The Gone-Away World (66 page)

On my other side is Elisabeth Soames, wearing her ninja outfit again, partly because it's suited to sneaking and partly because it might afford the enemy some confusion if we get caught and she's wearing one of their uniforms. I'm wearing mine, with a pair of decent shoes. The last-ditch plan is to pretend that we're escorting a prisoner, then cause mayhem. Elisabeth Soames pointed out that this didn't work well in
Star Wars
and can reasonably be expected to fail in the real world, which is somewhat more demanding in the field of cunning plans, and Samuel P. tried very hard to pretend he hadn't been thinking of
Star Wars
when he proposed it. The trouble is that although it's a lousy last-ditch plan, it is also our only last-ditch plan.

The rest of the plan is quite good, and if it works the way it is supposed to, we will do very well, and we won't need the lousy part. On the other hand, it almost certainly won't work like that, because plans don't. It will twist, creep, change, swivel and mutate, until finally we're flying on sheer bravado and chutzpah, and hoping the other guy thinks it's all accounted for. You don't make strategy so that there's one path to victory; you make it so that as many paths as possible lead to something which isn't loss. At least you do unless you want to die.

In broad-brush terms (because the minutiae are surprisingly boring), Jim Hepsobah and Annie the Ox will lead a small body of the Free Company (temporarily re-militarised, and therefore referred to by one and all as the
Uncivil
Freebooting Company) up to the main gate and
blow it up.
This will draw a considerable amount of negative attention in the form of people shooting at them (the guards here are soldiers rather than ninjas, although they may
also
be or include ninjas, because that's rather the point about being a secret assassin; you don't go around telling everyone) and cause those in charge of the facility to pay closer attention to the main entrance and somewhat less to a small area of fence at the side where Samuel P. and I, along with Elisabeth Soames, will be doing our sneaking. The frontal attack will withdraw into the treeline, sucking in pursuers who will run into certain obstacles and quite a lot more members of the Free Company. This diversionary force will then coax the enemy away from us and into a bizarre world which will almost certainly cause them to doubt their sanity.

On the far side from our position, K (the fat one) and his circus of history have deployed such of their son et lumière as can be used out of doors to create chaos and confusion, something K is by nature extremely good at. The forested hillside will be covered in wacky mirrors, enormous jack-in-the-boxes and automated pie-throwers loaded with bags of chilli powder (inhaled or just drifting into your eyes, this is almost guaranteed to cause agony and incapacitation). There will also be Indian runner ducks in vast quantity, and some recently acquired geese with foul tempers. The sheepdogs, Hbw and Mnwr, cannot be permitted to join the fun in case they get shot (also because Hbw would probably develop a taste for disembowelling and Mnwr would instantly defect). This is called “making full use of all resources,” and comes under the subheading “ludicrous crap which may or may not work, but which we know about and they don't.” Amid the fun, however, there will be a wrinkled and foul-tempered unarmed combat instructor with years of experience in making people wish they were dead. Ronnie Cheung has specifically requested this assignment on the basis that it is a job for a mean-minded and obnoxious person of questionable moral character.

Less far-fetched, the panoramic backdrops from Ike Thermite's stage show have been erected randomly around the place under cover of night, repainted and positioned to appear to be or to conceal local landmarks. The big generator (usually used to light the circus) has been set up to emit broad-spectrum squawks which will make radio triangulations almost impossible. Since there is no longer a GPS network (satellites did not respond well to the reallocation of mass and gravity occasioned by the Go Away War, and quite some number of them drifted away or fell to earth), this should blind our enemy quite effectively, at least for a while. K's people and the mimes themselves will be several miles away at go-hour, providing medical support for anyone who can be got out to them, and creating the appearance that we are all elsewhere by means of sequential costume changes.

