Читать книгу Redback - Lindy Cameron - Страница 5

Warwick Club, London

Three weeks ago

It was the last good night of Lord James McQuade: he'd been wined, dined and royally screwed. Truffles, a vintage red and sweet Miss Jones. Sixty-six years old tomorrow and not destined to outlive his wolfhound.

Dargo looked down at the sad old drunk, dribbling and asleep in a dining chair with his pants around his ankles. A peer of the realm who thought cheating on his wife with a tart from Chelsea was a manly way to ring in his next year.

Lulu had been a birthday gift from a supposedly trusted colleague, but Dargo's presence was the price, for Lord James McQuade was an irritation, a sacrifice, a pawn.

Dargo clenched his fist and flexed his wrist. An eight-inch blade of the finest Toledo steel flashed from its cradle and across the back of Dargo's hand, the sound of its unsheathing more thrilling to him than any of the noises Lulu had made to tease and please her lord.

But a man should only die of old age in his sleep. Any other death, he should see coming. Dargo kicked his quarry in the foot.

'Make yourself nice, Lord Jim.'

McQuade stirred, opened bleary eyes and took a moment to focus on his fate. Lulu was gone and a stranger stood over him with… What was that, a sword? His horror was matched by his disbelief.

'You've got ten seconds to put your oldfeller away.'

McQuade automatically reached for his trousers. It was pointless yelling for help. The private dining room was soundproof. The intercom was over by the door.

'What do you want?' he asked.

'Shh,' Dargo pressed his finger to his lips. He waited until McQuade was presentable.

'If it's money you want,' McQuade offered.

'I apologise your Lordship,' Dargo said, rolling his blade-hand before him, elegantly tracing the symbol for eternity, 'but you have a part to play in something far bigger than both of us.'

'I don't understand…'

The speed with which Dargo now wielded his blade was remarkable. McQuade had but a moment to be impressed by the action before he realised his throat and chest had been sliced in an X, from each ear diagonally down across his pectorals.

Blood splashed across the remains of his last supper, bleeding into the white linen tablecloth.

Lord James McQuade: 65 years old tonight. And that's the end of it.

Dargo left the way he'd come: quietly, and with a key.

QF 30 to Melbourne

12 days ago

Scott Dreher waved his pen over the box marked 'occupation' and for the hundredth time in a decade decided not to write 'journalist'. He knew the Australian authorities wouldn't care that he was a reporter but, as so many countries did, it was easier just to put 'writer'. That way, if anyone official asked, he could blather on about writing photocopier manuals, sci-fi, or the great American novel.

The one time he had revealed his true identity, he'd spent 72 hours in a windowless backroom of Tangier airport giving any number of possible reasons for an American reporter to be visiting Morocco. In some countries, journalist equalled troublemaker, activist or even spy. And when Algerian militants have just skipped across the border to blow up a French cruise ship in Tangier Bay, then American journalist obviously equalled CIA.

Scott realised the young guy from the window seat was on his way back from the bathroom, so he stood up in the plane's aisle to let him in. He slipped the Immigration card back into his money belt and arched his back to get the kinks out before sitting again. He'd had the two business class seats to himself all the way from London, until Mark the New Zealander had boarded in Dubai half an hour ago.

Scott opened his laptop to have another go at the game. So far he'd died 16 times, lost three squads in the jungle and was responsible for his entire platoon being blown sky higher when his Hercules exploded over the Marianas Trench - twice.

WarP was infuriating, ingenious and damn hard but then that was the point. It began life as a recruiting tool for the Australian Defence Force, but its combat scenarios and authentic military tactics had infiltrated the ranks of hard-core gamers. Always looking for sophisticated play they were drawn to the game's hyper-realistic graphics and smooth action. WarP had gone mainstream, big time, and made a truckload of money for its designers. The original online version, like the ADF's equally popular AttackSub and the US military's America's Army, now had nearly 10 million registered users worldwide.

Gamers literally got to design their own strike team instead of choosing characters from a bank of generic animated steroid hunks. Scott had started in the program's Identikit Bank where he created his soldiers from thousands of possible features, choosing everything from hair and eye colour to height, weight, age and sex. He named his comrades, devised their personal histories, families, even love lives and, most importantly, assigned their military training and combat skills. One of the raves, to which Scott could now attest, was that the sense of losing comrades-in-arms was almost palpable.

They were his team now and damn it if he didn't keep letting them down.

