Schiller travels with Anneka and his new PA, Bernadette, who is to be Anneka’s replacement once she starts her assignment elsewhere. Bernadette is a bubbly, outgoing Ulster redhead whose enthusiasm has not yet been moderated by the induction into the Inner Temple that is her destiny. She is a member of the Outer Temple of the Golden Promise Ministries, it is true, and is sincere in her dedication to helping bring about the Second Coming, but it is one thing to worship the True God and something quite different to nurture a graft of the True God’s flesh in place of your private parts, so Schiller and Anneka are circumspect in her presence.
As they transfer to the limousine, Anneka checks his phone for messages. “Tom Bradwell has arrived and is in conference room B,” she says tonelessly. “James MacDonald is on his way. Mr. Carroll from Q4 Services is incoming according to his assistant. The first of today’s meetings should start on schedule.” She continues in similar vein for a minute. All those named are senior account managers for companies that specialize in tendering for and providing private sector services to various British government agencies. They’re here for a briefing and then a day of discussions about how they can work with Schiller’s organization on the bid he’s assembling.
“Are there any hitches?” Schiller asks.
“I’ll check for no-shows and chase everyone up once you go in! It’s no problem, really,” Bernadette volunteers. The limo door swings shut, locking out the throbbing of helicopter rotors and the smell of jet fuel. “If Anneka has her phone I can text her updates ahead of each—”
Schiller makes a cutting gesture. “There will be no phones allowed in the meeting,” he tells her. It’s an observation, not censorious, but her face stiffens all the same. “Security,” he says gently.
“Is that a problem?” Bernadette asks nervously. Anneka glances at Raymond, lizard-eyed. Is this one going to be trouble, Father? she thinks at him, with an unthought subtext of fingers tightening around an unprotected throat. Do you want me to …
Schiller smiles. That won’t be necessary, he replies. He intends to Elevate Bernadette sooner rather than later—once his Lord has regrown enough body segments. Indeed, now he is in London he intends to Elevate handmaids as fast as the flesh can manage. “We have rivals,” he tells Bernadette. “Also, some elements of the security services may not approve of us purging the ungodly.” Bernadette nods, comprehension visibly dawning, and Schiller feels Anneka relax beside him. She’s willing to kill for the faith—perhaps too willing, he thinks privately. Killing your own recruits is not a good long-term growth strategy.
The limousine drives through an automated security gate, then around the side of the warehouse and into a loading bay. The roller door lowers itself to the ground before an inner door rises to admit the car. As their driver inches forward, the signal on Anneka’s phone drops away; the entire building is a Faraday cage, to exclude wireless signals. Less visibly, it’s also protected by a security grid: an occult circuit that channels an information flow that subtly corrupts remote viewers and repels extradimensional summonings—with one very specific exception. There are CCTV cameras and motion detectors, and security guards patrol the area with walkie-talkies and paintball guns. Which are loaded with a type of ammunition that would cause extreme consternation if it were to become known to the Laundry.
Schiller and his assistants leave the car and walk across the cavernous floor to an office block that fills half the warehouse. The elevator whisks them straight to the conference rooms on the third floor. Schiller marches into conference room B with a confident smile on his face. Three of his guests are already waiting. “Gentlemen! Welcome to GP Security Systems. I’m glad you could make it at such short notice. Anneka, do you have the briefing packs for our guests?” His handmaid is already reaching into her briefcase for the slim document wallets. “This is the deployment plan for our new UK venture. I’d like to stress that this is highly confidential, and extremely urgent: elements of it need to be actioned no later than close of business today, and I expect none of you will be going home tonight—possibly not for a few nights, although if everything goes to plan we should be fully up and running by Friday, with enterprise-level operations ready to open for business the following Monday. So once you’ve had a few minutes to look at it, I’ll take you through the details point by point, answer any questions, then you can go back to your departments and set the wheels in motion this afternoon.”