With Humbert Pestle's security forces thus distracted, we will enter the compound, rendezvous with the remaining members of the Free Company (under the leadership of Tobemory Trent, Tommy Lapland and Baptiste Vasille) and free the remaining undamaged prisoners from Templeton (the file says there are seventy-one, a tiny fraction of the initial population, but that doesn't make them not worth worrying about), locate the Bey and inform him of his peril, nab Gonzo and get them all out before Humbert Pestle can change into his evil pyjamas and come a-hunting. Ideally, when Humbert does shed his jolly japester-cum-corporate-silverback guise and get serious, he will have to come out of the building he is in, at which point Sally Culpepper will shoot him. This last was not Ronnie Cheung's suggestion but mine, because for all that Master Wu might not approve, I don't have the right to be squeamish about it when other people are risking their lives for me. Ronnie, however, made a sort of approving noise through his nose as if to say it was more sensible than he would have expected from a bumhole like me, especially an imaginary bumhole with a talent for seeing both sides of the fight.

It's not a bad plan. It has the benefit of simplicity, coupled with some elements which are unconventional (ducks, for example, are not often part of a covert intrusion and extraction scenario, and nor are pie-throwers). I could wish for more, but this is what we have to work with. Improvised mayhem has a long and chequered heritage going back to the time when weapons did not come with user's manuals, and a stick for herding goats was just as often a stick for beating your neighbour to death with if he looked at you funny. The fact that some of our weapons are weird and silly doesn't mean they won't work. We hope.

I look across at Elisabeth Soames. She looks back. I am afraid for her. I don't want to see any of the things which may shortly happen happen to her. I have not insulted her by asking her to remain behind. Even if she weren't at least as capable as I am, she loved Wu Shenyang very much, and while most people here are concentrating on the other awful things Humbert Pestle has done, I know that in her mind the destruction of that over-stuffed cosy house and all the amazing things in it—the wind-up gramophone, the ugly porcelain ornaments, the ancient Buddhas and the awful yet splendid weapons on the walls, the photographs, and worst of all Master Wu himself—is as high and fresh a crime as all the others.

She takes my hand and squeezes it.

There's a pale, slender moon shining down on the buildings below, making them look clean and soft. Jorgmund Actual is huge. It's adapted from one of Piper 90's cousins and set deep into the ground. Down there is a well, a cauldron of FOX waiting to be pumped out under pressure, filled all the time from the manufactory a hundred yards to the west. (I can't think about FOX any more without shuddering. Time was when it gave me a warm glow. Now I feel sick.) The Pipe emerges from the station like a huge worm, bending at right angles and burrowing immediately into the hillside. That's not where we need to be. Our first stop is the main control centre, two buildings over (looks like a shoebox; even has the little rim a third of the way down the side). I look at Samuel P. and he nods, mouths a countdown. I look back at Elisabeth, and she smiles fiercely then apologetically lets go of my hand. I miss her immediately.

The night explodes.

.                           .                           .

I
RUN
low, like the hunchback. There are no bells to lament, but there are whistles, klaxons and people shouting, and also small-arms discharges and things going
b-boom!
Jorgmund Actual is on fire. Hah! Payback is good. I zigzag like Ben Carsville, and Elisabeth and Sam zigzag around me. We are a fishball, a confusing shadow. We are invisible. Then someone sends up a flare or uses some kind of phosporus weapon, and everything is like day. Disaster. We're completely exposed, trying to disappear behind a shrub the size of a television set. I wait for the chatter of guns and the inevitable pain. I know, courtesy of Gonzo, what it is like to get shot. And now I am real enough to die. I wish I had had a chance to take Elisabeth to dinner and eat bruschetta.
Please, dear Lord. Tomatoes and basil, and plenty of green olive oil.
A prayer for the antipasti.

Nothing happens. There's no one looking, or they're stupid, or they were blinded by the flare. Maybe the ninja outfits are working in our favour. It doesn't matter. We survive.

The fighting moves away from the main gate, and from us, and redoubles. There's a loud sound, a joyful cry of “HELLO, THERRRE!” and then startled, undisciplined gunfire; the first jack-in-the-box has been set off and the guards are starting to realise that they are in for a very strange evening indeed. Another flare goes up, and I can see the jack peeping out of the trees and wobbling, to and fro, before someone hits it with a grenade. Then there are screams—not of serious injury, but of alarm and pain. Chilli powder in the wind. Somewhere, right about now, Ronnie Cheung is kicking someone sharply in the unmentionables, and the geese are being whipped into a frenzy.

