"Regardless, your actual task remains, as briefed, to determine what Billington is planning and to stop him from doing anything that arouses BLUE HADES or DEEP SEVEN — especially, anything likely to convince them that we're in violation of our treaty obligations. To supplement your cover you are officially designated as an authorized representative of Her Majesty's Government, to deliver our bid for the JENNIFER MORGUE Site Two artifacts. This is a genuine bid, although obviously we hope we won't be called upon to make good on it, and the terms are as follows: for an exclusive usage license as designated in schedule one to be appended to this document, hereinafter designated 'the contract' between the seller 'Ellis Billington' and associates, corporations, and other affiliates and the purchaser, the Government of the United Kingdom, the sum of two billion pounds sterling, to be paid ..."
Angleton rattles on in dreary legalese for approximately three lifetimes. It'd be tedious at the best of times, but right now it's positively nightmarish; the plan has already run off the rails, and the worst thing of all is, I can't even yell at him. I'm committing this goddamn contract that we're never going to use to memory, seemingly at Angleton's posthypnotic command, but the shit has hit the fan and Ramona's a prisoner. I'd gnash my teeth if I was allowed to. I've got a feeling that Angleton's sneak strategy — use me to leak disinformation to the Black Chamber via Ramona, of course — is already blown, because I don't think Billington is serious about running an auction. If he was, would he be dicking around risking a murder investigation in order to push a line of cosmetics? And would he be kidnapping negotiators? This is all so out of whack that I can't figure it out. I've got a s k R feeling that Angleton's scheme was toast before I even boarded the airbus in Paris: if nothing else, his bid is implausibly low given what's at stake.
Eventually the briefing lets go of me and I slide gratefully beneath the surface of a dreamless lake. I'm rocking from side to side on it, with the leisurely wobble of a howdah perched on an elephant's back. After a brief infinity of unconsciousness I become aware that my head is throbbing fiercely and my mouth feels like a family of rodents has set up a campsite, complete with latrine, on my tongue. And that I'm awake. Oh no. I twitch, taking stock. I'm lying on my back which is never the right place to be, breathing through my mouth, and — "He's awake."
"Good. Howard, stop fooling around."
This time I groan aloud. My eyes feel like pickled onions and it takes a real effort to force them open. More facts flood in as my brain reboots. I'm lying on my back, fully dressed, on something like a padded bench or sofa. The voice I recognize: it's McMurray. The room's well-lit, and I notice that the padded surface beneath me is covered in beautifully finished fabric. The lights are tasteful and indirect, and the curving walls are paneled in old mahogany: the local police cells, it ain't. "Give me a second," I mumble.
"Sit up." He doesn't sound impatient; just sure of himself.
I force arms and legs that are heavy and warm from toorecent sleep to respond, swinging my legs round and sitting up at the same time. A wave of dizziness nearly pushes me right back down, but I get over it and rub my eyes, blinking.
"What is this place?" I ask shakily. Andivhere's Ramona? Still trapped?
McMurray sits down on the bench opposite me. Actually, it's a continuation of the one I was lying on — it snakes around the exterior of the trapezoid room, past out-tilting walls and a doorway in the middle of the only rectilinear wall in the cabin. It's a nice room except that the doorway is blocked by a gorilla in a uniform-like black jumpsuit and beret, plus mirrorshades. (Which is more than somewhat incongruous, in view of it being well past midnight.) The windows are small and oval with neatly decorated but very functional-looking metal covers hinged back from them, and there are drawers set in the base of the padded bench — obviously storage of some kind. The throbbing isn't in my head; it's coming from under the floor. Which can only mean one thing.
"Welcome aboard the Mabuse," he says, then shrugs apologetically.
"I'm sorry about the way you were handed your boarding pass: Johanna isn't exactly Little Miss Subtlety, and .I told her to make sure you didn't abscond. That would totally ruin the plot." I rub my head and groan. "Did you have to — no, don't answer that, let me guess: it's a tradition or an old charter, something like that." I continue to rub my head. "Is there any chance of a glass of water? And a bathroom?" It's not just a barbiturate hangover — the martinis are extracting a vicious revenge. "If you're going to take me to see the big cheese shouldn't I freshen up a bit first?" Please say yes, I pray to JL, whatever god of whimsy has got me in his grip, being hungover is bad enough without a beating on top of it.
