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Authors: Clem Chambers

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BOOK: First Horseman, The
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Yet the serum was overwhelming, the energy it engendered sweeping away his self-control. He pulled the sheets back and knelt up on the bed. He took her legs and parted them.

‘Oh,’ she said, coming alive, ‘more?’ She drew him down to her. ‘You must tell me the secret.’

He smiled and kissed her neck hard.

It was nearly ten p.m.

‘Why don’t you stay the night?’ she said, as he came out of the bathroom.

‘I must get back.’

She watched him dress with the agility of someone her husband’s age. Her eyes narrowed. Cardini had the answer, he must have. There was no way an elderly man could have performed like that without chemical help. It just wasn’t possible to be so fit and strong at his age. She had found what she was looking for: someone who could keep her young and beautiful.

2

Cardini scanned the emails from Lou, then deleted them. He hadn’t given her his email address, but she had got it anyway and was bombarding him with what amounted to love letters. The situation was fast becoming awkward.

There was a knock at his office door. Bob Renton, his chief lab assistant, entered. He seemed agitated.

‘There’s a woman outside who wants to see you.’ He was bobbing up and down on the balls of his feet.

‘Really?’ said Cardini. ‘I don’t have any appointments, do I?’

‘No,’ said Renton.

‘Well, then, who is she?’

‘A Mrs Saxby.’

Cardini coughed. ‘Show her in.’

Renton disappeared, and returned minutes later.

‘Why Lou,’ said Cardini, as the door closed behind his assistant, ‘what brings you here?’

‘You, of course,’ she said, looking hurt.

‘Me?’ he said. ‘How can I help?’

‘Help?’ She seemed very sad. ‘I was just missing you.’

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Well, I’m sorry about that. My work is all-consuming.’

‘I understand,’ she said, ‘but can we still share some time together? At least occasionally.’

‘Surely that would be as impractical for you as it would be for me.’

‘We can be discreet,’ she said, smiling mischievously. ‘Discretion is the first rule of politics.’ Her eyes darted around his office.

‘Just how do you propose to keep our little secret?’ he asked.

‘I have my ways.’

She stepped forwards and gazed up at him. He knew he was meant to kiss her. Two days had passed and the passion that had boiled through his veins on that evening had not yet subsided. She rested her right hand on his groin and smiled. ‘Will you tell me your secret?’ she said, caressing him through the material of his trousers.

‘Of course,’ he said gently, ‘if that is what you want.’

‘Yes,’ she said, moving to pull down his fly.

Suddenly his hands were around her throat. She struggled but his grip was vice-like. Cardini looked down at her red flushed face, her eyes bugging out, her tongue protruding from her mouth. In seconds she would lose consciousness and sag.

Her knees buckled and keeping hold of her he let her fall to the floor. He held her there for three more minutes, then let go. He checked her pulse. Nothing.

He hoisted her up and placed her in the chair by his desk. He picked up the phone. ‘Bob, will you come to my office?’

Within moments, Renton appeared. He looked at the woman, her feet slightly splayed as she sat. He looked at Cardini, then turned and locked the door with a key from a bundle in his pocket. ‘Is she dead?’ he said, bending down and staring at her.

‘Quite.’

‘Well, that’s a turn-up,’ he said, his eyes sparkling as he studied the horrified expression on Lou Saxby’s face.

‘Is it as much of a surprise as my overlooking your own homicidal practices?’

Renton straightened and smiled at him. ‘Not quite. I’ll dispose of the body in my usual way,’ he said. ‘I think I can deal with her car too,’ he said, ‘but I’ll need a few days off for that.’

‘Of course.’

‘And I’ll want ten treatments.’

‘No,’ boomed Cardini. ‘I will give you only one.’

‘Professor?’ he moaned. ‘Five.’

‘You are well aware that that is impossibly expensive.’ He paused. ‘However, I will allow you two, so long as you can wait three months for the second dose.’

Renton scowled, but he dared not upset Cardini. ‘Please give me three treatments. I’ll accept one treatment now, the second in three months and the third three months after that. I deserve it.’ He bounced up and down, nodding with determination.

Cardini stared at him.

‘Three precious treatments in exchange for one vital service,’ said Renton. ‘That’s fair, Professor.’

Cardini studied him. Renton showed no signs of backing down. ‘Very well,’ he said.

