Finding Jericho

Prologue
The night was as hot as hell's own kitchen and I knew the moment Arthur Wayland twitched into my office it was about to get much warmer.

He was every bit as jittery as his shadow behind the glass door had advertised. When I asked him to sit he collapsed into the old canvas chair like a fat sack of cement dropped from a scaffold.

We sat silently for a few seconds, me sizing him up, him eyeing me up. Sweat seemed to be oozing from his every crevice. Yellow blobs of the stuff kept erupting on his bald head before trickling down his fat grey face. It was disgusting, but also kinda relaxing. Like being sat opposite a human Zen garden.

I waited for him to speak. It was my office and he was here for my help.
"Er, Miss Lurlaine, I, er," he spoke slower than his sweat ran and, unlike his outpourings, was going nowhere.
"Wayland, the only people who call me Miss are cops and my priest, and I don't see donuts or a dog collar. The name's Honeytrap and get used to it, you'll be seeing it on your bill."

I watched a slick of pink wash over his face. My name had that effect on men, but that's what you get when you've got mother whose line work meant she was familiar with just about every ceiling in town.

I leaned forward and watched Wayland struggle not to look down my top.

"Silence is a billable commodity in this business, so I suggest you start working those mouth parts and taking this meeting to somewhere a hell of a lot more interesting."

Truthfully, I already knew what the fat Tom was going say. I just needed the details and to work out if Wayland would pay or stiff me when the job was done.

He shoved a chubby finger into the space between his collar and neck, ran it from one side to the other past his Adam's apple and wiped what he'd collected on his crumpled trouser leg. I pushed my coffee to the side of my desk. I really didn't want it any more.

"It's my business partner," his voice quivered more than his belly fat. "He's come into possession of a certain item that, ah, could cause me a deal of, um, embarrassment were it to enter the public domain."

Bang, gotcha. Blackmail. I knew it before he even waddled into the room.

"And you'd like me to recover this item for you?"

"Yes and I understand you provide certain other services as well?"

Now it was my turn to feel the heat. This was an easy game to lose and it was my turn to show my cards.
"It's true that, in exceptional circumstances I can facilitate client needs that aren't covered by my competitors. Naturally, there is an additional fee."

His piggy little eyes lit up straight away. I knew what he was thinking. Suddenly there was an 'in' for him, a tiny slice of salvation.

Time to send him down a couple of floors.

"So, in addition to recovering this item, you'd like me to ace your partner as part of the deal?"
He nodded hungrily, chin slipping in and out of the rolls of flesh around his neck.

"That bastard's had it coming for years. Hah! He thinks he can take the business from me that easily. I'll show him I'm the ruthless one. He'll pay, oh boy will he pay."

''And so will you, Wayland. This kind of work doesn't come cheap."

''I'll pay whatever it takes to show him once and for all that you don't screw with Arthur Wayland."

It took all my self control not to comment that I doubted if even Mrs Wayland would want to screw with Arthur.

"I'll need five big ones up front and another twenty when the job's done. If you want rid of the body, well, that'll be extra."

I have to give the man credit, he didn't bat an eyelid. In fact, he looked even more like a kid on Christmas Day. Admittedly a stunningly ugly kid who needs to cut out the cake and hit the track once in a while, but a kid nonetheless.

He clasped his hands together and said, "Tell me what you'll do to him."

Now this was starting to feel creepy. He was giving me the kind of look you get from men who have a night off from their brighter halves and are keen to make the most of it.

I sure as Shirley wasn't going to give him his kicks.

"I take it you've got something special in mind.

He laughed, well, giggled. It was a strange sound, girlish, like he'd swallowed a toddler.

"You're the expert, I don't want to tell you how to do your job. But I want that slime punished. I want him to suffer, to feel pain. Nothing quick. No fast way out. Lord no. I need him to regret ever trying to piss higher than me. And right at the end," he giggled again, "Just before it's lights out, I want you to tell him who did this to him. I want the last thing he thinks of to be me. He'll die knowing I won and no matter how smart he thought he was he couldn't beat me."

He emphasized the last point by jabbing a stubby thumb into his chest.

It was pathetic. Wayland was a big man in the wrong kind of way who was crossing a line he could never go back over.

"And what is it you want back?"

He shrugged those great shoulders and I realized that it didn't matter to him as much as the death of his partner.

"Ah, you know, a picture. Me and some dame I picked up while the wife was off visiting her mother. It'll be in his desk in the study. The idiot puts everything in there." He waved his hand dismissively. "But what does it matter once he's been done, eh?"

"Everything. When the police find that picture they find motive and they find you. When they find you they find me and I'm sank. That isn't going to happen because I will do anything, and I mean anything Wayland, to safeguard my liberty."

That snatched the wind from his sails, although he was cruising nicely to back to port regardless.

"Yeah. I suppose. But that's why I've come to you. You're good, you know?"

Of course I knew I was good. I also knew that fat sack of crap had no idea what I was like and was lying through his yellow teeth.

What the heck. We were almost through and it looked like I'd be out of here early for a cold one at Harry's bar.

"So, one more time, Wayland, because I need to be sure that you're sure you want to do this."

He nodded eagerly again.

"You're hacked off at your partner because he's got some photo of you with a woman who, no, I won't judge her, was in your company. Because of this you want me to whack this guy, get rid of your potential divorce and collect five gees?"

"In one babe," he said with a wink.

I disliked the guy when he was nervous, he was a dozen times worse with confidence.

"OK. It's a deal. Call me tomorrow with the details and we'll get this over with."

He offered me a pale sticky hand as he hauled himself out of the chair.

