Rhesus Chart (9780698140288)

by Stross, Charles

  But every once in a while it gets to me.

  I didn’t know Evan well; in fact I barely knew him at all, and I certainly didn’t kill him myself. But that puts him in a particularly odd space, sort of like a friendzone for collateral damage. If he’d been a real friend, ally, or close co-worker I’d be angry and bitter right now, and justifiably so. If he’d been a complete stranger I’d be, well, not indifferent, but not personally invested either. I’d be professionally engaged, and nothing more.

  The trouble is, I knew Evan just well enough that he’s not a total stranger, but not well enough for mourning and anger. So I feel acutely uncomfortable and edgy and introspective and worried that I’m not responding normally to this kind of shit, or that perhaps I’m losing it and overreacting to the death of a near stranger, and chasing my mind’s tail in circles—

  “Stop it, boy,” says Angleton, and I startle, just as the police car crashes over a speed pillow so hard I crunch my tailbone and clack my teeth together. “I can’t hear myself think while you emote like that.”

  I turn my head to glare at him, but he’s already looking away, staring into the distance—not the queue of buses and taxis ahead, but some inner vista of desolation and horror. “It could have been Mhari,” I say quietly.

  “What if it was?” Angleton murmurs.

  “If someone is stalking the PHANGs—”

  “Isn’t that a bit of a leap?”

  I look straight ahead, at the back of the head restraint on the front passenger seat, where a pair of police ears are undoubtedly pricking up and paying attention. “Yes, it is a leap, but don’t tell me you haven’t been half-expecting it. I believe we have a duty of care and should arrange to move them to a place of safety before we continue—”

  A throat is very loudly cleared in the front of the car. “’Scuse me, folks, but I couldn’t help overhearing. And I have to advise you that if you are aware of a threat to life then we’re the experts in—”

  “Ahem,” says Angleton, in a tone of voice that comes pre-chilled in liquid helium. “Are you gentlemen qualified for vampire protection duty?”

  “For what?” says the first cop. Then the driver chips in: “Don’t be silly, vampires don’t—”

  “Correct,” Angleton cuts him dead. “Therefore vampire hunters don’t exist either. Also: who exactly do you think you’d be protecting from whom?”

  “Hang on,” says the first cop. “Vampires. Are we talking, like, blood-sucking undead walking corpses? Or people with some sort of disease? Because the first kind, if they’ve been declared dead, then they’re not people. Stands to reason, dunnit?”

  “But you can’t stake them or set them on fire,” interrupts the driver (who has slowed down slightly to join in the conversation). “That’d be Interfering with the Proper Disposal of a Corpse, which is an offense subject to, um, I’d have to look it up. Also, wouldn’t it be Interfering with the Work of a Coroner? That’s heavy.”

  “But if they’re just a sick human, then the Human Rights Act applies,” says the first cop. “So our normal rules of engagement would apply, and we’d have to meet the minimum criteria for deploying lethal force. And the vampire hunters would be up for GBH or attempted murder if they did anything, right? Common Assault at the very least, possibly criminal harassment. Stalking, maybe. If they tweeted or texted the vampire first we could do them for an s.43 under the Malicious Communications Act . . .”

  I glance sidelong at Angleton. He glances back at me. “This is your fault, boy,” he mouths. What, it’s my fault we’re stuck in traffic while Constable Savage lectures us about how to arrest a vampire for wearing a loud opera cape in a built-up area? Angleton turns his head and makes eye contact with our driver in the rearview mirror. “Kindly shut up and drive, there’s a fine chappie,” he says; “we’re in a hurry. Oh, and don’t ever talk about this conversation to anyone. On pain of extreme pain.” He doesn’t even bother to pull his warrant card: his words have the weight of stones. And, for a miracle, the officers of the law stop speculating above their pay grade and mash the pedal to the metal.

  16.

  CODE BLUE

  THE BRIEFING ROOM IS WAITING. IT’S CROWDED: JEZ, LOCKHART, and Andy are there, obviously. Less obviously needed are the other heads at the back of the room, who bracket just about everyone from the DRESDEN RICE committee, including Mhari—and also Pete and Alex. Neither of whom are remotely cleared for this kind of shit, so I view their presence here as either a sign of desperation or of leaking stovepipes and prolapsed security. “Who invited them?” I ask Andy as I join him at the top table.

