The Jennifer Morgue

by Charles Stross

  Well, it’s not as easy as all that. In fact, at first I’m shit-scared that I’ve broken the TV (I’m pretty sure the warranty specifically excludes damage due to the USB ports being full of mascara) but then I figure out a better way. Tracing the Fallworth graph on the bathroom mirror backwards with a Bluetooth pen hooked into the television is not the recommended way of establishing a similarity link with a network you’re trying to break into—it’s not even the second worst way of doing so—but it just happens to be the only one I’ve got available to me, so I use it. Once I’ve brought up the virtual interface I poke around until I find the VPN port that the USB dongle I planted in Eileen’s server farm is running. The keystroke logger is happily snarfing login accounts, and I figure out pretty rapidly that Eileen’s INFOSEC people aren’t paranoid enough—they figure that for systems aboard a goddamn destroyer, who needs to go to the bother of biometrics or a challenge/response system like S/Key? They want something they can get into fast and reliably, so they’re using passwords, and my dongle’s captured six different accounts already. I rub my knuckles and go poking around the server farm to see what they’re doing with it. Give me a bottle of Mountain Dew, an MP3 player hammering out something by VNV Nation, and a crate of Pringles: that’s like being at home. Give me root access on a hostile necromancer’s server farm, and I am at home.

  Still, I’m worried about Mo. That view Eileen wanted me to vet—even if Eileen bought my story—means that Mo is here, on the island, and she’s under the gun. The Pale Grace™ surveillance net is tracking her and the stabbing sense of anxiety that doubles as my guilty conscience tells me I need to make sure she’s all right before I start trying to figure out a way to reestablish communications with Control. So I pull up a VNC session, log into one of Eileen’s server blades using a password looted from one of the black berets, and go hunting for a chase cam.

  13.

  FIDDLER HITS THE ROOF

  TEN HOURS ABOARD AN AIRBUS IS NEVER A HAPPY fun experience, even in business class. By the time Mo feels the nose gear touch down on the centerline of the runway, rattling the glasses up front in the galley, she’s tired, with a bone-weary exhaustion that is only going to go away if she can find the time to crash for twelve straight hours on an oversprung hotel mattress.

  But. But. Mo hums tunelessly to herself as the airbus taxis towards the terminal. What’s he gotten himself into this time? she asks herself, a bright point of worry burning through the blanket of fatigue. Angleton wasn’t remotely reassuring, and after that disturbing interview with Alan she went and did some digging. Asked Milton, actually, the one-armed, old security sergeant with the keys to the conservatory and the instrument store. “What’s a big white one?” she repeated, refusing to take the first answer he offered—or to notice the prickling in her ears and the flush of blood to her cheeks until he set her straight.

  Fuck. Nukes? What the wily old bastard had been offering Alan—right under her nose!—was a kamikaze insurance policy. The realization fills her with even more apprehension. Bob’s got himself into something so dicey that Angleton thinks a destroyer full of SAS and SBS special forces isn’t enough, and they may need to call in a Trident D-5 ballistic missile to nail whatever’s been stirred up down there. That kind of overkill isn’t on the menu, outside of a bad spy thriller: that or CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN, anyway, and CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN hasn’t started yet, and even then the real nasties probably won’t arrive until at least ten years after the grand alignment commences.12

  As soon as the seatbelt sign blinks off and the cabin crew announces that it’s safe for passengers to leave their seats, Mo is up like a jack-in-the-box to haul down her overnight bag, wide-brimmed hat, and the battered violin case from the overhead locker. She clutches the instrument case protectively all the way to the baggage claim area and immigration queue, as if she’s walking through a dangerous part of town and it’s a gun. But when the customs officer gives her the hairy eyeball and asks her to open it she smiles brightly and clicks back the locks to reveal—a violin.

  “See?” she says. “It’s an Erich Zahn special, wired with Hilbert-space pickups. I don’t think there’s another one on this side of the Atlantic.” She’s relying on his ignorance to let her through. Polished to the creamy gleam of old ivory, the electric violin nestles in its case like a Tommy gun, to all outward appearances nothing but a musical instrument. Just don’t ask me to play it, she prays. The custom officer nods, satisfied it’s not an offensive weapon, and waves her on. Mo closes the case with false calm, nods her head, and locks the instrument back in. If only you knew . . .