For a moment I wonder if I've gone too far, but he gestures at the gorilla, who turns and opens the door and retreats down the narrow corridor a couple of paces. "The head's next-door. You have five minutes."
He watches as I stumble to my feet. He nods, affably enough, and gestures at another door set next to the rec room or wherever the hell it is they'd put me in to sleep things off. I open the door and indeed find a washroom of sorts, barely bigger than an airliner's toilet but beautifully finished. I take a leak, gulp down half a pint or so of water using the plastic cup so helpfully provided, then spend about a minute sitting down and trying not to throw up. ''Ramona, are you there?'' If she is, I can't hear her. I take stock: my phone's missing, as is my neck-chain ward, my wristwatch, and my shoulder holster. The bow tie is dangling from my collar, but they weren't considerate enough to remove my uncomfortable toe-pinching shoes. I raise an eyebrow at the guy in the mirror and he pulls a mournful face and shrugs: no help there. So I wash my face, try to comb my hair with my fingertips, and go back outside to face the music.
The gorilla is waiting for me outside. McMurray stands in front of the closed door to the rec room. The gorilla beckons to me then turns and marches down the corridor, so I play nice and tag along, with McMurray taking up the rear. The corridor is punctuated by frequent watertight bulkheads with annoying lintels to step over, and there's a shortage of portholes to show where we are: someone's obviously done a first-rate coach-building job, but this ship wasn't built as a yacht and its new owner clearly places damage control ahead of aesthetics. We pass some doors, ascend a very steep staircase, and then I figure we're into Owner Territory because the metal decking gives way to teak parquet and hand-woven carpets, and up here they have widened the corridors to accommodate the fat-cats: or maybe it's just that they built the owner's quarters where they used to stash the Klub-N cruise missiles and the magazine for the forward 100mm gun turret.
Klub-N vertical launch cells are not small, and the owner's lounge is about three meters longer than my entire house. It appears to be wallpapered in cloth-of-gold, which for the most part is mercifully concealed behind ninetycentimeter Sony displays wearing priceless antique picture frames. Right now they're all switched off, or displaying a rolling Screensaver depicting the TLA Corporation logo. The furniture's equally lacking in the taste department. There's a sofa that probably escaped from Versailles one jump ahead of the revolutionary fashion police, a bookcase full of selfhelp business titles (A Defendant's Guide to the International Criminal Court, The Twelve-Step Sociopath, Globalization for Asset-Strippers), and an antique sideboard that abjectly fails to put the rock into baroque. I find myself looking for a furtive cheap print of dogs playing poker or a sad-eyed clown — anything to break the monotony of the collision between bad taste and serious money.
Then I notice the Desk.
Desks are to executives what souped-up Mitsubishi Colts with low-profile alloys, metal-flake paint jobs, and extraloud, chrome-plated exhaust pipes are to chavs; they're a big swinging dick, the proxy they use to proclaim their sense of self-importance. If you want to understand an executive, you study his desk. Billington's Desk demands a capital letter.
Like a medieval monarch's throne, it is designed to proclaim to the poor souls who are called before it: the owner of this piece of furniture is above you. Someday I'll write a text book about personality profiling through possessions; but for now let's Just say this example is screaming "megalomaniac!" at me. Billington may have an ego the size of an aircraft carrier but he's not so vain as to leave his desk empty (that would mean he was pretending to lead a life of leisure) or to cover it with meaningless gewgaws (indicative of clownish triviality).
This is the desk of a serious executive. There's a functionallooking (watch me work!') PC to one side, and a phone and a halogen desk light at the other. One of the other items dotting it gives me a nasty shock when I recognize the design inscribed on it: millions wouldn't, but the owner of this hunk of furniture is using a Belphegor-Mandelbrot Type Two containment matrix as a mouse mat, which makes him either a highly skilled adept or a suicidal maniac. Yup, that pretty much confirms the diagnosis. This is the desk of a diseased mind, hugely ambitious prone to taking insanely dangerous risks. He's not ashamed of boasting about it — he clearly believes in better alpha-primate dominance displays through carpentry.
