Jennifer Morgue (17 page)

It's Ramona. She's curled up against me on top of the sheets, sleeping like a baby. She's still wearing her glad rags, her hair a wild tangle. My breath catches with fear or lust or guilt, or maybe all three at the same time: guilty, fearful lust.

I can't make up my mind whether I want to gnaw my arm off at the shoulder or ask her to elope with me.

Eventually I work out a compromise. I sit up, slowly pulling my arm out from under her: "How do you take your coffee"

"Uh?" She opens her eyes. "Oh ...hi." She looks puzzled.

"Where am I... oh." Mild annoyance: "I take it black. And strong." She yawns, then rolls over and begins to sit up.

"Be my guest." I walk over to the filter machine and start prodding at it, trying to figure out where the sachet of coffee goes. My head's spinning — "How did you get in here"

"Don't you remember"

"No."

"Well that makes two of us," she says as she closes the door. A moment later I hear the sound of running water and realize too late that I need to use the bathroom, too.

Oh, great. There was the, whatever the fuck you call it, with the predator, Marc — and she needed me to — I try not to think too closely about it. I remember that much. How the hell did she get in here? I ask myself.

I get the coffee maker loaded and go prod my tablet PC.

It's sitting where I left it last night, with a clear line of sight on the door and window, and it's still up and running. I look too closely and the ward tries to bite me between the eyes but misses. Good. So then I go and inspect the other wards I put on the door by opening it and gingerly pulling in the DO NOT DISTURB sign. The silver diagram, sketched on the sign using a conductive pencil and a drop of blood, shimmers at me. It's still live: anyone other than me who tries to get past it is going to get a very unpleasant surprise. Finally, as the coffee maker begins to spit and burble, I check the seal on the window. My mobile phone (the real one, the Treo with the Java countermeasure suite and the keyboard and all the trimmings, not the bullet-firing fake) is still propped up against it.

I glance up and down, then shake my head. There are no holes in the walls and ceiling, which means Ramona can't be here — the place is about as secure as a hotel room can be, stitched up tighter than Angleton's ass.

"I don't want to hurry you or anything, but I need the toilet, too," I call through the door.

"Okay, okay! I'm nearly ready." She sounds annoyed.

"Are you sure you don't remember how you got in here"

I add.

The door opens. She's repaired her glamour and is every bit the air-brushed, drop-dead gorgeous model she was when I first saw her in the Laguna Bar: only the eyes are different.

Old and tired.

"How much of what happened last night do you remember"

she asks.

"I — " I stop. "What, do you mean after we met Billington? Or after I left the casino"

"Did we leave together?" She frowns.

"Well, that's a surprise." She snorts then takes the cup.

"But it doesn't have to mean anything."

"It doesn't — " I stop dead. "I dreamed about you," I say reluctantly. I find it really hard to pick the right words. "You were with some guy you'd picked up who worked at the casino."

She looks me in the eye calmly. "You dreamed about me, Bob. Things happen in dreams that don't always happen in real life."

"But he died while you were in bed with — "

"Bob?" Her eyes are greenish blue, flecks of gold floating in them, rimmed in expensive eyeliner that makes them look wide and innocent — but somehow they're deeper than an arctic lake, and much colder. "For once in your life, shut up and listen to me. Okay"

She's got the Voice of Command. I find myself leaning against the wall with no definite memory of how I got here.

"What"

"Primus, we're destiny-entangled. I can't do anything about that. You stub your toe, I hurt'; I call you names, you get pissy. But you're making a big mistake. Because, secundus, you had a weird dream. And you're jumping to the conclusion that the two are related, that whatever you dreamed about is whatever happened to me. And you know what?

That ain't necessarily so. Correlation does not imply causation.

Now — " she reaches over and pokes me in the chest with a fingertip " — you seem a little upset over whatever it was you dreamed about. And I think you ought to think very hard before you ask the next question, because you can choose to ask whether there was any connection between your weird dream and my night out — or you can just tell yourself you ate too many cheese canapes before bed and it was all in your head, and you can walk away from it. Is that clear? We may be entangled, but it doesn't have to go any further."

She stands there expectantly, obviously anticipating a reply. I'm rooted to the spot by the force of her gaze. My pulse roars in my ears. I don't — truly I don't — know what to do! My mind spins. Did I simply have a wet dream last night? Or did Ramona suck a serial rapist's soul right out of his body then use me for sex magick to keep her daemon in check ...? And do I really want to know the truth? Really?

I feel my lips moving without any conscious decision.

"Thank you. And if you don't mind, I'm going to un-ask that question for the time being."

"Oh, I mind all right." A flash of unidentifiable emotion flickers in her eyes like distant lightning. "But don't worry about me, I'm used to it. I'll be all right after breakfast." She glances down, breaking eye contact. "Jesus, stripy pajamas.

It's too early in the morning for that."

"Hey, it's all I've got, anyway, it's better than sleeping in a tux." I raise an eyebrow at her dress. "You're going to have to get that professionally cleaned."

I'll be going back to my room when I finish this." Another mouthful.

"Got any plans for today"

I pause for thought. "I need to touch base with my backup team and file a report with head office. Then I'm supposed to visit a tailor's shop. After which — " a ghost of a dream memory gibbers and capers for attention " — I heard there's a nice beach up at Anse Marcel. I figure I might hang out there for a while. How about you"

I eat breakfast on a balcony overlooking an expanse of white beach, trying not to flinch as the occasional airbus rumbles past on final approach into Princess Juliana Airport. Midway through a butter croissant that melts on the tongue, my Treo rings: "Howard!"

"Speaking." I get a sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach: it's Griffin.

"Get yourself over here, chop-chop. We've got a situation."