  “Why don’t you ask the ring-wraiths?” Andy murmurs back, swiveling his eyes in the direction of a side-door which is just opening to admit a familiar figure whose mere presence makes my blood run cold and my ward tingle: it is the Senior Auditor, followed by another of his cabal—middle-aged, female, kind-faced as death in her twinset and pearls.

  “Good evening, all,” announces the Senior Auditor, looking round the assembled crowd. A quick smile; light flashes from the gold frames of his half-moon reading glasses. “Mr. Schwartz, I’m pleased to meet you.” Alex jerks, doing his best guilty schoolboy impression. “Our Patient Zero. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  “Charmed,” says the female Auditor, a twinkle as of ice in her eye.

  “What is this?” Alex squeaks, sounding as intimidated as a mouse that has just woken up in the middle of a cattery.

  “One moment.” The Senior Auditor raises his left hand, extends a couple of fingers—reminding me, incongruously, of a death-metal star messing with his audience’s head—and utters a word. I don’t hear it so much as I feel it, ricocheting back and forth inside my skull like a really angry hornet getting ready to sting someone repeatedly. “I declare this meeting room sealed by the authority vested in my office. What is spoken here may not be discussed with those elsewhere, on pain of execution of your oath of office.”

  I spot Pete huddling in a chair with his arms wrapped around him, looking most unhappy. He’s a modern enlightened vicar of the variety who has a PhD in Aramaic Studies. He probably thinks of the whole Bible thing as a fascinating abstract historical puzzle (which he has read in the original tongue—at least those bits that survive via the Dead Sea Scrolls). Of course he’s unhappy! He’s trapped in a committee with a bunch of demonologists and necromancers, the Eater of Souls, two vampires, and a kindly-looking old gent in half-moon specs who scares them all shitless. He must feel like an atheist at a revival meeting.

  “I’d like to open this session by announcing that it’s a Code Blue emergency briefing. You are all involved, to some extent. Is anybody unclear as to why they’re here?”

  Hands go up all round the room. “Yes!” It’s Doris from Health and Safety. (My heart sinks: old Basil the coffin dodger is sitting right beside her, sucking on his dentures and rocking slowly.) “What’s this about?”

  “Ah, Mrs. Greene!” The SA smiles, apparently in genuine pleasure. “You’re here because you’re the Health and Safety monitor on the DRESDEN RICE committee. And I see you brought Mr. Northcote-Robinson from Archives along, too? How charming. (Basil, we really must get together one of these days, it’s been too long.) The reason for this meeting is somewhat less happy, I’m afraid to say. This lunchtime we became aware that one of our vampires was missing. I believe James and Mr. Howard are just back from investigating . . . ?”

  Angleton clears his throat. “Evan Elliott is confirmed dead. Bob identified him. Cause of death was hemogolic incineration followed by V-parasite autophagosis. His neck was broken, immobilizing him; the killer then positioned him in front of a window.”

  He falls silent. “It was a professional hit,” I add. “Whoever did it knew exactly what they were doing and left no forensic traces. There may be CCTV footage from the lobby and the cameras nearby, but I expect the assassin took care to avoid standing too close.” CSI
’s magic image enhancement software doesn’t actually work on real-world CCTV footage: a blurry low-resolution image saved at eight frames a second won’t tell us anything useful about a careful professional who never came within fifty meters of a camera.

  I’m interrupted by a retching sound. It’s Alex, with his head between his knees; Pete is leaning over him, clearly concerned. From across the room, Mhari catches my eye: she’s clearly upset.

  “Would someone care to explain what this means in plain English?” complains Doris Greene. “As the incident didn’t occur on our premises I don’t see how we can possibly be blamed—”

  “What—what?” chirps Basil Northcote-Robinson. He looks puzzled.

