of the phone, so I carefully put it down under the window and
scramble round to the back of the house on hands and knees. The front
door bangs open. A different voice calls out, "Is that you, Achmet?"
No answer. I hold my breath, heart pounding in
my chest. Footsteps on gravel. "The American bitch, she is secure." I
back away from the house toward the nearest clump of bushes—the men
loom out of the shadows—but the footsteps halt. "I stay out here.
Cigarette."
Bastard's on a fag break! I glance up
at the sky, which is dark as a marketing hack's heart and full of
coldly distant stars. How am I going to get past him? I grip
the monkey's paw in my pocket, carefully withdraw it, and point it at
the ground. A red-eyed coal glowers from the doorway, just visible
round the side of the house. A distant buzzing bike engine grows
louder, heading up the hills far above. Apart from that, the night is
silent. Too silent, I realise after a minute; that's a road
over there—where's the traffic? I begin to edge backward, trying to
get
farther into the bushes, and that's when everything blanks.
4. THE TRUTH IS IN HERE
"You don't remember what happened next?"
"Yes, that's what I've been telling you for the
past hour." There's no point getting angry with them; they're just
doing their job. I resist the temptation to rub my head, the dressing
covering the sore patch behind my right ear. "All I remember after that
is waking up in hospital the next day."
"Harrumph." I blink; did I really hear someone
say harrumph ? Yes—it's the guy who looks like something the
gravedigger's cat dragged in, Derek something or other. He blinks right
back at me with watery eyes. "According to page four of the medical
notes, paragraph six—"
I watch while they all obediently shuffle their
notes. Nobody thought to give me a copy, of course, even though they're
mine. "Contusion and hairline fracture on the right occipital
hemisphere, some bruising and abrasion consistent with a weighted
object." I turn my head, wincing slightly because of the pain in my
neck, and point to the dressing. It's been nearly a week; one thing
they don't tell you in the detective potboilers is how bad being
whacked on the head with a cosh hurts. No, not a
cosh: an Object, Weighted, Black Chamber Field Operatives for the Use
of, Complies with US-MIL-STD-534-5801.
"I suppose we can consider this to be
substantiated, then," says the talking corpse. "Please continue where
you left off."
I sigh. "I woke up in a hospital room with a
needle in my arm and a goon from one of their TLAs baby-sitting me.
After about an hour someone who claimed to be running Plaid Shirt
turned up and started asking pointed questions. Seems they were already
running a stakeout. After the third time that I explained what happened
at the motel he agreed that I hadn't waxed their asset and demanded to
know why I'd been round at the house. I told him that Mo phoned me and
asked for help and it sounded urgent, and after I repeated myself
another couple of dozen times he left. The next morning they shipped me
to the airport and stuck me on the plane."
The battle-axe from Accounting who's sitting
next to Derek glares at me. " Business class," she hisses. "I
suppose that was your idea of a good ride home?"
Huh? "That was nothing to do with me,"
I protest. "Did they bill—"
"Yes." Andy twirls his pen idly as a fly batters
itself against the energy-saving lightbulb overhead.
"Uh-oh." Unsanctioned expenditure isn't quite a
hanging offense in the Laundry, but it's definitely up there with
insubordination and mutiny. During the Thatcher years they were even
supposed to have had paper clip audits, before someone pointed out that
the consequences of poor employee morale in this organisation might be
a trifle worse than in, say, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries,
and Food. "Not guilty," I say automatically, before I can stop myself.
"I didn't ask them for that, it happened after the assignment went
pear-shaped, and
scramble round to the back of the house on hands and knees. The front
door bangs open. A different voice calls out, "Is that you, Achmet?"
No answer. I hold my breath, heart pounding in
my chest. Footsteps on gravel. "The American bitch, she is secure." I
back away from the house toward the nearest clump of bushes—the men
loom out of the shadows—but the footsteps halt. "I stay out here.
Cigarette."
Bastard's on a fag break! I glance up
at the sky, which is dark as a marketing hack's heart and full of
coldly distant stars. How am I going to get past him? I grip
the monkey's paw in my pocket, carefully withdraw it, and point it at
the ground. A red-eyed coal glowers from the doorway, just visible
round the side of the house. A distant buzzing bike engine grows
louder, heading up the hills far above. Apart from that, the night is
silent. Too silent, I realise after a minute; that's a road
over there—where's the traffic? I begin to edge backward, trying to
get
farther into the bushes, and that's when everything blanks.
4. THE TRUTH IS IN HERE
"You don't remember what happened next?"
"Yes, that's what I've been telling you for the
past hour." There's no point getting angry with them; they're just
doing their job. I resist the temptation to rub my head, the dressing
covering the sore patch behind my right ear. "All I remember after that
is waking up in hospital the next day."
"Harrumph." I blink; did I really hear someone
say harrumph ? Yes—it's the guy who looks like something the
gravedigger's cat dragged in, Derek something or other. He blinks right
back at me with watery eyes. "According to page four of the medical
notes, paragraph six—"
I watch while they all obediently shuffle their
notes. Nobody thought to give me a copy, of course, even though they're
mine. "Contusion and hairline fracture on the right occipital
hemisphere, some bruising and abrasion consistent with a weighted
object." I turn my head, wincing slightly because of the pain in my
neck, and point to the dressing. It's been nearly a week; one thing
they don't tell you in the detective potboilers is how bad being
whacked on the head with a cosh hurts. No, not a
cosh: an Object, Weighted, Black Chamber Field Operatives for the Use
of, Complies with US-MIL-STD-534-5801.
"I suppose we can consider this to be
substantiated, then," says the talking corpse. "Please continue where
you left off."
I sigh. "I woke up in a hospital room with a
needle in my arm and a goon from one of their TLAs baby-sitting me.
After about an hour someone who claimed to be running Plaid Shirt
turned up and started asking pointed questions. Seems they were already
running a stakeout. After the third time that I explained what happened
at the motel he agreed that I hadn't waxed their asset and demanded to
know why I'd been round at the house. I told him that Mo phoned me and
asked for help and it sounded urgent, and after I repeated myself
another couple of dozen times he left. The next morning they shipped me
to the airport and stuck me on the plane."
The battle-axe from Accounting who's sitting
next to Derek glares at me. " Business class," she hisses. "I
suppose that was your idea of a good ride home?"
Huh? "That was nothing to do with me,"
I protest. "Did they bill—"
"Yes." Andy twirls his pen idly as a fly batters
itself against the energy-saving lightbulb overhead.
"Uh-oh." Unsanctioned expenditure isn't quite a
hanging offense in the Laundry, but it's definitely up there with
insubordination and mutiny. During the Thatcher years they were even
supposed to have had paper clip audits, before someone pointed out that
the consequences of poor employee morale in this organisation might be
a trifle worse than in, say, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries,
and Food. "Not guilty," I say automatically, before I can stop myself.
"I didn't ask them for that, it happened after the assignment went
pear-shaped, and
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