Night Moves Read Free Page B

his estate in Sussex, but that scientist fellow of his, Peter Bascombcoombs, was arriving for dinner at half-nine, so there was no help for it. Given the traffic, Goswell would be lucky to make it in time as it was. He folded the financial section and put it next to his gin and tonic, picked up the drink, and took a large sip. Ah. He put the glass down. A moment later, unbidden, Paddington appeared. "Milord?"
"Yes, have Stephens bring the car round, will you?" "Of course, milord. Some tea and sandwiches for the trip?" "No, I have a dinner when we get to the country." He waved one hand in airy dismissal. Paddington left to find the chauffeur. Goswell stood, pulled his watch from his vest pocket, and checked its time against the club's clock.
Harry looked up from his paper again.

"Off, are we?"
"Yes, a meeting with my scientist at the country house." "Scientists." Harry delivered the word in the same way he would have said "thieves" or "whores." He shook his head.
"Well. Cheerio, then. By the way, have you cut down that bloody yew behind the greenhouse yet?" "Certainly not. I expect to nourish its roots with you any time now." Harry gave a wheezy smoker's laugh.
"I'll dance on your grave, you young upstart. And warm my hands from that bloody yew as it burns merrily in my fireplace, too."
The two men smiled. It was an old joke. Yews were often planted in graveyards and, because they seemed to always grow largest in such locations, it was thought that the minerals from the decomposing bodies were good for the plants' roots. The big yew behind the greenhouse on Goswell's estate was eighty-five feet tall, if it was an inch, and probably four hundred years old. He had been threatening to feed Harry to it for years.
He glanced at his watch. A minute or so fast, but close enough. The watch was a gold Waltham, of no great value, but it had belonged to his Uncle Patrick, who had died during the Blitz, and it had come to him as a lad.
He had better timepieces that ran dead-on, Rolexes and Carriers and a couple of the handmade Swiss things that cost as much as a new car. The Waltham was a simple machine. It did not offer the date nor the market news nor could it be held to one's ear and used as a telephone. It was no more than a watch, and he rather liked that. He slipped the Waltham back into his vest pocket and started for the exit. By the time he reached the street, Stephens would have the '54 Bentley waiting. He preferred the Bentley to the Rolls, as well. It was basically the same automobile, without that ostentatious grill, and being ostentatious was not something a gentleman did, now was it?
He would listen to the BBC news on the way out of the city. See if the wogs in India and Pakistan had started shooting at each other over that little ... entertainment he had arranged. That would be lovely, if they would just bomb each other back to the time of the Raj, and the Empire had to come back and bring them along to civilization again.
There would be justice, wouldn't it?
Friday, April 1stSomewhere in the British Raj, India Jay Gridley rode the net, master of all he surveyed. Right at the moment, he was in a VR--virtual reality--scenario he had designed especially for this new assignment Alex Michaels had called him about. In RW--the real world--he sat at his computer console inside Net Force HQ in Quantico, Virginia, his eyes and ears covered with input sensors, his hands and chest wired so that his smallest movements could be turned into control pulses. But in VR, Jay wore a pith helmet, khaki shorts, and a starched khaki shirt, along with knee socks, stout walking shoes, and a

Webley Mark III .38 revolver strapped around his waist. He sat upon the back of an Indian elephant,
inside a howdah, next to the local rajah. Overhead, the afternoon sun broiled everything it saw, smiting men and beasts and vegetation alike with withering heat. Ahead of them, brown-skinned natives in loincloths beat upon metal plates with sticks, rattled