“Hey, you,” he said.
The man looked up and took another drag. “Sí, señor.”
“That’s a bad habit, which is why no one has done it for five centuries. Govcentral even refused an export licence for nicotine DNA.”
A sly, sulky smile. “After my time, señor.”
“What’s your name?”
“Santiago Vargas.”
“Lying little bastard,” Cathal Fitzgerald said. “We ran an ident check. He’s Hank Doyle, distribution supervisor for Moyce’s.”
“Interesting,” Ralph said. “Skibbow claimed to be someone else when he was caught: Kingsford Garrigan. Is that what the virus is programmed to do?”
“Don’t know, señor. Don’t know any virus.”
“Where does it come from? Where do you come from?”
“Me, señor? I come from Barcelona. A beautiful city. I show you around sometime. I lived there many years. Some happy years, and some with my wife. I died there.”
The cigarette glow lit up watery eyes which watched Ralph shrewdly.
“You died there?”
“Sí, señor.”
“This is bullshit. We need information, and fast. What’s the maximum range of that white fire weapon?”
“Don’t know, señor.”
“Then I suggest you run a quick memory check,” Ralph said coldly. “Because you’re no use to me otherwise. It’ll be straight into zero-tau with you.”
Santiago Vargas stubbed his cigarette out on the grass. “You want me to see how far I can throw it for you?”
“Sure.”
“Okay.” He climbed to his feet with indolent slowness.
Ralph gestured out over the deserted reaches of the park. Santiago Vargas closed his eyes and extended his arm. His hand blazed with light, and a bolt of white fire sizzled away. It streaked over the grass flinging out a multitude of tiny sparks as it went. At a hundred metres it started to expand and dim, slowing down. At a hundred and twenty metres it was a tenuous luminescent haze. It never reached a hundred and thirty metres, evaporating in midair.
Santiago Vargas wore a happy smile. “All right! Pretty good, eh, señor? I practice, I maybe get better.”
“Believe me, you won’t have the opportunity,” Ralph told him.
“Okay.” He seemed unconcerned.
“How do you generate it?”
“Don’t know, señor. I just think about it, and it happens.”
“Then let’s try another tack. Why do you fire it?”
“I don’t. That was the first time.”
“Your friends didn’t have any of your inhibitions.”
“No.”
“So why didn’t you join them? Why didn’t you fight us?”
“I have no quarrel with you, señor. It is the ones with passion , they fight your soldiers. They bring back many more souls so they can be strong together.”
“They’ve infected others?”
“Sí.”
“How many?”
Santiago Vargas offered up his hands, palms upwards. “I don’t think anyone in the shop escaped possession. Sorry, señor.”
“Shit.” Ralph glanced back at the burning building, just in time to see another section of roof collapse. “Landon?” he datavised. “We’ll need a full list of staff on the nighttime shift. How many there were. Where they live.”
“Coming up,” the commissioner replied.
“How many of the infected left before we arrived?” he asked Santiago Vargas.
“Not sure, señor. There were many trucks.”
“They left on the delivery lorries?”
“Sí. They sit in the back. You don’t have no driver’s seat these days. All mechanical. Very clever.”
Ralph stared in dismay at the sullen man.
“We’ve been concentrating on stopping passenger vehicles,” Diana Tiernan datavised. “Cargo traffic was only a secondary concern.”
“Oh, Christ, if they got on to the motorways they could be halfway across the continent by now,” Ralph said.
“I’ll reassign the AI vehicle search priority now.”
“If you find any of Moyce’s lorries that are still moving, target them with the SD platforms. We don’t have any other choice.”
“I agree,” Admiral Farquar datavised.
“Ralph, ask him which of the embassy pair was in Moyce’s, please,” Roche Skark datavised.