Zero History (38 page)

“This is a prisoner exchange,” Garreth said. “One hostage for another. Your man assumes, correctly, that you’re unlikely to call the police.” Bigend looked pointedly at Hollis. “We can assume that he hasn’t much of a network here,” Garreth continued, “else he wouldn’t have sent an idiot after Milgrim. Neither, at this point, do you, given the situation in your firm, and we can assume that he knows that, via your mole.”

“Can one have been a mole on one’s own behalf?” asked Bigend. “I would assume that everyone is that, to whatever extent.”

Garreth ignored this. “Your mole will know that you aren’t much inclined to hire outside security, for the reasons you stated. Likewise your man will know this. Since your man would never have signed off on such a patently ridiculous abduction plan, we can assume that Foley was the planner. Therefore, your man was either not present during the attempt or somehow out of the loop. My guess is that he was already on his way here, likely out of a sense that Foley was cocking up. Foley possibly acted when he did in order to get at Milgrim before the boss arrived.”

Hollis had never heard Garreth unpack a specific situation this way, though something in his tone now reminded her of his explanations of asymmetric warfare, a topic in which he had a keen and abiding interest. She remembered him telling her how terrorism was almost exclusively about branding, but only slightly less so about the psychology of lotteries, and how this had made her think of Bigend.

“So,” Garreth said, “it’s likely we’re dealing with an improvisational plan on their part. Your man has opted for a prisoner exchange. Those of course are eminently gameable. Though your man knows that, certainly, and is familiar with all applicable tactics, including the one I imagine I’d be most likely to employ.”

“Which is?”

“Your man Milgrim. Is he obese? Extremely tall? Memorable-looking?”

“Forgettable,” said Bigend. “About ten stone.”

“Good.” Garreth was buttering a slice of toast. “There’s a surprising amount of mutual trust necessary in any prisoner exchange. Why it’s gameable.”

“You’re not giving them Milgrim,” Hollis said.

“I need to see more to hang success on, Mr. Wilson, if you’ll pardon my saying so,” said Bigend, forking beans onto a quarter-slice of toast.

“God’s in the details, the architects said. But you have rather a bigger problem, here. Contextually.”

“You refer,” Bigend said, “to Hollis’s unseemly readiness to shop me to the
Guardian
?”

“Gracie,” Garreth said. “I imagine he’s doing this because he feels you’ve been fucking with him, successfully. He didn’t ask you for money?”

“No.”

“Doesn’t your mole want money?”

“I’m sure he does,” Bigend said, “but I would imagine he might be in over his head with these people. I imagine he was looking for a context in which to profitably betray me, but then they found
him
. He’s likely afraid of them, and likely with good reason.”

“If you were to turn Milgrim over to them,” said Garreth, “and get your Bobby back intact, they’d be back. You’re that wealthy. This bent officer may not yet be thinking in those terms, but your mole already is.”

Bigend looked uncharacteristically pensive.

“But if you do it the way I’d do it,” said Garreth, “you really will have fucked with them, in a very formal and personal way. They’ll come after you.”

“Then why would you suggest it?”

“Because,” said Hollis, “giving them Milgrim is not an option.”

“The thing is,” said Garreth, “you need to simultaneously fuck with them
and
neutralize them, in some seriously ongoing way.”

Bigend leaned slightly forward. “And how would you do that?”

“I’m not prepared to tell you,” Garreth said, “at the moment.”

“You aren’t proposing violence?”

“Not in the way I imagine you mean, no.”

“I don’t see how you could possibly mount anything very sophisticated in such a short period of time.”

“It would have to be something off the shelf.”

“Off the shelf?”

But Garreth had gone back to his breakfast.

“And how long have you known Mr. Wilson, Hollis?” his tone like some Jane Austen chaperone’s.

“We met in Vancouver.”

“Really? You had time to socialize?”

“We met one another toward the end of my stay.”

“And you know him to be someone capable, in the ways he’s proposing to be capable?’

