The Jennifer Morgue - Charles Stross [74]
“Good.” Ramona nods. “See you around.” She walks through the second door on the left. It opens onto an anonymous beige-painted corridor, which she walks down for some distance. Partway along, she takes time out to hole up in the toilet. She bends over a wash basin and throws water on her face, her neck, and the base of her throat. She notes that there are no windows in the facility: just ventilation ducts high up in the walls.
Back in the corridor she continues towards its end where there are three identical doors. She pauses outside the one on the right, and knocks.
“Come in,” a man’s gravelly voice calls through the door.
Ramona opens the door. The room beyond is spacious, floored in rough-cut timber, and walled in glass-fronted cabinets. The door at the far end is open, a staircase leading down to what Ramona knows to be another corridor with more display rooms opening off to either side. She’s already far enough inside the ranch house that by rights she should be standing with her feet firmly planted in the dirt fifty feet behind it—outside, but that’s not how things work here. Instead, her controlling agent is waiting for her, a tall, slightly pudgy fellow with wire-rimmed glasses, thinning, close-cropped hair, and a checkered shirt. He smiles, faintly indulgently. “Well, well. If it isn’t agent Random.” He holds out a hand: “How was your trip out?”
“Dry,” she says tersely, allowing her hand to be shaken. She squints slightly, sizing McMurray up. He looks human enough, but appearances at the Ranch are always deceptive. “I need to find a pool at some point. Apart from that—” she shrugs “—I can’t complain.”
“A pool.” McMurray nods thoughtfully. “I think we can arrange something for you.” His voice has a faint Irish lilt to it, although Ramona is fairly sure he’s as American as she is. “It’s the least we can do, seeing as how we’ve dragged you all the way out here. Yes indeed.” He gestures at the steps leading down to the passageway. “How well did you understand your briefing?”
Ramona swallows. This bit is hard. As her controlling agent, McMurray has certain powers. He was the key operative who compelled her to service; as long as he lives, he, or whoever holds his tokens of power, has the power of life and death over her, the ability to bind and release her, to issue orders she cannot refuse. There’s stuff she doesn’t want to talk about—but if he suspects she’s holding out on him it’ll be a lot worse for her than confessing to everything. Best to give him something, just hope it’s not enough to raise more suspicions than it allays: “Not entirely,” she admits. “I don’t understand why we’re letting TLA’s chief executive run riot in the Caribbean. I don’t understand why the Brits are involved in this, or what the hell TLA think they’re doing. I mean—” she pats her shoulder bag “—I read it all, but I don’t understand it. Just what’s supposed to be going on?”
This is the point at which McMurray can—if he’s suspicious—make her mouth open without her willing it, and spill her deepest secrets and most personal hopes and fears. Just considering the possibility makes her feel small and contemptibly weak. But McMurray doesn’t seem to notice her discomfort. He nods and looks thoughtful. “I’m not sure anybody knows everything,” he says ruefully.
A rueful apology? From a controlling agent? Stop jerking me around, Ramona prays, a cold knot of fear congealing in her stomach. But McMurray doesn’t raise his left hand in a sigil of command; nor does he pronounce any words of dread. He just nods in false amity and gestures once again at the stairs.
“It’s a mess,” he explains. “Billington’s a big campaign donor and word is, we’re not supposed to rock the boat. Not under this administration, anyway. It would embarrass certain folks if he were exposed—at least on our soil. And just in case anyone gets any ideas about going around Control’s back, he doesn’t set foot on land these days. He’s got the whole thing set up for remote management from extraterritorial waters. We