Charles Stross - The Fuller Memorandum

“You don’t need a Glock to get rid of lodgers, my son.” He spots my expression. “Had a problem?”

“Yeah, attempted physical intrusion.”

“Hmm. Who else will have access to the weapon?”

I choose my next words carefully: “The house is a level two secure site. The only other resident is my wife. Dr. O’Brien isn’t certificated for firearms, but she has other competencies and knows not to play with other kids’ toys.”

Harry considers his next words carefully: “I don’t want to lean on you, Bob, but I need more than your word for that. Seeing as how it’s for you and the delectable Dominique-give her my regards-I think we can bend the rules far enough to fit, but I shall need to put a ward on the trigger guard.”

“A-How?” That’s new to me.

“It’s a new technique the eggheads in Q-Projects have come up with: they take a drop of your blood and key the trigger guard so that the only finger that’ll fit through it is yours. Of course,” his voice drops confidingly, “that doesn’t stop the bad guys from chopping your finger off and using it to work the trigger; but they’ve got to take the gun and the finger off you before they can shoot you with it. Let’s just say, it’s more about stopping pistols from going walkies in public than about stopping your lady wife from offing you in a fit of jealous passion.”

I roll my eyes. “Okay, I can live with that.”

He brightens: “Also, we can make it invisible, and silent.”

“Wha-hey! You mean you’ve got real concealed carry?”

He winks at me.

“Okay, I would like that, too. Um. As long as it’s not invisible to me, also. And, um, the holster. An invisible gun in a visible holster would be kind of inconvenient…”

“It’ll be invisible to anyone who doesn’t have a warrant card, my son, or your money back.”

“Will you match my life insurance, if it isn’t and some bright spark sets an SO19 team on me?” (One of the reasons I am reluctant to carry a handgun in public is that the London Metropolitan Police have a zero-tolerance approach to anyone else carrying guns, and while their specialist firearms teams don’t officially have a shoot-to-kill policy, you try finding a Brazilian plumber who does call-out work during a bomb scare these days.)

“I think we can back that, yes.” Harry sounds amused. “Is that your lot?”

“It’ll do.” A new ward for myself, a Hand of Glory if I need to make a quick strategic withdrawal, and a gun to keep at home that I can carry in public if I absolutely have to: What more could an extremely worried spook ask for? Ah, I know. “Do you have any alarms?” I ask.

“I thought you was dead-set on home defense the DIY way.” Harry looks momentarily scornful, then thoughtful: “Things ain’t that bad yet, are they?”

“Could be.” I shove my hands deep in my pockets and do my best to look gloomy. “Could be.”

“Whoa.” Harry’s forehead wrinkles further. “Listen. There could be a problem: you drawing a HOG and a gun, and your good lady wife’s violin, that makes you a regular arsenal, dunnit? Now, if I was signing out an alarm to, oh, that nice Mrs. Thompson in Human Resources”-I shudder-“there’d be no problem, on account of how she and her hubby and that no-good son of theirs ain’t certificated for combat and wouldn’t know a receiver from a slide if they trapped their fingers between them. Right? But let me just put it to you: suppose I sign an alarm out to you, put you and your missus on the watch list, and a bad guy comes calling at your front door. You and Dr. O’Brien go to the mattresses, and you activate the alarm, and being you and the missus you give as good as you get. Thirty seconds later the Watch Team are on your case and zoom in. Heat of battle, heat of battle: How do the Watch Team know that the people shooting from inside your house are you and your wife? What if you’ve gotten out through the back window? That’s how blue-on-blue happens, my son. I figure you ought to think this one through some more.”

“Okay.” I look around the compact armory. “Guess you’re right.”

We’ve got a panic button, it’s part of the kit the Plumbers fitted us out with; but an alarm of the kind I’m talking about is portable, personal, you carry it on your body and there’s a limited list of folks who carry them-that kind of cover is computationally expensive-and if you’re on the watch list and you trigger the alarm, SCORPION STARE wakes up and starts looking for you. And for everyone who might be threatening you. You don’t want to press that button by accident, believe me.

“One ward, one HOG, and a +2 magic pistol of invisible smiting. Anything else I need to know?”

“Yeah. Come back in an hour and I’ll have all the paperwork waiting for you to sign. The HOG and the ward I can give you once I get your chop; the pistol will take a little longer.” Harry shrugs. “Best I can do, awright?”

“You’re a champ.” I make my good-byes, then head off. I’ve got other things to do before I go home.

I’M ON MY WAY TO ANDY’S OFFICE WHEN IRIS RUNS ME down.

“Bob! What are you doing here? I thought I told you to take the week off?” She sounds mildly irritated, and a little out of breath, as if she’s been running around looking for me. “Hey, what happened to your head?”

I shrug. “Stuff came up.”

She looks concerned. “In my office.”

I demur: her office is her territory. “Look, Mo came back from… a job… in pieces, really rattled. Then the job followed her home, and that’s a full-dress panic-”

Her eyes narrow: “How bad?”

“This bad.” I point to the row of butterfly closures on my head and she winces. “Have you heard anything about-about upswings in non-affiliated agency activity in London this week?”

“My office,” she says, very firmly, and this time she means it.

“Okay.”

Once inside her office, she locks the door, switches on the red DND lamp, then lowers the blinds on the glass window that lets her view the corridor. Then she turns to me. “What codewords do you know?”

“I’ve been approved for CLUB ZERO”-she gives a sharp intake of breath-“and CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN. Not to mention MAGINOT BLUE STARS, but Harry the Horse wouldn’t give me an alarm buzzer without your chop on the order form. And Angleton just told me to deputize for him on BLOODY BARON, although I haven’t been briefed on that yet.”

“Wow. That’s a bundle.” She eyes me warily. “Angleton dumps a lot on your shoulders.” For someone so junior, she leaves unsaid.

“Yes.” I focus on her more closely: wavy chestnut hair that is currently unkempt and beginning to show silvery roots, crow’s-foot worry lines at the edges of her eyes, a restlessness to her stance that suggests she’s far busier than she wants me to see. “Your turn.”

“Wait, first-what happened yesterday?”

“Andy was with the Plumbers on cleanup; it should be on today’s overnight events briefing sheet.”

“That was”-her eyes widen-“you? Active incursion and assault by a class three, repelled by agents? Those stitches, it was that?”

“Yeah.” I flop down on her visitor’s chair without a by-your-leave.

“They tried to rearrange my features: it was a close call. I came in today to draw a personal defense item, but also to ask what the hell is going on? And this business about Angleton-”

“You saw him the day before yesterday.”

“Yes.” I pause. “He’s still missing. Right?”

She nods.

“Do you want me to look round his office? In case he left anything?” Iris sniffs. “No.” I think she’s a poor liar. “But if you know anything…?”

“I don’t like being kept in the dark.” Coming over all snippy on the person who is my nominal manager isn’t clever, I know, but at this point I’m running low on self-restraint. “It seems to me that a whole bunch of rather bad things are happening right now, and that smells to me like enemy action.” I’m echoing Andy. “Whoever the enemy is, in this context. Right, fine, you keep on playing games, that’s all right by me-except that it isn’t, really, because one of the games in question just followed my wife home and tried to kill her. Us.” I point to the row of butterfly sutures on my forehead, and to her credit, she winces. “Remember, it costs.”