Zero history

“Smithfield.”

›››

This time, removing the hairspray helmet, which he was starting to accept as an inherent and not entirely unfair cost of riding with Fiona-and almost, possibly, to enjoy-Milgrim found himself beneath a sort of deep, glassy, probably plastic awning, slung horizontally from above, running the seeming length of a very long building, apparently the only one on this very long block, ornate to American eyes but probably leanly functional to its Victorian builders. Sections of brick alternated with narrower sections of gray cement. A pair of obvious couriers sat their bikes, the big Hondas Fiona called maggots, about twenty feet away, smoking cigarettes and drinking from tall cans.

“Stay on the bike,” Fiona said, removing her own helmet. “We may have to leave quickly. If we do, get the helmet on and hold on.”

Milgrim lowered the helmet to his side.

Opposite the Market was what looked to him like fairly generic London, some thoroughfare curving past, relatively light traffic, and currently none whatever on this lane immediately adjacent the Market, but now he heard an engine approaching. He and Fiona turned in unison. One of those anonymous, usually Japanese two-door sedans that seemed to Milgrim to comprise the bulk of London traffic. It didn’t slow when it passed them, but Milgrim saw the driver’s glance.

Then it did slow, after passing the two couriers, pulling in several car-lengths beyond them. The couriers looked at it, looked at one another, set their tall cans down, put on their helmets, started their engines, and rode away. Then the car’s passenger-side door opened and Winnie emerged, wearing a beige raincoat over a black pantsuit. She closed the door and walked toward them. It was the first time Milgrim had seen her out of a South Carolina souvenir sweatshirt, and she wasn’t carrying a bag full of toys. Instead, she had a businesslike black leather purse, matching shoes. Milgrim watched her shoes click past the two cans.

“Special Agent Whitaker,” she said to Fiona, when she reached them.

“Right,” said Fiona.

The driver emerged from the car. An older man, he wore what Milgrim supposed might be called a fedora, a raincoat roughly the color of Winnie’s, dark slacks, large brown shoes. He closed the car door and stood, looking back at them.

“Milgrim and I will talk in the car,” Winnie said. “He’ll be behind the wheel. My driver will wait at a distance, where you can see him. Fair enough?”

Fiona nodded.

“Come on, then,” Winnie said to Milgrim.

He got off the bike, feeling clumsy in the armored nylon oversuit, put the hairspray helmet on the seat. She walked him to the car. Past the cans, which Milgrim saw had contained some sort of boldly labeled cider, the London couriers apparently being health-minded in spite of smoking. “Your friend doesn’t have any trouble making her terms known,” Winnie said.

“I heard. But she has orders not to let me out of her sight. And she did agree to bring me here, on very short notice.”

She opened the driver’s-side door for him.

Milgrim, who hadn’t driven a car for a decade or more, got in behind the wheel. The car smelled of air-freshener, and had a large St. Christopher medal affixed to the dash. Winnie walked quickly around the back, opened the door, got into the passenger seat, closed the door.

“Nice suit,” Milgrim said as she crossed her legs.

“It’s perverse of me.”

“It is?”

“Navy or charcoal being the norm. Fed shows up wearing a wedding dress, it’ll be described as a black suit. A black suit and she shoved her badge in your face. She was wearing charcoal gray from Brooks Brothers, the credentials were presented slowly, respectfully, at midtorso level. But then it’s a black suit, and she shoved the badge in their face. Know what’s weird about that?”

“No,” said Milgrim.

“You don’t present the credentials, you don’t get that. That’s why cards are so much better. The badge is like something out of a role-playing game, some seal of elder doom. When your job’s building relationships and establishing rapport, the credentials are murder.”

Milgrim considered her. “That’s your job?”

“You’re here, aren’t you?”

He thought about it. “I see what you mean. Who’s that man?” he asked, to change the subject.

“I’m renting his spare bedroom. Really, the suit’s for him. If he’s going to drive me around, I figure I can look like his idea of a professional.”

The man had strolled a little farther, stopped, and now stood with hands in raincoat pockets, staring out in what Milgrim thought might be the direction of the City. Milgrim twisted in his seat, saw Fiona watching them, astride the Yamaha, her helmet-hair a tousled dandelion.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“Gracie and Foley have kidnapped someone who works for Bigend-”

“ ‘Kidnapped’? That has a very specific meaning, for me. That’s a crime. Kidnapped who?”

“Shombo. Chombo, I mean. He works for Bigend. They went to the home of the man Chombo was staying with, hit the man, threatened him, his wife and child as well, and took Chombo away.”

“You didn’t tell me?”

“I haven’t had time,” said Milgrim, which in a way was true. “And I’ve had to infer a lot of it.”

“What’s Chombo?”

“He seems to be some kind of researcher, on a project of Bigend’s. Bigend wants him back.”

“Ransom demand?”

“Me.”

“You what?”

“I’m the ransom. Fiona told me. She figured it out when Garreth was tasking her.”

“Go on.”

“They’re giving them someone else instead. Ajay. They’re making him look as much like me as they can. I think he was a soldier. Or something.”

Winnie whistled. She shook her head. “Shit,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“What does Garreth want Fiona to do? Do you know that?”

“Fly a video drone. When they do it.”

“Do what?”

“I don’t know. Get Chombo back.”

Winnie frowned at him, drummed the fingers of one hand on a pant-suited knee, looked away, then quickly back. “Thank God for leave en route.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”

“Garreth,” she said.

“Garreth?”

“You’re arranging for me to speak with him. Soonest. Tonight.”

Milgrim looked at the St. Christopher. “I can try. But…”

“But what?”

“Don’t bring him.” Indicating the retired Scotland Yard detective, but keeping his hands below the level of the dashboard.

“By phone. And not my phone, either. He’ll have a number that’s a throwaway. Get me that.”

“Why do you want to talk with him? He’ll ask me.”

“He’s building something. He’s building it for Gracie. I don’t want to know what it is. At all. The kidnapping angle puts things in a different light.”

“Why?”

“Makes me think Gracie is indulging himself, over here. Kind of midlife adventure. Kidnapping. Sort of like a red convertible, for a certain kind of guy. Businessman, in his position, can’t afford it. At all. But they don’t actually teach you business, in the schools. He doesn’t know that, though.”

“What should I tell Garreth?”

“Tell him it won’t take long. He won’t have to tell me anything, admit to anything, provide any information. It won’t be recorded. He can use voice-distortion software, which he will anyway, unless he really is an amateur, in which case you’re all liable to wind up with Mike all over you, real soon now, and there’s nothing I’ll be able to do about it. Tell him I have an Easter egg for him. And what I’ll give him isn’t mine, in any way. Nothing to do with me.”

“Why should he believe you?”

“Context. If he’s any good, he’ll be able to find out who I am, and see where I’m coming from. But what he won’t get, from that, is that I’ve got a hard-on for Gracie. That’s up to you. You’ve got to convey that. That it’s just personal that way.” She smiled, in a way that Milgrim didn’t like. “Maybe it’s my midlife adventure.”

“Okay,” said Milgrim, not feeling in any way that it was.

“Tell me something, though.”

“What?”

“If you’re what they want in exchange for Bigend’s guy, why are you being driven around by a girl, on the back of a bike? Why aren’t you locked down, watched over, massively surveilled?”

“Because Bigend has almost nobody he can trust right now.”

“Shit’s deep,” she said, with what he took to be a kind of satisfaction. “Out now. You’ve got your orders. Go.”

Milgrim got out. Seeing the man in the raincoat approaching, he left the door open. He turned and walked back, past the two cider cans, lonely sentinels of Smithfield, as Fiona started her engine.