Oh Scotty boy, get a grip. He took a moment, between keystrokes, to realign his priorities. As much as he loved the challenge, except for the guilt of regularly annihilating his crew, he was really only playing WarP for research.

'Yes!' he cheered quietly, as his Viper Squad dealt with the island rebel scouts, finally.

Kiwi Mark next to him grinned and then, in what amounted to game-upmanship, began piling his tray table with a laptop, 20 or so compact and mini-disks, and a TekBox - the absolute latest in portable game consoles from Nayazuki Firebolt in Japan.

'Believe it not,' Scott smiled, switching from the game to his research notes, 'I am actually working.'

'Oh yeah, me too,' Mark said, nodded and glanced out the window like he expected to see some flying sheep.

Scott looked down at his notes. He really was en route to Melbourne to interview the WarP design team. It was all as part of a series of articles on 21st century recruiting propaganda and how the internet and the virtual world had been hijacked by real-world warmongers. Now that sounds as boring as a photocopier manual.

Scott's research had started with how the West's modern enemies - the nefarious terrorist brigades and loudly visible insurgent groups - had long been using the internet to communicate, spread their various beliefs and attract human resources from an international pool.

Now he was investigating how the good guys got their message out. And 'bizarre' was not even a strange enough word to apply to the very idea that some of the most world's powerful and legitimate military authorities had resorted to playing games to boost their falling recruitment levels.

Scott returned to WarP and sent Captain Dash and a Viper sniper forward to take out the rebel scouts. Woops, oh shit, didn't see those innocent villagers taking refuge there.

Where were the moral crusaders who so liked to condemn violent computer games and TV shows for breeding a generation of violent adults? Surely not silenced by the kids who actually understood they were playing at killing game monsters? And why was there no universal condemnation about this game now that their governments were advocating these same 'playgrounds' to recruit real live cannon fodder for real-world warfare? Maybe the military should be just the place for violent game-addicted teenagers? Those who don't stay home to become serial killers, that is.

Promoting war as a valid career option was what he was really writing about. Admitting that would've got doors slammed in his face though, so his cover story was much more unassuming: he was simply writing a feature on modern recruiting techniques.

So far his research had taken him to Washington, London and Tel Aviv. He'd interviewed one of the Joint Chiefs at the Pentagon, observed an SAS recruitment program in the UK, and met a couple of Top Guns from the Israeli Air Force. He'd also been to a few very strange places in his own head - he'd discovered his own latent urge to 'shoot-em-all up'.

'Have you tried this one yet?' Mark asked him, swivelling his TekBox so Scott could see the opening credits for GlobalWarTek.

'Yeah, but only the online version,' Scott said. 'And I really am playing this one for work. I'm writing a thing on games, like these two, being used to recruit people to join the real military.'

'Really?' Mark said, then tapped his TekBox. 'Oh shit. This disk is the stupid pirate version - but I didn't say that. It's not working properly, hang on, I'll find the right…'

'Wait,' Scott put his hand out. 'Go back to the start, would you?'

'Yeah sure,' Mark hit the return button a couple of times, 'but this version really is screwy, I can't get past Level 2.'

'That's okay. It's the start of this particular disk I want to see again.'

The game's preview began. Oh boy! Add Tokyo and Nayazuki Firebolt to the research itinerary; in the column marked weird stuff.

'Where did you get this game?'

'In a market in Cairo last week,' Mark said.

The mini-movie prologue of Global WarTek, played by a million Japanese gamers and a growing host of westerners since its English translation, was a visual treat in its own right. Like most games it introduced the game's universe, the main characters and the battles they would face.

But it should not feature a bearded three-eyed character carrying a rust-coloured book with the word 'Rashmana' on the cover.

Scott felt himself go cold.

That word should not be in this game.

Or any game.

Hotel George V, Paris France

12 days ago

Assad bin Khalid al Harbi looked at his wheezing father and fat uncle deep in conversation on the other side of the opulent presidential suite. They had summoned him to this meeting in Paris and were now ignoring him, as always, as if he was the lowest of subjects. They lived only for empire and business. Assad's long absences from the family circle had not softened their attitude. Family was for profit not togetherness.

Assad took little comfort in the knowledge that their attitude to him was nothing personal. His father and uncle, always known collectively as 'the Brothers Khalid and Salman' or just 'the Brothers,' treated all but their first-born children with equal-indifference. They might complain about his long absences but it was not because they missed him. Cousins, brothers - also ignored - filled the room.

