Necalli leapt in. “You’re saying a whole band of separatists has been eliminated? Well, that’s marvellous. I need details. Is there some kind of proof? Where are the bodies?”
“No bodies.” Reston gave a hollow laugh. “Only dust. Proof? I suppose you could go looking for a dirty great hole that’s been blasted somewhere in the forest. I couldn’t begin to tell you where, but get an aircraft up there, go scouting around, you’re sure to find it.”
“And what was responsible for this ‘dirty great hole’?”
“A disc. Blown to smithereens. I watched it go up. I was there, right in the middle of it. Right in the middle of the explosion, and I just stood, wasn’t touched, safe as houses.”
“Yeah, right,” said Aaronson.
“Hmm,” said Necalli, thinking. “Now that might account for it.”
“For what?” said Mal.
“We got multiple reports yesterday — some sort of loud bang to the north of here, early in the morning. Like a single clap of thunder, only there were no storms in the region yesterday. People heard it in locations as much as fifty miles apart. We just assumed it was coincidence. Hunters in the forest, perhaps. A distant gunshot here, another one there, each fired at approximately the same time. Separate instances giving the false impression of being the same one. But if Reston’s telling the truth, it seems it could have been a single major event after all. A disc, you say? Whose disc?”
“Theirs,” said Reston. “Xibalba’s.”
“And why were they in possession of an aerodisc? What were they proposing to do with it?”
Before Reston could reply, there was a commotion in the corridor outside. Marching feet tramped briskly. Leather creaked and weaponry clattered. Then a brusque voice rang out.
“I’m looking for Stuart Reston. Which cell is he in?”
Next moment, a Serpent Warrior appeared in the doorway. He glanced in officiously. Two more Serpents came to a halt behind him.
“That him?” said the first, nodding at Reston. “Certainly looks like an Englishman to me.”
“Who are you?” Necalli challenged.
“Who does it fucking look like I am?” came the sharp retort. “I’m a Serpent Warrior, I’m personally answerable to the Great Speaker, and whoever you are and whatever post you hold in this pissant little police station of yours, I outrank you by at least one thousand. So shut up and answer my question.”
Mal could see Aaronson bracing himself to ask how someone was supposed to shut up and answer a question. A swift kick to the shin silenced him before he could speak. Now was not the moment for smart-arsery. There were few people who genuinely looked as if they shouldn’t be messed with, and this Serpent was one.
“I meant,” said Necalli, with tremendous self-restraint, “please identify yourself.” He added, “Sir,” almost having to cough the word out.
The Serpent Warrior entered the cell, ducking his snake-head helmet under the door lintel. “Not that I’m under any obligation to tell you, but my name is Colonel Tlanextic. The salient part of that sentence is ‘Colonel.’ As in, ‘Fuck you, I’m a fucking colonel.’”
He thrust his face close to Necalli’s, who, to his credit, didn’t bat an eyelid and didn’t back away.
“You need to justify why you’ve come barging in like this, Colonel Tlanextic,” Necalli said. “What are you after?”
“Again, it’s not your place to ask.”
“It is. This is my station and I’m the duty officer.”
“No,” said Tlanextic, “what you are is a nobody in a nowhere town who’s talking to someone to whom you’re about as important as a smear of dog shit on the sole of his boot. Your lips are moving, but all I can hear coming out is a sound like a fart, and not even a loud one, just one of those hissy, squeaky ones that you sneak out between your arse cheeks on the bus and the passenger sitting beside you doesn’t even notice because it’s one of those farts that doesn’t even have the decency to stink, it’s not a manly fart, it’s an effeminate fart, a five-year-old girl’s fart. I can stand here and you can tell me whatever the hell you like about yourself and I won’t pay a blind bit of attention because, have I mentioned this already? I. Am. A. Fucking. Serpent. Warrior. Colonel.”
“All right,” Necalli said, “you’ve made your point.”
