The Rhesus Chart (21 page)

“Hey, wait a—” I’m ahead of her, but only just.

“Bob, you’re the sacrificial goat. We know she’s got a low opinion of you, and has very little idea of what you’re capable of. So we’re going to work to reinforce that. The official minutes of this meeting will not record us discussing Mhari’s timing. Nor will they mention your epidemiological research, the reason for the Code Blue, or your preparations. Instead they’ll focus on us dumping on you for calling in a spurious Code Blue and wasting resources—” She stops and looks at Lockhart. “Yes?”

Lockhart shakes his head. “Nothing relevant. Forget I was here. Redact my name from the minutes.”

We all turn to stare at him. “The Senior Auditor will sign off on everything if I advise him to,” he says, and the temperature in the briefing room drops five degrees.

“Are you
sure
?” Jez asks tentatively. (Mentioning our overseers is about as welcome as mentioning Old Nick at a funeral.)

“Let’s just say that I believe it would be unwise to attach my name to a document that Ms. Murphy might subsequently stumble across if she goes looking for it. She does not need to be aware that External Assets has an interest in this situation.” He glowers at me. “She does not need to be aware that Bob is involved in External Assets, either.”

“Well gee, thanks for the vote of confidence!”

“See me later, Bob,” he grunts, then turns back to look at Jez. I notice that Andy is watching our exchange with the still, silent fascination of a fly on the wall that is canny enough to be aware of the existence of swatters.

“If you don’t mind.” There’s a waspish edge to Jez’s voice as she picks up her train of thought again: “Bob, we’re going to whitewash this meeting’s minutes, and unjustifiably blacken your name until such time as we have established exactly what Ms. Murphy and her worryingly powered-up quants are up to. At which time this committee will reconvene and correct the record. Meanwhile, we’re going to conduct ourselves as if we have swallowed her bait. And then we’re going to engineer a situation where she can’t avoid interacting with you. Are you clear on why we’re doing this? Can you cope?”

“What are you asking? Can I keep my lid on when dealing with my psycho ex from hell?”

“Essentially, yes.” This from Andy, who has the decency to look slightly embarrassed in his characteristic hangdog way.

I shrug. “I’ve been married to someone else for years. I’m a grown-up: I can cope.”

“Good.” Jez glances at Andy, then back to me. “Then the rest is up to you.”

 • • • 

IT’S EASIER TO TAKE TIME OFF IN LIEU THAN TO FILL OUT THE
overtime claim for a failed Code Blue. I go home early that afternoon, to lick my wounds and catch up on some non-classified reading. I’m expecting to spend another quiet night in with the computer, playing a cheesy MMO based in a Planescape spin-off, with maybe half a bottle of wine and a takeaway pizza for company. But at about six o’clock, just after dark, I hear the front door opening.

I’m not one to worry—our front door was reinforced a couple of years ago after I was doorstepped by a zombie from the KGB’s occult successor organization, although it’s sometimes amusing to let the Jehovah’s Witlesses get far enough inside to see the security grid embedded in the porch floor—but I heave myself out of the buttock-eating living room sofa to go and check who’s there, just in case. I needn’t have bothered.

“Mo?” I ask, as she lets the door swing closed. She’s wearing a long black dress and jacket with some kind of shawl over her shoulders, suitcase on the floor behind her and violin case in hand. She looks like she’s been somewhere in the Middle East, and she’s clearly exhausted.

“Bob, be a love and put the kettle on? Been a long day.”

“Okay.” I pad into the kitchen—I’m wearing bedroom slippers—and fill up the kettle again. She’ll be wanting tea, at a guess. “Where’ve you been? Can you talk?”

“I—yes, I can talk.” She doesn’t sound happy, though. “Later. Some other time. For now I just need tea, then a shower and change and some company to keep me awake until bedtime. It’s been a very long day.”

“How long?” I ask, trying to keep her going.

