Charles Stross - The Atrocity Archives

I sit down and start taking my trainers off. "Is that all you've got to say?" I ask.

Plaid Shirt snorts again: "Is that all?" He walks over to the door. "Yeah buddy, that's all," he says, and opens it. Then there's a wet slapping sound and he falls over backward, leaking blood onto the carpet from both ears.

I roll sideways, out of the line of sight of the door, and grab for the small monkey's paw I wear on a leather thong round my neck. Electricity jolts the palm of my hand as the ward activates. ("Try not to get yourself killed on friendly territory," said Andy: Some joke that turned out to be!) Plaid Shirt is blocking the suite door from closing and this is one of those California motels where all the doors open off balconies. I steady my nerves, then get myself turned round behind the bathroom sidewall and make a grab for his nearest arm.

They never tell you how heavy a corpse is in training school. I lean forward thoughtlessly to take a two-handed grip under his shoulder and that's when a mule punches my exposed shoulder. I fall over backward, dragging Plaid Shirt behind me, and the door swings shut.

The pool of blood is growing, but I have to be sure; the bullet hole is somewhere above his hairline. I force myself to look closer-

There are faint letters inscribed on his forehead in an ancient alphabet. They glow briefly then fade as I watch.

I do not feel good about sharing a motel room with a ballistically decommissioned intelligence agency spy. Unfortunately there appears to be a lunatic with a rifle waiting for me outside. I have an edgy feeling that the other shoe is about to drop within the next ninety seconds, and if I don't get out of here I'm going to be answering some pointed questions. Of course, I'm not really meant to last that long-or am I? Did they know about the standard-issue ward? Maybe if I'm lucky the ward will keep on working; they don't like taking direct hits, but they lose efficacy bit by bit, not all at once.

There's a loud blat of engine noise from outside the balcony; a motorbike with a blown muffler revs up then shrieks out of the car park on a trail of rubber. I grab my trainers, yank them on (wincing every time I flex my left arm), grab my jacket, wrap a hand around the dry-dusty object in the right front pocket, and yank the door open-

Just in time to see the bike vanishing down the road, and not a single cop in sight.

I duck into the bathroom and run the taps, then thrust my hands under them to rinse the blood away. They're shaking, I notice distantly. After a moment I start thinking very fast; then I dry my hands and go into the bedroom and pick up my mobile phone. The number I want is already programmed in.

"Hello? Winchester Waste Management?"

"Hi, this is Bob H-Howard speaking," I say. "I've had a bit of an accident and I could do with some cleaning services."

"What did you say your address was?" asks the receptionist. I rattle off the hotel address. Then: "What sort of cleaning do you require?"

"The bedcovers will need changing." I think for a moment. "And I cut myself shaving. I'm going to have to go to work now."

"Okay, our crew will be around shortly." She hangs up on me.

The coded message I sent translates as follows: "Warning, my cover is shot. I've got to get out urgently, things are going bad, and under no circumstances should anyone approach me." I cut myself shaving: "Things turned bloody." This sort of code, unlike a cypher, is virtually impossible to crack-as long as you never use it twice. With luck it'll take whoever's tapping the line a few minutes to realise that I've pushed the panic button.

I drop the bathroom towels over Plaid Shirt's leaking head, then grab my jacket and flight bag and cautiously nudge the front door open. Nothing nasty happens. I step out onto the balcony, lock the door behind me, and head down to the car park. All thought of getting Mo's travel arrangements in hand is gone: my immediate job is to drive north, drop the rental off at the airport, and bump myself onto the next available flight.

When I zap the car it doesn't explode: the doors unlock and the lights come on. Clutching my lucky monkey's paw I get in, start the engine, and drive away into the night, shaking like a leaf.

"Mo? This is Bob."

"Bob-"

"Yeah. Look, about this afternoon."

"It's so good to hear-"

"It was great seeing you too, but that's not what I'm calling about. Something's come up at home and I've got to leave. We'll be reviewing your case notes and seeing what pressure we can-"

"You've got to help me."

"What? Of course we'll-"

"No, I mean right now ! They're going to kill me. I'm locked up in here and they didn't search me so they didn't find my phone but-"

"What the fuck?"

I stare at the phone, then hastily switch it off and yank out the battery in case someone's trying to trace my cell.

"What the fuck ?"

My head whirls. Oh yeah, a redheaded maiden in distress just asked me to rescue her: a chunk of me is cynically thinking that I must be really hard up. There's a pithed spy in my hotel suite and my welcome mat is going to be withdrawn with extreme prejudice when his owners find out about it, just in time to get a cryptic phone call from my target who seems to be in fear for her life. What the- whatever -is going on, here?

In the Laundry we supposedly pride ourselves on our procedures. We've got procedures for breaking and entering offices, procedures for reporting a shortage of paper clips, procedures for summoning demons from the vasty deeps, and procedures for writing procedures. We may actually be on track to be the world's first ISO-9000 total-quality-certified intelligence agency. According to our written procedure for dealing with procedural cluster-fucks on foreign assignment, what I should do at this point is fill out Form 1008.7, then drive like a bat out of hell over Highway 17 until it hits the Interstate, then take the turnoff for San Francisco Airport and use my company credit card to buy the first available seat home. Not forgetting to file Form 1018.9 ("expenses unexpectedly incurred in responding to a situation 1008.7 in the line of duty") in time for the end of month accounting cycle.

Except if I do that-and if Mo's abductors are as friendly as my second visitor of the evening-I've just vaped the mission, screwed the pooch, written off the friendly I was supposed to be extracting, and blown my chances of a second date. (And we'll never find out whether the last thought to pass through the mind of the captain of the Thresher was, "It's squamous and rugose," or simply, "It's squamous!")

Looking around, I see the parking lot is still empty. So I pull out, and roll through a U-turn across the railway tracks, and back into town. It's time to apply a little thought to the situation.

MO LIVES IN A RENTED FLAT NOT THAT FAR FROM the university campus. Now that I know her true name it takes me ten minutes with a map and a phone book to find it and drive over. There are no police cars outside and no sign of trouble; just a flat that's showing no lights. I know she's not home but I need something-anything-of hers so I park the car and briskly walk up the path to her front door, and knock as if I expect a welcome, hoping like hell that her abductors haven't left me a nasty surprise.

The screen door is shut but the inner door gapes open. Ten seconds with the blade of a multitool and the screen door's gaping too. The place is a mess-someone tipped over a low table covered in papers, there's a laptop inverted on the floor, and as my eyes become accustomed to the gloom I see a bookcase face down on the carpet in front of a corridor. I step over it, one hand in my pocket, looking for the bedroom.