Strangled Silence (35 page)

Amina nodded. She'd already considered the
possibility that Tariq had been programmed into
doing what he did. Anything was easier than believing
he was a killer. That said, if he had been
brainwashed, then it might well have been because
of the questions she had been asking. That gave her
no comfort at all.

It also made her ponder the army's motives for
using
MindFeed
in schools. Were they up to something
more sinister than education? Perhaps they
too were being manipulated by someone else.

'So where do we start looking for her?' Amina
asked.

'You're not going to believe this, but she's in
the phone book,' he said, chuckling. 'I decided not
to call her, in case . . . you know.'

Amina nodded. She knew.

'Instead, I figured we'd just drop in on her and
ask her a few questions. She has an address in
Fulham.'

'Cool.'

He looked over at Amina and gave her that
grin she was growing to love. It was nice to be
sitting here beside him, as if they were just out for
a drive, or going on a date somewhere. Doing
something normal. But there was nothing normal
about what they were doing. If Rosenstock was so
deeply involved in this mess, she was bound to be
well protected. They were taking a big risk in going
to see her. Amina could see from the look on Ivor's
face that he was feeling as reckless as she was. They
had been through so much that they were done
caring about consequences. If anything, they were
feeling an insane giddiness. All that mattered to
them now was getting to the truth and finding the
proof to back it up. And if Amina could help Tariq,
any risk would be worth it.

As they drove, each filled the other in on what
they'd missed. When Amina heard that Ivor had
been shot, she insisted on looking at the wound. He
was touched by the hurt in her voice, the pain in
her eyes. She told him about Donghu. The
Sinnostani's view of the war came as little surprise
to Ivor now. She asked him about the charges
against him.

'They caught me at the scene, but their
evidence is thin,' Ivor said, shrugging, his eyes on
the road. 'My lawyer says they don't have much of
a case so far. The murder weapon was found on the
ground a few metres away, but there are no prints
on it and I wasn't wearing gloves. They don't have
a clear motive and Shang's been vilified as a terrorist
so there'll be little sympathy for him. Can't say I've
any for him myself.'

His hand went up to his right eye, his fingers
brushing against the eyelid.

'Even so, you don't know what they're going to
turn up on me if somebody decides to cook up
some evidence. I wouldn't put it past them.'

Amina put her hand on his, wishing she could
do more than offer this scant comfort.

When they reached the address in Fulham, a
large Victorian house on a street of tree-lined,
upper middle-class residences, they found a police
car and an ambulance sitting outside. Their rooflights
flashed ominously in the gloom, their
blue light giving the pleasant street an air of sinister
drama. Ivor pulled up twenty metres back on the
other side of the road.

'That's the house,' he muttered.

Amina couldn't even muster any shock or
surprise at what she was witnessing. A stretcher was
being carried down the steps from the front door.
There was a body lying still on the stretcher. The
head had been covered up.

'Do you think they knew we were coming?'
she asked quietly.

'Probably,' he replied. 'But they've been one
step ahead of us the whole time. Maybe she was
becoming a liability anyway. Either way, it doesn't
matter. Everything we try and do, they cut the legs
out from under us.'

He fell silent, gazing out at the ambulance as it
drove off without haste and without its sirens. A
police officer spoke to two people standing on the
path for a few minutes and then he left too. There
was no attempt to cordon off the scene. There was
no suspicion that a crime had happened here.

'What now?' Amina looked at Ivor.

His shoulders were slumped in defeat, his
morose expression spoke of a complete loss of hope
and it hurt her heart to see it. He didn't answer her.
Taking a notepad from her bag, she scribbled some
words on it and showed it to him. With a sigh, he
read the words:
Let's go see Chi
.

'Where is he?' he mouthed the word to her.

She put pen to paper again, and wrote out
Stefan Gierek's address.

'First, though, I want to talk to someone else,'
she said.

Stefan Gierek maintained a 'city base' with four
other survivalist fanatics in an industrial estate in
Cricklewood. All five had been casualties of the
Sinnostan war and had devoted their lives to resenting
the British government because of it. Chi's
discovery of the surveillance drone had helped
mollify Gierek and bought him sanctuary in the
Pole's homemade fortress.

Ivor, Amina and their guest parked the car in a
city-centre car park and took a tortuous route
through the Underground and by bus and taxi to
the address, in an attempt to throw off any
followers. There were few people on the streets and
train platforms. Stopping at a payphone halfway
through their journey, Amina made a phone call to
alert Chi and his host that they were coming. A
light rain drifted from the sky, dampening
everything around them and giving the city a
greasy, sleazy feel. The three travellers looked over
their shoulders regularly, their eyes constantly
scanning for any sign of a threat. Amina wondered
again if she would ever be able to walk alone in
dark streets without that near-constant edge of fear.

It was almost midnight by the time they arrived
at the decommissioned factory that served as home
for Gierek and his trucking company. It was easy to
see why he'd picked it.

