Robert Charrette - Arthur 03 - A Knight Among Knaves (8 page)

there.

"This is no bloody damn troll," Pankhurst screamed. "It's Leftenant Barkins from MI6. He's wearing a bloody costume, you maniac!"

Not a troll? But—

Holger looked to the body of the agent the troll had overcome. He saw what he should have seen in the first place. The body was not a body, but a dummy. No breath or heartbeat because it had never had any. And the troll—barely breathing, heart fluttering—the troll wasn't a troll at all.

"You do the same to Linkwater?" Pankhurst asked angrily.

"No." Holger blinked, confused. He shook his head. No. Not to a man. "No."

"Thank God for small favors." Pankhurst touched his head, behind the ear, where his implant would be. "Man down. Medical evac, stat. Make it bloody fast or just send a body bag."

Pankhurst stood, shaking his head. He was no more a doctor than Holger. There was nothing either of them could do for—was Barkins the name?

"Better check on Linkwater," Chalmers said to Pankhurst.

Pankhurst nodded and left. He left bloody footprints on the stairs.

Chalmers stepped up beside Holger. The man avoided looking down at the bloody mess that was Barkins. Yes, Barkins was the name. Leftenant Barkins, MI6. Not a troll at all.

"Looks like you've overcome your fear of the things from the other side," he said. "Do you still have the chip, Kun?"

Holger nodded.

Chalmers held out his hand. Holger placed the chip carrier in his palm. The last part of the test completed. Chalmers looked grim.

"I think Monsieur L'Hereaux will want some words with you."

CHAPTER

• 5
  
• 7
  
• 9
  
• 13
  
• 15
  
• 34
  
• 41
  
• Epilog
  

5

Ben Wiley was president of Datapik, the major information resource firm under the Metadynamics corporate umbrella. He wore the right suits, maintained the right home and the right friends, bribed the right politicians and media hacks, and never, ever left behind enough evidence to tie him to anything that might be deleterious to the company or to himself. Wiley lived up to his name, being sharp in his dealings and quick to take advantage of his opponents' failings Young, ambitious Wiley was a rising star in the Metadynamics firmament, and a rival to Anton Van Dieman.

Van Dieman didn't care for rivals.

More than once Wiley had forced Van Dieman to restructure his plans. Had Wiley been more than mundanely oriented, he would have been a
dangerous
rival. But Wiley time was passing, as was the mundanely oriented world. Van Dieman's stars were in the ascendancy.

The proof was there to be seen. Van Dieman had made himself a powerful man. His own Clemsen Bioresearch was no small part of the Metadynamics family. He had good con., nections in the megacorporation and in the government, but was his other connections that had stood him in such good stead over the past year, and those connections would make his rise unstoppable. Opponents of Wiley's sort would
soon
be part of Van Dieman's past.

For the moment, however, Wiley still had the power to annoy. He separated Van Dieman from the herd as they left

the last session of Metadynamics's quarterly coordination briefing.

"I hear you're losing the top brains in your research branch, Darney, Thompson, and Trahn, all at once. Quite a blow." Wiley made a mock sympathetic noise. "Hard to recover from, especially with a budget cut ahead. I'd say you're looking at some hard knocks in the market, my friend."

Where had Wiley gotten that information? "Those transfers have not yet been announced."

Wiley smiled a knowing and thoroughly smug smile. "Word gets around. Too bad—for you, I mean. I know how hard you worked to build up that staff. I hear the market's already reacting. I even hear that there's a rumor about you looking for greener pastures elsewhere." Wiley's tone suggested that he found such a concept very satisfying on a personal level.

"No need to worry," he told Wiley. "I will be staying within the family. I've accepted the executive vice presidency at NSC."

Network Securities Corporation's mission encompassed operations for most of Metadynamics's North American-based companies, including Datapik. Van Dieman's new position did not cover Datapik. Yet. That would change.