* * *
It’s Monday morning and I have no inkling that things are about to completely go to shit as I walk towards the New Annex entrance on the high street. I’m only partially recovered from Friday’s grilling, and I’m not looking forward to the week ahead. I’m wearing my suit—there’s a strong likelihood of my being called back in front of the Commons committee—and my mind is on the quickest route to the coffee station, and then the mid-morning departmental meeting, when the robocop gate guardians suddenly turn towards me. “Identify yourself, please,” says the one on the left (mirror-polished visor on helmet, fashionable MP5 carbine with about six dozen cameras and laser-thingies clamped to its business end) while the one on the right watches his back.
This is a first, so I slowly pull my warrant card out of my pocket. “Bob Howard. I work here,” I say, semiredundantly as the cop examines my pass, paying special attention to the mug shot. Oh good, they’re actually doing something for once, I think, just as he reaches out and takes the card. “Hey!”
“Mr. Howard, please step this way,” says cop number two, who has taken a step sideways and is now facing me alertly. This way is indicated with the muzzle of a gun, and it’s not in the direction of the front door.
“I’ve got a meeting—”
“And we have a warrant with your name on it.” Before I can quite register what’s happening, cop number one is behind me and has clamped my left wrist in a handcuff. “Come along quietly now.”
The crystal clarity of the moment congeals around me: the body-armored cop in front of me with the gun, his buddy behind me reaching to grab my right wrist and yank it behind me, the muffled silence of their warded minds. And I am on edge, jittery and tense and spiky. It’s another snatch—no, I realize, they really are cops. Cold sweat and the tension between my shoulder blades as I register the presence of a police van parked across the street, a real one with a mobile cage in the back. Come along quietly. What are my options? Instinct screams: this is some mistake! Training nudges me to break the wrist lock before cop number one can get me properly cuffed, to break the lock and then break their minds—I don’t think they have a clue how much danger they’re in—but then I get past the immediate reaction, second thoughts kick in, and I force myself to relax my right elbow and allow the guy to pinion my wrists behind my back. These aren’t cultists—I can feel that much for sure—and it follows that they’re following procedure and there is no reason to escalate: this isn’t a life-and-death situation.
“What’s the warrant for?” I ask.
“It’s for you,” says cop number two. “Here’s what’s going to happen: We’re going to run you down the station and the desk sergeant will book you in and read you the charges. Then you get to phone a friend who can organize a lawyer for you.” Cop number one gives me a push in the direction of the back of the van, then takes hold of my right arm.
“Yes, but what am I being charged with?” I repeat, puzzled, as cop number one slides my warrant card into a ziplock evidence baggie.
“Fuck knows, your name just came up on Charge and Book. Come on, the sooner we get you to the nick the sooner you can talk to a lawyer.”
There is a monkey cage in the back of the police van, with a not-terribly-well-padded chair. I let them lead me into it and they strap me in—there’s a seat belt—then the regular uniforms up front drive off at a snail’s pace while the robocops go back on door duty. Nobody’s feeling terribly talkative, the driver up front presumably because this is a routine job and life’s too short to get the cargo riled up, and me because I don�
�t trust myself not to get mouthy and make matters worse. As the initial shock of being arrested wears off I find I am increasingly annoyed—this was not how I planned to spend my Monday morning—but I’m acutely aware that my problem doesn’t lie with the boots on the ground but with whatever jobsworth issued the arrest warrant, or more likely mistyped a name in the Met’s database. Very Brazil, much Terry Gilliam.
A couple of ice ages later my taxi wheezes and grinds into the walled car park at the back of Belgravia nick. The door rattles open. “You going to come quietly, mate?” the driver asks hopefully.
“Yeah,” I grunt. I am getting old and stiff enough that having my wrists cuffed behind my back is distinctly uncomfortable.
“This way, mate.” He steers me along a short corridor, through a door, into a reception suite with a couple of bored cops waiting behind a counter. “Going to search you now. Is there anything in your pockets or bag you want to tell me about first?”
“No, but your mate took my warrant card,” I say. At the words warrant card the desk sergeant suddenly takes an interest.
