The Jennifer Morgue - Charles Stross [45]
“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 Market 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 two hundred 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 crazy-ass 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 wool: “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 OF 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