Tlanextic turned to his two colleagues. “Lieutenants? Either of you hear anything?” They shrugged, their faces deadpan but their eyes smirking. “Because I know I didn’t. Nope, definitely didn’t hear a thing. Perhaps a cockroach just scuttled past, I’m not sure.”
Necalli sighed. “Just tell me what you want.”
Tlanextic feigned a look of apology. “No, sorry, still getting nothing. Could be I’m going deaf. However, in the event that someone of the lowly stature of an earthworm’s sphincter is talking to me, what I want is that Englishman over there, and I’m taking him. Where, why, or what fucking for, is none of your business. All you have to do is hand him over, say, ‘You’re welcome,’ and then say, ‘Is there anything else I can do for you, Colonel Tlanextic?’ At which point I’ll say, ‘No,’ and then I’ll say, ‘Oh wait. There is one thing. You can shove your head right up your own rectum.’ And you’ll reply, ‘Of course, sir, and how far up would you like it to go? Colon? Ileum? Duodenum?’ And I’ll say, ‘I honestly don’t mind, as long as you’re wearing that stupid pointy-eared pussycat helmet while you’re doing it.’”
Necalli seemed to be visibly swelling up, as though outrage was a physical force inside him, an increase in air pressure. Mal watched him struggle to contain it. Necalli understood, as she did, that men like Tlanextic could not be argued with or resisted. They could only be endured.
“Have him, then,” he said, with a pathetic, hapless gesture in Reston’s direction.
“Yes, your permission wasn’t required,” said Tlanextic. “It wasn’t even being sought. Boys?”
The two Serpent lieutenants elbowed their way into the cell, forcing Mal, Aaronson and Necalli to huddle up against the far wall. One of them unclipped a stun gun from his belt. He flipped a switch, the stun gun whined, and before Reston could move or resist he placed it against his neck and depressed the trigger. There was a sharp crackle of electricity, and Reston’s entire body went slack. The two lieutenants hoisted his limp form between them and dragged him out into the corridor by the armpits.
“You’re too kind,” Tlanextic said to Necalli, then saluted him with sneering condescension and followed his men out.
It was seeing Reston actually being removed from her sight that spurred Mal to action. Up until then she’d understood what was going on, but been unable to process it. All at once she grasped that her quarry was being taken from her. Once again. For a third fucking time.
That was an insult that could not be borne. An affront too far. Nobody deserved to have Stuart Reston except her. Not even a high-and-mighty Serpent. Reston belonged to her by every moral right there was. Her future, her career, her self-respect, everything hinged on her carting the Conquistador back to London and depositing him at the commissioner’s feet. Colonel Tlanextic, overbearing megabastard though he was, was not depriving her of what was probably her one and only shot at redemption.
She propelled herself out of the cell, barging Necalli and Aaronson aside. In the corridor she grabbed hold of Tlanextic just below the armlet that bore the five-circles symbol denoting his rank. He stopped in his tracks but didn’t deign to turn.
“Whoever’s hand that is, they’d better remove it by the count of three,” he said, “or be prepared to lose it. One. Two.”
“Give him back.”
“Three.”
He swung round. Mal let go. “Colonel, please. I’ve come five and a half thousand miles for that man. I know this isn’t my jurisdiction, but he’s a British citizen, a British criminal, and I’m a British Jaguar. He’s mine.”
Slowly, patiently, Tlanextic said, “Listen, dear. That was a very brave thing you just did, grabbing me. Well done. You should be proud of yourself. Not many would have had the nerve. But let’s leave it there, eh? You do not want to take this any further. Quit while you’re ahead.”
“No,” Mal said, terrified by her own boldness. “Give him back. He’s not yours to take.”
A flicker of amusement passed across Tlanextic’s face. Then his eyes hardened, his mouth twisted, and next thing Mal knew, something struck her with sledgehammer force and she was down on the floor, her ears ringing, pain lancing down her jaw and up through her skull.
