The Jennifer Morgue - Charles Stross [44]
“To the hotel.” I follow him outside and he waves an arm peremptorily. An old but well-kept Jaguar XJ6 pulls up and the driver jumps out to open the door. “Get in.” I almost fall into the seat, but manage to cushion my briefcase just in time to save the laptop. Griffin shoves the door shut on me then gets into the front passenger seat and raps the dashboard: “To the Sky Tower! Chop-chop.”
I can’t help it: my eyes slide closed. It’s been a long day and my snatch of sleep aboard the airbus wasn’t exactly refreshing. My head’s spinning as the Jag pulls out onto a freshly resurfaced road. It’s oppressively hot, even with the air conditioning running flat-out, and I just can’t seem to stay awake. Seemingly seconds later we pull up in front of a large concrete box and someone opens the door for me. “Come on, get out, get out!” I blink, and force myself to stand up.
“Where are we?” I ask.
“The Sky Tower Hotel; I’ve booked you in and swept the room. Your team will be working out of a rented villa when they arrive—that’s in hand, too. Come on.” Griffin leads me past reception, past a stand staffed by Barbies giving away free cosmetic samples, into an elevator, and down another anonymous hotel-space passage decorated randomly with cane furniture. We end up in some corporate decorator’s vision of a tropical hotel room, all anonymous five-star furniture plus a French door opening onto a balcony exploding with potted greenery. A ceiling fan spins lazily, failing to make any impression on the heat. “Sit down. No, not there, here.” I sit, suppress a yawn, and try to force myself to look at him. Either he’s frowning or he’s worried. “When are they due, by the way?” he asks.
“Aren’t they here yet?” I ask. “Say, shouldn’t you show me your warrant card?”
“Bah.” His mustache twitches, but he reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a thing that anyone who isn’t expecting a warrant card will see as a driving license or a passport. There’s a faint smell of sulfur in the air. “You don’t know.”
“Know what?”
He peers at me sharply, then apparently makes his mind up. “They’re late,” he mutters. “Bloody cock-up.” Louder: “Gin and tonic, or whisky soda?”
My head’s still throbbing. “Have you got a glass of water?” I ask hopefully.
“Bah,” he says again, then walks over to the minibar and opens it. He pulls out two bottles and two glasses. Into one of them he pours a double-finger of clear spirits; the other he puts down next to the tonic water. “Help yourself,” he says grudgingly.
This isn’t what I’m expecting from a station chief. To tell the truth, I’m not sure what I should be expecting: but antique Jaguars, regimental ties, and gin-tippling in mid-afternoon isn’t it. “Have you been told why I’m here?” I ask tentatively.
He roars so loudly I nearly jump out of my skin. “Of course I have, boy! What do you think I am, another of your goddamn paper-pushing Whitehall pen-pimps?” He glares at me ferociously. “God help you, and God help both of us because nobody back home is going to. Bloody hell, what a mess.”
“Mess?” I try to sound as if I know what he’s talking about, but there’s a quivery edge to my voice and I’m feeling fuzzy about the edges from jet lag.
“Look at you.” He looks me up and down with evident contempt—or mild disdain, which is worse—in his voice. “You’re a mess. You’re wearing trainers and a two-guinea suit, for God’s sake; you look like a hippie on a job interview, you don’t know where your fucking backup team has gotten to, and you’re supposed to get into Billington’s hip pocket!” He sounds like Angleton’s cynical kid brother. I know I mustn’t let him get to me, but this is just too much.
“Before you go on, you ought to know that I’ve been up for about thirty hours. I woke up in Germany and I’ve already crossed six time zones and had a roomful of flesh-eating zombies try to chow down on my brain.” I gulp the glass of water. “I’m not in the mood for this shit.”
“You’re not in the mood?” He laughs like a fox barking. “Then you can just