this. Nor can Zagat. There are rules, and we have to abide by them.”

“Rules,” Zagat agreed, somewhat unconvincingly.

“So go outside,” Dev said. “Don’t be present. What the eye doesn’t see...”

“You have just expressed the intention to commit an offence, the causing of bodily harm,” said Stegman. “I can’t in all conscience, as a policeman, let you continue.”

“You’ll stop me? With that gimpy leg?”

“If I have to.” Grimacing, Stegman hopped towards him. “And Zagat’ll help.”

“Fuck’s sake!” said Dev. “At a time like this we’re suddenly sticking by the letter of the law?”

“I appreciate it’s hard for an ISS man to understand, but yes.”

“We’re not even in Calder’s Edge. You’ve been carrying a gun. Haven’t you already broken one of your precious laws?”

“Haven’t fired it yet.”

“Zagat has.”

“That’s his lookout.”

“He helped kill Jones. And you’ve watched me kill people, too, and not said a peep.”

“In self-defence. This isn’t the same.”

“What do you want me to do?” Dev gesticulated at Banerjee, who was savagely amused by the turn events had taken. “Ask him nicely? Tickle him ’til he can’t take any more? Whose side are you on anyway?”

“The side that protects the rights of civilians.”

“This is a joke!” Dev exclaimed. “Are you telling me you’ve never roughed up a suspect?”

“Never. I may have had to subdue troublemakers now and then. Sometimes people get hurt when they’re being violent and you’re restraining them. But I’ve never resorted to beating anyone up when they’re pacified and in no position to fight back. Captain Kahlo would never allow it. She’d have my hide.”

“I don’t see Kahlo in this room. Do you? Why don’t we just agree that what happens in Lidenbrock stays in Lidenbrock? I won’t tell if you won’t.”

Stegman limped closer. “Why don’t
you
agree that there’s some other way of getting Banerjee to spill the beans without intimidation or the inflicting of suffering? It’s unacceptable to use pain to
eeyarrgghhh
!”

Banerjee had kicked Stegman’s injured knee. The police sergeant collapsed onto his side, and in that moment Banerjee leapt to his feet and darted for the front door.

Dev fired after him, but the hiss gun, on knockout setting, was markedly less accurate. It punched a saucer-sized crater in the wall beside the door jamb, just as Banerjee was making his getaway.

On the point of exiting the habitat, the zoologist came to a dead halt. His eyes goggled.

There was a gunshot.

Banerjee staggered backwards into the house, tripped over his own feet, and sprawled to the floor.

A deep ragged cavity had appeared in his chest. Blood blossomed around it, soaking his tattered clothes.

He shuddered, coughed out a crimson froth, and died.

“This is Mayor Major, leader of the Kobolds,” a voice called from outside. “We know you’re in there. We have you surrounded. You can come out, or we’re coming in. You decide. Either’s fine with me. You have to the count of three. One...”

33

“I
CAN’T BELIEVE
this,” Dev said. “Life is just showering me with middle fingers today.”

“Two!” said Mayor Major from outside.

“What are you going to do?” said Trundell.

“Three!”

“All right! All right!” Dev called out, staying just to one side of the doorway so that he couldn’t be seen from the street. “You want someone to come out there? I will. One condition, though. You hold your fire. Nobody shoots. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” came the reply.

“Promise? Because the last person who walked out of this door, it didn’t end so well for him.”

“That was one of my guys getting a little trigger-happy,” said Mayor Major. “Shouldn’t have happened, but at least now you know we mean business.”

“So I have your word for it I’m not going to be perforated the moment I show my face?”

“You do.”

“You better stick to that. I’m going to be kind of pissed off if you don’t.”

“Harmer,” hissed Trundell. “Don’t do it! They’ll kill you.”

“There is a distinct possibility of that,” Dev told him. “But I have to see what we’re up against, and this is the best way to go about it. It also buys us some time. Stegman, Zagat: put Trundle somewhere safe – bathroom would be my suggestion – and find the best defensive positions you can in this room. I can’t pretend that when I go out there it’s likely to end well, so let’s prepare for assault. Got that?”

Nods from both policemen.

“And Stegman?”

“Yes?”

“Sorry about the leg. I’d have preferred to give Banerjee a gun with no ammo in it at all, but I couldn’t have emptied out the mag without a chance of him twigging that I’d started to mistrust him. It was a calculated risk, and it didn’t pan out, and you got to pay the price.”

“I’ll live,” Stegman said.

“There’s that. At least he didn’t go for the head. Or even a vital organ.”

“Har-har. Just get out there and find out how many of these Kobold clowns there are.”

“We’re
waiiiting!
” Mayor Major said in a singsong voice.

“I can fight,” Trundell said. “You don’t have to treat me like I’m some sort of fragile cargo any more.” He glanced at Banerjee’s body. “I can do what it takes.”

The little xeno-entomologist’s face was brave and resolute, even if his body language, right down to the hunch in his shoulders, said
shit-scared
.