Spook Country by William Gibson

imagine. One rather deep irony, I suppose, is that this program, which had apparently been fairly effective, fell victim to blowback from your domestic political struggles here. Prior to certain revelations, though, and to the name of a cover company being made public, CIA teams, disguised as pirates, accompanied real pirates boarding merchant vessels suspected of smuggling weapons of mass destruction. Using radiation detectors, and other things, they inspected cargo holds and containers, while the real pirates took whatever more mundane cargo they chose to acquire. That was the payoff for the pirates, that they could have their pick of cargo, provided the teams were given a first look at all of the holds and containers.”
    “Containers.”
    “Yes. Pirates and teams provided one another with mutual backup. The teams would have amply bribed any local authorities, and of course the U.S. Navy would stay well away when one of these operations was under way. The ships’ crews were never the wiser, whether contraband was discovered or not. If something were found, the interdiction came later, nothing to do with our pirates.” He gestured to a waiter for another piso. “Another drink?”
    “Mineral water,” she said. “Joseph Conrad. Kipling. Or a movie.”
    “The pirates who proved best at this were out of Aceh, in northern Sumatra. Prime Conrad territory, I believe.”
    “Were they finding much, the faux pirates?”
    The diamond factor’s nod again.
    “Why are you telling me this?”
    “In August 2003, one of these joint CIA-pirate operations boarded a freighter with Panamanian registry, bound from Iran to Macau. The team’s interest centered on one particular container. They’d broken its seals, opened it, when orders came by radio to leave it.”
    “Leave it?”
    “Leave the container. Leave the vessel. Those orders were followed, of course.”
    “Who told you that story?”
    “Someone who claims to have been a member of the boarding team.”
    “And you think that Chombo, somehow, has something to do with that?”
    “I suspect,” Bigend said, leaning closer and lowering his voice, “that Bobby periodically knows where that container is.”
    “Periodically?”
    “Apparently it’s still out there, somewhere,” Bigend said. “Like the Flying Dutchman.” His second piso arrived, along with her water. “To your next story,” he toasted, touching the rims of their fresh plastic glasses.
    “The pirates.”
    “Yes?”
    “Did they see what was in it?”
    “No.”

    “MOST PEOPLE don’t self-drive these,” Bigend said, pulling out onto Sunset, headed east.
    “Most people don’t drive them at all,” Hollis corrected, from the passenger seat beside him. She craned her neck for a glimpse back into what she supposed could be called the passenger cabin. There seemed to be a sort of frosted skylight, as opposed to any mere moonroof. And a lot of very glossy wood, the rest in carbon-colored lambskin.
    “A Brabus Maybach,” he said, as she turned her head in time to see him give the wheel a little pat. “The firm of Brabus extensively tweaks the product of Maybach, to produce one of these.”
    “‘Darth my ride’?”
    “If you were riding in back, you could watch for locative art on the monitors in each front seatback. There’s MWAN and a fourplex GPRS router.”
    “No thanks.” The seats back there, upholstered in that gunmetal lamb, obviously reclined, becoming beds, or possibly chairs for high-end elective surgery. Through the smoked glass at her side, she saw pedestrians at the intersection, staring at the Maybach. The light changed and Bigend pulled away. The vehicle’s interior was still as a museum at midnight. “Do you always drive this?” she asked.
    “The agency has Phaetons,” he said. “Good stealth cars. Mistake them for Jettas, at a distance.”
    “I’m not a car person.” She ran her thumb along a lambskin seat seam. Like touching the butt of a supermodel,