"I'm sure we'll be seeing more of each other," he told Wiley. Smiling at the man's stunned surprise, Van Dieman left him behind.

Upon return to his office, Van Dieman ordered both his secretary and his secretarial agent to shield him from any intrusions. He settled at his desk, noting the fine, expensive furnishings of his office, the symbols of his mundane power. Such power offered great rewards, but he wished to contemplate a different sort of power, one that offered greater rewards. He blanked the window for privacy and cut off the hologram projector nestled among the shelves of his office's inner wall. The false image of a rare Guthrie bronze faded away, allowing his prize to emerge from hiding. He smiled to look upon it again.

The object was a sculpture of unknown substance depicting a coiled, wormlike entity. The room's lighting was bright enough that the object appeared nearly transparent. He ordered the lights dimmed, smiling as solidity returned to the vermicular object. His eyes ran along the coils as he considered the fortune that had smiled on him.

It had been easy to convince Fletcher to place the object in his care, by telling the Federal Security Agency bureau chief that it needed to be studied. Who better to do so than himself chief technical adviser to the FSA's top-secret Dark Glass program? No one among the agency's magicians could mulch Van Dieman's expertise, which was not surprising since half of them were charlatans. In its attempt to learn about and control the magic that was rising all around, the federal government had been less selective in recruiting for Dark Glass than it might have been, but even among the true magicians of Dark Glass, no one could offer a better chance of unraveling the object's secrets.

Of course, Van Dieman already understood some of those secrets; but his knowledge had come, not from study of the object, but from the cult of which he was a part. That cult, the Followers of the Glittering Path, understood what this object was for. They knew that it was what they had sought for more than a millennium: the Key. Not just any key, but
the
Key. The Key of the sacred texts, the Key to the Glittering Path. The key to power!

And who had a better claim to it than he? He had spent years learning the ancient ways and readying himself. When Quetzal, the Awaited One, he who had been called Quetzoucouatl, had come, Van Dieman had been ready to bask in his radiance. Van Dieman had exalted the Feathered Serpent and given him the honor due him. Quetzal had approved of Van Dieman's devotion and had seen his worth. Had not the Awaited One, from his own hand, given Van Dieman a taste of the glorious power that was the true follower's reward?

Quetzal had opened the way for him and set him on the path. When Van Dieman had received the sacrament fror~ Quetzal's hand, his mind had been opened to thoughts beyond the ken of the sheep around him. Awakened, he saw more clearly now. He understood Quetzal's role as the Lord of Change. Van Dieman's life was changed by his contact with the Awaited One, as it was to be. Now he knew his role, understood his place in the opening of the Way. He was Quetzal's chosen successor. Had he not received the sacrament from Quetzal's own hand? Who else could say that?

All was moving as the stars decreed. All was becoming as it was meant to be.

Before his sharing with Quetzal, Van Dieman had struggled to maintain his position at the sixth degree. Now the power came easier. Already he had passed the test and achieved fifth degree—as high as Ryota Nakaguchi had ever achieved—and he was ready for fourth. Magical power meant political power among the Followers of the Glittering Path, and political power within the secret cabal meant secret but potent influence in the mundane world—influence that Van Dieman had used to engineer his own promotion within Metadynamics, as Nakaguchi had done for himself within the Mitsutomo megacorporation. Van Dieman intended not simply to equal Nakaguchi's successes, but to exceed them.

Quetzal's awakening had been Nakaguchi's greatest success, but ultimately his downfall. There was no denying that the Awaited One had not been exactly what the followers had been expecting. The teacher and guide of whom they had dreamed had turned out to be a tyrant, shaking the foundations of the followers' beliefs. Like Van Dieman, Nakaguchi had chafed under their new master. The overshadowing of Nakaguchi's power among the followers had prompted him to act, in an attempt to contain the threat posed by Quetzal. It was a logical and necessary rebellion, but one launched too soon. The Followers of the Glittering Path had spent centuries honing patience as one of their most valuable tools, something Nakaguchi had forgotten. The gleam of the path shining through the gray dawn of this new age of magic had blinded Nakaguchi with its promise of power, and he had

led hastily. He had paid for his impatience.