In my head the map from Humbert Pestle's file. This is Hut 1. It contains machine parts. As we pass by, I kick the door in. This is part of the plan: we won't be able to avoid triggering alarms as we move through the compound, so we are going to trigger
all
of them. If you can't be silent, you hide yourself in a forest of sound. I glance inside the hut: machine parts. So far, so good.

Samuel P. falls flat on his face. He becomes a bush amid the flowers (this is a corporate facility; at some point it has been landscaped just a little). Elisabeth and I flatten ourselves against the wall. A guard. Two. Professionals then, to ignore the grand kerfuffle going on beyond the fence on the other side of the enclosure (do they believe they are guarding a synthetic milk plant?) and carry on with their rounds. They are wary, but they are not looking for a commando rhododendron. They walk past Sam. He rises silently behind them. A man falls. The other turns, and Elisabeth hits him in the side of the neck, once, twice, three times, catches him as he goes down. She is gentle. I envy him just a little. We put them both in Hut 1, amid the spares. It's fine if they wake up and make a ruckus, as long as they do it in three minutes, not right now. It'll add to the fun.

Past Hut 7 and across the roundabout (more flowers). Jorgmund Actual is dressed up as the main office of Lactopolis Inc., glossy and dressed in pink and baby blue, with modern glass. Very corporate. Very ironic. I'm not laughing. The building is large—huge even. Parked boldly in front is a familiar maroon Rolls-Royce. The Bey. We look at one another, shift up another gear. The hardest part will be inside.

Ahead of us four guards, well-armed, armoured. They disappear as we draw close: Vasille's team is faster than we are. He waves. Baptiste Vasille is totally delighted with this situation. Typical Frenchman. (In the hills around the plant another Jack goes up: “IIIIII'M JACK-OOOO!” and then a boom and more chilli powder, and furious ducks and geese. Strobe lights, shouting, confusion.)

The accommodation block, for visiting milk executives. The glass is armoured and the doors are locked (as expected). Vasille's group has a circular saw to cover this situation. The noise is very loud, a shrieking, grinding wail. On the other side of the enclosure Tobemory Trent's team sets something on fire and more alarms go off to cover us. Perfect synchrony. We go inside. A guard arrives at a run, and one of Vasille's men shoots him in the head. He is the first person I know we have killed, and I feel bad about it. Gonzo wouldn't. Gonzo is a secret soldier, a pro. Perhaps that's part of what I was to him: the luxury of regret. The guard doesn't bleed very much; the bullet is still in his head. He leaks.

Past the lobby everything is calmer. The floor is made of marble. There's a fountain, and some very stylish seats in artful circles around coffee tables. A row of very old bonsai trees rest under glass. This place is expensive. Five-star. I feel underdressed—a terrible faux pas. At any moment the maître d' will arrive and request that I retire to my room and change into something more suitable. Not relevant. I shake my head to clear it, follow Elisabeth. (I worry all the same: unease of any kind is a warning. No matter that the fear was spurious. The warning is not. Something is wrong.) Samuel P. leads us down a service corridor.

Hallways and stairs and endless lounges with upmarket carpets. The diversion is working—the guards are elsewhere or not paying attention, or other things less pleasant. First floor. Second. Third. (Something is wrong. I don't know what it is. Something about the guards.) Guest accommodation. Vasille opens one door after another on the left, Samuel P. the right. No. Nothing. Keep moving—next set of doors. Find the Bey. No. No. No again. (Something missing. Something
wrong.
Guards but not guards. Booby traps? No. Not that. No pussy willow. Use your nose . . . no. Not that. But something is wrong.)

Samuel P. slams open a door and there are five of them, big lads with guns. Two of them are sitting. Vasille dives into the room, they all fall together in a huddle. His men pile in after, a Belgian and a Spaniard, all flying fists and arms. We follow. It's a short fight. I don't even hit anyone, just duck and then my opponent is gone. Not hard. Easy. (Too easy. These men are competent but no more. They are soldiers. Humbert Pestle has had no hand in their training. Too easy. I wait for the shoe to drop. It doesn't.) I look at Elisabeth. She knows. Her eyes are lit with nervous energy. Not fear but anticipation. The hard part is yet to come. She knocks on the main door.