“I do,” said Hollis, “although I’m under an agreement with him to say no more than that.”

“People who claim capabilities of that sort are most often compulsive liars. Though the most peculiar thing about that, in my experience, is that while most bars in America have alcoholics who claim to have been Navy SEALs, there are sometimes former Navy SEALs, in those same bars, who are alcoholics.”

“Garreth’s not a Navy SEAL, Hubertus. I don’t know what I’d say he is. He’s like you, that way. A one-off. If he tells you he thinks he can get Bobby back, and neutralize this threat for you, then …”

“Yes?”

“Then he thinks he can.”

“And what would you propose I do, then,” Bigend said to Garreth, “if I were to accept your help?”

“I’d need an idea of whatever tactical resources you may have, in London, if any, that remain uncompromised. I’d need an open operational budget. I’ll have to hire some specialists. Expenses.”

“And how much do you want yourself, Mr. Wilson?”

“I don’t,” said Garreth. “Not money. If I can do this to my own satisfaction, and I imagine that that would be to yours as well, you’ll let Hollis go. Release her from whatever it is she’s doing for you, pay her what she feels she’s owed, and agree to leave her be. And if you can’t agree to that, I advise you to start looking for help elsewhere.”

Bigend, eyebrows raised, looked from Garreth to Hollis. “And you’re agreeable to that?”

“It’s an entirely new proposition to me.” She poured herself some coffee, buying time to think. “Actually,” she said, “I would require an additional condition.”

They both stared at her.

“The Hounds designer,” she said to Bigend. “You won’t have her. You’ll leave her absolutely alone. Quit looking. Call everyone off, permanently.”

Bigend pursed his lips.

“And,” said Hollis, “you’ll find Meredith’s shoes. And give them to her.”

A silence followed, Bigend looking at his plate, the corners of his mouth turned down. “Well,” he said at last, looking up at them, “none of this would have been the least attractive before seven twenty this morning, but here we are, aren’t we?”

V
oytek was very angry about something, probably whatever had been the cause of him receiving his mottled, yellowish, not-quite-black eye. He seemed most angry with Shombo, the sullen young man Milgrim had seen at Biroshak & Son, though Milgrim found it hard to imagine Shombo striking anyone. He’d looked to Milgrim as though just getting out of bed would have posed an unwelcome challenge.

Milgrim would have liked to be up-front with Fiona, in the passenger seat, but she’d insisted that he sit back here with Voytek, on the floor of this tiny Subaru van, an area slightly less than the footprint of a washer and dryer, and cluttered now with large, black, cartoonishly sturdy-looking plastic cases he assumed were Voytek’s. Each of these had
PELICAN
molded on the lid, clearly a logo rather than any indicator of contents. Voytek was wearing gray sweatpants with
B.U.M. EQUIPMENT
screened in very large capitals across his ass, evidence of what Milgrim took to be kitchen mishaps down the front, thick gray socks, those same gray felt clogs, and a pale blue, very old, very grimy insulated jacket with that Amstrad logo on the back, its letters cracked and peeling.

The Subaru had actual drapes, gray ones, everywhere except the windshield and the front side windows. All drawn now. Which was just as well, Milgrim supposed, as it really had a great deal of glass, as well as a moonroof that was in effect the whole top of the vehicle, through which Milgrim, looking up, saw the upper windows of buildings passing. He had no idea where they were now, no idea which direction they’d taken from Tanky & Tojo, and none where they were going. To meet Bigend again, he assumed. Like urine samples but more frequent, meeting Bigend punctuated his existence.

“I did not come to this country for the terror from paramilitary,” declared Voytek, hoarsely. “I did not come to this country for
motherfucker
. But motherfucker is
waiting
.
Always
. Is carceral state, surveillance state. Orwell. You have read Orwell?”

Milgrim, trying for his best neutral expression, nodded, the knees of his new whipcord trousers in front of his face. He hoped this wasn’t stretching them.

“Orwell’s boot in face
forever
,” said Voytek, with great formal bitterness.

