Part 20 (2/2)

What have I done?This was no military mission, and he had no mandate for murder. At least one of the guys was dead, and the other two were likely to You b.a.s.t.a.r.ds.

Inside the white-lit room was a gla.s.s table, and splayed upon it was...

You f.u.c.king b.a.s.t.a.r.ds.

...a naked teenage girl, spreadeagled and webbed with translucent tubes, connecting her to a rack of nanoviral cells. She was alive, perhaps more so than Sophie, perhaps not but at least Sophie was no factory, no farm for viral pharmaceuticals growing and evolving by unnatural selection, because viruses in the wild, under stress from antiviral drugs, flip into a new state of accelerated mutation, call it a metamutation; and what nature can do, humankind can subvert.

There were bite marks around the girl's nipples one of the staff obtaining added value from the goods. Perhaps one of these three lying on the floor. Josh thought he had probably seen the girl in his peripheral vision, reacting unconsciously before rationalism kicked in after the event; which meant he hadn't murdered anyone he had saved His Majesty's courts the expense of an official execution.

I ought to kill you all.

This was more than enough for him to call in the police, let them deal with the rest of Khan's people; but Khan himself might lead the way to Richard Broomhall. Checking his phone display, he flicked from monitor view to monitor view, tracking Khan's progress, two hard-faced men in tow. Then Khan stopped, said something, and went into a room alone, a room without spycams. A toilet. Under other circ.u.m

stances, Josh might have smiled.

The other two waited around a corner. They were one floor down, and in the next unit. Josh made his move, with one glance back at the abused girl. Invisible to the system his malware continued to hack his image out of the data he went through the next internal door, downstairs, and padded to a halt outside the toilet door, just as the flush sounded. When Khan came out, Josh whispered from behind: ”Did you wash your hands?”

”Wh? Mmmph.”

Ducking low, Josh was under Khan as he toppled, taking the weight on his shoulders, then powering upright. There had been little sound, but time was collapsing, and he needed to get out now. Running upstairs with Khan across his shoulders was easy, almost a joy, triggering memories of basic training. Then he was past the room with the girl and the three p.r.o.ne men and how many other victims lay in rooms throughout the building? and jogging along the carpeted corridor, through two more doors, until he was underneath the ceiling hatch he had entered by.

Rolling Khan to the floor, Josh undid his own belt, unravelling high-tensile cord. Then he wrapped it crosswise around Khan's body, forming an X across chest and back, and played out the tension as he swung himself up into the loft. From there, he braced his feet either side of the hatch opening, and began to pull upward, hand over hand, enjoying the hard burn in hamstrings and back, ignoring the cord cutting into his hand, thankful for the years of kettlebell swings and s.n.a.t.c.hes, of barbell deadlifts and Hindu squats, feeling in control. Finally, he manhandled Khan up through the opening, and lowered the hatch in place. Now let the f.u.c.kers wonder where their boss had gone.

Khan's eyelids fluttered. Josh punched once, to the carotid.

Then he hauled Khan across the loft, pushed him through the opening in the part.i.tion, followed, and forced the cut portion back into place. Next, he lowered Khan through the loft hatch, dropped down beside him, and picked up the slack weight, across his shoulders once more in a fireman's carry. Downstairs, out through the kitchen and the back door, causing it to relock... and then Josh stopped, because a whitehaired man was standing there, examining the flowers. His stance was ramrod-straight, and his eyes were clear.

”Is that the dodgy b.u.g.g.e.r who owns the shop?”

”Yes, sir. And I apologise for being in your home, but this dodgy b.u.g.g.e.r has been running virapharm labs in those four houses. Your loft was my way in.”

”Virapharm.”

”There's at least one teenage girl in there. And very shortly there'll be police by the truckload. I'd appreciate it if you weren't around, and had amnesia about this.”

”Well.” The old guy's smile gave Josh hope. ”My daughter makes a tremendous curry. Think I'll go see her.”

”Right. You don't want this b.a.s.t.a.r.d's people thinking you had anything to do with this.”

”So how did you get in? My door's unmarked.”

”s.h.i.+t.”

”Not to worry.” The old guy strode up to the door, and slammed a kick forward with plenty of hip thrust. The door crashed in. ”There.”

”Blimey.”

”Clean living.”

”Right. Er... It would have been nice to meet you, sir. If I'd ever been here.”

”Likewise. If you ever had.”

Josh hoisted Khan over the rear wall, gave a final nod to the old guy, and went over the top. There, in the back alley, he lifted Khan across his shoulders once more.

Hope I'm like that guy when I get old.

But Sophie would never get old. Some people did not get the chance.

Twenty minutes later he was sitting in his car, with Khan unconscious in the boot. The only tricky part had been leaving Khan dumped out of sight while he retrieved his car from the car park. But now he was ready to do something about the virapharm labs. It took another couple of minutes to rework his subversion ware it was still loaded in the building system at Khan's place, and communicating with Josh's phone and break through additional defences, uncovering the secondary surveillance net that had to be there, the one that monitored the virapharm production, meaning the helpless teenage bodies of both s.e.xes splayed naked across gla.s.s tables. There were twelve of them in total, none of them Richard Broomhall; but he had needed to check.

He placed a call to Petra.

”I'm on duty.” Her image revealed she was in uniform. ”Day s.h.i.+ft again this week.”

”At HQ? So I can talk to you officially?”

”Officially? You?”

”Sort of. Take a look at these.”

He tapped his phone, then waited. Petra's expression became stone as she sifted through the attachments.

”s.h.i.+t. Poor b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. Who did this to them, Josh?””Some nasty f.u.c.ker called Khan. Look at this map.” Another attachment. ”The last four houses are knocked into one. There's two dozen guys in place, maybe more, with guns.”

”Really.”

Bladed weapons might have become legal, but firearms remained anathema, as suspect as paedophilia. When the presence of guns was suspected, the cops went in hard.

”Don't take my word for it. Here's more from their internal surveillance logs.”

”I presume there's no sender ID on this anonymous tip-off here?”

”How would I know? I didn't send nothing to no one.”

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