Doctor Who_ Cat's Cradle_ Warhead - Andrew Cartmel [36]
O’Hara opened his arms, offering to take the boy from Stephanie. She handed Patrick to his father. ‘Excuse me a second,’ she said.
‘Of course,’ said O’Hara, taking the child and kissing him on the forehead.
Stephanie went out of the sitting room and down the pine stairs. In the kitchen Mulwray was standing at the sink, holding a glass under the big snout of the taps. Water hissed out through the filter. He drank a glass, refilled it and drank again. When he turned to Stephanie his mouth was wet and his face was an odd colour. Yellowish. Stephanie thought it was an interesting colour. ‘We can call Albany from here,’ said Mulwray.
‘Why would we want to do that?’
‘Look, the man’s clearly loony tunes. So is his project, for that matter. Fine. I’m happy to go along with it. He’s the boss. And I’ve done some fairly hairy stuff in my time. It’s been my job. I’m really happy to provide Third World garbage for biostock. There are people who need that blood and those bodies. They’re spare parts for real Americans. Real people. That’s my job and I’m good at it.’
Mulwray set the glass back in the sink and wiped his hands. ‘But all that stuff about that little boy volunteering for the experiment. You know what that means? He’s talking about killing the kid.’
‘Yes?’ said Stephanie.
‘We can’t just let that happen.’
‘No?’ said Stephanie.
Mulwray was looking at her now. It was as if it was the first time he’d ever really looked at her. Stephanie liked the thought. Mulwray was taking a good look at her now.
Mulwray went back to the sink and picked up the towel again. He wiped his hands again, although they were already dry. He kept looking at Stephanie, rubbing his hands nervously with the towel. In the surgical fluorescent light of the kitchen she could see the lines around Mulwray’s eyes, the lines he had when he smiled, although he wasn’t smiling now. The lines made him look old and tired.
Stephanie liked those lines.
‘Surprise,’ she said.
O’Hara was still sitting on the couch with his son when she went back into the living room. The B&O home entertainment system was on and the little boy was watching Saturday morning television.
‘What’s on, Patrick?’
The little boy answered without looking away from the screen. ‘Just some kid’s stuff. But Jack Blood is going to start in a minute.’
‘That’s nice,’ said Stephanie, settling herself on the couch beside O’Hara.
‘Mulwray is secure,’ she said.
‘That’s good. I had my doubts about him.’
‘He’ll work out fine, I’ll see to that.’
‘You’ve clearly handled it very well, Stephanie. You’re going to be exactly the right person for this project.’
Stephanie’s face flushed at the praise. It was going red, Stephanie knew it was. She hoped O’Hara wouldn’t notice in the television light. Her body felt sweaty with the relief of a job well done, and with the warmth of the praise.
‘Time for Jack Blood,’ said Patrick. He touched a button on the remote control and the software in the B&O changed channels for him. Two small lights flashed on the slim dark boxes of the home entertainment centre. One small light indicated that the television receiver was active. The other one showed that the communications system was currently transmitting. A discreet camera and microphone scanned the interior of the living room. It observed every move made by the three people watching television on the couch. It heard every word they said. This information was then routed by optical cables down to the transmission masts by the excavation further down the mountain slope. From there the sounds and images were fired up to a satellite leased by Northern Global and relayed on to the European Community data network. Coded packets of data were passed along, read and readdressed, then passed along again. Their ultimate destination was in southern England.
There the signal was picked up by a satellite dish lashed on to an ornamental spire on top of a Victorian greenhouse. The big glass structure stood in overgrown gardens that gave way to broad grounds with