‘Thank you,’ said Renton, clearly overjoyed. ‘I’ll get this sorted right away. She’ll be the next forty-two.’

3

Kate stood at the end of the semi-circle of students gathered around the examination table. She wanted to experience Cardini’s famous course before she decided whether or not to do her doctorate with him. The atmosphere was electric.

She watched Renton pull back the white cover to reveal the cadaver. There seemed to be an element of relish in his demeanour. She shivered: death was a terrible sight.

Professor Cardini was sitting in a chair a little away from them. He looked up from a tablet he was reading, put it down and stood up. He was an imposing figure, black hair framing his handsome gaunt features.

The tag on the cadaver’s toe read ‘42’. The woman had no head. Kate wondered what had happened to it.

‘Today,’ said Cardini, ‘we have the benefit of a less battered subject than usual, and we will be looking at how the nerves in the arm are laid out. In this we will attempt to expose and understand many fascinating issues. For example, how does a thought, the most intangible of all things, the mere whiff of a chemical reaction in the brain, become force, the most tangible of elements?’ He picked up a scalpel, his face half hidden in shadow, ‘so let us begin.’

4

This was her world and Jim knew it.

Jane passed him a gun with a quiet smile, as if she was handing him a sacred item of some religious rite. It was a gift of life or death, a Glock 35.

He took it.

‘You know what to do next?’ she said gently.

‘Not really … Jane.’ He forced out her name.

‘Go ahead,’ she said, a little louder than she had spoken before.

He put his ear protectors in place and aimed. She’d asked him to let off fifteen rounds in five bursts of three. He aimed and fired the rounds. He reset his posture to stand passively, then repeated the exercise. She was grinning in a kind of happy, knowing, angry way he recognised. The familiar light was glowing in her eyes, with an exciting, dangerous sparkle.

He fired another three shots, barely focusing on the aim, then three more, and a final three almost as an afterthought.

He sniffed at the fumes, the hot, primitive smell of fire, a perfume that set surging the adrenalin to which he had become addicted.

Circumstances had forced Jim to embrace a maelstrom of chaos and violence. Yet he was desperate to get back to escape it and get away from the danger and ruin that seemed to follow him everywhere.

The target rushed towards him, an attacking white ghost. He peered at it as it flew towards him but could see no bullet holes.

‘Outstanding,’ said Jane, as he pulled off the ear protectors. ‘Outstanding,’ she said again studying the centre of the target which was neatly shot away. She ripped the target from its clips and handed it to him. ‘You’re hired.’

‘You can’t afford me.’

‘Yeah, right,’ she said, and reached forward.

If only he didn’t love her, he thought, he might be able to live a reasonably normal life. But she amazed, dazzled and fascinated him. She was worth dying for, if there was ever such a woman.

5

A great pink claw reached in for the mouse. She backed as far into the corner of the cage as she could, her eyes widening in terror. The claw grabbed her and swept her out of the door and up into the air.

‘This is a trembler mouse.’ Professor Cardini smiled. ‘We’ve reared it so its myelin dissolves and its nerve current drains away before reaching its destination. The neuropathy causes tremens. This is an interesting model for experimentation.’

The female mouse sniffed urgently at his hand, and Professor Cardini felt the hot surge of urine into his palm. It annoyed him a little. He struck the mouse’s head against the workbench, ending its brief life with a sharp crack. He noticed one of the students flinch. She was a thin, dark-haired specimen, pale and, he judged, weak. He laid the mouse flat on the board and pulled its forelegs apart. He smiled faintly, seeing, as he pinned the paws down, the tiny marks of a mouse crucified, blood seeping from the punctures.

He sliced open its belly from throat to tail. Even now, though he had done this thousands of times, he could have gasped with pleasure at the perfection before him. The miniature work of art lay wet and quivering, exposed and vulnerable to him.

He looked up at the students. ‘See?’ he said, in his slow, deep voice. ‘The heart still beats.’

The girl’s eyes were closed. She had picked the wrong course if the death of a mere mouse was too much for her.

‘This is the machine that serves as our toolbox of discovery,’ he said. ‘It is a small analogue of the machine that drives our own existence.’

The students looked on, hungry for mastery.

Kate turned and eased her way back through the small crowd. She had made a mistake: even at this early stage she couldn’t stomach her subject. At the door she looked back. The professor caught her eye. She held it for an instant, then turned and left.

