Inherit the Earth - Brian Stableford [13]
“One of my foster parents, Silas Arnett, lives near San Francisco,” Damon admitted warily. “Some stupid resort area landscaped to look like the south coast of Old England—or some so-called continental engineer’s notion of what the south coast of England used to look like. I haven’t seen Silas in years. We don’t communicate.”
Actually, Silas Arnett was the only one of his foster parents with whom Damon might have communicated, had he been a little less rigorous in his determination to carve out his own destiny. Silas had been far more of a father to him than Karol Kachellek or Conrad Helier ever had, and had made his own escape from the tight-knit group shortly after Damon—but Damon had always had other things on his mind, and Silas hadn’t contacted him except for sending dutiful messages of goodwill on his birthdays and at each year’s end.
“Silas Arnett has disappeared from his home,” Yamanaka said. “According to a witness, he was forcibly removed—kidnapped—the night before last.”
Damon felt a stab of resentment. Why hadn’t the Interpol man told him this first, instead of teasing him with all that crap about the Eliminators? He knew, though, that it was mostly his own fault that the discussion had got bogged down.
“What witness?” he asked.
“A young woman named Catherine Praill. She was an overnight guest at Arnett’s house. She was asleep when the abduction took place—she heard the struggle but she didn’t see anything.”
“Is she involved?”
“We have no reason to think so. There’s no evidence of any untoward activity on her part, and no indication of a possible motive.” Yamanaka was being very careful, and Damon could understand why. Silas Arnett’s house must have had all the standard security systems; it would have been very much easier to bypass them if the intruders had someone inside with direct access to the controls. The police must have gone through Catherine Praill’s records very carefully indeed.
“Was she a very young woman?” Damon asked.
“There is little to distinguish her from dozens of other guests Mr. Arnett had entertained during the last few years,” Yamanaka replied diplomatically—perhaps meaning that if the kidnappers knew Arnett’s tastes and habits well enough, it would have been easy enough to get someone inside to facilitate their work.
“You think the people who took Silas also posted that message?” Damon said, pointing at the windowscreen.
“We think that it’s an interesting coincidence,” Yamanaka admitted. “There’s more. Another of your father’s contemporaries has an address in San Diego, but he’s proving equally difficult to trace.”
“Who?”
“A man named Surinder Nahal.”
Damon could understand why the pedantic inspector has chosen the word contemporaries. Conrad Helier and Surinder Nahal had been in the same line of work, but they’d never been colleagues. They’d been rivals—and there had been a certain amount of bad blood between them. Damon didn’t know exactly why; it hadn’t been an acceptable topic of conversation among his foster parents.
“Has he been abducted too?” Damon asked.
“Not as far as we know,” said Yamanaka, careful as ever.
The inspector’s associate had now drifted back to his side, having completed