The walls, built to support the weight of some
kind of machinery inside, were steel-reinforced
concrete. The garage entrance and the few windows
on the ground floor were covered with heavy steel
shutters. The windows on the first floor were
secured with horizontal steel bars, as were the skylights
in the roof. There were no buildings
adjoining the factory and the upper-floor windows
had a view of the wide yard on every side. Gierek's
four trucks were kept safely in the garage. CCTV
cameras and motion sensors surveyed every inch of
the floodlit exterior and the compound was
surrounded by a high fence topped with razorwire.

A few weeks ago, Amina would have considered
this level of security for a trucking company
a little absurd. Now, she found it comforting.
Gierek came out to greet them, nodding at Amina
and Ivor through the bars of the gate. The
floodlights created a halo-like reflection around his
broad, shaved head. He glared suspiciously at John
Donghu, whose little figure stood hunched against
the rain in a worn leather bomber jacket.

'Who is that?' the Pole snarled.

'A friend,' Amina told him. 'I told Chi about
him on the phone. We can trust him.'

With a grunt that could have meant anything,
Gierek pressed a remote and the gate slid open far
enough to let them slip through before closing
again immediately.

The interior of the building was as severely
practical as the exterior. Half of the space was
divided into two floors, with offices downstairs and
living space upstairs. The rest was for the lorries:
two DAF container trucks and two Mercedes
tractors with sleeper cabs. They were in immaculate
condition. A Land Rover was parked in front of
them. There was enough equipment in the garage
to carry out all but the most serious maintenance,
including a heavy-duty winch hanging from a
girder in the roof. A first-floor balcony encircled
the garage space to allow access to the windows on
all sides.

Amina and Ivor studied the place for a moment
and then looked at each other. It gave them a
gratifying feeling of safety.

Part of the living space on the first floor was
given over to a gym and the new arrivals followed
Gierek upstairs to find Chi working out on a bench
press, wearing a vest and tracksuit bottoms. Judging
by the pale flab hanging from his chest and arms,
this kind of exercise was a new experience for
him.

'Hi!' he exclaimed, growling against the strain
of the weights. 'They've got me working on my
cuts and going for the burn!'

The others waited patiently for him to finish.
There was a formidably fit-looking man spotting
him, dressed in camouflage T-shirt and combats and
sporting a high-and-tight haircut. Another three,
equally butch, survivalists sat around the area. One
kept his eyes on a bank of screens that showed the
views of the surveillance cameras outside. Another
was examining Chi's captive UFO, carefully peering
through a magnifying lens at some of the
electronics. The third one just stood leaning against
a doorway, staring at the newcomers from behind
mirrored sunglasses.

'I heard about your brother, Amina,' Chi
panted, as his training partner nodded to him and
he finally finished his reps. 'I'm really sorry. If it's
any comfort, I think he may have been set up.'

'No, it's not much comfort and yes, I've already
considered that he might have been set up,' she
replied. 'Ivor and I went to talk to Ellen Rosenstock
this evening. The others got there first. We've hit
another dead end.'

Chi's face fell, and he digested this news with a
pensive expression, chewing his lip. Then he
nodded to himself.

'They're mopping up. But it's not over,' he said
at last. 'I think we've really got them cornered now.
I bet they thought they were really smart, showing
the pictures of this surveillance drone – making it
look like I'd built it myself so I'd appear a fool if I
tried to go public with it. There are no markings on
it –
anywhere
– so they probably thought it couldn't
be traced back to them. They were wrong.

'There are five different parts of this machine
that have been patented. Why go to all the bother
of designing a whole bunch of new bits when you
can use existing ones, right? One company holds all
the patents; a group called VioMaze. I bought a few
shares in the company and—'

'And they sent you a brochure,' Amina
murmured.

'Right.' Chi grinned. 'They make military gear
– you name it, they can supply it. Even really
unusual stuff like, oh . . . I don't know . . .
unmanned surveillance aircraft, maybe? They've got
knockout gas and other "non-lethal" weapons –
plenty of
lethal
stuff too, of course. They can set up
mobile operating theatres and build prisons. They
can even supply "private security operatives" –
that's "mercenaries" to you and me . . . serious ones
too – ex-Special Forces. Oh, and you know what
else they make?
MindFeed
, the program the army's
using in schools. VioMaze is the one-stop shop for
everything you need to fake a war.'

'That's great, but that's still not enough of a link
to put anybody in prison,' Ivor pointed out. 'Or in
Tariq's case, keep them out. What use is it?'

Chi sat back, disappointed with the lack of
gushing praise.

'It's a good start,' he retorted. 'We can follow
the leads—'

'We've been following the leads since this
whole thing started!' Ivor snapped. 'All it's got us is
public ridicule, a few dead bodies and our days
spent waiting to be dragged into the back of a van
and carted off to a disappearance somewhere. I've
had enough. I got you two into this and I've been
regretting it ever since. It's time to stop before it
gets any worse. We don't have enough evidence to
finish it and every time we get close, somebody
dies, or goes to prison or . . . or . . . I've just had
enough.'

