All Fun and Games Until Somebody Loses an Eye

by Christopher Brookmyre

  It never occurred to him growing up, just how young Mum must have been, because kids accept their parents as they find them, with no notion of what other age they ought to be. Other boys at school, especially Secondary, used to bait him by saying they wanted to shag her, and though he was faintly aware she was younger than a lot of the other mums, she never seemed very young to him. Young was cool, young was trendy, young was carefree. Mum was just Mum, and he couldn’t see her in fishnets and an Anarchy T-shirt any more than he could imagine her having sex.

  There were too many assumptions he’d made, questions he’d never asked, and not just about her past. Even latterly, with her abortive return to education, her voluntary work at the Asylum place, her stint driving a taxi. What had she been looking for? Where the hell had she disappeared to after saving Rachel from the kidnapper? Who was this mysterious woman with her projects, plans and ambitions? And how many of these hidden parts had been passed on to him?

  He and Michelle had grown up with the notion that Dad was the brains of the household, and thus the source of their own academic prowess. He was out doing his surveying, all briefcase and paperwork, while she was home cooking the tea and ironing shirts. In scientific terms, this conclusion had been arrived at superficially and without sufficient data, and subsequent, more extensive evidence superseded its findings. If it was the essence of Ross to explore, to question, to challenge and, most crucially, to create, then that sure as fuck hadn’t come from Tepid Tom. As neither was its source merely a decent, normal, sensible girl, then he really wanted to meet the female he had got it from.

  To do that, however, he needed to get the pair of them off this fucking boat. He took a seat on the fly-bridge, in front of the secondary helm and its auxiliary control desk. A guard, Stefan, took note with a glance. All of the controls could be overridden at the main helm below; the glance was a warning, just in case Ross didn’t know that. He placed a hand on the tiller and looked at the polished wood fascia, housing a speedometer, compass, echo sounder, radar, GPS monitor, tachometers, oil-pressure gauges, battery indicators and even a sea-temperature read-out. The engines were off. The echo sounder and the radar showed that the boat was drifting gently. They were too far out to drop anchor, but neither did they have anywhere to go. They were just waiting for the boss to conclude his business ashore, waiting at sea because doing so securely contained his prisoners and prevented any interested parties snapping up the merchandise at a bargain rate. Ross looked down at the waves, listened to them lapping the hull, the only sound audible out here other than the faint mumble of Spanish football commentary. Then he looked to stern and realised that there was in fact one other way of reaching the transom deck.

  I, spy

  Jane allowed herself a lingering look in the full-length mirror. She felt the need to familiarise herself with what she saw, and to confirm that those were her own eyes staring back at her. This mirror didn’t have that Residual Image Sustainment function like the one at home: it was next generation. It didn’t show the woman she’d been even as recently as last week. It showed another woman she could have been; another woman who, today at least, she was going to be. Her wedding and engagement rings lay across the room on the dressing table, accoutrements of a life willingly shed.

  It would be inaccurate to say she looked a million dollars, but, factoring in the materials, the expertise and the personnel involved in bringing it all together, she did look six figures, minimum. She had more new clothes, and not from another grab-and-run trip to the supermarket with Alexis. This time Bett had brought in specialist help: one ‘dresser’, one ‘buyer’, and, given that they were about forty minutes from the French Riviera, the clothes were not from some local corner boutique either. She had been scrutinised, measured, made to walk up and down, made to stretch and contort. Notes were made, mutterings issued. The buyer was dispatched, returning in a couple of hours. Then followed adjustments: pins, chalk, more walking, more stretching.

  And all of this was being accommodated around the lengthy ministrations of two hairdressers also brought on-site: one stylist (male), one colourist (female). There was much muttering in French and the occasional referral to Bett, such discussion making Jane feel excluded to the point of superfluous all points south of her scalp. For some reason she had convinced herself they’d make her blonde, which, against her Scottish pallor, she feared would only make the dye-job conspicuous, and was considering whether and how to politely communicate such a reservation to sensitive artists, in particular wondering what the French was for ‘peelly-wally’. However, as cloths and towels were removed and her hair expertly dried, it was revealed to have been transformed to a chestnut shade that not only looked plausibly natural, but was a near pantone-match for the material of her meticulously bespoke trouser suit.

