Christopher Brookmyre Read Online Free PDF Page A

to be out in the snow? How far is this place?'
    'It's about five miles,' Nuno told him.
    'Just get the fleeces on, Somboon,' Bett instructed. 'And if you're still cold, I've got another layer for you here.'
    Bett kicked a fibreglass trunk forward across the floor of the truck and flipped open its lid. Kevlar vests. For all the protection they offered, they were nonetheless seldom a reassuring sight.
    'Body armour?' Som asked. 'I thought this place was all about non-lethal enforcement technology.'
    'If it was a bakery, would you expect the guards to be armed only with custard pies?' Bett asked, with what passed in his case for good humour. 'The parent company also develops laser-guided missiles, so you'll be pleased to know the security personnel are issued with standard Beretta nine-millimetre handguns and none of Industries Phobos' hallmarked product.'
    'Don't suppose there's any Kevlar balaclavas in there?' Lex ventured. 'These vests aren't so effective if you get shot in the face.'
    'I'll be extremely surprised if any of these people manage to get a single shot off against us,' Bett stated with absolute certainty.
    'If it's all the same to you, sir, would you mind if I borrowed Rebekah's crash helmet?' Lex said, only half joking.
    'You can't,' Nuno told her. 'It would get in the way of your night-sight.'
    Night-sights. Of course. One of the reasons - though far from the main one - why Bett was so confident of not getting shot at.
    'I eat lots of carrots,' she protested. 'I'd prefer the helmet.'
    Nuno threw her a pair of fleece trousers and a top, both black. 'Get dressed, Lex,' he said.
    Once everyone was suited and bullet-proofed, Bett reached for one of the cases he'd brought from Aix. He handed everyone a pistol and two mags. They each slapped one clip into the breech and the spare to their utility harness. It didn't look like a lot of ammo.
    'Will this be enough?' Rebekah asked.
    'Not if you miss,' Bett replied. 'And on that note, let me just stress that I don't want any of you staying your trigger hand with thoughts of the poor guard's wife and kids tragically impoverished at Christmas. We've got a job to do and so have they. The one who does it best doesn't need to worry about his or her conscience.'
    Lex checked the action on her weapon. She didn't need this particular pep talk. These guys were packing Beretta nine-mills: that was all the encouragement her trigger hand needed. Som distributed earpieces and Pin-Mics that attached snugly and nearly invisibly to the inside of their fleece collars. You pressed down on them to transmit, which was a big improvement on those goddamn sub-vocal things that broadcast every last unwitting word you happened to utter. Once they were fitted, Nuno began handing out night-sights. Gadget-geek Som almost bit off Nuno's hand to get his first.
    'These the new LS-24s?' he asked excitedly.
    ' Si. '
    'I don't see what's to get excited about,' Lex said. 'Everything looks like green shadows and white blobs through these things anyway.'
    'These have a built-in laser range-finder,' Som told her, his enthusiasm undiminished by her failure to share it.
    'What's a range-finder?' she asked.
    'It tells you the distance to the object you're looking at,' Som explained.
    'Lets you know whether the white blob you can see is a tree half a mile away or a boulder ten feet away.'
    'Long as the white blob's not a guy holding a gun, what does it matter?'
    'It'll matter when you're approaching the boulder on a snow-bike at a hundred kilometres per hour,' Nuno stated.
    'We've got snowbikes?' asked Som, who really was going to regret the moisture retention properties of his cotton underwear if his excitement level got any higher.
    'MX Z-REVs. What do you think I needed such a big truck for?'
    ' Too cool.'
    The new toys were dragged from within the lorry on pallets and slid carefully down the ramp on to the snow. They looked state-of-the-art and expensive, the way Bett liked it. Basic instruction was given,