Zero history

83. PLEASE GO

What was that?” she asked.

“Milgrim,” he said, shaking his head, “Tasered Gracie. It’s a good thing I’m retiring. Milgrim just saved our bacon.”

“Milgrim had the Taser?”

“On his balloon. Hello? Darling?” To the headset now. “Get us over the car, please. And hurry, you’re running on fumes.”

“Who was Gracie trying to shoot?”

“Chombo first, I imagine. Do Big End the most harm that way. Either when he saw that we weren’t dealing in good faith, or because he’d planned to all along. Initially, I thought he might just play it straight, local rules, get Milgrim, make his point. Hoping he wouldn’t go the full American on us, in London, in a public place, dead of night. Mad, really. But Milgrim’s secret agent thinks it’s a midlife crisis. If he’d fired, the area would be knee-deep in police in another minute, and entirely the wrong kind. Which would actually put him where we want him, though then they’d likely have us too.”

“He’s an arms dealer. Didn’t you think he might have a gun?”

“Arms dealers are businessmen. Mild old gents, some of them. I knew there was cowboy potential”-he shrugged-“but hadn’t much way to cover it. Just a bodged-up little exploit.” He grinned. “But Milgrim jolted him, sufficient that he left without the gun. Imagine he wants space between it and himself now.” He raised a hand, head tilting, listening. “You didn’t. You did. Bugger.”

“What?”

“Ajay’s sprained his ankle. In a sandbox. Chombo’s run away.” He drew a deep breath, blew it slowly out. “You’re not seeing my machinations at their genius best, are you?”

Something slammed against the back of the truck. “Stay the fuck still!” commanded Heidi, her voice muffled but fully audible through the steel door and two canvas scrims.

Garreth looked back at Hollis. “She’s outside,” he said.

“I know. I didn’t want to interrupt you. Hoped she was just going for a pee.”

The long zip went up then, and Bobby Chombo was almost simultaneously injected through the fly, his face slick with tears. He fell on the aubergine floor, sobbing. Heidi’s head appeared near the top of the fly. “He’s the one, right?”

“I’ve never told you how very beautiful I find you, have I, Heidi?” said Garreth.

“Pissed his pants,” said Heidi.

“In good company, believe me,” said Garreth, shaking his head.

“Where’s Ajay?” Heidi asked, frowning.

“About to get a Ghurka-ride. Piggyback. He’s been wanting to get to know Charlie better.” He turned back to his screens.

Milgrim’s, Hollis saw, was blank, or rather, dimly Turneresque, faintest pink behind steel gray, the greenish hue gone now. But Fiona’s was very busy. Figures climbing into the black car.

“Go,” said Garreth to the car on the screen, with a little chivying gesture. “Please go.”

The car drove out of frame.

“I’m going to have to ask you all to step outside for a moment,” Garreth said.

“Why?” asked Heidi’s disembodied head.

“Because I need to do something very dirty,” he said, producing a phone like the one he’d used to take the American agent’s call, “and because I don’t want him”-with a nod in Chombo’s direction-“weeping in the background. Gives the wrong impression.”

Hollis knelt beside Chombo. “Bobby? Hollis Henry. We met in Los Angeles. Do you remember?”

Chombo flinched, his eyes screwed shut.

She sang the opening line of “Hard to Be One,” probably for the first time in a decade. Then sang it again, getting it right, or in any case closer.

He fell silent, shuddered, opened his eyes. “Do you happen to have anything like a fucking cigarette?” he asked Hollis.

“I’m sorry,” she said “I-”

“I do,” said Heidi. “Outside.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“I’ll go with you,” said Hollis.

“You can have the pack,” said Heidi, spreading the black fly with her white, black-nailed hands.

Chombo was already on his feet, tugging his thin knit coat around him. He glared at Hollis, then stepped gingerly through the zip-toothed vertical gap.

She followed him.