  ‘I can’t carry off sophisticated,’ she’d warned Bett when he told her the remit.

  ‘You’ve read too many airbrushed magazines,’ he replied. ‘As long as you’re wearing enough money, you’ll look sophisticated.’

  ‘You’ve obviously never been out to lunch in Bothwell,’ she opined.

  Bett stared, slightly impatient, like she wasn’t telling him anything he needed to know right then.

  ‘I don’t have time for false modesty or even for genuine self-consciousness,’ he told her. ‘It’s a self-indulgence.’

  ‘It’s not a self-indulgence. It’s a concern about whether I can carry this off. I’ve never been much of a glamour girl.’

  ‘It’s not who you are, or who you’ve been. This is an act, Mrs Fleming. A performance. Remember that if you ever feel like it’s the clothes that are wearing you.’

  And so here she was, in costume, taking a last moment in her dressing room to prepare. The hair stylist had returned this morning for some running maintenance after she’d slept on the new coiff, and after that, one last consultant had pitched up to supply and advise with regard to make-up. After a surprisingly sparse application of powder and paint, she had moved on to the accessories, which were each probably more expensive than any of the other components, tonsorial or sartorial, even the shoes.

  There was a camera in her mobile phone. Sure, these days everybody had a camera in their mobile phone, but not like this; not full-motion video, infrared imaging and 8X magnification zoom. Her diamond earrings were also audio transmitter/receivers, the top bar of the tension settings that held the jewels in place slightly overlapping her lobes so that tiny speakers could project communications inaudible to anyone standing right next to her. Her pendant was a camera too, suspended on a chain of eighteen-carat gold, nestling in cleavage she’d never before dared wear a bra capable of creating, far less exposing. Her instinct now was to do up another button, but her orders and Somboon’s rationale had been clear. It gave the camera maximum scope and protected it from unwanted scrutiny. If guys were looking down there, it wouldn’t be the pendant their eyes were on, and it would also provide plausible cover should she seem concerned that they were staring.

  Her style consultants had also fashioned her with a bag – or purse, given its petiteness – on a long shoulder strap, just enough room inside to accommodate a few essentials, such as lipstick, hankies, her exhibition accreditation and half a dozen minute bugs. It completed the outfit, but she had also donned one final, hidden accessory: a Walther PPK 380 pistol, secured by a holster around her left ankle.

  Bett had presented it in a neat little box like it was a gift. Perhaps, in his universe, it was.

  It was a neat, almost delicate little thing: only three and a half inches long, blue with black plastic grips on the side and a red dot sight at the delivery end of the barrel. It took eight rounds per clip, two spare magazines secured by a strap around her right calf.

  ‘Walther PPK,’ she observed as she accepted it. ‘Now all I need is a casino to visit and a sports car to get me there.’

  Bett said nothing, just twitched his brow knowingly.

  Jane had assumed that spying must principally be ab
out being inconspicuous, but as Bett explained, that didn’t always involve melting into the background. There were many more effective ways to hide in plain sight.

  ‘Being physically awkward and clumsy, for instance, while making your actions stand out, can paradoxically all but render you invisible. People write you off as no threat, and won’t pay you any attention in case you come and bother them. And if you are bothering them, you can ask them anything if they think you’re an idiot. You, however, will not be awkward or clumsy, and certainly won’t be playing an idiot.’

  Her mission therefore – initially, at least – was to be as visible as possible, to be seen and to be noticed. The clothes, however, were not enough. To enhance the impression of her status, she was to be accompanied by Nuno, ostensibly as her bodyguard. This, she happily extrapolated, meant they’d be going in Nuno’s Beamie Z4, over which she had cast a few longing glances whenever it sat outside on the gravel. Better still, Bett had stated that she, and not Nuno, must do the driving.

  ‘A real bodyguard doesn’t double as a chauffeur or PA, or anything else. And a woman of your status would not let the hired help play with her cherished automobile. The privilege of owning such a machine is the privilege of driving it. The exclusive privilege of driving it.’