“Why does he want you to sweep it?” asked Fiona, as if inquiring about some routine office chore, her left hand busily working the shift lever.

“Devil’s workshop,” said Voytek, disgusted. “He wants mine occupied. While he fattens on the blood of the proletariat.” This last phrase having for Milgrim a deep nostalgic charm, so that he was moved, unthinking, to repeat it in Russian, seeing for an instant the classroom in Columbia where he’d first heard it.

“Russian,” said Voytek, narrowing his eyes, the way someone might say “syphilis.”

“Sorry,” said Milgrim, reflexively.

Voytek fell silent, visibly seething. They were on a straight stretch now, and when Milgrim looked up, there were no buildings. A bridge, he guessed. Slowing, turning. Into buildings, lower, more ragged. The Subaru bumped over something, up, then stopped. Fiona shut off the engine and got out. Milgrim, flicking the drapes aside, glimpsed Benny’s cycle yard. Benny himself approaching. Fiona opened the rear door and grabbed one of Voytek’s Pelican cases.

“Caution,” said Voytek, “extreme care.”

“I know,” Fiona said, passing the case to Benny.

Benny leaned in, looked at Voytek. “Disagreement at the local, was it?”

Voytek glared at Milgrim. “The blood,” he said. “Sucking it.”

“Mental cunt,” observed Benny, taking another case and walking away.

Voytek scooted across the carpeted cargo area on his
B.U.M. EQUIPMENT
signage and climbed out, taking the two remaining cases and walking away.

Milgrim got out, his knees stiff, and glanced around. There was nobody in sight. “Seems quieter,” he said.

“Tea time,” said Fiona. She looked at him. “That’s from the shop.”

“Yes,” said Milgrim.

“It’s not bad on you,” she said approvingly, if surprised. “You cut most of the douche baggage.”

“I do?”

“You wouldn’t wear one of those little leashes on your wallet,” she said. “And you wouldn’t wear one of his hats.”

“The douche baggage?”

“The fuckery,” said Fiona, closing the van’s rear door. “We need your stuff,” she said, walking around and opening the side door. She handed Milgrim his bag, and a Tanky & Tojo bag containing the clothes he’d been wearing before (minus the Sonny jacket) and the restuffed Mont-Bell sausage. She pulled out the retaped sleeping foam and a black garbage bag. “These are your things from the Holiday Inn.”

He followed her into the littered garage.

As they were nearing the entrance to Bigend’s Vegas cube, Benny emerged. Fiona handed him the keys to the van. “Carbs on the bike are sound,” she told him. “Thank Saad.”

“Ta,” said Benny, pocketing the keys without pausing.

Milgrim followed her in. Two of Voytek’s cases were on the table, open. The other two, still closed, were on the floor. He wore a pair of large black-and-silver headphones and was assembling something that looked to Milgrim like a black unstrung squash racket.

“Leave me,” said Voytek flatly, not bothering to make eye contact. “I sweep.”

“Let’s go,” Fiona said to Milgrim, putting down the foam and the black bag containing Milgrim’s things from the hotel. “He can do it faster alone.” Milgrim dropped the sausage beside the foam, but kept his bag. As he left the room, Milgrim saw Voytek step forward, toward one wall, raising the racket two-handed, with a sort of ecclesiastic deliberation.

“What’s he doing?” he asked Fiona, who was looking down at a motorcycle whose engine lay in pieces on the littered floor.

“Sweeping for bugs.”

“Has he found them before?”

“Not here. But this place is still a secret, as far as I know. They turn up at Blue Ant weekly. Bigend has a toffee box full of them. Keeps saying he’ll make me a necklace.”

“Who puts them there?”

“Strategic business intelligence types, I suppose. The kind of people he generally refuses to hire.”

“Are they able to learn things, doing that?”

“Once,” she said, and touched the broken edge of the bike’s cowling with a fingertip, in a way he envied, “he sent me across town with a Taser.”