"Eh?" I shake my head. "Who said anything about..."
"You didn't have to," he says with heavy and sarcastic emphasis. "You turn up six hours behind a FLASH notice from some dog-fucker in Islington who says you're to have the run of the site facilities and I'm to render all necessary et cetera. If you get the opposition stirred up you'll be dead in a gutter within six hours and I'll get landed with the paperwork.
This isn't Camden Matket and I'm not the bloody hotel concierge. I'm the Laundry point man for the Caribbean, and if you put a step wrong on my patch you can bring all the hounds of Hell down on our collective neck, boy, so you're not going to do that. While you're working on my station, if you want to fart you ask me for permission first. Otherwise I'll rip you a new sphincter. For your own good. Got that"
"I guess." I do a double-take. "What's the opposition presence like, hereabouts?" I ask. Actually I want to say, What is this "opposition" you speak of, strange person? — but I figure it'll just make him shout at me again.
Griffin stares at me in disbelief. "Are you trying to tell me they haven't briefed you about the opposition"
I shake my head.
"What a mess. This is the Caribbean: Who do you think the opposition are? Tourists! Wander around, drop in on the casinos and clubs, and what do you see? You see tourists. Half of 'em are Yanks, and maybe half of those are plants. Okay, not half, maybe one in a hundred thousand. But you see, we're about 200 miles from Cuba here, which means they're always trying to sneak assets into the generalissimo's territory.
And you wouldn't want to mess with the smugglers, either. We've got money laundering, we've got the main drug pipeline into Miami via Cuba, and we've got police headaches coming out of our ears before we add the fucking opposition trying to use us as a staging post for their crazyass vodoun pranks." He shakes his head then stares at me. "So you've got to keep one eye peeled for the tourists. If the oppo send an assassin to polish your button they'll be disguised as a tourist, you mark my words. Are you sure they didn't brief you"
"Um." I do my best to consider my next words carefully, but it's difficult when your head feels like it's stuffed with cotton wooclass="underline" "You are talking about the Black Chamber when you use the term 'opposition,' aren't you? I mean, you're not really trying to tell me that the tourists are all part of some conspiracy — "
"Who the hell else would I be talking about?" He stares at me in disbelief, chugs the rest of his glass back, and thumps it down on the side table.
"Okay, then I've been briefed," I say tiredly. "Listen, I really need to get settled in and catch up on my briefing papers. I don't think they're going to assassinate me, my boss has arranged an, uh, accommodation." I manage to stand up without falling on the ceiling, but my feet aren't responding too well to commands from mission control. "Can we continue this tomorrow"
"Bloody hell." He looks down his nose at me, his expression unreadable. "An accommodation. All right, we'll continue this tomorrow. You'd better be right, kid, because if you guessed wrong they'll eat your liver and lights while you're still screaming." He pauses in the doorway. "Don't call me, I'll call you."
5: HIGH SOCIETY
THE NEXT HOUR PASSES IN A HAZE OP EXHAUSTION.
I lock the door behind Griffin and somehow manage to make it to the bed before I collapse face-first into the deep pile of oblivion. Only strange dreams trouble me — strange because I seem to be dressing up in women's clothing, not because my brain's being eaten by zombies.
An indeterminate time later I'm summoned back to wakefulness by a persistent banging on my door, and a warmly sarcastic voice at the back of my head: **Get up, monkey-boy!** "Go 'way," I moan, clutching the pillow like a life preserver. I want to sleep so badly I can taste it, but Ramona's not leaving me alone.
"Open the door or I'll start singing, monkey-boy. You wouldn't like that."
"Singing?" I roll over. I'm still wearing my shoes, I realize.
And I'm still wearing this fucking suit. I didn't even take it off for the flight — I must be turning into a manager or something. I have a sudden urge to wash compulsively. At least the tie's snaked off to wherever the horrid things live when they're not throttling their victims.
"I'll start with D:Ream. 'Things can only get better — "
"Aaaugh!" I flail around for a moment, and manage to fall off the bed. That wakes me up enough to sit up. "Okay, just hold it right there ...
I stumble over to the entrance and open the door. It's Ramona, and for the second time since I arrived here I experience the sense of existential angst that afflicts chewing gum cling-ons on the shoe sole of a higher order. Her supermodel-perfect brow wrinkles as she looks me up and down.
"You need a shower."
"Tell me about it." I yawn hugely. She's dressed up to the nines in a slinky, black strapless gown, with a fortune in diamonds plugged into her ear lobes and wrapped around her throat. Her hairdo looks like it cost more than my last month's salary. "What's up? Planning on dining out"
"Reconnaissance in force." She steps into the room, shoves the door shut behind her, and locks it. "Tell me about Griffin. What did he say?" she demands.
I yawn again. "Let me freshen up while we talk." Pinky said something about a toilet kit in my briefcase, didn't he? I rummage around in it until I come up with a black Yves Saint Laurent bag, then wander through into the bathroom.
The dream was overspill, I realize unhappily. This is going to get even more embarrassing before it's over. I hope like hell Angleton's planning on disentangling me from her as soon as possible — otherwise I'm in danger of turning into a huge unintentional security leak. Nastier possibilities nag at the back of my mind, but I'm determined to ignore them. In this line of work, too much paranoia can be worse than too little.
I open the toilet bag and poke around until I come up with a toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste. **Griffin's nuts,** I send to her while I'm scrubbing away at the inside of my lower jaw. **He's completely paranoid about you guys. He also insists that he gets a veto over my actions, which is more than somewhat inconvenient.** I switch to my upper front teeth. **Have you been fucking with his head?**
**You wish.** I can almost feel her disdainful sniff.
**We've got him pegged as a loose cannon who's been put out to pasture to keep him out of your agency's internal politics. He's stuck in the 1960s, and not the good bits.**
**Well.** I carefully probe my molars, just in case Angleton's planted a microdot briefing among them to tell me how to handle situations like this. **I can't comment on Laundry operational doctrine and overseas deployments in the Caribbean — ** (because I don't know anything about them: Could that be why they picked me for this op? Because I'm a designated mushroom, kept m the dark and fed shit?) ** — but I would agree with your assessment of Griffin. He's a swivel-eyed nutter.** I step into the shower and dial it all the way up to Niagara. I'm supposed to report to Angkton while letting Griffin think he's in my chain of command: What should this tell me about the home game Angleton's playing here? I shake my head. I'm not up to playing Laundry politics right now.
I focus on showering, then get out and dry myself. **One question deserves another. Why did you get me out of bed?**
**Because I wanted to fuck with your head, not Griffin's.** She sends me a visual of herself pouting, which is a bloody distracting thing to see in the mirror when you're trying to shave. **I got news from my ops desk that Billington flew in a few hours ago. He's probably going to visit his casino before — **