  ‘A privilege I will relish,’ she assured him, walking out of the front door and on to the steps, placing an in-character, near-proprietary hand on one of the stone sentinels as she passed. ‘I’ve never driven a BMW before, never mind a convertible.’

  She heard Bett tut behind her, and turned around to see him and Nuno share a look.

  ‘Nuno’s Z4?’ Bett said. ‘You won’t be going in that heap of shit. You want to make an impression.‘

  Bett pressed a button on a remote control he produced from a trouser pocket. Jane looked to the side of the house, where the steel door on one of the outbuildings was ascending slowly, accompanied by a deep metallic grind and an electric keening. Sunlight streamed in through the widening gap, reflected back in glinting silver. It was like the doors of the mothership opening, an effect further enhanced by the vehicle within’s resemblance to some form of spacecraft.

  ‘Mrs Fleming, your carriage awaits.’

  The door had opened fully now, but Jane still wasn’t sure what she was looking at. Other than that it was open-topped and on four wheels, it still looked more like a starship than a car.

  ‘What the hell is it?’

  ‘A Lamborghini Diablo Roadster, Millennium edition. V-12 engine, light-alloy block, longitudinally mid-mounted. Dual overhead cam shafts, chain drive, four valves, intake variable valve timing, electronically controlled. Five hundred and thirty brake horsepower and a maximum speed of two hundred and ten miles per hour.’

  Bett drove it from the garage, climbed out and handed her the keys.

  ‘There were thirty produced,’ he said, ‘so, strictly speaking, it isn’t quite irreplaceable, but I am rather fond of it, so do drive carefully.’

  * * *

  ‘I think he’s insane, giving me this thing,’ she said to Nuno as she edged it out of the main gates, checking each direction several times before even thinking about pulling out. She felt like she was on her driving test, or maybe her first lesson. ‘I don’t care how it fits in with my cover. It’s got to be worth more than my house. Twice my house. Three times. I don’t know.’

  She eased it very delicately on to the main road, driving slower than had she been in her own ageing Civic. It felt even slower than the speedometer said, due to the awareness of colossal latent power, but she wasn’t anywhere near ready to unleash it.

  She drove a hundred yards or so at this tentative pace before Nuno calmly reminded her she ought to be on the right.

  ‘See? It’s got my head messed up. I drove fine on the right getting here, and in Barcelona.’

  ‘It’s got your head where Bett wants it,’ Nuno said. ‘And he’s not insane.’

  ‘He wants my head messed up?’

  ‘No. But he’d rather you spent the journey to Cap Andreus worrying about denting his paintwork than worrying about what you’ll be doing when you get there. And maybe he reckons that if you can learn to relax and enjoy this ride, you might relax and enjoy the next one.’

  Jane thought back to a Lanarkshire living room, rain against the windows, school looming in the morning, lying with her elbows on the fading carpet, eyes riveted to the TV screen, transporting her somewhere else. The French Riviera, espionage and intrigue, posh togs and sleek gadgets, sports cars and casinos.

  She smiled, gunned the engine just to hear it growl, then let the clutch out properly.

  G-forces ensued.

  ‘It had to be sunny, didn’t it?’ Lex rued, as Air Bett cut through clear blue skies, Cap Andreus hugging the coastline ahead, their target a distinct tower next to the 1920s and 1930s hotels and terraces.

  ‘It’s sunny, we’re going to the seaside, and you’re complaining?’ Somboon replied. Lex gave him the finger, underlining the reason for her complaint by the digit, and indeed her entire fist, being obscured under the billowing sleeve of the red nylon overalls she and Som were wearing. Underneath those they were fully kitted out in Hotel Reine d’Azur staff uniforms, comprising trousers, shirts and blazers. Armand was spared the outerwear, but was also kitted out in official hotel toggery, in his case as a security official.

  ‘You’ll be complaining too when your ass starts chewing your underwear,’ she told him.

  ‘You think heat bothers me? I’m from Bangkok.’

  ‘And when was the last time you went tooling around Bangkok dressed like this? Actually, scratch that. I don’t want to hear about your fetishes.’

  Rebekah’s voice interrupted, breaking over the intercom from the cockpit.

  ‘ETA minus two minutes,’ she informed them. ‘A-fag everybody.’