  One airport concourse is much like any other. Mo tows her suitcase over to the exit, where taxis jostle for position opposite the curb. It smells hot and damp with a faint undertone of rotting seaweed. There are people everywhere, tourists in bright clothes, natives, business types. A woman in a suit brandishes a clipboard at her: “Hi! How would you like a free sample of eyeliner, ma’am?”

  Why the hell not? Mo nods and accepts the sample, smiles, idly rubs a smear of it on her wrist to check the color, and moves on before the woman can deliver her sales spiel. Okay, the hotel next. That’ll do. As she walks through the door the Saint Martin climate clamps down on her like a warm, wet blanket, coating her in sweat. Abruptly, she’s grateful for the hat and the sundress Wardrobe Department insisted she wear. It’s not her style at all, but her usual jeans and blouse would be . . . Hell, call me the Wicked Witch of the West and have done with it. She fans herself with the hat as she walks over to the taxi queue. What a mess.

  “Where to, ma’am?” asks the taxi driver. He’s pegged her for a tourist, probably American; he doesn’t bother to get out and help her with the suitcase.

  “Maho Beach Hotel, if you don’t mind.” She glances at him in the mirror: he’s got crow’s-feet around prematurely aged eyes, hair the color of damp newsprint.

  “Okay. Twenty euros.”

  “Got it.”

  He starts the engine. Mo leans back and closes her eyes. She doesn’t let her fingers stray from the violin case, but to a casual onlooker she could be snoozing off a case of jet lag. In fact, when she’s not keeping a surreptitious eye open for tails, she’s working her way down a checklist she’s already committed to memory. Let’s see. Check in, phone home for a Sitrep, confirm Alan’s on site, then . . . a guilty frisson: off the roadmap. Find Bob. If necessary, find this Ramona person. Make sure Bob’s safe. Then figure out how to get him disentangled before it sucks him in too deep . . .

  Anxiety keeps her awake every meter of the way to the hotel, drags her tired ass to the front desk for check-in:

  “Mrs. Hudson? Your husband checked in this morning. He said you’d be arriving and to leave you a key to your suite.” The receptionist smiles mechanically. “Have a nice stay!”

  Husband? Mo blinks and nods, making thankful sounds on autopilot. “Which room is he in?”

  “You’re in 412. Elevators are left past the fountain.”

  She rides the elevator upstairs in thoughtful silence. Husband? It’s not Bob. He wouldn’t pull a stunt like this without forewarning her. And it’s a suite: Laundry expense accounts don’t usually run that high. Alan Barnes? Or . . . ?

  Mo pauses outside the door to room 412. She sets down her overnight bag on top of her suitcase, takes off her sunglasses and hat, and opens the violin case. She slides the card key into the lock with the same hand that grips the end of her bow, then nudges the door handle: by the time it’s half-open she has the violin raised to her chin and the bow poised above a string that seems to haze the air around it in a blue glow of Cerenkov radiation.

  “Come on out where I can see you,” she calls quietly, then kicks the ungainly train of bags forwards through the door, steps forwards after it, and lets the door shut itself behind her.

  “I’m over here.” The middle-aged white guy in the tropical suit isn’t Alan. He’s sitting in the office chair behind the hotel room desk, nursing a glass of something that proba
bly isn’t water; he’s got a twelve-hour beard and he looks haggard. “You’re all that Angleton sent? Jesus.”

  “What are you doing here?” Mo takes another step into the room, glancing sidelong through the doorways into the two bedrooms and the bathroom. “You’re not part of my cover.”

  “Last minute change of plan.” He smiles lopsidedly. “You can put the violin down—what were you planning to do with it, make me dance?”

  “Who are you?” Mo keeps the violin at the ready, its neck aimed at the interloper.

  “Jack Griffin, P Division.” The station chief, she remembers. He waves at the room. “It’s all yours. Bit of a mess really.”

