Zero History Part 50

Thumbing the wings to rotate, slowly, just briefly enough, in opposite directions, had brought the penguin around, but had presented Milgrim with the iconic silhouette of a Ruchnoy Pulemyot Kalashnikova Ruchnoy Pulemyot Kalashnikova, for which he'd instantly lost all English.

It lay across Gracie's legs, metal shoulder-stock unfolded, as Gracie attached the curved magazine, a humble unit about which Milgrim, in his period of government employment, had known an absurd amount. The Russian for terminologies for every piece of machinery used to produce them: stampers and spot-welders and so many more. He'd noticed them ever since, on television screens, those magazines: ubiquitous objects in the world's harsher places, never auguring good.

"f.u.c.k," from Fiona, beside him, just the least little plosive. Then: "On it."

Gracie pulled something back, on the side of the rifle, released it, sat up and forward, bringing his knees up, settling the orthopedic-looking stock against his shoulder.

The penguin paddling down, it seemed, of its own accord, as Gracie leaned his cheek in. Barrel moving, slightly- Jerking, as something dark and rectangular shot beneath it. Fiona's drone.

Gracie looked up. Through the penguin, directly at Milgrim. Who must have done that awkward thing, though he could never remember it, the configuration she'd shown him in the cube.

Something smashed Gracie down, and sideways, out of his sniper's posture, an idiot giant's invisible hand, the penguin jerking simultaneously, image blurring. Milgrim never saw the wires at all, those fifteen feet of them, but he supposed they were very thin.

Gracie rolled on his back, convulsed as Milgrim fired the Taser again. "Galvanism," the word recalled from high school biology. Gracie grabbed invisible strings. Milgrim tapped the screen again. Gracie jerked again, held on.

"Stop!" Fiona said. "Garreth says!"

"Why?"

"Stop!"

Milgrim raised both thumbs, obedient now, terrified that he'd done something irrevocable.

Gracie sat up, clawing at his neck, then gave the invisible string a vicious yank, blurring the image again.

And then the penguin was rising, slowly, away from him. Milgrim's thumbs went to the wings. Nothing happened. He tried the tail, tried auto-swim. Nothing. Still rising. He saw Gracie stagger to his feet, sway, then run, out of frame, as the penguin, freed of its unaccustomed ballast of Taser, ascended of its own accord into the calm predawn air of the Thames Valley.

He thought he glimpsed the wheel of the London Eye, just as Fiona thrust her own iPhone in front of his.

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?" had the Taser?"

"On his balloon. h.e.l.lo? 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 s.p.a.ce between it and himself now." He raised a hand, head tilting, listening. "You didn't. You did did. b.u.g.g.e.r b.u.g.g.e.r."

"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 f.u.c.k still!" commanded Heidi, her voice m.u.f.fled but fully audible through the steel door and two canvas scrims.

Garreth looked back at Hollis. "She's outside 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 very beautiful I find you, have I, Heidi?" said Garreth. beautiful I find you, have I, Heidi?" said Garreth.

"p.i.s.sed 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." 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 f.u.c.king 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.

84. NEW ONE

Fiona's drone's batteries had died, and it dropped like a stone, almost as soon as Foley and the others had left in the black car. Milgrim had helped her fold the tarp, which was now stuffed into one of the side pockets of his riding jacket, and then had been the one to find the drone, though he'd done so by stepping on it, cracking a rotor housing. She hadn't seemed to care, tucking it under her arm like an empty drinks tray and quickly leading him to where she'd left her Kawasaki. "We'll FedEx it back to Iowa and they'll rebuild it," she'd said, he'd guessed to stop him apologizing.

Now Milgrim held it as she dug in the eyeball-carrier Benny had mounted over the pillion seat. He shook it gingerly. Heard something rattle.

"Here," she said, producing a very s.h.i.+ny black helmet, sealed in plastic. She ripped the plastic, pulled it off, took the drone, and handed him the helmet. She put the drone in the carrier, snapped it shut. "You were getting tired of Mrs. Benny's."

Milgrim was unable to resist turning it over, raising it, sniffing the interior. It smelled of new plastic, nothing else. "Thanks," he said. He looked at the Kawasaki. "Where can I sit?"

"I'll be on your lap, basically." She reached out, took the strap of his bag, lifted it over his head so that it was on the other shoulder, diagonal across his chest, then kissed him, hard but briefly, on the mouth. "Get on the bike," she said. "He wants us away from here."