  ‘A-fag,’ they all acknowledged, cutting the chat and getting ready for the drop. They’d been toiling several days on the groundwork for this, beginning with Lex hacking the hotel’s system to find out who was booked to stay and, when available, what rooms they had been allocated. They had each been inside the hotel a few times already too, when they weren’t required for training Bett’s new kid-prodigy, as they had begun referring to her. So far, however, they had restricted their activities to public areas. There was nothing less conspicuous than leaning against a wall in a bar, for instance. But when Som leaned off those walls again, he left a brass light switch matching the real fittings. It didn’t turn anything on or off, but it did contain a camera, transmitting a composite fish-eye image generated from four lenses housed where the screws would normally be.

  However, they needed to hit the roof today, because this was work they couldn’t carry out until the penthouse suites’ exhibition occupants had taken up residency, which would only happen after their own security people swept their respective accommodations for bugs.

  They had figured that the biggest players would take the biggest suites, and Lex’s leeched booking information bore that out. Some of the major firms would be off-site, basing themselves at rented villas or harboured yachts for the duration of the exhibition, but there was little they could do about that; they had to settle for what was local, initially at least.

  The good news was that the main lead they had at this stage, Ordinance Systems Europe, was taking a suite in the penthouse. Bett’s exhaustive contacts had led him to identify the firm from merely the two names Lex had picked up in Scotland: Lucien and Parrier. OSE had a Pascal Parrier in senior management and their deputy head of security was named Lucien Dirlos, a former cop, reputedly as brutal as he was corrupt. He and OSE were a good match, it appeared. The company, which made short-range anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, as well as assault rifles and tripod-mounted field guns through a wholly owned subsidiary, had been at various times indicted for – or at least implicated in – just about every form of corporate intimidation and corruption there was a law against. Naturally, they had a bigger legal budge
t than most courts could muster against them, especially when OSE had sufficient politicos in their pockets to hamstring the prosecutions from above. They were, in that respect, ‘just your typical arms firm,’ according to Bett, who had therefore surmised that under a threat such as Fleming posed, they’d have few reservations about unleashing the jackals, even if that entailed child abduction and murder.

  The stand-out question at the briefing was why OSE, more than anyone else, had such a hard-on for Fleming and his device. The most plausible explanation was simply that they knew earliest, and thus got saddled up quickest to do what they felt was needed. This thought had prompted a return of that tight, cold, this-is-it feeling in Lex’s gut. Whoever knew about this first knew about it through her nameless conspirator, and thus through her. She thought of her meetings, the phone calls, talk of contacts and influence. For all she was aware, it could well have been this Lucien guy. She’d have to keep her eyes open real wide in case the pair of them ended up face to face in some hotel corridor.

  With OSE already having gone to great and ruthless lengths to acquire Fleming, it was a shoe-in that they’d be in the forefront of the bidding when whoever had him made his position known. The plan was to spread their surveillance as wide as was practical, but initially the closest eye had to be kept on the OSE principals, to see who came a-hawking. Once they knew who was holding the geek, it would be a different game, the game Bett played best.

  The Hotel Reine d’Azur was an Eighties-built high-rise in black, chrome and glass, abutted on three sides by two-storey extensions housing the exhibition and function halls. It was intended to look high-tech and ultra-modern in its time, thus rendering it swiftly dated when culture and architecture both inconveniently failed to stop in their tracks. According to Armand, it was a fitting, iconic landmark for Cap Andreus, a harbour resort forever in the shadow and in envy of its coastal neighbours such as Cannes, San Tropez and Monte Carlo. In its attempts to compete with their status and prestige in attracting the tourism and conference dollars, its burghers and investors had attempted to outdo its rivals in terms of opulence and ostentatious expenditure. The result was a sink of flash-trash vulgarity, a kind of Vegas-sur-la-Riviera, its ill-starred excesses crowned by this graceless, three-toed monolith. To Armand, it was no surprise that this so-called ‘defence exhibition’ was taking place in this town and in this building, as the more self-respecting resorts and hotels would have told them to fuck off. Up the coast, they didn’t need the business any more than they needed the hassle that went along with it, such as having their premises predictably picketed by protesters, as was going on down at ground level right then.