“Come on, let’s see this,” he tells the driver. I wait patiently as pockets are checked and a baggie is produced. “Hey, what’s this…”
“Ministry of Defense, Q-Division,” I say as he squints through the plastic. “So are we going to get to the bottom of this or am I going to have to get our Chief Counsel to come in? Because I’m pretty sure I haven’t committed any arrestable offenses…”
Things get extremely interesting for a couple of minutes as the handcuffs come off in a display of something not entirely like professional ass-covering and I am politely invited to come and wait in an interview room and asked how I take my coffee. I’m under no illusions: I’m still under arrest, the door locks on the outside and they took my phone, bag, and anything that might conceivably be a weapon. But it’s obvious even to the jobsworths on the front desk that this isn’t a routine booking and somewhere else in the building phones are doubtless ringing off the hook. (Or would be, if phone handsets still had hooks.)
After about ten minutes a constable ducks his head in and hands me a mug of something so lip-curlingly awful that when I finally dare to take a sip it’s all I can do not to spit it out. Then more time passes, and I’m beginning to think they’ve forgotten me when the door opens and a very familiar face walks in. Jo Sullivan is one of our security-cleared Metropolitan Police contacts, hence fully briefed on the Laundry—I’ve even worked with her on a case or two. “Fuck me, it is you,” she says. “Shit. And my day just keeps on getting better.”
“Yeah, that’s a pretty good summary of my day so far. Want to tell me why I’m here?”
“In a minute.” She looks almost amused for a moment. “Humor me?” I nod, and she ducks out of the door and calls the desk sergeant in.
“This person,” she says crisply, pointing at me, “has a warrant card. Did he show it to you when you booked him?”
Sergeant Slow looks at her, then back at me. “The arresting officer had it, ma’am. Mr. Howard here drew my attention to it, which is why we called your office—”
“Jolly good.” Chief Inspector Sullivan grins humorlessly. “Did you recognize the organization he belongs to?”
“Um. One of the spooks…?”
“Yes. Go on?” She nods encouragingly.
“The, uh, Ministry of Magic?” An expression of horror slowly begins to dawn. “Is he some kind of wizard…?”
Jo lets him down gently: “Sort of. If you ever see one of those cards again, just refer it to me. Meanwhile, I’d like the names of the officers who apprehended him because I think they need a training refresher in dealing with transhuman arrest situations. Luckily for them Mr. Howard is a professional and not a bad guy so it all worked out okay this time and I’ll take it from here, but there’d better not be a next time, for their next of kin’s sake. Have you got that file I requested?”
“No ma’am, I’ll just go get it…”
He vanishes smartly and Jo drags out the chair opposite me and makes herself at home. “Jesus, Bob, what have you gotten into now?”
“I have no idea.” I shake my head. “I was just on my way into the office when the boys on the door lifted me. They said something about my name coming up on Charge and Book…?”
Jo frowns. “That makes no sense.” Her eyes flicker towards the door. “You’re lucky I was in town today.” Sotto voce: “Idiots. Sorry, Bob. They should have known better.” She’s not wrong: if they’d followed the correct procedures for arresting someone like me they’d have called in a full transhuman containment crew and sniper teams and whacked me with a sedative dart, and I’d have woken up in the converted nuclear bunker downstairs that they use for holding supervillains. “I don’t think they knew who you were, or this wouldn’t have happened.”
“Yes, well, I kind of guessed that much.”
“So let’s see—” The door opens, and Sergeant Slow passes her a printout apologetically.
Jo reads the top line, then starts swearing, quite creatively. I listen with interest, but then she realizes the door’s still open and the sergeant is standing there and she stops abruptly. “Sergeant, please fetch Mr. Howard’s phone,” she says. “Sorry, Bob, this makes even less sense now.” My phone appears on the table before me. “Sergeant, please attend. Mr. Howard, you are under arrest because you are facing an outstanding charge of receiving stolen goods, specifically, a document or documents that were reported taken from the victim of a fatal mugging at Heathrow Airport last Wednesday.”
Fuck, I think dismally. It can only be Bill McKracken. Poor guy. I knew I should have escorted him all the way to Departures.
Her expression is hard. “Smells like a week-old kipper, but I am afraid I am going to have to book you and print you and run you through the usual, then park you downstairs for a bit. First, one question: do you suspect this charge relates to your activities in pursuit of your lawful orders?”