“I was on a flight from Tehran to Istanbul at, let’s see, five o’clock this morning? Which would be one-thirty over here. I’ve been up since before midnight, in other words.” She comes in, pulls out a chair from the kitchen table, and drops into it like a sack of spuds. Her cheeks are jowly and loose with fatigue, her eyelids bruised by dehydration. “I hate this job.”

I’m still processing. “You were in Tehran?” Adding a hearty
what the fuck?
is unnecessary: that’s a bit far out of our usual stomping grounds to say the least.

She nods, begins to droop, then raises the violin case and plants it on the kitchen table right between the bowl with the browning fair trade bananas and the heatproof mat I was going to put the teapot on. “Usual guarantees apply.”

Despite all the shouting about nuclear reprocessing, and the saber-rattling about aircraft carriers and the Strait of Hormuz, it turns out that almost
everyone
is on the same side with respect to the Axis of Ancient, Undying, and Truly Inhuman Evil. So from time to time the Laundry gets strangely phrased requests for assistance from a rather obscure corner of VEVAK, the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and National Security. (They almost always ask too late, especially in view of the number of permits and authorizations required before we can agree to send someone, because they seem to think we’re fiendish hyper-competent Svengalis of the Supernatural. They have always had an unrealistically high opinion of the British secret intelligence services. It’s nice to be wanted, even if they’d die of shame rather than admit it in public.)

“So the thing on Monday, that was Iran?”

“Yes.” She nods. The kettle comes to a rolling boil and switches itself off; I busy myself filling a pot with loose-leaf Darjeeling. “I need tea. And a bath. Then dinner. Then someone to keep me from falling asleep.”

“Is the jet lag particularly bad?”

“No, but I’m going to have bad dreams.” She shudders slightly and pulls her shawl tight around her shoulders. It’s silk, and looks as if it’s probably very fashionable, not to say expensive. She notices my gaze. “Isn’t it nice? I bought it at the airport duty-free, on the way out. The VEVAK people I was working with kept trying to impress me with how Anglophile and welcoming they were, but going without a head covering there is like wandering around London topless, so I thought I should buy something I can use as a scarf when winter starts to bite.” She lets it fall from her shoulders and shakes it out, then begins to carefully fold it. Her hands are shaking slightly, and I can see the veins and tendons through the pale, almost translucent skin behind her knuckles. They’re more visible than when we first met: a side effect of growing older together.

“It’s very nice,” I say carefully. “What did VEVAK want?”

“They had a problem. I fixed it. Did anything interesting happen while I was away?” I noticed a faint tremor in her voice when she said
fixed
.

“Oh, I called in a Code Blue, but what I’d found turned out to be an internal op. Supposedly, anyway. It nearly turned into fratricide but we stopped in time.” I grimace and try not to rub my right arm too obviously.

Mo sits up, looking almost interested. “Really?” She asks: “Can you tell me about it?”

A quick check with my internal censor reveals that I can, indeed, tell Mo everything about my ten-percenter project. Although I suddenly begin to wonder if it was wise to mention this at all, bearing in mind the Mhari angle. On the other hand, Mhari and I split up almost before I ever met Mo in the first place, and on the third hand, being caught later trying to conceal Mhari’s sudden reappearance would be vastly more incriminating than coughing to the true situation right now. I make a snap decision that sometimes honesty really
is
the best policy—even between spies—but paranoia about the ex from hell can wait until Mo’s a bit less stressed out.

So I stand up to pour the tea, and begin to explain what I’ve been up to for the past few weeks, with a focus on Andy’s fucked-up summoning and subsequent search for a new office, and Pete’s MAGIC CIRCLE OF SAFETY project. Who knows? Maybe it’ll help her stay awake until she’s over the jet lag. And maybe hearing about someone else’s woes will distract her from whatever the bad thing is that happened in Iran that she’s trying to avoid telling me about.

THERE ARE SOME TRADITIONAL PROPRIETIES THAT MUST
always be upheld, except in the direst of emergencies. The current situation does not—yet—amount to such an emergency. And so it is that when George decides to inform another of his ilk of Sir David’s worrying news, he does so by invoking a protocol steeped in antiquity.