6

The sound of a helicopter passing above him filled Jim with gloom. He recognised the sound even though it was strangely attenuated and much quieter than he had expected. He had had enough of two things in his life: volcanoes and helicopters. Every time he got into serious trouble they were somewhere in the mix. The first volcano had been at Las Palmas in the Canaries: he had flown there in a chopper and ended up inside the accursed thing.

Then there had been Nyiragongo in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a volcano so active that it had recently erupted and cut Goma, a major city, in half. A helicopter had been his only means of getting out.

Finally there was Fuji, a beautiful snow-capped mountain, the backdrop to a nasty scrap in Tokyo. Thankfully, no helicopters had been involved.

Yet helicopters, unlike volcanoes, were hard to avoid. As far as Jim was concerned, a lunatic had invented the helicopter and lunatics flew in them.

As Jim got up from his desk, Max Davas, the grand master of hedge-fund managers, shadow banker to the US Treasury, would be landing in the paddocks behind the house. There was no way the old man would contemplate arriving in a car, to come crunching up the long drive like everybody else. Davas had to arrive in the grandest possible style.

Jim went out to meet him. The helicopter was huge, marked with matt grey cloud patterns that made it look like part of the sky above. It was weirdly angular with more than a hint of menace. Jim hadn’t seen a chopper like it before. It reminded him of objects the military considered classified. Where rich men had Gulfstreams, Davas owned the biggest Airbus they made. For some people a 250-foot yacht was enough; for Davas, nothing short of a frigate would do. He was astonishingly rich, with billions more than Jim, and he spent money like only countries do.

Jim waited by the paddock gates and watched Davas emerge. His mentor wasn’t moving with the agility Jim remembered: he had suffered a bout of pneumonia and still looked as though he’d had a close shave with the Reaper. Weeks in bed had withered him like an uprooted plant.

Davas was wearing a black blazer, dark blue jeans and black cowboy boots. He was carrying a large case. Somehow the smart informality was at odds with his uneven pace. The last time Jim had seen him, his friend had bounded across the field like a young man, full of energy and bounce. Now there was a shaky, careful determination in his walk, which was more of a stagger than a stride. Davas acknowledged him with a weak wave, as if raising his hand too high might cause him to lose his balance and fall.

Jim opened the gate.

‘How are you, my boy?’ said Davas, clearly relieved to get on to firm ground.

‘Great, Max.’ Jim smiled and shook his hand. He wanted to give him a manly hug but held back. He didn’t want to embarrass him.

‘Sorry for the short notice, Jim, but you know how it is.’

‘I know what you want, if that’s what you mean. Let me take that.’

Davas handed him the case, seeming glad to be shot of the load. To Jim, it felt almost empty.

‘Let’s go inside,’ said Davas. ‘Is your house swept for bugs?’

‘Only insects,’ said Jim. ‘I’ve got no secrets.’

Davas was disapproving: ‘That could be seen as sloppy. You should keep your guard up.’

They walked through a large red-brick arched portico into a long, galleried hall.

‘You’ve done a beautiful restoration job,’ said Davas, his boots echoing on the wooden floor.

‘You wouldn’t believe how much it all cost,’ said Jim. He stopped in his tracks. ‘No, I guess you’d know pretty much exactly how much this kind of thing costs.’

‘Chicken feed,’ said Davas.

‘I suppose,’ said Jim, ‘but a hell of a lot of it.’ He walked on.

‘One day, Jim, you’ll understand the scale of things. The important and the trivial will be clear to you. There have always been kings and princes and they have always lived in castles and palaces. They always will. They may not be called emperors or maharajas. They may not be seen as living gods or Dear Leaders, but they will always have everything. It’s Pareto’s Law. It’s the eighty-twenty.’

‘I can’t get used to it,’ said Jim, as they walked towards the door at the far side of the hall.

‘Well, Jim, it’s down to statistics and physics, anything but ethics.’

‘I don’t get you.’

‘Eighty-twenty means one per cent of the people get half of the whole pie, the one in ten thousand group gets a quarter and the lucky group that are one in a million get about an eighth of everything. The guy at the top of the pile ends up with three to four per cent of all the assets in the world.’ He patted Jim on the back. ‘That’s three to four per cent of all the money, the land, the combined wealth of the globe, and that’s as a result of the eighty-twenty rule. Think about it.’

BOOK: First Horseman, The
4.81Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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