Zero History

by William Gibson

  “So was I, though Rausch was more rattled to see me, it seemed to me. He thought you were checking up on him. Is he with Sleight?”

  “I doubt it,” said Bigend. “He’s not that fast. Do you know who designs Gabriel Hounds yet?”

  “No. But either Meredith already does, or she thinks she can find out.”

  “And what do you judge it will take to induce her to tell us, or to find out and tell us?”

  “She had a shoe line. It failed financially, and somehow the bulk of the final season was misplaced.”

  “Yes. We’re looking at her now. That was a good line. She prefigured the best of the back-of-Harajuku tendencies.”

  “She thinks they’re in a warehouse in Seattle. Tacoma. Somewhere. She imagines Blue Ant might be able to locate something like that. If they’re found, she believes, she’s in a position to legally claim them.”

  “And then?”

  “She’d sell them. On eBay, she said. They’re worth more now, evidently.”

  “But mainly as a relaunch strategy,” said Bigend. “The eBay sales would attract coolhunters, generate attention in the industry.”

  “She didn’t mention that.”

  “She wouldn’t. She needs to leverage fresh financing. Either to relaunch the line herself or sell it to the ghostbranders.”

  “The what?”

  “Ghostbranders. They find brands, sometimes extinct ones, with iconic optics or a viable narrative, buy them, then put out denatured product under the old label. Meredith’s shoes probably have enough cult cachet to warrant that, on an interestingly small scale.”

  “Is something like that why you’re after Gabriel Hounds?”

  “I’m more interested in their reinvention of exclusivity. Far ahead, say, of the Burberry label you can only buy in one special outlet in Tokyo, but not here, and not on the web. That’s old-school geographical exclusivity. Gabriel Hounds is something else. There’s something spectral about it. What did Overton tell you?”

  She saw Ajay slipping the little blade into the base of the Blue Ant figurine, back in Number Four. “She knew someone, in fashion school here, or around it, who knew someone in Chicago. She believes that that person, in Chicago, then, is the Hounds designer.”

  “You don’t think she knows?”

  “She may not. She says she wound up on an e-mail list announcing Hounds drops.”

  “We assumed there must be one,” he said. “We’ve put a fair bit of effort into finding it. Nothing.”

  She took one of the books of swatches from where it lay on the shelf nearest her. It was amazingly heavy, its cover plain heavy brown card, marked with a long number in chisel-tipped black felt pen. She opened it. Thick, wholly synthetic materials, strangely buttery to the touch, like samples of the hides of robotic whales. “What is this?”

  “They make Zodiacs out of it,” he said. “The inflatable boats.”

  She put it back on the shelf, deciding as she did that this was not the time to be bringing up the bug in the figurine, if in fact she was going to.

  “Foley himself,” said Bigend, “may not be that dangerous, though we don’t know. A fantasist, designing for fantasist consumers. But the person who’s employing him is another matter. I haven’t been able to find out as much as I’d like. Currently, I’m having to go outside Blue Ant, bypass Sleight and his architecture, for even basic intelligence.”

  “How do you mean, dangerous?”

  “Not good to know,” said Bigend, “or to be known by. Not good to be seen as being in competition with. That little bit of industrial espionage in South Carolina, as it happened, put Sleight in their camp. Given what I’ve managed to learn so far, we are likely regarded, now, as the enemy.”

  “Who are they?”

  “They were, at some point, usually, the people our new demographic imagines being. What are you looking at?”

  “Your suit.”

  “It’s by Mr. Fish.”

  “It is not. You told me nobody could find him.”

  “He may be selling furniture in California. Antiques. That’s one story. But I found his cutter.”

  “You’re really worried about these contracting people? Foley?”

  “Contractors, that would be. In that other, more recently newsworthy sense. I have an unusual amount on my plate now, Hollis. One of my long-term projects, something that runs in the background, has recently been showing strong signs of possible fruition. It’s frustrating, to be distracted now, but I’m determined not to drop any balls. Your getting hurt would constitute a dropped ball.” He was looking at her, now, with something she took to be the artful emulation of actual human concern, but she understood that that indicated there really might be something to be afraid of. She shivered on the ridiculous velour toadstool.