Not that Sir David himself realized that his news would be cause for concern: he saw nothing wrong with directing a tenth of a billion pounds into an untried research project, and indeed, that sum is only a small fraction of the bank’s asset reserve. But George’s nostrils flare and his lips involuntarily crease into something like a sneer at the unwelcome memory dredged up by the miasma of meddling that Sir David trailed into his club. Sir David has been touched by a will not his own, and George cannot abide the stink of soiled goods, much less the threat that it brings.

It’s time for a parlay with a rival. On neutral ground and in the absence of minions—of course—for this marks a diminuendo in the century-long symphony of killing dictated by the law of vampires.

Exactly an hour after midnight, a cast-iron gate creaks open and a man steps through it, onto the gravel path beyond. Old George is shrouded against the chill of the night, his overcoat buttoned and hat brim drawn low to partly conceal his face. His driver and regular bodyguard close and lock the gate behind him, then wait in the car. His possession of the keys to this venerable institution does not surprise them, for they are far beyond such a mental state after so long in his service. They will await his return patiently, and they will bite off their tongues and drown in their own blood before they speak of this to any man or woman now alive.

Beyond the gate it is as dark as a London night ever gets in this electrified age. A ruddy sky-spattered glare deepens the shadows cast by woodland vegetation. The trees and bushes still sport autumnal leaves, but they rustle as drily as any crypt-bound bones. His heels crunch quietly on the path as he walks between lichen-stained monuments, corroded by decades of acidic soot before coal fires were banished from the capital. He remembers the choking, acrid fog as it once saturated the graveyard air around him, providing concealment and dampening sounds. It was a comfort, of sorts, rendering these approaches slightly less fraught. Now there’s no night and mist to hide in if his contact has come adrift, hissing and snarling at the corrosive winds of time and determined to drag George down with him when he goes. He has only the trees and the overgrown tombs and mausoleums to hide amidst. Well, those and his own defensive preparations.

Even without consciously commanding the movement, his hand steals to his left pocket and pats it, outlining the slim black box within. It’s a dead man’s handle: if he does not press the button whenever the box vibrates, certain messages will be sent to trusted subordinates. The adversary will expect nothing less of him, and can be expected to conduct his affairs accordingly. He, too, probably carries a dead man’s handle. It’s just another step in the intricate and lethal waltz they’ve been dancing for decades.

George stalks the familiar, tree-shrouded avenues and paths of Highgate Cemetery, past so many people he vaguely knew (and in many cases despised) in life. He belongs here, and indeed his will once specified that this should be his final resting place, but they have long since closed his preferred section to new burials.

Coming to the impressive column-flanked entrance to Egyptian Avenue (its mouth pitch-dark to regular human eyes, although George’s night vision is preternaturally good, as sensitive as any cat’s), he pauses and waits for a few seconds, closing his eyes and clearing his mind. One of his kind has been this way, and recently. They took no pains to conceal themselves, which is a good sign. He opens his eyes again and straightens his back as he steps forward into the pool of night between the tree-shadowed lintel.

The older parts of Highgate Cemetery are preserved as woodland these days, overgrown with ivy-clad sycamore and ash trees, limestone and marble walls of gape-mouthed crypts gently aging into the landscape. Old George paces along a gravel-strewn path past a wall set in a gentle hillside, pierced by classical columns and open doorways. His nostrils flare once more as he nears his destination: a wealthy Victorian family’s final resting place. Not all of their niches are occupied. Indeed, one remains empty for it is the one that had his name—an earlier name—earmarked for it. But it’s not empty now. He pauses outside the entrance and speaks aloud, the words galling: “May we speak in peace?”

“Yes, subject to the usual caveats.”

The other is male, and speaks with an old London accent tainted with mannerisms that strike George as modern affections—even though they predate the deplorable Americanisms that crept into everyday usage after the Second World War. George relaxes his facial musculature to an almost sheepish droop, carefully suppressing any expressive signatures.

