Out in the hall O’Donal stopped and sniffed the air, then his eyes found the smear of viscous liquid on the tiles. A small 236 PITIR F. HAMILTON burn in the offing I get run around town for an hour until Wolf’s happy I’m not pulling a backtrack.’ Gabriel was sitting in the black leather high-back chair behind the table, tenting her fingers and staring up at the pewter-coloured duct, lost in thought. ‘The method of recruiting interests me,’ she said. ‘This Wolf definitely knew you were an active hacker?’ O’Donal nodded sullenly. ‘The bastard read out a whole list of my burns.’ ‘How complete a list?’ ‘Dunno.’ He caught the look Greg gave him. ‘Yeah, all right. I didn’t spot any missing.’ ‘Going back for how long?’ she asked. ‘Couple of years, ever since I plugged into the circuit.’ ‘Have you ever had a criminal record?’ ‘What? No.’ ‘Don’t lie,’ Greg said. The guilt had glinted in his mind. ‘I’m not,’ O’Donal insisted hotly. ‘No record.’ He flushed hard, not looking at Gabriel. ‘Got pulled once, mind. Pigs said she was underage. Shit, I mean no way, not that size, melon city.’ ‘When was this?’ Gabriel asked keenly. ‘Six, seven years back.’ ‘The police, did they search your home?’ ‘For sure, tore it apart, bastards. They had to drop the charges after that.’ He sniggered at the memory. ‘My mates went and visited her for me. Straightened her out but good. She didn’t want to talk to no one after that, least of all the pigs.’ ‘Were you into gear then?’ ‘Yeah, a bit. Nothing serious though, not then.’ ‘And where were you living?’ ‘Steve Biko tower.’ Gabriel smiled acute satisfaction. ‘Your turn,’ she said to Greg, as if it was some kind of channel quiz show. ‘I’d like a list of all the burns you’ve done for Wolf,’ he said. O’Donal scowled sourly, but began typing on the Mizzi terminal. I NINOSTAR RISING 237 ‘Carefully,’ Gabriel warned. ‘Make sure the code is the right one. We don’t want any mistakes like a call for help, or anything equally tiresome. And believe me, I’ll know if it isn’t the right one.’ The truth finally dawned. ‘Shit. You two, you’re psychic, right?’ ‘Got it in one,’ Greg said. ‘How else did you think we found you?’ O’Donal’s subconscious discharged a heavy rancorous stream of revulsion and dread, contaminating his conscious thoughts. Greg showed his cybofax to the Mizzi, and O’Donal squirted the list of his burns over. ‘How much do you get paid for a burn?’ Greg asked. ‘Depends, normally around five grand.’ ‘And for the Event Horizon burn?’ ‘That was a real big deal, I got fifteen for that.’ ‘No messing. So which half were you in on?’ ‘I don’t follow you, man. What halves?’ ‘The attack was twofold, remember? The priority data-squirt blitz against the core, and the shutdown instructions beamed up to the Merlin. Which were you in on?’ ‘I don’t know nothing about no Merlin shutdown. All Wolf told me to do was hack into the Event Horizon datanet and fire off a squirt at some bioware cruncher core. Man, you’ve never seen anything like that blitz memox, custom job.’ He lifted a glittering black sphere the size of a tennis ball from the table, multi-faceted like an insect eye. ‘The multiplex compression in this lover is absolute genius. Hell, I can’t even retro the bytes. Sure wish I could. I’d love to be able to write my own like this someday.’ ‘Did this Wolf tell you what the core was?’ Greg asked. ‘Sure, it’s some kind of fancy Turing personality responses program they’ve whizzed up to manage the company.’ ‘Have you ever thought of backtracking the money transfers from Wolf? Find out who he is? Hit back, perhaps.’ ‘Yeah. Big zero.’ ‘How come?’ ‘I ain’t up to that, man,’ O’Donal muttered quietly. 238 PITER F. HAMILTON ‘Not up to much, are you, Tentimes?’ Greg plucked one of the memox crystals from the shelves, reading the handwritten label. ‘This a core-code melt virus?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Wolf supplied it, right? How many of them come from Wolf?’ ‘Some, ’bout half. I write my own, too, man!’ O’Donal was stuffed with righteous indignation. ‘I see what you’re getting at, I’m no cyborg, man. I’ve got my own scene outside that arsehole. I’d have made solo without Wolf. I would!’ ‘Give me your bank account number, the one your Event Horizon burn money was paid into.’ O’Donal clutched at his hair with both hands, pulling hard. ‘Shit, no way man, I’ve got everything stashed in there. I only burnt your fucking company once.’ Greg jammed the Mulekick down on O’Donal’s Akai terminal. Blue-white static tapeworms writhed across the heat-dump fins, snapping and popping like arid matchwood. ‘All right!’ O’Donal shouted. ‘Jesus.’ He looked down hopelessly at the tiny wisp of smoke rising from the back of the Akai. The restraint of fear was wearing thin, anger was predominating again. Greg knew he’d have to do something about that. Soon. O’Donal’s fingers trembled softly as he squirted the information from the Mizzi to Greg’s cybofax. ‘Hey, listen, you ain’t going to like do anything to me, are you? I co-operated man, really I did. You know it all now. God’s honest truth, every last byte.’ ‘That’s right,’ Greg said, and straightarmed O’Donal with the Mulekick, punching the electrode deep into his small flaccid beer gut. O’Donal’s cheeks inflated, eyes bulging. Alcohol-toxic breath rushed out of him, and he curled up, collapsing backwards on to the terminals. Memox crystals went glissading over the cold brick floor. ‘Did you enjoy that?’ Gabriel asked. ‘No. Come on, time for us to make our exit.’ NINDSTAR RISING 239 Greg sneaked a peek through the lounge door on the way tut. The pool was filling up; people fully clothed, people halfclothed, naked people; empty magnums and sodden burger baps were bobbing about among them. A cloud of thick blue-black smoke was mushrooming up from the barbecue grill, the steaks and sausages were burning fiercely. Led Zep was ~rashing out ‘Whole Lotta Love’. Hell of a party. Greg tugged the Duo away from the kerb in a tight U-turn, ignoring the shrill clamour of incensed bicycle bells, and headed back towards Oakham. Gabriel hunched down in the passenger seat and devoured ~ the information O’Donal had squirted into his cybofax. • ‘Make any sense to you?’ Greg asked. • ‘Nothing obvious leaps out. The targets are companies and finance houses. Most of the time Wolf wanted logic bombs crashed into their data cores; though there are some data snatches too, mainly high-tech research.’ ‘Doesn’t tell us much. I’ll squirt it over to Morgan Wa!shaw, get his economic intelligence team to run an analysis on it, see who benefits most.’ ‘But you’ve got a pretty good guess. I know you. You’re almost happy about finding this list.’ ‘Yeah. What odds will you give me that our friend Kendric di Girolamo comes up top of the beneficiaries?’ ‘You really have got it in for him, haven’t you?’ ‘Yep, logic and instinct both. All I need is proof, and darling Julia’s avenging angel will take it from there.’ ‘I’m not so sure,’ Gabriel said. ‘That entrapment gig this Wolf character snared O’Donal with, it’s very long-term. Find a gear-crazy kid who’s growing up in exactly the right sort of environment that’Il turn him to hotrodding, then tap his phone for seven years just to get the evidence to nail him with. Why? I mean what’s he doing for Wolf that he wouldn’t have done ordinarily on the Gracious Services circuit?’ ‘Let’s see. How many burns are on that list?’ ‘Thirty-two, including the one against Event Horizon.’ Greg slowed the Duo and turned on to the B6047 heading for Tilton. It was a terrible road, so overgrown in places that 240 PITIR F. HAMILTON the tarmac had vanished under grass and thistles. He steered into the ruts left by the farm wagons to get some decent traction, hoping nothing was coming the other way. ‘Thirty-two is one hell of a lot of burns for a ten-month period,’ he said. ‘And Wolf has a team of at least eight hackers running these burns for him. Gracious Services is normally pretty independent, but even their umpires might begin to wonder what was going down. They’re smart, if there is a pattern to the burns they’d spot it. Wolf isn’t the type to leave his flank exposed like that.’ ‘Hence the need for privacy. Yes, I can buy that. Well, we’ll just have to see what Walshaw’s people come up with. By the way, what did you want O’Donal’s account number for?’ ‘Wolf chose O’Donal because he isn’t a true hotrod, not yet. He’s a greenhouse product, force-grown; given viruses on a plate instead of developing his own talent to write them. That way he can’t stray from Wolf’s carefully ordained path. O’Donal doesn’t have the ability to backtrack the credit transfers, but Royan sure as hell does.’ ‘That still doesn’t explain away the police complicity in O’Donal’s entrapment.’ ‘Kendric has more than enough money to bribe a squad or two of underpaid bobbies.’ Gabriel groaned in dismay. ‘Christ, and Eleanor thinks I’m neurotic.’ CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR J ulia closed the heavy panelled door behind her, stepping into the understated elegance of the Princess of Wales suite. The room made her uncomfortably aware of just how uncouth her own bedroom was. Here, she was surrounded by temperate shades and smooth curves, the brocade-covered furniture seemed to flow into the walls. Several antique pieces were dotted around, and instead of clashing with the modern setting they complemented it to perfection. Part of their appeal was in their placing, she’d decided. She was continually afraid she’d bump into one of the little Pope chairs and ruin the whole effect. She’d never be able to put it back in the exact spot.. Several huge bouquets of fresh flowers filled the air with their perfume. Sl~e breathed down the scent and headed for the bathroom. The evening had been an utter delight so far, she was determined not to lose the theme now. ‘See you in a couple of months,’ was her grandfather’s parting shot as she’d left Wilholm. He was paring down the sarcasm now, but couldn’t resist one last dig. She’d brought eight suitcases with her to the Marlston Hotel for the book launch. Actually, it was the gala relaunch of the Alaka publishing company. They’d decided to promote their new catalogue in grand style, no expense spared. A three-day junket for celebrities, financiers, aristocrats, and the media, even some of their authors were there. Three days, and more importantly, three nights. Julia hadn’t been quite sure what level the event was going to be pitched at, so she’d made some meticulous preparations. The first night dinner-dance had turned out to be a formal occasion; so, after much deliberation, and consulting Adela, she’d chosen a twelve-thousand-pound Salito gown. It was midnight black, because it was hard to look bad in black; scarlet and gold moire patterns skipped across the fabric at 244 PETIR F. HAMILTON