I don’t even have to think about it. “Yes, definitely, although I didn’t know about the killing. And I need to report this to the Senior Auditor now.”
She points at my phone. “Be my guest.” Then she stands. “Come on, Sergeant, we can wait outside the door while he makes his call, it’s to a recognized security organization; you can take his phone back afterwards. I hope you didn’t have any plans for this morning; things are about to get busy…”
* * *
Jo walks me back out to the front desk and they take me through the routine of being booked into the system. I’m fingerprinted and photographed, have a DNA swab taken, am given the formal police caution, then I’m told the preliminary charges against me. Then the desk sergeant apologetically leads me to the lift down to the subbasement, then into the suite with the bank vault door up front and the nuclear-grade air filters, then sits me down in the underground break room to wait for a responsible adult to show up and sign me out—prodded by Jo’s not-so-subtle intimation that this is a bullshit charge and something’s obviously gone wrong.
I’m sitting slack-jawed watching the television a couple of hours later, my cup of marginally-less-dreadful coffee cooling beside me, when the SA walks in and takes the chair opposite. “What’s going on?” he asks without preamble.
“Rioting in Glastonbury, apparently three New Age shops have been torched. And there’s some kind of demonstration in Brighton. Superpowered vigilantes tried to vandalize Stonehenge overnight, said it’s a gate to hell or something. And I’ve been charged with receiving stolen goods because apparently we missed Bill McKracken being murdered on Wednesday night and what the fuck is this all about?”
I’m on my feet and breathing deeply by the time I finish and Dr. Armstrong is looking concerned. “I’m not sure, Bob, but we’ll sort it out,” he assures me, but his hand gestures are slightly fluttery and his words fall kind of flat. “Josephine sorted you out, I gather?” I nod. “Good, good. I don’t know the details of the case, but I gather your DNA was found on the victim’s
personal effects and you left a CCTV track with him on the buses. I’m less clear on how they have you stealing something—”
I groan. “Oh, I know exactly how. It was at the pub. Tradecraft swap. Probably looked dodgy as hell on camera. But it was entirely legit!”
“Yes, you know that and I know that, but the other thing—Bob, you’re lucky they didn’t charge you with murder.”
“What?”
“Your doppelgänger boarded the train with Bill—the Heathrow Express—a carriage behind him. If it wasn’t you it was someone identical. When they arrived Bill got off the train, fake-you followed him, and that’s when it happened. Stabbing and snatch job.”
“But, but…” I boggle for a moment, helpless anger bubbling up from under.
“You’ve got a perfect alibi, of course, because at the same time someone who looked like your evil twin was murdering your contact you were in the back of an ambulance having survived a hit. The fake-you was the rest of your tail, Bob, masked with a glamour.”
“Shit.”
“My thoughts exactly.” The SA looks ill. “The killer showed us a clean pair of heels. Probably nipped into a toilet cubicle and dropped the glamour, they could have been anywhere in Western Europe by midnight.” He pauses. “I can brief Jo, of course, and we’ll get the charges dropped. You’ll need to give a statement, but this is basically just a case of crossed wires. I’m more worried about where this is all pointing.”
“Schiller?”
“Maybe.” The SA glances at the TV screen, which is showing the Russian army conducting a large-scale exercise near the border with Latvia: something about prepping for Chernobog, Orthodox bishops blessing tank crews and helicopter gunships. “We live in dangerous times. Nobody saw the All-Highest coming; everybody is wondering what happens next. Superheroes, supervillains, elves and dragons and the wheels coming off. Did you know the FTSE 250 is down nearly ten percent in the past week? The only corporations bucking the trend are the defense sector. The PM just strong-armed the Treasury into approving a one-time eight percent rise in funding for the police, citing public order concerns. Those aren’t the first New Age shops to be firebombed, Bob. The churches are actually full for the first time in half a century. Nobody knows what’s going on, and the public want answers, they’re looking for someone to blame.” He pauses. “Jo has promised to find out who pulled the trigger on that warrant with your name on it.”
The Delirium Brief Page 13