  Mo’s left earring tingles. It’s a ward, attuned to warn her when someone’s being truthful. In her experience, the average human being tells a little white lie once every three minutes. Knowing when they’re telling the truth is much more useful than knowing when they aren’t. “So what are you doing here?” she asks tensely.

  “There’s been a problem.” Griffin’s accent is clipped, very old-school-tie, and he sounds rueful. “Your predecessor ran into a spot of bother and Angleton asked me to take you in hand and make sure you didn’t follow his example.”

  “A spot of bother, you say.” Mo has half-closed the gap separating them before she realizes what she’s doing. The violin string hums alarmingly, feeding off her anxiety. “What happened?”

  “He was working with a bint from the opposition.” Griffin puts his glass down and stares at her. “Billington lifted them both about, oh, twelve hours ago. Invited them to some sort of private party at the casino and the next thing you know they were over the horizon on a chopper bound for his yacht: the coastal defenses are compromised, you know.” Griffin shrugs. “I told him not to trust the woman, she’s obviously working for Billington by way of a cutout . . .”

  Her earring is itching, throbbing in Morse: Griffin is mixing truth and falsehood to concoct a whirlpool of misdirection. Mo sees red. “You listen to me—”

  “No, I don’t think I will.” Griffin reaches into his pocket for something that looks like a metal cigarette case. “You folks from head office have fucked up, pardon my French, all the way down the line, sending lightweights to do a professional’s job. So you’re going to do things my way—”

  Mo takes a deep breath and draws the bow lightly across one string. It makes a noise like a small predator screaming in mortal agony and terror, and that’s just the auditory backwash. A drop of blood oozes from each fingertip where she grips the neck of the instrument. Griffin’s gin and tonic spreads in a puddle across the carpet from where he dropped it. She walks over to him, rolls his twitching body into the recovery position, and squats beside him. When the convulsions cease, she touches the end of the instrument to the back of his head.

  “Listen to me. This is an Erich Zahn, with electroacoustic boost and a Dee-Hamilton circuit wired into the sound-board. I can use it to hurt you, or I can use it to kill you. If I want it to, it won’t just stop your heart, it’ll slice your soul to shreds and eat your memories. Do you understand? Don’t nod, your nose is bleeding. Do you understand?” she repeats sharply.

  Griffin shudders and exhales, spraying tiny drops of blood across the floor. “What’s—”

  “Listen closely. Your life may depend on whether you understand what I’m about to tell you. My predecessor, who is missing, means rather a lot to me. I intend to get him back. He’s entangled with a Black Chamber agent: fine, I need to get her back, too, so I can disentangle them. You can help me, or you can get in my way. But if you obstruct me and Bob dies as a result, I’ll play a tune for you that’ll be the last thing you ever hear. Do you understand?”

  Griffin tries to nod again. “Beed. A. T’shoo.”

  Mo stands up gracefully and takes a step back. “Get one, then.” She tracks him with the neck of the violin as he pushes himself upright slowly then shuffles towards the bathroom.

  “You’re a bard. Woban,” he says aggrievedly, standing in the doorway clutching a tissue to his nose. It’s rapidly turning red. “I’b on your sibe.”

  “You’d better be.” Mo leans against the sideboard and raises her bow to a safe distance above the fiddle. “Here’s what we’re going to do: You’re going to go downstairs and hire a helicopter. I’m going to phone home and find out where my backup’s gotten to, and then we’re going to go for a little run out to visit Billington’s yacht, the Mabuse. Got that?”

  “Bub he’d be aboard the yacht! He’b geb you!”

  Mo smiles a curious, tight smile. “I don’t think so.” She keeps the fiddle pointed at Griffin as he splutters at her. “Billington is all about money. He doesn’t do love, or hate. So I’m going to hit him where he doesn’t expect to be hit. Now get moving. I expect you back here inside an hour,” she adds coolly. “You really don’t want to be late.”

  I’M PUNCH-DRUNK FROM SURPRISES—THE SIGHT of Mo strong-arming Griffin into hiring her a helicopter is shocking enough, and the idea that she’s willing to jump in on the Billingtons without a second thought just because of me is enough to turn my world upside down—but then I realize: If I can see her, what about the bad guys?