  “Please leave your questions for later,” says the SA. He’s still smiling, but there are wrinkles in his forehead and crow’s-feet at the sides of his eyes. “I see that Oscar Menendez is not present.” Mhari startles. “That could be significant. I have further bad news. In addition to Mr. Elliott’s death, last night Sir David Finch wrote a suicide note, then unscrewed one of the window units in his office and jumped to his death.” Alex seems to have got his rebellious stomach under control, but Mhari turns white as a sheet: she looks as if she might start with the head-spinning pea-soup spraying thing at any moment. “Which is extremely convenient. Ms. Murphy, do you have any reason to believe that Mr. Menendez might have wanted to kill Sir David?”

  “Bu-buh—” Mhari’s jaw flaps for a few seconds. “No! It’s too early!” Now she looks ashen. “He’s not ready for the, uh, the bust-out. Nowhere near.”

  “Thank you, that will be all,” the SA says, not unkindly. She flops back in her seat, gasping as if she’s just swallowed a toad. “We will discuss his plans further during your next enhanced vetting.”

  “Pale” doesn’t really describe her right now: “ashen” would be a better word. She’s shaking, either from fear or anger. I’m not sure whether she’s pissed at (or afraid of) the Senior Auditor, or freaked because he thinks Oscar might be a murderer. But the SA rolls sublimely on, leaving the rest of us floundering in a sea of uncertainties.

  “If Mr. Menendez is not responsible for Sir David’s death, then we must assume that he is in immediate danger. Gerald, if you’d be so good as to take care of matters? You may leave the room.”

  “I’ll get onto it right away,” Lockhart says as he heads for the door. I suspect he’s relieved to be out of the firing line, with a straightforward task to accomplish. “Resource level?”

  “This is a Code Blue,” interjects the female Auditor. “Do whatever is necessary to locate Mr. Menendez and move him to a place of safety.”

  Mhari sticks up her hand. “There is a Mercedes van,” she says hesitantly. “Kitted out with food, fuel, and a full bug-out kit. Oscar called it his Mystery Machine; it’s parked in the Bank’s basement car park on level B.” She rattles off registration, make, and model details. “He was prepping a bolt-hole somewhere in the countryside. I don’t know where exactly, he refused to say.”

  The Auditor beams at her. “Thank you, Ms. Murphy!” She glances at Lockhart. “Proceed as authorized.”

  And then Gerry Lockhart is gone, and I suppress a shudder. Did I just hear an Auditor tell one of the heavy hitters in External Assets to do whatever is necessary? Then I look at Mhari. She’s wearing a profoundly guilty expression. Is it putting two plus two together if I infer that the senior executive she mentioned over dinner was . . . oh. Well, it’s none of my business, I suppose. Especially now.

  “I have called this meeting because it has become apparent that someone is attempting to liquidate our OPERA CAPE employees,” says the Senior Auditor, taking over from his colleague. “This working group therefore has three tasks. The first item on the agenda is to place all personnel with PHANG syndrome who are not members of this committee in protective detention for the duration. The second item is to identify the threat—”

  “Oh no,” groans Alex. (The SA chooses to ignore his interruption.)

  “—by establishing a decoy protocol whereby two assets will be exposed, albeit with protection—”

  “Now wait a minute!” starts Mhari.

  “—and the third action item is to neutralize the threat,” the SA adds, ignoring her, too. “Which means identifying, characterizing, and preventing it. Ahem. There is some reason to believe that it may have resulted from an inadvertent contact with our own organization. This cannot be confirmed at present, but you should be aware that this is why I have established a Code Blue working group and bound you all to silence. Colonel Lockhart is, incidentally, already privy to this plan.”

  Colonel Lockhart? Well, I already knew he was ex-army, but that’s some heavy stuff. I look around the room. Everybody is looking as grim as a tax audit, except for Mhari and Alex (who look petrified), Pete (who is appalled), and the DRESDEN RICE dead wood (who appear to be wondering what time dinner is served in this nursing home).

