Black Madonna

4

“I’ve just realized that we only have nine days,” Michael said glumly. He sat looking out over the quiet London Street, absently noting the handful of overdressed and over-wealthy socialites and their attendant lackeys staggering down the sidewalk with bags filled with the fruits of overindulgent shopping expeditions. In his hands was a Copious listing of every documented decker with a Leonardo-fixation from the last twenty years. He’d decided that going back five might not be enough, but that hadn’t helped much. Scanning the names and data told him what he expected, they were mediocrities trying to puff up inadequate self-esteem by taking on the mantle of the genius, rather like suburban housewives convinced by some two-bit charlatan hypnotist and conman that they’d been Cleopatra or Catherine the Great in a previous life.

“Time to put a call through to Renraku Chiba, I think,” he sighed, parking himself in front of his Fairlight. Geraint was musing over some stock transactions coming through from Hong Kong, his first cigarette of a hungover day spiraling blue smoke into the air next to him.

“You really should give that up.” Michael waved an ostentatiously offended hand to dissipate the smoke. “You smoke far more than I do.”

“Yes, I know, but I’ve had gene therapy to boost the enzymes that degrade all the tar residues,” Geraint said cheerfully, “so it’s no big deal. You lose more brain cells from one bottle of wine than I will from a year of these. Planning to stop drinking, were you?”

“The way I feel this afternoon, it had crossed my mind, yes actually,” Michael grumbled. “I’d forgotten how much you drink.”

“Ha! Had to twist your arm, did I?” Geraint retorted snappily. “You drink the best part of a thousand quid’s worth of superb port and then whine about it. Have you no gratitude, sir?”

Michael laughed, poured another cup of coffee and made the link. Within five minutes he was preparing to jack in to examine the image that had been downloaded to him.

“I’m not sure I want that traced here-” Geraint began before Michael’s frown stopped him in his tracks.

“This has been rerouted through just about everywhere on the planet, and no way can it be traced. Come on. lay off that stuff; you know how I operate. Renraku sent it to a holding bureau in Florence anyway, I’ve just acquired it from there. Now, let’s have a look around this thing in full 3D. Want to come along for the ride?”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Geraint said, reaching out to plug into the hitcher jack.

The image inside the Fairlight’s datastore was still haunting, despite the verdict of history and science. Shroudman stood upright, the image appearing to rotate as they shifted their viewpoint, the enigmatic woman’s head and face making the icon more eerie than ever.

“There’s a join down the middle,” Geraint observed. “Sort of. The original image was a couple of inches taller at the back than at the front. The haziness must be down to that, it’s generally thought that the front and back were created from different torsos,” Michael informed him. “The head-there’s something different. There’s a different degree of precision about it, the image is clearer and sharper. Well, anyway, that’s our one clue. Let’s let the systems get on with image analysis and the frames with their archival research. Hey, we have an incoming flight to meet, don’t we?”

“I’ll see to that,” Geraint said. “I’ve already made arrangements with the caterers for dinner. They won’t be here for an hour or so. I thought I could leave you to this while I go and pick them up.”

“What’s Serrin doing these days?” Serrin Shamander had been a rootless wanderer the whole time Michael had known him, and to have settled quietly on the inhospitable, stormy west coast of Scotland with a young Azanian wife didn’t fit Michael’s image of the man, but Geraint had known him for far longer.

“Not a lot,” Geraint said. “Resting, mostly. He’s rather quiet and we don’t really see much of each other, to tell you the truth.”

There was a diffidence in Geraint’s voice that told Michael he wasn’t hearing the whole story. There was apparently some distance some barrier, between the Welshman and the American mage.

“So he just holed up in your castle for the winter. Nice place to be.”

“It’s hardly a castle,” Geraint protested. “Just a fortified manorial house, It’s very quiet and, as I say, they seem to like being alone.”

“Rather a rum do that a girl from Cape Town likes the Scottish winter,” Michael mused “Seventy all year round and lots of sunshine and then transplanted to the Hebrides. I wouldn’t have thought she’d be happy there.”

“Cape Town gets enough rain,” Geraint smiled. “Much the same on that count. Anyway she’s there because of him. They’re actually very happy together, so far as I can see. Nice to see her happily settled with her second husband.”

He laughed and grinned at his guest. “What on earth did happen with all that business? What were you thinking of?” Michael had never given him the full story of his exploits with Serrin, Kristen, and the others in Azania two years before, when they’d been exploring a trail of clues that led them to Germany and an elven nosferatu with the modest aim of wiping humanity off the face of the Earth and leaving it for his own race to inherit.