  “Florence,” he said. “I have a flat there. Lovely. I’ll send you there. Today.”

  “I have Meredith in play. She’s coming back here with George. Probably here already. Reg needs him in the studio. You can’t assign me that specific a task, then send me away when I’m about to complete it. I’m not working for you that way.” All of which was true, but having gotten as far as Garreth’s voice mail, she felt she needed to be here, where she’d told him she was, at least until she discovered where he was.

  Bigend nodded. “I understand. And I do want the identity of the Hounds designer. But you need to be careful. We all do.”

  “Who’s Tanky, Hubertus? Assuming that’s Tojo out front.”

  “I suppose I am,” he said.

  42. ELVIS, GRACELAND

  Winnie Tung Whitaker was wearing a pale blue iteration of the sweatshirt with the South Carolina state flag monogram. Milgrim imagined her buying the full color-range at some outlet mall, off the highway to Edge City Family Restaurant. The blue made her look more like a young mother, which she evidently was, than a bad-ass, which she’d just told him she was. He really didn’t doubt that she was either. The bad-ass part was currently expressed by a pair of really impressively ugly wraparound sunglasses with matte alloy frames, worn pushed up over her smooth black hair, though more so by something about the look in her eyes. “How did you know about this place?” asked Milgrim. Their starters had just arrived, in a small Vietnamese café.

  “Google,” she said. “You don’t believe I’m a bad-ass?”

  “I do,” said Milgrim, rattled. He hurriedly tried his chili squid.

  “How is it?”

  “Good,” said Milgrim.

  “You want a dumpling?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “They’re great. Had them when I was here before.”

  “You were here before?”

  “I’m staying near here. Called Kentish Town.”

  “The hotel?”

  “The neighborhood. I’m staying with a retired detective. Scotland Yard. Seriously.” She grinned. “There’s a club, the International Police Association. Hooks us up with lodging in members’ homes. Saves money.”

  “Nice,” said Milgrim.

  “He has doilies.” She smiled. “Lace. They kind of scare me. And I’m a clean-freak myself. Otherwise, I couldn’t afford to be here.”

  Milgrim blinked. “You couldn’t?”

  “We’re not a big agency. I’m covered for a hundred and thirty-six dollars per day, meals and incidentals. More for a hotel, but here, not really enough. This is the most expensive place I’ve ever seen.”

  “But you’re a special agent.”

  “Not that kind of special. And I’ve already got pressure going on, from my boss.”

  “You do?”

  “He doesn’t see the cooperation via the legate and the Brits going anywhere. And he’s right, it isn’t. He isn’t crazy about me running around London on per diem, conducting investigations outside U.S. territory, without the proper coordination. He wants me back.”

  “You’re leaving?”

  “That’s bad for you?” She looked as though she were about to laugh.

  “I don’t
know,” he said, “is it?”

  “Relax,” she said, “you aren’t rid of me that easily. I’m supposed to go home and work through the FBI to get the Brits on board, which would be slow as molasses even if it worked. The guy I’ve got the really serious hard-on for, though, he’d be gone anyway.” Thinking about this person, Milgrim noticed, made her eyes look beady, and that brought back his initial reaction to her in Covent Garden. “Recruiting a U.S. citizen in the U.K. is okay,” she said, “but interacting with non-U.S. citizens, in furtherance of a criminal investigation or a national security matter? Not so much.”

  “No?” Milgrim had the feeling, somehow, that he’d just penetrated some worryingly familiar modality, one that felt remarkably like a drug deal. Things were going seriously transactional. He looked around at the other diners. One of them, seated alone, was reading a book. It was that kind of place.

  “If I did that,” she said, “the Brits would get very upset. Fast.”

  “I guess you wouldn’t want that.”

  “Neither would you.”

  “No.”

  “Your tasking is about to get a lot more specific.”

