The Jennifer Morgue - Charles Stross [58]
“Boys, boys.” Boris grimaces tiredly. “Chill.”
“I need to call Angleton,” I manage to slip in. “And I’ve got to get closer to the target. Can we please try to keep on track, here? What do we know about Billington’s arrival? I didn’t think he was meant to be here yet.”
“Billington is here?” Boris frowns. “Is ungood news. How?”
“He flew in last night.” I glance at Griffin, but his mouth is clamped in a thin line. He’s not volunteering anything. “I met him briefly. Do we know where this yacht of his is? Or his schedule?” I ask Griffin directly, and he frowns.
“His yacht, the Mabuse, is moored off North Point—he’s not using the marina at Marigot for some reason. While he’s on the island he’s got a villa on Mount Paradis, but I think you’re more likely to find he’s staying on the yacht.” Griffin crosses his arms. “Thinking of paying him a visit?”
“Just puzzled.” I glance at the wall where someone has pinned a large map of the island. North Point is about as far away from Maho Beach—and the casino—as you can get. It must be close to fifteen kilometers, and longer if you cover the distance by boat. “I was wondering how he got here last night.”
“Simple; he flew.” Griffin looks as if he’s sucking a lemon. “Calling that monster a yacht is like calling a Boeing 777 a company light twin.”
“How big is it?” asks Brains.
“Naval Intelligence knows.” Griffin walks over to the sideboard and pulls out a bottle of tonic water. “Seeing as how it started life as a Russian Krivak-III-class frigate.”
“Whee! Do you think they’d let me drive it?” Pinky’s somehow slipped in under the radar. “Hey, Bob: catch!” He chucks me a key fob.
“You’re telling me Billington owns a warship?” I sit down heavily.
“No, I’m telling you his yacht used to be one.” Griffin fills his glass and puts the bottle down. He looks amused, for malicious values of amusement. “A Type 1135 guided missile frigate, to be precise, late model with ASW helicopter and vertical launch system. The Russians sold it off to the Indian Navy during a hard currency hiccup a few years ago, and they sold it in turn when they commissioned the first of their own guided missile destroyers. I’m pretty sure they took out the guns and VLS before they decommissioned it, but they left in the helideck and engines, and it can make close to forty knots when the skipper wants to go somewhere in a hurry. Billington sank a fortune into converting it, and now it’s one of the largest luxury yachts in the world, with a swimming pool where the nuclear missile launchers used to be.”
“Jesus.” It’s not as if I was planning to do the scuba-dive-and-climb-aboard thing—for starters, I know just enough about diving to realize I’d probably drown—but when Angleton mentioned a yacht I wasn’t thinking in terms of battleships. “What’s he use it for?”
“Oh, this and that.” Griffin sounds even more amused. “I hear it comes in handy for waterskiing. More realistically, he can zip anywhere in the Caribbean in about twelve hours. Chopper into Miami, brief excursion out to sea, chopper into Havana, and nobody’s any the wiser. Go visit his bankers in Grand Cayman, entertain visiting billionaires, hold meetings in real secrecy: and we can’t keep an eye on him without getting the Navy involved.”
I can almost see the cards he’s got stuffed up his sleeve. “What’s your point?”
“My point?” He stares at me. “My point is that I happen to know a damn sight more about what’s going on in my patch than all of you lot put together, or the clowns at head office for that matter. And I would appreciate it if you’d run any harebrained schemes past me before you put them into practice just in case you’re about to put your foot in it. Human Resources may have told you that I’m a garden leave case and you’re reporting direct to Angleton, but you might also like to consider the possibility that Human Resources couldn’t find their arse with a map, a periscope, and a tub of Vaseline.”
Boris rises to the bait: “Am not possible commenting on Human Resources!”
Pinky snorts loudly.
I shrug: “Okay, I’ll run any harebrained