  “Working groups: Greene, Northcote-Robinson, you are working under Jez Wilson on task alpha, securing our human resources. You will coordinate with Colonel Lockhart once he has secured Mr. Menendez. Angleton, Howard, Murphy, Wilson, Newstrom: you are on tasks beta and gamma, threat identification and neutralization. Which is to say, you have to identify, track, and intercept a dedicated assassin who has successfully killed at least one PHANG and quite possibly a senior banking executive.” Everyone looks duly grave. “You will now form breakout groups in, ah, this briefing room and next door, room 203, and conduct a task breakdown exercise and develop proposals for taking the operation forward. Judith and I will coordinate from here. Are there any further questions? No? Very well, let’s get to work.”

  • • •

  I END UP TAKING MHARI HOME—MY HOME. BECAUSE . . .

  “It’s a safe house. No, really: class one secured, and tested the hard way.”

  I do not tell her that the testing involved me being doorstepped by KGB zombies. Or articulate just how little faith I put in the DRESDEN RICE coffin-dodgers who are half of team alpha. For now, it’s enough for her to know that “home” is a Victorian mid-terrace owned by the Crown Estates and leased to approved personnel at a rent affordable on a civil service salary (otherwise we wouldn’t be able to staff our offices in central London). With additional security and wards provided by our own Facilities Management Unit, just in case work comes calling, or we need to take files home that must be protected from the depredations of random burglars.

  “We’ve got a spare bedroom you can use.” (Actually, we’ve got two spare bedrooms: it’s a family-sized house with no family to fill it.) “And if our Mr. X is trying to rub you out, the last place they’ll look is under the roof of the guy they set up to kill you. Now, your own apartment is another matter . . .”

  I don’t need to remind her about Evan. She swallows, and nods. “Are you sure your wife won’t mind?”

  “She’ll mind any number of things,” I tell her. “She’ll mind if you smoke in the bathroom, she’ll mind tripping over your suitcase in the front hall, and she’ll mind if you don’t buy your own groceries or keep clogging up the washing machine—but she won’t mind you, if you follow? As long as you’re a co-worker and it’s just for a day or two. Until we neutralize the threat.”

  If the threat is an insider, it’s quite likely that they’ve got access to the PHANGs’ personnel files. It’d explain how they got to Evan. The alpha group worked this out. So they offered the PHANGs a choice of the duty officer’s accommodation (a lumpy bunk bed in an office next to the staff canteen), a cheap room in a Travelodge, or relocation to the Village Formerly Known as Dunwich (where we maintain a whole bunch of training facilities, and which has rather good security against intruders).

  However. I have a nasty, sneaky, suspicious mind, and I am aware of the possibility that our PHANG-killer might not only be an insider, but that they might be on the inside of the Senior Auditor’s tent, piss
ing in the communal punch. And “under Bob’s roof” is the very last place that anyone with access to her personnel file will expect to find her lurking. So I am minded to conduct a controlled experiment. I don’t think Mhari is suicidally inclined, so during a coffee break an hour into proceedings I propose this arrangement to her. And because she’s neither suicidally inclined nor any less paranoid than I am, she agrees . . . on condition she can tell the Senior Auditor where she’ll be bunking, first.

  Which is fine by me, as long as the SA is the only person she tells. If we can’t trust the SA, we are so comprehensively fucked that we might as well wind up the organization and chow down on the poison pills right now.

  Before heading home I spend another hour with the beta group, working out our plan for the morrow. I have some misgivings about it, largely because it relies heavily on Alex and Pete, both of whom are (in my opinion) undertrained newbies. On the other hand they’ll have me riding shotgun, along with a small battle group of specialists (who will be briefed at the last possible hour, to reduce the risk of leaks). And it’s all going to be supervised from the New Annex by Angleton himself. I’d ask for JOHNNY PRINCE and BASHFUL INCENDIARY if they were available, but most of our heavy hitters are out of the office this week, presumably hitting heavy things a very long way from home. The BLUE HADES negotiations had to come up at the worst possible time. I suspect the SA is taking steps to recall the delegates, but even so they won’t be back in town for at least twenty-four hours. So, in the meantime, we’ve got to work with what we’ve got.

  Eventually it turns nine o’clock, and people are yawning. “Let’s call it a day,” I suggest, and nobody—not even Angleton—demurs.