  “Tasking?”

  “How’s your memory?”

  “The past ten years or so, nonlinear. I’m still putting it together.”

  “But if I tell you a story, a fairly complicated one, now, you’d retain the general outline, and some of the detail?”

  “Hubertus says I’m good with detail.”

  “And you won’t inflate it, distort it, make up crazy shit when you tell it to someone else later?”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Because that’s what the people we tend to work with do.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they’re pathological liars, narcissists, serial imposters, alcoholics, drug addicts, chronic losers, and shitbirds. But you’re not going to be like that, are you?”

  “No,” said Milgrim.

  The waitress arrived with their bowls of pho.

  “Curriculum vitae,” she said, and blew on her pho, the shaved beef still bright pink. “Forty-five years old.”

  “Who is?”

  “Just listen. 2004, he resigns his commission, fifteen years an officer in the U.S. Army. Rank of major. Last ten years of that, he was with First Special Forces Group in Okinawa, Fort Lewis near Tacoma. Spent most of his career deploying in Asia. Lots of experience in the Philippines. After 9/11, he does deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. But before the Army figures out how to do counterinsurgency. Resigns because he’s a classic self-promoter. Believes he has a good chance at striking it rich as a consultant.”

  Milgrim listened intently, methodically sipping broth from the white china spoon. It gave him something to do, and that was very welcome.

  “2005 through 2006, he tries to get work as a civilian contractor with CIA, interrogations and whatnot.”

  “Whatnot?”

  She nodded, gravely. “They see, to their credit, that his talents and expertise don’t really go that way. He knocks around the Gulf region for two years, pitching security consulting services for oil companies, other big corporations in Saudi, UAE, Kuwait. Tries to get his foot in the door as a consultant with the rich Arab governments, but by this time the big dogs in that industry are up and running. No takers.”

  “This is Foley?”

  “Who’s Foley?”

  “The man who followed us in Paris.”

  “Did he look forty-five to you? You might not make such a good informant after all.”

  “Sorry.”

  “2006 to present. This is where it gets good. Going back to what he knew best before 9/11, he exploits old contacts in the Philippines and Indonesia. Moves his business to Southeast Asia, which is a gold mine for him. The big companies are more focused on the Middle East at this point, and smaller operators can pick up more cash in Southeast Asia. He starts by doing the same security consulting work for corporate clients in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines. Hotel chains, banks … He games the political connections of those corporate clients into consulting work for those governments. Now he’s teaching tactics, counterinsurgency strategies, which he’s maybe only barely qualified to do. Interrogation, which he’s not qualified to do. And more. Whatnot. Instructing police units, probably the military too, and here’s where he starts to seriously get into arms procurement.”

  “Is that illegal?”

  “Depends how you do it.” She shrugged. “Of course, he also has some former service buddies working for him by this point. While he’s teaching tactics, he’s also specifying the equipment these outfits will need. He starts small, outfitting counterterrorist police squads with special weapons and body armor. Stuff sourced from American companies where he has ties of friendship. But if general officers of these countries’ militaries get visibility on what he’s doing, and get a chubby from it, which some of them are highly disposed to do, and are also impressed by his Rambo routine, your classic multitalented American commando but with more business acumen, they can start talking to him about equipment needed by their militaries’ conventional forces.” She put her spoon down. “So here’s where we start talking real money.”

  “He’s selling arms?”

  “Not quite. He becomes a hookup artist. He’s hooking up deals with contacts in the United States, people who work for companies that build tactical vehicles, UAVs, EOD robots, mine detection and removal equipment …” She sat back, picking up her spoon again. “And uniforms.”

  “Uniforms?”

  “What did your Blue Ant guys think they’d picked up on in South Carolina?”

  “An Army contract?”

  “Right, but the wrong army. At this point, anyway. And at this point, the man I’ve just described to you regards your employers as direct and aggressive competitors. Those pants are his first shot at contracting equipment himself. He won’t just be the hookup.”

  “I don’t like the way this sounds,” Milgrim said.