It was clear from his posture that he meant it.

'I'm not finished,' Chi insisted. 'The head of
this company is a retired navy admiral by the name
of Robert Cole. Remember the photo I showed
you of Rosenstock and two others? He's one of the
guys in the picture. I went through Nexus's disks.
Nex found out the Triumvirate were trying to
smuggle nerve gas into Sinnostan. Why? Maybe
because it'll prove to everyone that we were right
to go to war. Who makes the nerve gas? VioMaze.
Not in Europe, obviously, 'cos it's illegal. If we can
find proof that—'

'But we never find proof,' Ivor interrupted.
'They're ahead of us at every turn. And sooner or
later, we'll run out of luck.'

'I love it, the word "war",' John Donghu said
abruptly. The others turned to look at him, as if
noticing him for the first time. 'This word, it
changes everything. After you use it, you can do
almost anything and people will understand – they
will forgive. You can hurt another human being –
call them "enemy" and then murder them. You can
commit the worst of crimes and your government
will pin a medal on your chest. You can bomb
cities.' He made an explosive gesture with his hands.
'Reason is turned on its head at the mention of the
magic word: "war".'

Donghu settled into a chair, looking round at
his audience.

'Nobody cares enough about this war to stop
it, now that it has started,' he rasped. 'It's too far
away for them to care. Bad things happen in war,
that's just the way it is. Even you don't care enough
about this.' He held up his hands to silence them.
'It's not a criticism. You care first about your safety
and about your story and that is understandable. I
am always the same. But I tell you this . . .' He
leaned forward. 'You should be angry because
they
have made you
afraid
. Not just you – all of your
people. They gave you an enemy in Sinnostan and
wailed about bombings and aeroplanes and nerve
gas and you cowered as if you had seen a ghost.

'Me, I am much more scared of car crashes than
ghosts. Your trains worry me too, but mostly cars.
They are deadly things. It is the same in my
country. Many more people are killed by pick-up
trucks than bombs. They crash into each other, they
run off the road, they roll over. People fall out of the
back. Nobody wears seatbelts. But it's very hard to
make people afraid of their cars. You cannot declare
war on pick-up trucks.

'The powerful ones make you afraid of the
bogeyman so that you will be good children and go
to bed when you're told. And though there are real
bogeymen – real terrorists – they are less dangerous
than car crashes or bad electrical wiring or heart
attacks. Now that you have started questioning the
bogeyman legend, it is the powerful ones who
are afraid. But any animal that is afraid will lash
out and that's what they're doing now. And
they
can
hurt you while there are just a few of you.

'I know this animal and I have fought it before
and I can tell you that it
cannot be killed
. Defeat it
once, and it will rise again in another shape.'

Donghu rubbed his hands together, his eyes
seeing something else in another place – another
time. His hands clasped into fists, nails digging into
his palms.

'But you can make it afraid of you and that is
enough. It is a creature of the night; drag it into the
light and you can beat it. You must drag it out
where others can see it and they will help you. They
will not believe in it unless they see it for
themselves.'

There was silence for some time after he
finished. Then Amina spoke:

'The press have made us out to be paranoid
cranks who believe in flying saucers and make up
our stories as we go along. We don't have enough
proof to take to a court or a newspaper or television
channel – not now that we've been discredited. But
we have enough to make people question what's
going on and I think we should put that information
where everyone can find it.'

'How?' Ivor asked. 'We could email it to every
reporter in the country, but the story's already been
rubbished in the media; reporters will avoid it like
the plague – particularly if it's coming from any of
us. We could email it to everybody we know and
ask them to send it on, but it's become a conspiracy
theory now. You know how many of those are
circulating the web? How many do you pay
attention to, when they come into your inbox? Sure
they're good for a laugh, but nobody takes them
seriously.

'Chi's run a well-informed blog for years,' he
went on. 'So has John here. Nobody goes to them
unless they're looking for them. We could put all
our information on a website, but how will people
find it? No reputable paper or magazine will let us
advertise this – they won't take the chance of being
sued. And anyway, websites and blogs can be
attacked with viruses and shut down. You'd have to
put it on a dozen websites . . . a hundred. How do
we get ordinary people to go looking for them?'

'We create a virus all our own,' Amina told
him. 'An information virus. One that will make the
news. Let's drag this animal out into the light. We'll
need a printing press, some websites . . . and a large
sum of money.' She looked coyly at Ivor. 'Money
talks. Oh . . . and it would help if it's a slow news
day.'

Then she told them what she had in mind.

There were mixed feelings about it. Ivor was
willing to fork out the cash, but he wasn't the only
one to wonder if this was the best way to use it. Chi
wanted to wait until they had more conclusive
proof. Gierek and his mates liked the brazen nature
of the plan, but were a little too keen on using
explosives.