"I don't think so, Wayland."

He left my office whistling something so out of key I might as well have been deaf for all the chance I had of recognizing it. One thing was for sure, he really believed all his problems had been sorted.

Dumb bastard.

In truth most cases can be solved by employing the fine art of sitting on one's butt. This was no exception. I had one satisfied client, but there was another, more important one waiting. I pulled open the desk drawer, removed the tape machine. Underneath was a photo of Leila. I quickly closed it again, grabbed the phone and dialed up Wayland's wife.

She answered on the second ring with a nervous 'hello'.

"Good news. I have the lot so you'd better break out your check book." I could almost sense her relief.

"That's right, so there's motive and incitement," I continued. She launched an understandable volley of thanks before I cut her short.

''Don't worry, the hard piece is done. Expect a call from the cops tomorrow chasing a statement and line-up your divorce lawyer.

"No, I assure you prompt payment is thanks enough. Goodnight, Mrs. WayIand."

I still had time to drop the machine off with Detective Wilson at the 34th Precinct and catch a frosty one, maybe even get him to pay for it. After all, Wayland had coughed more than enough to earn a term for incitement alone, and probably deserved it too.

I tucked the unit, one of those new-fangled ‘portable’ reel-to-reel things, under my arm and switched out the lights. Less than an hour from start to finish. Just as well seeing the job was so cheap it was practically pro bono.

Still, what did you expect? I am, after all, one of the good guys.

• Bushbuddy Ultra
• G Z55
• Montane Kinetic windshirt
• Waterproof stuff sacks
• A new Titan pot
• Montane Superfly XT (for later in the year)
• Montane Atomic waterproofs

Prologue

An explosive beginning

A razor-sharp breeze whipped through farmer Gill’s field, doubling over the corn stalks and zoning in on the only human in sight.

Spike Sloman turned up the collar of his parker and went back to peering through the eyepiece of his telescope. Pressing his eye against it, he saw a light he knew straight away was another planet. Although at that moment it looked like a bright fuzzy blob that slowly floating across the telescope's field of view.

He slowly twiddled the focus knob and the blob grew larger and fuzzier.

Twiddle.

The blob shrank and the image sharpened.

Twiddle twiddle.

The image sharpened further and the blob became a disc about the size of a marble held at arm's length. At least it had looked that way as it rapidly drifted out of view again. Spike gently nudged the scope's tube, trying to pin the planet down.

The troublesome breeze that had seemed intent on wobbling his telescope suddenly died. Things were looking up.

Swivel. Twiddle. Swivel.

And there it was. The fifth planet in the solar system. A startlingly bright speck of light that outshone every star.

Spike fancied he could make out a few dark lines crossing the disc. These would be cloudbelts. And the white dots on either side would be two of Jupiter's moons. Tonight, according to his Young Explorer's star chart, he was looking at Io and Europa.

He let out a quiet 'yessss'. This was the third night in a row he had been out with the telescope, which had been a present for his twelfth birthday, and it was the first time he had seen anything worth telling anyone about. He wondered if he should go get his dad and show him. He turned around and looked towards the pub where he lived.

In fact, as fate would have it, he turned round just in time to see it explode.

 

Spike Sloman never thought he’d be a hero he'd always dreamed of becoming, until the moment ten-tons of raging trans-dimensional battle suit carved its way through his parent’s pub.

 

Armed only with an extensive knowledge of comic books and the ability to recite chunks of Star Wars dialogue verbatim, he and his friends are all that stands between an army of war-hungry Victorians and their conquest of 21st Century Earth. What he lacks in super powers and a slim waistline, is more than made up for by a 12-year-old’s ability to do exactly what adults least expect.

 

Spike and his friends, Jude and Singh, investigate the battle suit that’s now standing dormant in a field opposite the remains of his home. Spike can’t understand why he’s the only one who can see it. He doesn’t get long to argue his point with the others, as the world begins to writhe around them, the last thing he sees is a view of the monstrous machine stood amongst the cornstalks.

 

Transported to parallel version of London, Spike discovers a world that has been shattered by war. Only the great city survives, locked in the 19th century and stuffed full of people desperate to escape. Their Prime Minister, Angela Soames, has found the way out by using dimension hopping technology invented by a descendent of Isaac Newton and matter from the other Earth in the shape of Spike. He’s not best pleased, as this will result in him being transformed into multi-dimensional mincemeat.

 

Aided by his friends along with the world’s only octogenarian feminist pirate and an 18-stone Armenian pro-wrestler turned au pair, Spike escapes from Soames’ clutches and sets out to strike at the heart of her operation.

 

Their well crafted plan rapidly falls apart when they are betrayed by one of their allies. While Jude and Singh manage to escape, Spike ends up as Soames's prisoner. With her army of virtually indestructible battle suits ready to invade Spike’s world it seems as though nothing can stop her.

 

The prognosis is bleak, not to mention short, As the gate begins to open and Spike feels himself beginning to slip away. Only a last-ditch rescue by Singh and Jude frees him, but not before Soames manages to open a small gateway between the two worlds. While not big enough to send her army through, it is big enough for her plan B - unleashing a deadly plague on Spike’s world. If she can’t have war, she’s happy to settle for mass-murder instead.

 

In a desperate attempt to stop her, Spike steals one of the battle suits and makes it to the gateway to confront Soames, almost losing his life in the process. Using his connection to the gateway, he transports her to a random place in space-time, destroying the virus and ensuring that his world’s safe form invasion.

 

With the battle over, Spike realises that it’s not heat-vision or super strength that makes a hero. It’s determination, fool-hardy charges into life threatening situations and a big slice of luck.