“Very well. I shall speak from out here,” he says carefully. “I will caution that I did not request this rendezvous without reason. If you try to kill me you will remain ignorant of a threat to your life. And mine, which is why I seek to make common cause.”

The tomb’s occupant is silent for almost a minute. Then: “You mentioned a threat. Please describe it. Then we can discuss the possibility of cooperation.”

 • • • 

“LISTEN UP, PEEPS,” SAYS MHARI. “THIS IS CRITICALLY
important. There
will
be an exam, and if you fail, the consequences could be, shall we say, worse than career-limiting.”

A lot can happen in a couple of days. In this case, there has been a drastic realignment of status among the Scrum. All the status markers are scrambled, for one thing, because a Casual Friday dress code applies—today being Saturday, and the office theoretically being closed. Mhari sits at the head of the table, in leggings and a little black dress accessorized out of the spectrum of regular office-wear; Oscar is off to one corner, kicked back in chinos and a polo shirt bearing the bank’s logo, one loafer crossed over an immaculately creased leg. The others are variously attired in jeans and button-down shirts except for Dick, who has accessorized his usual Oxfam-surplus tweed suit with an ancient Cradle of Filth tee shirt, lovingly tie-dyed using his own vomit. (This is Dick’s unique interpretation of Office Casual.)

“You’re doubtless wondering what the hell is going on and what this bunch of government crap is about and what it’s got to do with you. So let me explain.

“Our power, talent, what-have-you does not exist in a vacuum. The government got there first, back during the war. Apparently Alan Turing had something to do with it. Anyway: there’s a field of applied mathematics that lets you contact extradimensional beings, and a whole side-field called applied computational demonology—stop picking your nose and pay attention, Dick, you
animal
—and during the war a division of SOE, that’s the Special Operations Executive, was set up to perform Occult Operations. Turns out we live in a multiverse and there are things with too many tentacles—yes, Evan, I’m talking about Cthulhu here. Yes, yes, I know. The Laundry (they were originally headquartered above a Chinese laundry in the West End) is the branch of the secret service for protecting the UK from the scum of the multiverse.
And that means us.
Do you understand?”

Mhari glances around the motley gaggle of mathematicians, system administrators, and bankers. Out of pin-stripe uniform they could be a bunch of Saturday-afternoon role players or canal-boating enthusiasts. Superficial appearances are misleading precisely because, so much of the time, they’re accurate. And it is a very good thing indeed that the Scrum’s appearance is at odds with its nature.

“We can’t go out in daylight, we’re super-strong, we have a taste for blood, and we can make people do what we want. Oh, and we got there by way of Dick and Evan’s sterling work in visualization and Alex’s five-dimensional group isomorphism, which is, shall we say, Laundry territory. We are the sort of things they have nightmares about. And because it’s their job to spot things like us, it was pretty much inevitable that sooner or later we would come to their attention. If we come to their attention in a bad way, that would be very bad—they play for keeps and they have kissing cousins in the military, never mind the police. The least-bad outcome would involve padded cells and a lot of intrusive medical tests. The worst . . . you don’t want to know about the worst. Just think how every vampire movie you’ve ever seen ends, then imagine that instead of a handful of half-assed vampire-hunting heroes you’re up against a Cold War–era government agency.

“However, there’s an escape clause. If you’re on the inside, pissing out, they will find a pigeonhole to put you in. Practitioners end up in very odd places all the time, and the Laundry has a habit of recruiting anyone with any remotely non-deniable exposure to the real no-shit occult. Fifteen years ago that was me; I spent a couple of years in there before convincing them to put me on permanent unpaid sabbatical with an employment placement thrown in. Which is why I had the contacts in place with Human Resources to get you all listed as new personnel acquisitions earlier this week, before our visitor dropped in for a chat.”

She pauses to take a drink from the water glass on the table. This not being a meeting organized by their employer, the glass contains a liquid other than water: a Bloody Mary would be gauche but a G&T goes down fine.