The Brothers were making up for their grandfather's lack of family planning. Ahmed bin Youssef al Harbi had been a simple Egyptian builder who made his first fortune from a small construction company he established in Alexandria during World War I. He had migrated to Saudi Arabia where his construction and business skills brought him to the attention of the royal family. He had chosen the best possible time to migrate and was soon granted many and exclusive building contracts with the House of Saud.

Ahmed's failing in life was that, despite five marriages, he only ever produced one son, Tariq. He also produced one daughter, Alia. They both did their duties as inheritors of the 'al Harbi' name, by building on the mounting fortune and producing between them 23 children - 14 of whom were sons. Bad health, bad luck and sheer stupidity had culled those sons to five, of which the Brothers: Assad's father Khalid, son of Tariq, and his Uncle Salman, son of Alia, were the eldest - and meanest. All their sons were sired to keep the many arms of the al Harbi family business operating.

Assad bin Khalid noticed his father's beckoning hand and weaved his way across the room, between cousins and brothers, to join his uncle on the couch. His father sat enthroned on an open-sided armchair, a Louis IV gilt tapestry-upholstered fauteuil. He was lording it like the Saudi or perhaps European prince he wished he was.

'Assad, so good of you to take time out of your busy schedule to attend this gathering,' his father Khalid bin Ahmed said in a tone so patronising it hung in the air like smog.

'So good of you to recall that I am 17th of your 28 sons and daughters,' Assad smiled.

'Show proper respect for your father,' his Uncle Salman hissed.

'Dear uncle, I am nothing if not respectful.' Assad bowed his head in deference, all the while wishing he could plunge his jambiya into the man's fat gut and watch him bleed to death.

'It saddens us,' his father was saying, 'that you have not been home for so long, that we had to come all this way to Paris to see you.'

'As I was in Singapore when you requested my attendance, I believe it was I who came to Paris to spend a few precious minutes with you.'

Khalid narrowed his eyes. 'Either way, it is a shame that you could not dress properly for our reunion.' He gestured to his brother then back to himself, to the black agal encircling the ghutra on his head and down the snow white thawb that covered him from neck to ankle.

Assad, who had long ago given up wearing the traditional garb of his father's home, pointedly ran his left thumb under the lapel of his double-breasted charcoal Armani suit. 'When in Rome, father.'

'Do not begin to imagine that you are, or can be, anything other than what you're born to,' Salman said.

Assad shook his head. 'It is good that you were not around to say that to your grandfather or we would all still be lugging bricks in Egypt, uncle.'

Salman smiled - like a cobra. 'Do not dare compare yourself to Ahmed bin Youssef. Allah blessed our grandfather with the gift of reinvention. From nothing he made our family. You, who already have everything, have nowhere else to go.'

'Except home,' Khalid stated. 'It has been decided you are to work with your brother Ali in Jeddah. We are launching a new project there that will also involve our shipping consortium in Alexandria.'

'With my brother?' Assad raised an eyebrow. 'Certainly you mean I would work for Ali.'

'Of course,' Salman said. 'He is older than you by ten years. And while you have been roaming the world like a playboy Bedouin, Ali and Sharif have been doing the groundwork for our new pharmaceutical venture.'

'Pharmaceutical venture?' Assad tried hard not to laugh. 'You mean cousin Sharif has given up arms dealing for drug running?'

'Assad.' His father snapped his fingers twice. 'This attitude is troubling. You have been left to do as you please for far too long. You will return to Singapore, close the deal on the hotel by Tuesday and take the next flight to Riyadh. There, your uncle Salman will brief you on the new role before you report to Ali and Sharif at the end of the month.'

To make his point Khalid flicked his fingers again and turned away from his son, already summoning someone else.

Assad had no intention of contradicting his father at that point. He stood, without a word, and returned to his original position on the other side of the room. His seething anger at being dismissed like a dog was only balanced by the supreme amusement he took in knowing that he had already answered the last summons from the House of al Harbi.

His new life was ready. In just over a week there would be no coming back - ever. So this time, this last time, he revelled in the fury they engendered. Their indifference, their intolerance, their connections, their corruption, their hypocrisy, their blind acceptance of the status quo had made him the man he was and shaped his future. Their belief, not that their world would remain this way forever but that it should was stifling.

The Brothers had unwittingly fashioned a driven, angry, passionate and independent man of far greater wealth than they could possibly guess. He planned to use everything at his disposal to destroy and rebuild the world of his creators. He was much more like his great-grandfather Assad bin Khalid al Harbi. He, too, was a Prince of Reinvention.