Jake shook his head, looked bewildered, said: 'Come again? Didn't you get something backwards just then? Surely you meant there it has me!'
But Goodly was weary of this now. 'As you will,' he answered. And, pursing his thin lips, he turned away.
Jake saw his mistake, didn't want to alienate someone who obviously gave a damn, and quickly said, 'Listen, I appreciate everything you've told me. I'm not trying to mess you about — none of you — but looking for a little firm ground, somewhere I can safely plant my feet. The way I'm feeling, every step is like quicksand. And what you just said doesn't help any. What, I'm supposed to be happy with the notion of this Harry working his will through me, if not actually on me? Well, that's probably fine by you E-Branch people, all nice and safe in your own talented little skulls, but—'
'But… there's no safe place in E-Branch, Jake,' the precog cut him short, glancing back over his shoulder. 'However, I did say you would be around for quite some time. Which with the Necroscope — or something of him — on your side, seems a very fair forecast to me.'
'But a ghost?'
'There are ghosts and ghosts/ the other answered, walking away.
'But he's dead, for Christ's sake!' Made meaningless now, through repetition, still Jake's exclamation exploded from his dry lips. 'And not just a ghost — not just any old spook — but one who has access to my mind!'
'In E-Branch/ Goodly told him, without looking back, we do believe in ghosts, especially in the ghost of Harry Keogh. We have every good reason to. But that's something you don't have to take my word for, Jake. You see, I'm sure that before very long you 11 believe in them, too. I, Mr lan bloody Goodly, precog, am very sure of it, yes..
CHAPTER SIXTEEN A Meeting Of Minds
Jake was in Chopper one with Trask, Liz, Goodly, Lardis, and a pair of technicians, Jimmy Harvey and Paul Arenson. Their next stop was Alice Springs (a 'mere' eight hundred miles east) for refuelling. Chopper two needed an hour's maintenance and would follow on behind. As for the vehicular contingent:
'They're heading south for Kalgoorlie,' Paul Arenson, a gangling, blue-eyed blond of maybe thirty-three years was telling his younger colleague. 'From there they'll go piggyback on a freight train to Broken Hill, then back on the road again to Brisbane. All except the big artic. It has to be the Great Aussie Bight coast road for the big feller. I calculate something like two thousand three hundred miles all told. We'll be home and dry in less than five hours; that's taking it easy, including a stop to stretch our legs at Alice. But as for the lads in the big truck… just be glad you're not one of them. Five hours for us, and three or four days for them!'
The conversation buzzed in Jake's head, singing with the vibration of the jetcopter. The airplane was safe and stable, but with its paramilitary design it hadn't been built for comfort. Jake sat on the floor in the narrow stowage area towards the tail, where there were no seats. Half-reclining, his large, angular frame was cushioned by holdalls, sausage-bags, and various packs of personal belongings, some hard and some soft; it wasn't his idea of luxury. But tired, and even hoping to get a little sleep, he repositioned himself as best he could and let the aircraft's singing soak into him.
The 'tune' was much too regular for a lullaby, and snatches of muted conversation kept drifting back to him, monotone lyrics that didn't fit the music but clung like cobwebs to his thoroughly weary mind. Cocooned in this odd mix of white noise and blurred babble, gradually Jake felt himself nodding off.
Liz Merrick was loosely belted into the rearmost of the seats, a gunner's swivelling bucket-seat between wide sliding doors on both sides. Her long legs were up, flopping over the gunner's arm rests; the gun itself slumped nose-down, strapped in position. Glinting a dull blue-grey, and despite its proximity to Liz's lovely body, the weapon looked sullenly impotent. But the picture Jake kept in his mind as he drifted into sleep was that of a naked Liz with the gun between her legs…
… But then he was asleep, and he was the gun between her legs! And — damn it to hell! — he wasn't fucking Liz but was facing xwsy from her out of the door. And she wasn't trying to ride him but was firing him… her arms round his waist, with one hand massaging his balls while the other, working his rampant dick, shot burst after burst of silvery, smoking semen at nightmarish vampire shapes that flapped in the chopper's slipstream, snarling their bloodlust as they fought to get inside the plane, to get at Liz, Trask, Goodly and the others!
Barely asleep, Jake jerked awake. Liz was staring at him, her cheeks flaming, mouth half-open, eyes wide. And Jake didn't need a degree in psychiatry — or in parapsychology — to understand what had happened here. Whether as a deliberate voyeur or an innocent observer, Liz had been in his mind. She'd seen that last scene. And as for what it meant: that was his fear surfacing, his ongoing suspicion that Ben Trask was simply using him, now complicated by the notion that Trask was also using her as some kind of bait — like a carrot for a donkey? — to keep him happy as he plodded on. He could be right at that, or he could be wrong. But if Liz were the carrot, then what did Trask have in mind for the stick? Everything remained to be seen.
'I… I…' Liz mouthed words at him — mouthed them, but nothing came out — as she quickly, selfconsciously, ashamedly slid her jean-clad legs from the gunner's arm rests and sat up straighter in the bucket-seat. And:
Serves you fucking right! Jake snapped back, but silently, in his head. And he knew he'd reached her from the way her head jerked. And now keep the fuck out!
Following which, as his anger cooled, it took some time to get back to sleep…
Snatches of conversation drifting back to him. But in his ears or in his had? Perhaps he was still on Liz's mind, and unsuspected even by the girl herself where she sat in her bucket-seat midway between Jake in stowage and the others in their seats up front, she had become some kind of mental relay station. For in the few days she had known him Liz had established something of a rapport with Jake; it was possible that the sending technique she had used to taunt Bruce Trennier had 'fixed' itself and was now developing more rapidly in her special mind. Maybe this was simply her way of making amends: by letting Jake in on the conversation. The conversation about him. Or was it something, or some one, else entirely?
Trask's hushed voice, asking: 'But why him?' Lardis Lidesci: 'Does the why of it really matter? If Jake has been chosen, he's been chosen.'
And lan Goodly: 'There are certain similarities. Maybe we shouldn't overlook them. I'm sure mental characteristics — how Jake thinks — are more important than the purely physical way he looks. When we look at him we don't see Harry, that's true, but the Necroscope was a hard act to follow. Perhaps we should give more thought as to how Harry sees him. And there are similarities.' Trask: 'Go on.'
Goodly: 'For one thing, they both lost loved ones. Both of them drowned, murdered, too.'
Trask: 'Granted, but that's where it ends. And as for losing a loved one, murdered, you could say the same about me. But where is Harry's humility? Where's his compassion, his warmth? This Jake… he's abrasive, a roughneck, spoiled and wild.'
Goodly: 'A roughneck? But in the right circumstances that would be — and it already has been — a positive bonus. A rough diamond, maybe. Surely the Necroscope would know better than to choose a weakling for a job like this?'
Trask: 'But a hard man? A killer, even if he does have his reasons?'
Lardis: 'Me, I say they were good reasons. I like him! And I say it again, if he's Harry Hell-Lander's choice, that's good enough for me.'
Trask: 'And me… well, within limits. So don't misunderstand me — I'm not arguing the Necroscope's choice — it's just that I don't understand it. I have this feeling that Jake's not only fighting us but fighting Harry, too.'
Goodly: 'Oh, he is, be sure of it! But aside from his manners and tendency to aggression, there are similarities.'
Trask, dubiously: 'More similarities?'
Goodly: 'Indeed. For Harry believed in revenge, too. Don't you remember? An eye for an eye? He was just a boy when he went after Boris Dragosani. If like attracts like — mentally speaking, that is — then I can well see how
