Provender Gleed by James Lovegrove Page B

large a bribe it must have taken to convince a trained security professional to abandon his post on a bogus pretext and, in so doing, jeopardise his entire career. All Damien had said was that it was a lot of money. He had also said that they had to be through the gate before the security man returned. If they were still there when he came back from his wild-goose chase, he would have no alternative but to challenge them. The elasticity of the man's conscience stretched only so far.
    Is ventured into the guardhouse and quickly located the gate-operating mechanism, a wall-mounted control panel with two buttons on it, one with arrows pointing together, the other with arrows pointing apart. She punched the latter, and with a deep, heavy clank the gate unlocked itself. Its leaves swung ponderously apart and Damien steered the Dragon Wind through.
    As Is got ready to hit the button that closed the gate, she thought she heard the thump of footfalls. Her breath caught in her throat. She leaned out of the guardhouse and scanned the darkened woods, her eyes panic-wide, expecting to see the security man come lumbering out from among the trees, sidearm drawn.
    Not religious, she nevertheless sent up a small prayer. Please, God, no .
    Then she heard the thumps again and realised it was the firework display. Three miles distant, a series of rockets detonated and then crackled like splintering tinder.
    Slamming the gate-closing button, Is sprinted out of the guardhouse, darted through the narrowing gap between the gate leaves, ran to the car and jumped in. 'Go.'
    Damien, seeing how spooked she was, smirked. 'We were fine, you know. Five minutes to spare.'
    'I don't care. Fucking drive!'
    It wasn't until they were a mile down the road that Is was able to draw a steady breath again. She vowed never to put herself through anything like that again. Ever.
    'That stuff you injected Provender with,' Damien said as he negotiated a junction that took them off the lane that ran alongside the perimeter of Dashlands and onto another lane. 'The comatose thingy...'
    'Comaphase.'
    'Thank you. How long's it supposed to last for, again?'
    'It was fifteen migs. Should keep him down for three quarters of an hour.'
    Damien checked the dashboard clock. 'Right, so in about twenty minutes, we find a lay-by, pull over and give him a second dose.'
    'If we have to. But he'll probably stay groggy even after he's come round. His head'll be fuzzy and he won't know what's going on. It's best not to give him two shots in a row if we don't have to. He might not react well.'
    'It's twenty miles to London. Half an hour at least.'
    'Let's risk it, Damien. Honestly, even if he wakes up, he'll be in a stupor. He won't be shouting for help or trying to escape or anything.'
    Damien remained unconvinced, but nodded. 'OK, if you say so. But we hear the slightest funny noise from back there, anything at all, we stop and jab him. Agreed?'
    'Agreed.'
    'So load up your hypodermic just in case.'
    She did, steadying herself against the car's rocking as she drew off a further 15 milligrams of the sedative from the ampoule which she had raided from the hospital supply closet and smuggled out of the building in her pocket. She flicked the syringe to raise the air bubbles, then depressed the plunger till a bead of clear fluid welled at the needle's tip. The needle, she noticed, was still smeared with Provender's blood.
    Family blood.
    When you looked at it, it was just blood, no different from anybody else's, same colour, same consistency. But to a Family it was everything. In what it represented, it was immeasurably precious.
    For the first time, Is had an inkling that what Damien had in mind for Provender, the rest of his plan, was feasible. She hadn't dared believe this before. It had seemed dangerous to hope for so much. But the blood on the needle offered a kind of symbolic assurance. It said the Gleeds needed Provender returned to them. They would give anything, pay anything, accede