“Unavoidable side effects: you will all have to accept that for the foreseeable future you are going to be inducted into an annoyingly sluggish and overstaffed part of the civil service, and they will expect to have first call on your time. You are going to have to sign a schedule to the Official Secrets Act that most people don’t even know exists, and fill out a lot of paperwork. You will then spend
at least
a month on evaluation and training on their premises—indoctrination is more like it—while they assess your personality and aptitudes and make you jump through hoops, then give you a whistle-stop tour of the organization’s divisional structure and a couple of training-wheels assignments. Luckily we are all classified as key workers because the bank is a strategic national asset, so they don’t get to keep us forever; it’s a bit like a Territorial Army enlistment. They can grab us for a month every year, but they have to square it with HR, and management won’t be allowed to ask any irritating questions or fire us for being out of the office. If you do
precisely
what I tell you to do, say the right things, and refrain from scaring the crap out of them by showing what you’re capable of, Oscar and I will do our best to get this organization recognized within the Laundry as a semi-autonomous research cell, part of a strategic national asset, hands-off, etcetera. Do you understand?”

Janice has been getting visibly spikier throughout the entire briefing, and now she sounds off. “You’re talking Men in Black, the Van Helsing remix, aren’t you? And you think you can make them take us in? Are you out of your fucking tree?”

“Now wait a—” Oscar starts up, but Mhari overrides him.

“I spent three years in human resources in the Laundry,” Mhari says evenly. “
Yes
, secret government agencies have HR departments and Facilities and office management issues. It’s not James Bond territory over there.
Yes
, there are autonomous research cells. I’ve handled payroll for them.
Yes
, there is a mandatory one-month induction course.
Yes
, you will be subjected to a Myers-Briggs test, an interview under polygraph—except it’s not a skin galvanometer, they’ve got a tame sub-sentient class two emanation, a demon to you, that feeds on mendacity: if you knowingly tell a lie it
will
snitch on you—not to mention undergoing a graphologist’s report, a medical, and a bunch of spurious make-work. You’ll be given a mentor, another recent inductee, who will show you around the offices. But as long as you manage not to shit the bed by ripping your line manager’s throat out and drinking their blood, you will very likely pass muster. And if you manage to look bumblingly useless, they’ll get bored and let you go after a while. Are we clear?”

Evan raises his hand. “Why?” he asks, succinctly.

“What are the benefits?” Mhari glances at Oscar, who nods minutely. She begins counting off points on her fingers. “Firstly, they can’t do the whole monster-hunting thing on our ass and kill us, because we’re inside the magic circle. Or did you miss our visitor the other night?” (Her expression of disdain looks theatrically exaggerated to those of her audience who are unaware of her former relationship with Mr. Howard, aka your humble narrator.) “Secondly, we gain access to their resources and knowledge base. Thirdly, we are in a position,
once we all know what we’re doing
, to leverage their connections to our collective advantage. Fourthly, Oscar is working on a Plan.” She smiles tightly. “Oscar?”

Oscar nods and scoots his chair forward as Mhari pulls back. “I’m not going to tell you the details just yet,” he says. “Hell, I haven’t made my mind up yet—there’s the polygraph test and loyalty oath stuff coming up: what you haven’t decided to do yet you can deny planning. In any case, it’s somewhat speculative at this point. But Mhari and I have been examining our options and we have identified a possible exit strategy from this scenario. If we can—if we
decide
to—develop it, we will generate a narrative and execute in due course. Those who decline to opt in will merely get left behind with a sinecure in the civil service or the bank, whichever you choose. I want to stress that we have not yet confirmed this is going to happen and if it does you don’t have to join us. I believe if you
do
join us there will be sacrifices to be made. Plastic surgery, false identities, exile from the UK for the foreseeable future. But on the other hand, we won’t execute unless the payoff is in excess of ten billion. And a billion-plus pounds for each of us should make up for a lot of inconvenience, shouldn’t it?