But the followers had paid a price as well. Quetzal was gone now, and with him the opportunity to learn from the Awaited One. But from each loss a good businessman finds a way to gain.

With Quetzal's passing the followers had also lost the brilliant mind behind the plans Quetzal had set in motion. Their councils remained divided about what to do next. But there
were
clues in their holy books, in what Quetzal had ordered done in his brief time among them, and in the key that Quetzal had uncovered. Especially in the key. Van Dieman's eyes caressed the twisted sculpture. There were secrets in the subtle, sinuous curves of the key, secrets that he was teasing out. Already he knew that the Awaited One and the Strong One of the texts were not the same person. The Strong One who would arise and lead the faithful had not yet come to his power.

But he would.

Van Dieman's time was coming. Already his team of specialists, monitoring Quetzal's magical resonators, had observed patterns in their functions. The secrets were unfolding. The resonators were enhancers, lenses to concentrate the effects of mundane processes. One exaggerated effect was already clear at the strongest focal point. There, at the bottom of the world, the rate of ozone depletion in the upper atmosphere was increasing. It was a sign. The spreading of industrial decay, what the prophet Luciferius had railed the man-blight, was a major sign that the time of the Opening was soon to come. Soon harbingers would arrive, die heralds of the new age, and he, Anton Van Dieman, the Strong One, heir to the mantle of Quetzal, would be waiting to honor them and to receive their benisons and gifts of gratitude.

For Van Dieman, Nakaguchi's folly would become a blessing.

For Pamela Martinez, Nakaguchi's folly might become a blessing.

Or a curse.

The Quetzal incident had gained notice within the Keiretsu, especially when the fool Nakaguchi had managed to get himself killed by his resurrected monster. His actions had imperiled Pamela by exposing her secret Charybdis Project. No longer was she able to hide from her superiors her investigations into paranormal occurrences and the resurgence of magic. Nakaguchi would have a last use, however: she intended to lay all the improper secrecy at his door.

In his brief reign over the project, Nakaguchi had tumbled it into a shambles and perverted it from what Pamela had begun. She was still reassembling the pieces and trying to make sense of the chimera Nakaguchi had left her. Sheila Rearden, her best computer jockey, was still teasing her way into Nakaguchi's files, uncovering more and stranger data with every file she cracked. Already it was clear that Nakaguchi had made connections in occult circles that gave him access to information unknown to project researchers. Some of that information would be most useful in refocusing the project.

If she was allowed to continue.

There was still a chance. It had turned out that Nakaguchi had been acting on his own, without the knowledge or approval of Mitsutomo-sama. Pamela had used that fact to the fullest when her superiors had called for a full report on the Quetzal incident. She had been given an opportunity to distance herself from the disaster and she intended to take advantage of it.

The Mitsutomo board had assembled on the telenet to hear her report. Her strategy had been to cast Nakaguchi as a rogue and loose cannon responsible for the project's improprieties, while painting herself as the loyal company servant who sought to protect the Keiretsu's interests. She could not' conceal that she had been instrumental in the direction of the

charybdis Project, but Passerelli in Relations had helped her prepare her report, putting things in the best possible light, and Rearden had provided credible data trails involving directives from Nakaguchi in place of Pamela's own orders. She had made her presentation to the board, and now she could only hope that she had put the right spin on it.

Sitting and waiting in her office while the board considered her report made her feel as if she were waiting in a judgment dock; which, of course, she was, though her office was infinitely more comfortable. She still felt uneasy.

At last her wallscreen brightened as her node was relinked with the conference. A rank of subscreens showed a head-and shoulders shot of each of the board members. Each and every one of them held his or her expression impassive and Inscrutable.