“Well, it was the only way to get her out of the country,” Michael said. “To be honest, it was obvious she was devoted to him. I thought it would ruin it if I suggested that Serrin many her, given that he’s such a tortured soul and everything, so I did the decent thing. I did take precautions, though. Got her to sign a contract agreeing not to make any claim on me after we were divorced in glorious Sun City.”

“Nothing like safe sex,” Geraint observed wryly. “So you did it purely out of the goodness of your heart, then?”

“Um, well, yes, actually,” Michael said, almost shamefaced.

Geraint looked full at him for a few moments and then laughed aloud, stubbing out his cigarette. “Hardly something to be ashamed of, old man. Unless things have taken a real turn for the worse. I think they really and truly are a happy ending and the world doesn’t have too many of those.”

“Anyway, how did the chaps at Renraku respond to your little request?”

“They didn’t bat an eye,” Michael smiled. “All part of the chess game. They know I busted into their system. I’m sure they expected it and didn’t give us as hard a time as we’d have had otherwise. They know I know it. We all keep quiet about it. Par for the course, but a necessary exercise before get the next juicy credstick. For which I have to prepare an initial report about old Shroudman here and what leads he gives me.”

“Going to drop a hint that you learned more than you should have?”

“Not at this stage, but there is something else I need to do,” Michael replied thoughtfully. “I’ll have to deck into the central system of at least one other megacorp so I can report that more than one system was hit. Renraku will expect that.”

“Why bother? You know they have. You can improvise the details.”

“Yes, but it will look better if I actually do it.”

“Never mind that,” Geraint said sharply. “It’s a pointless risk. As you say. Renraku may deliberately have backed off from giving us real heat last night. Shiawase or-God forbid we even try-Fuchi would be another matter entirely. You know they’ve all been hit. You know it was synchronous. You also know that the other corps don’t seem to have been given the Shroudman clue, That’ll do for Renraku.

“By the by. why do you think only Renraku got this image?” The first enhanced chromalin was already slipping shinily out of the Fairlight peripherals.

“I don’t know,” Michael said slowly. “That’s interesting. Maybe, just perhaps, Renraku’s own deckers didn’t get deep enough into enemy territory to get at data saying that others got hit too, if the others ultraclassified it, that could be the explanation.”

“I don’t think so” Geraint said. “There can’t be anything classified tighter than the basic data relating to the crash. That has to be tighter-than-a-duck’s-arse tight.”

“Hmmm,” Michael intoned, drumming his fingers on the teak. You’re right. Well, ninety-nine percent likely to be right. I have to scan it out on the off chance of that one per cent.”

“Not now,” Geraint said sternly. “Not alone, and not until you’ve recovered some. Your reflexes are too sluggish right now. You really should get one of these cannula implants, old boy. If you were me, we could have you fighting fit in ten minutes.”

“Leave my brain alone,” Michael protested. “It was bad enough pissing in flasks for you in the biochemistry classes. You’re not tinkering with the fluids in my head as well.”

Geraint laughed and pulled his overcoat from the coat rack, then tapped the comswitch to call his chauffeur “See you shortly. And, really, don’t go jacking in until I get back. A man in my position can’t afford a corpse in his apartment.”

“Well, thanks for the concern,” Michael said sarcastically and turned back to his printouts. There had to be something here for Serrin to hook into, and he wanted to find it before Geraint brought the elf back from Heathrow.

“Unless I’m much mistaken, sir, we’re being followed,” the troll said impassively. There wasn’t even the slightest inclination of his peaked cap to emphasize the observation.

“Oh, really?” Geraint perked up in the back of the Phaeton. “What by?”

“A Eurocar Westwind, sir, license plate DFR 336. It has diplomatic identification, sir,” the chauffeur said. “From the Tuscany Republic.”

“Now why would some obscure little Italian city-state send someone to follow me, Harold? Are we sure about this? I mean he could just be making for the airport after all.”

“Well, sir, he’s been following us through central London, and as a matter of fact he was parked outside the flat all night. Not that I gave any thought to it at the time sir, but the on-board computer’s given me a match. Looks as if he has a definite interest in you, sir.”

“I have the tracking systems locked on, sir, and we’re recording.”

“How extremely incompetent of our new friend,” Geraint chuckled. “He really ought to know about the surveillance systems on ministerial vehicles. Well, well. Good work, Harold.”