  “Good. What you need to remember, with these guys, is that they don’t know they’re con men. They’re wildly overconfident. Omnipotence, omniscience—that’s part of the mythology that surrounds the Special Forces. I had those guys hitting on me every last day in Baghdad.” She held up her fist, showing Milgrim her plain gold wedding band. “Your guy can walk in the door and promise training in something he personally doesn’t know how to do, and not even realize he’s bullshitting about his own capabilities. It’s a special kind of gullibility, a kind of psychic tactical equipment, that he had installed during training. The Army put him through schools that promised to teach him how to do everything, everything that matters. And he believed them. And that’s who your Mr. Bigend has interested in his ass today, if not seriously after it.”

  Milgrim swallowed. “So who’s Foley?

  “The designer. You can’t make uniforms without a designer. He was at Parsons, the New School for Design.”

  “In New York?”

  “Kind of doubt he fit in. But never mind him. Michael Preston Gracie’s who I’m after.”

  “The major? I don’t understand what it is he’s done.”

  “Crimes that involve lots of official acronyms. Crimes that would take me all night to explain accurately. I hunt in an underbrush of regulations. But the good thing about these guys, for me, is that the smaller the transgression, the sloppier they’ll handle it. I watch the underbrush for twigs they’ve broken. That was Dermo, in this case.”

  “Dermo?”

  “D-R-M-O. Defense Reutilization and Marketing Offices. They sell off old equipment. He manipulates old Army buddies. Illegally. Equipment’s sold on to foreign entities, be they companies or governments. ICE notices a shipment, all curiously shiny-new. No ITAR violations but they note the shiny, the new. I look into it, turns out those radios were never meant to be sent to DRMO at all. Look a little closer and the DRMO buy wasn’t right either. See he’s involved in lots of these purchases, lots of contracts.
Nothing huge, but the money seriously adds up. Those pants of yours look to me like the start of a legitimization phase. Like he’s started listening to lawyers. Might even be a money-laundering angle there. What did I tell you his name was?”

  “Gracie.”

  “First name?”

  “Peter.”

  “I’ll give you a mnemonic: Elvis, Graceland.”

  “ ‘Elvis, Graceland’?”

  “Preston, Gracie. Presley, Graceland. What’s his name?”

  “Preston Gracie. Mike.”

  She smiled.

  “What am I supposed to do with this?”

  “Tell Bigend.”

  “But then he’ll know about you.”

  “Only as much as you tell him. If we were back in the States, I’d play this another way. But you’re my only resource here, and I’m out of time. Tell Bigend there’s this hard-ass federal agent who wants him made aware of Gracie. Bigend has money, connections, lawyers. If Gracie fucks with him, let’s make sure he knows who to fuck back at.”

  “You’re doing what Bigend does,” Milgrim said, more accusingly than he intended. “You’re just doing this to see what happens.”

  “I’m doing it,” she said, “because I find myself in a position to. Maybe, somehow, it’ll cause Michael Preston Gracie to fuck up. Or get fucked up. Sadly, it’s just a gesture. A gesture in the face of the shitbird universe, on behalf of my ongoing frustration with its inhabitants. But you need to tell Bigend, fast.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’ve got Gracie’s flight schedule on APIS, via CBP. He’s on his way here. Atlanta by way of Geneva. Looks like he’s laying over for a meeting there, four hours on the ground. Then he’s into Heathrow.”

  “And you’re leaving?”

  “It’s a piss-off, but yeah. And my kids and husband miss me. I’m homesick. I guess it’s time.” She put down her spoon, switching to chopsticks. “Tell Bigend. Tonight.”

  43. ICHINOMIYA

  Thanks for meeting on such short notice,” said Meredith Overton, seated in the armchair directly beneath the rack of narwhale tusks. She wore a tweed jacket that might have come from Tanky & Tojo, if they cut things for women. She’d phoned on Hollis’s way back from her meeting with Bigend, in the strange, high, surgically clean silver pickup driven by Aldous, one of the tall black minders.