The Cassandra Complex - Brian Stableford [6]
“It’s okay,” she assured him as his eyes were drawn to the patchwork dressing on her right hand and the bloodstain on her cuff. “Stings a bit, but it’s fine. Drive. The university, not the hospital.”
He nodded and put the car back into gear. He had to do a three-point turn to get out of the cul-de-sac, and the screech of his brakes probably woke up more people than the four gunshots had, but he was back on Cotswold Road inside of ten seconds. Ordinarily, he’d have crossed Wellsway on to Greenway Lane, but Greenway Lane led into the blackout, so he headed south to use Bradford Road and Claverton Road. It was a longer way around, but it was probably safer.
Why black out that part of the grid? Lisa wondered. It doesn’t cover the university or the flat—only a couple of miles in between. Are they just trying to cover their escape routes, or is there a third scene we don’t yet know about? She didn’t raise the point with Mike, though, because he was already talking urgently.
“The live feeds to the security TV’s were doctored,” he reported, “but the digicams themselves weren’t damaged, so the wafers should tell us what actually happened. The alarms went off when the sprinklers kicked in, but the system couldn’t do more than contain the fire and stop it from spreading. Apart from the one room, damage is limited. The injured man was shot with one of those dart guns that everybody and his cousin seem to have nowadays, but they dragged him way down the corridor before leaving him, so he shouldn’t have inhaled too much smoke—hopefully.”
“You said half a million dead mice?” Lisa queried to make sure she’d taken the right inference.
“That’s right,” Mike confirmed. “The bombs were in the room you always called Mouseworld.”
“Why would anyone want to bomb Mouseworld?” Lisa asked. “All the AV research is on the upper floors, in the containment facility. All the sensitive commercial stuff is there too—what there is of it nowadays.”
“Maybe they couldn’t get access farther up and hoped the fire would spread through the ceiling,” Mike suggested. “It won’t make much difference—the Ministry of Defence is sending down a team of spooks from London. I know we aren’t supposed to say there’s a war on, but there is a bloody war on, and until they know this isn’t that kind of hostile action, they have to assume it is. Whatever your people pick up tonight is likely to be taken out of their hands tomorrow, in the interests of national security. I’m likely to be left high and dry too, looking just as foolish. The chief inspector’s on her way to the scene, but that won’t help either of us.”
“I suppose not,” Lisa agreed. Chief Inspector Kenna hadn’t taken any great pains to support Mike through his recent divorce, and hadn’t seemed to approve of the fact that Lisa had tried to help him, even though they’d been friends and colleagues for more than twenty years. Kenna seemed to think they were both dinosaurs, their methods and instincts equally out of date. “On the other hand,” Lisa added, “you and I know the territory better than anyone—and I’ll probably know the victim too. The men from the Ministry will need our help.”
“I know that and you know that, but will they?” Mike countered. “The spooks are coming by helicopter, but it’ll take a little while for them to assemble at the point of departure—they probably won’t get here until nine or ten this morning. We’re trying to contact Burdillon, Miller, Chan and the other members of the department, but that won’t be easy at this time of night, even if it weren’t for the blackout. If the bombers could cause that to simply cover their tracks … who the hell are we dealing with, Lisa? What were they after at your apartment?”
“I don’t know,” Lisa said, wishing there were some way to display her sincerity more clearly, even though Mike Grundy was the one person in the world who wouldn’t dream of doubting her. “They seemed to think I would know, but I don’t. I don’t have a clue. All I know for sure is that they recognized your phone number, and that they took time