"Okay," said Milgrim, breathily, out of hyperventilation and joy, as he put on his new helmet.

85. TO GET A HANDLE ON IT

Cornwall's okay," said Heidi, on Hollis's iPhone. "Haven't found a place to spread Mom 'n' Jimmy yet, but it's a good excuse for driving."

"How's Ajay's ankle?" Hollis was watching Garreth, on his back on the bed, exercising Frank with a bright yellow rubber bungee. They had the windows open, admitting occasional breezes and the sound of afternoon traffic. It was a larger room than the one she'd had the week before, a double, but it had the same blood-red walls and faux Chinese nonideograms.

"Fine," said Heidi, "but he's still using that trick cane your boyfriend gave him. It's a miracle he's washed his hands."

"Has he gotten over the rest of it?"

Ajay had been embarra.s.sed over losing Chombo, and frustrated that he hadn't gotten a chance to go up against the man with the mullet. Hollis herself, he'd said, could have taken Foley, who'd looked like he belonged in hospital to begin with. And Milgrim, to cap things for Ajay, had taken down Gracie, who'd turned up with not just a gun but an a.s.sault rifle. On the upside, Ajay seemed to have bonded with Charlie, and on his return from Cornwall intended to try to learn to make skilled opponents repeatedly fall down, seemingly without touching them. Garreth, Hollis gathered, doubted much would come of this, but didn't tell Ajay.

"It isn't like he's got that long an attention span," said Heidi. "Where's Milgrim?"

"Iceland," Hollis said, "or on his way. With Hubertus, and the Dottirs. He phoned this morning. I couldn't understand whether he was on a plane or a boat. He said it was a plane, but that it had hardly any wings, and barely flew."

"You happy?"

"Apparently," said Hollis, watching Frank, now free of dressings, flex repeatedly against mild Parisian sunlight. "Weirdly. Today."

"Take care of yourself," said Heidi. "Gotta go. Ajay's back."

"You too. Bye."

Milgrim and Heidi, Garreth said, had each saved his bacon on the Scrubs. Milgrim by zapping Gracie, who'd brought the gun that Garreth had hoped he wouldn't; and Heidi, as she treated herself to a claustrophobia-reducing jog, by spotting Chombo, headed in the direction of Islington, and bringing him back, against his will, to the van.

Hollis remembered standing outside the van, with Bobby demanding time for a second cigarette, the pretty Norwegian driver demanding they be quiet now and get back inside. Pep had come scooting up then, on his eerily silent bike, running without lights, to hand Hollis a tattered Waitrose bag, leer at her, then whip away. When she'd renegotiated the black canvas flies, she'd found Garreth slumped in his chair, his screens blank. "Are you okay?" she'd asked, giving his shoulders a squeeze.

"Always a bit of a letdown," he'd said, but then had perked up a few minutes later, the van under way. Someone on his headphone. "How many?" he'd asked. Then smiled. "Eleven unmarked vehicles," he'd said to her, a moment later, quietly. "Body armor, Austrian automatic weapons, a few in hazmat suits. Heavy mob."

She'd been about to ask what he meant, but he'd silenced her with a look and another smile. She'd handed him the Waitrose bag then. When he opened it, she'd glimpsed one huge horrid eye of the world's ugliest T-s.h.i.+rt.

"What was that about a plane without wings?" he asked now, lowering Frank, the sequence completed.

"Milgrim's on board something Bigend's built, or restored. He said it was Russian."

"Ekranoplan," said Garreth. "A ground-effect vehicle. He's mad."

"He's had Hermes do the interior, Milgrim says."

"Dead posh, too."

"What kind of police came, for Foley and the others?"

"A very heavy mob. Aren't on the books. Old man knows a bit about them, says less than he knows."

"You called them when you sent us outside?"

"Dropped the dime, yes. Milgrim's American agent called me again when I was waiting for you in the van, behind Cabinet. Gave me a number and a code word. She hadn't had them when she'd called before. Offered me numbers I already had. I asked her for something ma.s.sive. She came through too. Ma.s.sively. I used them, gave the make, color, and registration number. Bang."

"Why did she do that?"

"Because she's a bad-a.s.s, according to Milgrim." He smiled. "And, I'd guess, because it couldn't be traced back to her, her agency, her government."

"Where would she have gotten it?"