Inherit the Earth - Brian Stableford [63]
FIND AND DESTROY “DAMON HART”
—OPERATOR 101
Fourteen
M
adoc Tamlin had had no alternative but to return to his apartment to gather the equipment he needed for his expedition, but he had known that the necessity was unfortunate.
“I want to go with you,” said Diana Caisson, in a tone which suggested that she intended to have what she wanted no matter what objections Madoc Tamlin might raise. “You owe me that. Damon owes me that.”
“I really need someone here to man the phone,” Madoc lied. “This business is moving too fast and it’s getting seriously weird. If you want to help Damon, here’s where you’d be most useful.”
“I’ve been manning your stupid phone for two solid days,” Diana told him. “What’s the point if you’re always out of touch? This is the first time I’ve clapped eyes on you since we went to visit that idiot boy in the hospital, and I don’t intend letting you out of my sight until I get an explanation of what’s going on and a chance to help. You owe—”
“I don’t owe you anything!” Madoc protested, appalled by her temerity. “Not even explanations. I only let you stay here for old time’s sake—you were supposed to be gone by now. You don’t have any claim on me at all.”
Diana wasn’t impressed. “Damon Hart owes me explanations. I lived with him for nearly two years. I never knew that he was Conrad Helier’s son, and I certainly never knew that he was Conrad Helier himself, and an enemy of mankind. The day after I gave up trying to make our relationship work I found out I’d been living with a trunkful of mysteries, and they’ve been getting stranger and stranger with every hour that passes. Two years, Madoc! I want to know what I wasted my two years on, and if you’re Damon’s legman in Los Angeles you’re the one who has to start paying me off. Wherever you go, I want to go—and whatever you find out, I want to know.”
“This wasn’t part of the deal,” Madoc told her. “I let you stay for a couple of nights when you walked out on Damon—that’s not the same as taking you into partnership. One of the things Damon is paying me for is discretion. He doesn’t want anyone knowing what I find out, and he’d certainly include you in that company.”
“It’s okay for me to carry his messages,” she pointed out. “It’s okay for me to pass on messages from your pet streetfighter. What’s not okay for me to know? What is it that your apprentice Webwalkers have turned up that even Interpol isn’t supposed to know?”
The problem, Madoc knew, was time. What Interpol didn’t know yet, they might very soon find out—and they’d find out all the sooner if he were fool enough to start blabbing to Diana Caisson, even in the privacy of his apartment or his car. It was easier for him to turn up evidence of work done through illegal channels than it was for officers of the law, but this case was now a triple disappearance, with a rich icing of crazier-than-usual Eliminator antics. The police would be making a very big effort now, even if they hadn’t before. Whoever had stirred up this hornet’s nest had done a thorough job. He had no time to argue with Diana, and the only way to shut her up was to give in on something.
Anyway, he rationalized, if he forced her to stay behind that would only increase the danger that she might do something really inconvenient by way of getting her own back—like calling up the LAPD and sending them after him.
“It could be dangerous,” he said, knowing that it wouldn’t serve as a deterrent.
“It’ll probably be less dangerous,” she countered, “if we both know exactly what we’re trying to do. What have you found?”
Before answering, Madoc collected the last of the crude mechanical tools he’d come back to gather. The men who had broken into Silas Arnett’s house hadn’t needed cutting gear and crowbars, but Madoc hadn’t got the kind of technical backup they must have had, and he was heading for a different kind of house. If it was a fortress, it was likely to be a brute fortress, not a sophisticated affair of anxious eyes, clever locks, and mazy software. He was able to shut Diana up with a gesture