“Do you want me to send a coded signal to the Met, sir?”

“No, I don’t think we’ll call the police in yet,” Geraint said after a moment’s reflection. “Let’s do a tour of the terminals, shall we? Make for Terminal Six by mistake, and then we’ll backtrack to Terminal Four. See if our chummer follows us.”

“Very good, sir,” the troll growled as he headed down the road to the vast complex of the world’s busiest airport. Geraint sat in silence and looked in a cursory, disinterested fashion at the papers on top of the pile. Shared military maneuvers with the Spanish around Gibraltar were not really of major fascination to him right then. Leave it to the Ministry of Defense, he scrawled on top of the memo. The limo swerved around the endless circular road system and headed past Terminal 2, where most transcontinental suborbitals landed, and made for the much humbler landing field for internal flights.

“Still being followed?”

“We are, sir. Do you want me to display the vehicle on the screen?”

“Please, Harold, and I think you’d better alert airport security just in case the bugger decides to take a pot-shot at me when I get out,” Geraint said, grim-faced. “Nothing over the top, just the usual.”

“Very good, sir,” the troll said. “I’ll cover you.”

“Thank you, Harold,” Geraint said dryly. The troll would make an excellent shield against bullet fire, not least on account of the armor beneath his immaculately pressed uniform. Geraint remembered the boffin from MoD telling him the stuff would stop antitank shells, and since Harold had a lot in common with a tank there was a certain appropriateness in that.

He stared at the car on the screen, monitored by the limo’s own spy cameras. Even as he did, his chauffeur asked if he wanted a link into the airport’s security cameras. As Geraint considered that, the Westwind veered off toward Terminal 5.

“Ah, well, there we go.” Geraint breathed a sigh of relief. “No need for anymore shenanigans, I think. Let’s just pick up our guests and go home.”

Serrin and Kristen were just tumbling out of the terminal, as disorganized as ever, when Geraint climbed out of the limo blinking in the afternoon sunlight like a surprised owl. The dark-skinned woman gave him her big, wide smile and a ferocious hug, immersing him in the scent of sandalwood and frankincense and warm wool. Behind her, the gray-haired elf looked healthier than Geraint remembered him. He still walked with the slight limp from an injury that had shattered his left leg, but when Serrin shook Geraint’s hand, the old tremor seemed to have gone and his grip was firm, his gaze steady.

“Good to see you,” Geraint said cheerfully. ‘Hop into the limo, hmmm?”

“Our luggage-” Serrin began.

“Harold will see to that,” Geraint said a little hurriedly.

The elf’s eyes narrowed “Something wrong?”

“Not really.” Geraint decided that he wasn’t quite up to lying and it wouldn’t be the ideal start to a visit anyway. “We were followed by a car with diplomatic plates for a while. Nothing to worry about, he beetled off over there,” he added, waving vaguely into the distance.

“So what’s going on?” Serrin asked with a mischievous smile. “Michael arrives in town and right away you’re being tailed? What game’s afoot, to paraphrase one of your best-known detectives? You said you had something that might interest me.”

“Let’s get home first,” Geraint said. “We can talk there.”

“What are you discussing?” Kristen bounced back to the pair after having checked the baggage. “Boys’ talk already?”

They turned and stared at her together. She wasn’t much more than half the age of either of them, and the reference to “boys” seemed both incongruous and appropriate at the same time.

“Nothing important. Just world domination and the collapse of civilization as know it,” Geraint said laconically. Kristen looked uncertainly at Serrin, who just smiled and ushered her toward the waiting limo, shooting a reproving look over his shoulder at the nobleman.

Actually, I was just being honest, Geraint thought, but then we’ve time yet to go through it all. Several days, in fact. Now let’s get into the car and get a trace on those number plates.

As the limo sped away with the nobleman and his guests, a Frenchman got silently into the back of a much humbler vehicle parked outside Terminal 5 and exchanged little more than a grunt with the Italian who’d driven it there. Had he known that the man had tracked Geraint to the airport, he might very well have been tempted to shoot him then and there, but there were other things on his mind. He knew how little time was left, and that it was absolutely essential to close off the leads to the returned Master-not to mention getting rid of that troublesome individual, if shooting people was on his mind, he had not as yet included his driver on the list.

“Get moving,” the man said in his even, humorless voice. “And is the Circle prepared?”

“Yes, sir,” the Italian replied dutifully.

“Then take me to it,” the Frenchman spat back.