  I may not be able to send her a message—the surveillance feed is strictly one-way—but I can try to cover her ass on this side of the firewall. I rummage around for what’s left of the Pale Grace™ sample, then draw some more patterns on the side of the PC and trace them with the ’toothpen. They’re interference patterns, stuff to break up the contagious spread of the information on my screen. Then I go back to watching. There’s not a lot I can do right now, not until we dock with the Explorer, but if Mo makes it out there I can make damn sure that, geas or no geas, whatever she’s planning takes the Billingtons by surprise.

  GRIFFIN HAS BARELY CLOSED THE DOOR WHEN Mo’s energy gives out and she slumps in on herself with a tiny whimper. She puts the violin down, then pulls a black nylon tactical strap from a side pocket in its case—her hands shaking so badly it takes her three attempts to fasten it—then slings the instrument from her shoulder like a gun. She walks over to the desk, wobbling almost drunkenly with fatigue or the relief of tension, and flops down in the chair. The message light on the phone is blinking. She picks up the handset and speed-dials.

  “Angleton?”

  “Dr. O’Brien.”

  “Your station chief. Griffin. Is he meant to be in on this side of the operation?”

  Angleton is silent for three or four seconds. “No. He wasn’t on my list.”

  Mo stares at the door, bleakly. “I sent him on a wild goose chase. I may have up to an hour until he gets back. Penetration confirmed, he’s your pigeon. At a guess, Billington got to him via his wallet. Got any suggestions?”

  “Yes. Leave the room. Take hand luggage only. Where did you tell him you were going?”

  “I sent him to hire a chopper. For the Mabuse.”

  “Then you should go somewhere else, by any means necessary. I’m opening your expense line: unlimited fund. I’ll have local assets take Griffin out of the picture.”

  “I can live with that.” Mo’s shoulders are shaking with barely repressed fury. “I could kill him. Do you want me to do that?”

  Angleton falls silent again. “I don’t think that would be useful at this point,” he says finally. “Do you have your primary documents with you?”

  “I’m not stupid,” she snaps.

  “I didn’t say you were.” Angleton’s tone is unusually mild. “Go to ground then call me with a sanitized contact number. Stay there and don’t go anywhere. I’ll have Alan make contact and pick you up when it’s safe to proceed.”

  “Got it,” she says tensely, and hangs up. Then she stands up and collects her violin case. “Right,” she mutters under her breath. “Go to ground.”

  Mo packs methodically and rapidly. The instrument goes back in its carrier. Then she opens her hand luggage—a black airline bag—and tips the contents out on the bed. She squeezes the violin case
inside, adds a document wallet and a toilet bag from the pile on the quilt, then zips it up and heads for the door. Rather than using the elevator she takes the emergency stairs, two steps at a time. At the ground floor, there’s a fire exit. She pushes the crash bar open—it squeals slightly, a residue of rust on the mechanism—and slips out into the crowd along the promenade at the back of the hotel.

  Over the next hour Mo puts her tradecraft to work. She doubles back around her route, checking her trail in window reflections in shop fronts: changes course erratically, acts like a tourist, dives into souvenir markets and cafés to make a show of looking at the menu while keeping an eye open for tails. Once she’s sure she’s clean she walks the block to the main drag and goes into the first clothes shop she passes, and then the second. Each time, she comes out looking progressively different: a tee shirt under her sundress, then a pair of leggings and an open shirt. The dress has vanished. With the addition of a new pair of sunglasses and a colorful scarf to keep the sun off her head, there’s no sign of Mrs. Hudson. She finishes up at a café: diving into its coolly air-conditioned interior she orders two double espressos and drinks them straight down, shuddering slightly as the caffeine hits her.

  What next? Mo is clearly fighting off the effects of jet lag. She stands up tiredly and steps outside again, shouldering the heat like a heavy burden. Then she heads directly away from the row of nearby hotels, towards the marina on the edge of the harbor and the row of motorboats for hire.