Shit. "What kind of situation? And where's here"

"Face time only." He rattles off an address somewhere near Mullet Beach and I jot it down...

"Okay, I'll be over in half an hour."

"Make sure you are!" He hangs up, leaving me staring at my phone as if it's turned into a dead slug in my hand. What a way to start a day: Griffin's found something to go nonlinear over. I shake my head in disgust. As if I haven't got enough problems already.

I'm just about up and running on local time. Even so, it takes me a while to figure out my way to the address Griffin gave me. It turns out to be a holiday villa, white clapboard walls and wooden shutters overlooking the road behind the beachfront. The temperature's already up to the mid-twenties and rising as I trudge towards the front door. I'm about to knock when it opens and I find myself eyeball to hairy eyeball with Griffin.

"Get in here!" he half-snarls, grabbing me by my jacket.

"Quick!"

I take in his red-rimmed eyes, stubbly chin, and general agitation. "Something bad happen"

"You could say that." I follow him into the back room.

The windows are shuttered, several large nylon hold-alls are lined up against one wall, and there's a mass of electronics spread across the dining table. After a couple of seconds I figure out that I'm looking at a clunky electrodynamic rig and a Vulpis-Tesla mainframe: it looks like it was invented by a mad pervert who was into torturing chickens, but it's really just a tool for summoning minor abominations. By the look on his face Griffin's been bolting it together and hitting the bottle for the past twelve hours or so — not a combination I'm sanguine about. "I got a dispatch from head office. The oppo's acting up — they've sent us one of their fast bowlers!"

"What's cricket got to do with us?" I ask, confused. It's too early in the morning for this.

"Who said anything about cricket?" Griffin hurries across the room and starts rearranging the bakelite plug-board that configures the chicken-torturer. "I said they'd sent a fast bowler, not a fucking cricketer."

He rounds on me. "Nineteen years, if it means anything to you, whipper-snapper!" he snorts. "Kids these days ..."

I shrug. "Slang changes, is what I'm saying."

"Bah." He straightens up and sighs. "I got a flash code from the Weather Service this morning: Charlie Victor is in town. He's one of their top assassins, works for Unit Echo — that's our designation for it, not theirs, nobody's got a fucking clue what the Black Chamber internal org chart looks like — and generally we don't get advance warning because the first warning anyone gets about Charlie Victor is when they wake up dead."

"Whoa." I grab a chair and sit down hard. "When did he arrive"

"Yesterday, while you were snoozing." Griffin stares at me.

"Well"

"Do we know who his target is"

"Weather Service says it's something to do with your mission, this billionaire."

"Weather Service — " I pause. How to phrase my opinion of the Predictive Branch tactfully? Just in case Griffin's got a gypsy cousin who's into fluffy chakra crystal ball-fu and works for Precognitive Ops ... "Weather Service has a certain reputation." A reputation for being disastrously wrong about thirty percent of the time — as you'd expect of a bunch of webcams hooked up to crystal balls scrying random number generators — and for being less than half right about fifty percent of the time, which is even worse than the real Meteorological Office. The only reason we don't ignore them completely is that about one time in five they hit the jackpot — and then people live or die by their projections. But that thirty percent gave us the amazing invisible Iraqi WMDs, the Falklands War ("nothing can possibly go wrong"), and going back a bit further, the British Lunar Expedition of 1964.[7 What lunar expedition?[8 Exactly.]]

"Weather Service is taking traffic flow at source from GCHQ and cross-correlating it with validated HUMINT sources," Griffin rumbles ominously. "This is about as hard as it gets. What are the implications for your mission"

"I need to talk to Angleton — I thought we had an accommodation on this one, but if what you're saying's right, all bets are off." I glance at the VT frame. "What's the chicken plucker for"

"A necessary precaution." Griffin stares at me speculatively.

"In case Charlie Victor tries to pay a visit. And to keep a lock on your special kit." He nods at the cases in the corner.

"Uh-huh. Any sign of my backup team"

"I called them for a meeting half an hour ago. They should be arriving any time — "

Right on cue, there's a knock at the door.

I head over to open the door but Griffin beats me to it, shoving me out of the way and raising a finger to silence me.

It's Brains, wearing sunglasses and a loud Hawaiian shirt.

"Yo, Bob!" he calls, ignoring Griffin. Boris slouches on the front stoop behind him.

"Come in," Griffin mutters uninvitingly. "Don't just stand there!"

"Where's Pinky?" I ask.

"Parking your car by the hotel." Brains walks past Griffin, whistling nonchalantly, then stops when he sees the VT frame. "Haven't seen one of those in a long while!" He closes in on it and peers at the plug-board. "Hey, this is wired up all wrong — "

"Stop that at once!" Griffin is about to hit the ceiling.

"Before you start meddling — "

"Boys, boys." Boris grimaces tiredly. "Chill."

"I need to call Angleton," I manage to slip in. "And I've got to get closer to the target. Can we please try to keep on track, here? What do we know about Billington's arrival? I didn't think he was meant to be here yet."

"Billington is here?" Boris frowns. "Is ungood news.

How"

"He flew in last night." I glance at Griffin, but his mouth is clamped in a thin line. He's not volunteering anything. "I met him briefly. Do we know where this yacht of his is? Or his schedule?" I ask Griffin directly, and he frowns.

"His yacht, the Mabuse, is moored off North Point — he's not using the marina at Marigot for some reason. While he's on the island he's got a villa on Mount Paradis, but I think you're more likely to find he's staying on the yacht." Griffin crosses his arms. "Thinking of paying him a visit"

"Just puzzled." I glance at the wall where someone has pinned a large map of the island. North Point is about as far away from Maho Beach — and the casino — as you can get. It must be close to fifteen kilometers, and longer if you cover the distance by boat. "I was wondering how he got here last night."