McMurray gestures me to halt on the carpet in front of the Desk. "Wait here, the boss will be along in a minute." He gestures at a skeletal contraption of chromed steel and thin, black leather that only Le Corbusier could have mistaken for a chair: "Have a seat."
I sit down gingerly, half-expecting steel restraints to flash out from concealed compartments and lock around my wrists. My head aches and I feel hot and shivery. I glance at McMurray, trying for casual rather than anxious. The Laundry field operations manual is notably short on advice for how to comport one's self when being held prisoner aboard a mad billionaire necromancer's yacht, other than the usual stern admonition to keep receipts for all expenses incurred in the line of duty. "Where's Ramona?" I ask.
"I don't remember saying you were free to ask questions."
He stares at me from behind his steel-rimmed spectacles until icicles form on the back of my neck. "Ellis has a specific requirement for an individual of her ... type. I'm a specialist in managing such entities." A pause. "While you remain entangled, she will be manageable. And as long as she remains manageable, there will be no need to dispose of her."
I swallow. My tongue is dry and I can hear my pulse in my ears. This wasn't supposed to happen; she was supposed to be back in the safe house, acting as a relay! McMurray nods at me knowingly. "Don't underestimate your own usefulness to us, Mr. Howard," he says. "You're not just a useful lever."
There's a discreet buzz from his belt pager: "Mr. Billington is on his way now."
The door behind the Desk opens.
"Ah, Mr. B — Howard." Billington walks in and plants himself firmly down on the black carbon-fiber Aeron chair behind the Desk. From the set of his shoulders and the tiny smile playing around his lips he's in an expansive mood. "I'm so pleased you could be here this evening. I gather my wife's party wasn't entirely to your taste"
I stare at him. He's an affable, self-satisfied bastard in a dinner jacket and for a moment I feel a nearly uncontrollable urge to punch him in the face. I manage to hold it in check: the gorilla behind me will ensure I'd only get one chance, and the consequences would hurt Ramona as much as they'd hurt me. Still, it's a tempting thought. "I have a bid for your auction," I say, very carefully keeping my face straight. "This abduction was unnecessary, and may cause my employers to reconsider their very generous offer."
Billington laughs. Actually, it's more of a titter, high-pitched and unnerving. "Come now, Mr. Howard! Do you really think I don't already know about your boss's paltry little two-billion-pound bait-worm? Please! I'm not stupid.
I know all about you and your colleague Ms. Random, and the surveillance team in the safe house run by Jack Griffin.
I even remember your boss, James, from back before he became quite so spectral and elevated. I know much more than you give me credit for." He pauses. "In fact, I know everything."
Whoops. If he's telling the truth, that would put a very bad complexion on things. "Then what am I doing here?" I ask, hoping like hell that he's bluffing. "I mean, if you're omnipotent and omniscient then just what is the point of abducting me — not to mention Ramona — and dragging us aboard your yacht?" (That's a guess about Ramona, but I don't see where else he might be keeping her.) "Don't tell me you haven't got better things to do with your time than gloat; you're trying to close a multi-billion-dollar auction, aren't you?" He just looks at me with those peculiar, slotted lizard-eyes and I have a sudden cold conviction that maybe making money is the last thing on his mind right now. "You're here for several reasons," he says, quite agreeably.
"Hair of the dog?" He raises an eyebrow, and the gorilla hurries over to the sideboard.
"I wouldn't mind a glass of water," I confess "Hah." He nods to himself. "The archetype hasn't taken full effect yet, I see."
"Which archetype"
McMurray clears his throat. "Boss, do I need to know this"
Billington casts him a fish-eyed stare: "No, I don't think you do. Quick thinking."
"I'll just go and check in on Ramona then, shall I? Then I'll go polish the binnacle and check for frigging in the rigging or something." McMurray slithers out through the door at high speed Billington nods thoughtfully.
"He's a smart subordinate." He raises an eyebrow at me.
"That's half the problem, you know."
"Half what problem?"
"The problem of running a tight ship." The gorilla hands Billington a glass of whisky, then plants a glass full of mineral water in front of me before returning to his position by the door. "If they're smart enough to be useful they get ideas about making themselves indispensable — ideas about getting above their station, as you Brits would put it.
