erase data, even hijack industrial control systems.”
“Whoa. You mean like - maybe in Iran, where their centrifuges went haywire?” John stopped chewing.
“I mean exactly like the centrifuges in Iran. He managed to get us the rootkit and updated command modules the day he died. If your watch gizmo works, we will be uploading patches that will allow us to access, monitor, and ultimately, if need be, take control of the systems that are supposed to be monitoring and controlling us.”
“I thought all signals in and out of the building were shielded,” Jane looked up from her vegetarian curry, perplexed.
Whitney spread her hands. “I’d be lying if I said I know how it all works. But they tell me that we have the technology. You’ll know you’ve made contact if phones nearby start to ring. Just one ring and then silence. We may not be able to tell right away if everything installs properly or not; and it may take time for the spyware to report back. Kind of like the Mars Rover.”
“So I’m essentially going to put my life on the line to take a stroll through MI6 with absolutely no guarantee of success?” Jane’s brow was furrowed.
“Think of it as walking into hell for a heavenly cause,” Whitney suggested. “But - yeah.”
“I begin to understand 007’s addiction to martinis. A martini would be good here.” Jane sounded rueful.
“I’m sorry Missis,” their waiter had overheard her last remark. He was an affable Jamaican with dreads bundled beneath a rainbow-colored knit cap. “We’re unlicensed, BYOB only. But we do have Ribena Blackcurrant or Robinson’s Orange Squash.”
Before Jane could render an acerbic opinion on the relative merits of martinis versus soft drinks, John hastily swallowed his mouthful of tri-color pasta and piped up, “Definitely. A round of Robinsons.”
“For the table, sir?”
“Oh, I think everyone should have Orange Squash,” Jane said wickedly, on the theory that a people who made such stuff should be condemned to drink it.
“A round for the house, then,” John proclaimed. “Orange squash for everyone!” An elderly couple in the corner had clapped vigorously.
Pegg snorted. He swiped a card and typed in a PIN to exit the security booth. Once he and Jane were inside MI6 proper, they found themselves in a long service hallway, where he eventually stopped to repeat the process to gain access to an elevator.
“This must be the most secure place on the planet,” Jane marveled. With sublime mendacity.
Pegg sniffed. Gazed at the ceiling of the elevator. “The Pentagon gives public tours, you know. Not us.” They were rising rapidly. Fifth floor, sixth, seventh. At the eighth the car stopped. Pegg pushed a buzzer and put his hands in his pockets, whistling to himself.
“Judging from what you put me through, I doubt anyone could break into this building,” Jane went on guilefully.
“They’d better not try. We’re secure to the nines. Missiles on the roof now.”
“Really,” Jane opened her eyes at him, truly taken aback for a moment. Then recovered and shuddered. Ostentatiously. “Well, that just tells you, doesn’t it?”
“I should say it does,” he agreed. He was plainly enjoying his role of MI6 impresario. Just then his cell phone went off, playing a shred of song by Billy Bragg. The chorus from the Internationale.
So come brothers and sisters,
For the struggle carries on.
He pulled it from his pocket, but it only rang once, Jane noted. He shrugged and put it away.
“The times we live in,” Jane shook her head, soberly despondent this time. The case was beginning to feel a little heavy. All that gold.
“It’s a war, alright. But between you and me -” He let himself look at Jane a minute, but before he could say more, the intercom crackled. “Do come in,” the invitation was given briskly, by a man’s voice. And immediately, the elevator doors parted.
It was a corridor like any other but it reminded Jane of a painting she’d seen somewhere. Of an orange street in unsparing sunlight with a girl running uphill. Beside the girl, an arcade of doors marched far into the distance. And up ahead an ominous shadow loomed. In the corridor facing Jane, there was no daylight, not even a window, and the floor was a chessboard of green and white. No end of doors though, all closed, receding on either hand. Empty, eerie, menacing. Surreal. But not Dali. John would know the picture she had in mind. Art was his bailiwick. All she had was Yalie polysci, which turned out to have been hopelessly in thrall to the worldview of the predatory, plutocratic few. So what had she learned, really? This corridor was like that. Like her bogus education and a painting by an artist whose name she could not remember. A trap with no exit.
Under the watchful eyes of multiple cameras, they trekked all the way to the door at the end of the corridor, where Pegg showed her how to present her palm to a hand scanner. “It’s just another way of signing in,” he said. She prayed silently to the hacker gods that her data had indeed been expunged from global security repositories and high-fived the input screen. Several latches snapped open with a series of clicks and they were allowed to enter a small suite. Directly in front of them was a waiting area dominated by a large and unattended desk. An empty conference room stood off to the right, and to their left, through a half-open office door, they could hear voices.
“This will just take a moment, and then we’ll break for luncheon. I’ll have to leave you on your own as I promised to make the delivery in person. If you don’t care to brave the canteen with its delirium nuptiis, I can have something sent up. Hallo.” The head of MI6 stuck his head out. “I must say I had given up on you. Let’s have a look, shall we?” he said to Jane, stepping back so that Jane could join him in the inner sanctum. The phone on the unattended desk rang shrilly as she passed it. Which caused Sir John to pause in irritation. However the phone fell silent immediately, so Sir John’s face cleared. “Gone to voicemail. Good. You needn’t wait,” he said to Pegg, who tugged his receding forelock in mock salute and withdrew.
The office was spacious, with large windows across one wall. Jane had an impression of granite and glass and curves. There was a glass-topped executive desk, and a number of green leather chairs, one of which was occupied. The occupant had his back to the door and all Jane could see was the back of a well-shaped head.
“May I?” Jane handed the gun case off and stood quietly, thinking things were going pretty smoothly, as Sir John set the case on one end of his desk, talking all the while. “You may recall the dust-up about my daughter and a certain weapon that once belonged to a certain Iraqi gentleman, which I was given in appreciation for - ah - services rendered.” He began unzipping the brass zipper. “It was a tempest in a teapot, a slight Facebook indiscretion. Someone took her picture looking like Patty Hearst under our Christmas tree and posted it. It got into all the gossip rags.” He had the case open and was inspecting the contents. “His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales was amused and intrigued apparently. So much so that his son asked if I could put my hands on another one as a thank-you for all that his father’s done about the wedding and so forth. Kind of an inside joke and filial homage, rolled up in one. Quite a nice gesture, I thought. So of course I said I’d try. Eh?” He turned the case so his guest could see.
“That,” his guest said, leaning forward, “is a first rate example of Dictator Chic.” Jane froze at the first word. Sheer panic coursed through her. She thought fast. Prepared a face to meet the face she was about to meet.
“They have a name for this sort of thing, do they?” Sir John was amused.
“There’s so much of it going around, they had to call it something.” His guest settled back in his chair.
“You’ll want a signature?” Sir John asked Jane as he re-zipped the case.
“Si vous êtes heureux, nous sommes heureux,” Jane said. [“If you’re happy, we’re happy.”]
The effect of her voice
on the man in the chair was volcanic, nuclear even - in a semi-controlled Fukushima sort of way. In jumping out of his chair, he seemed almost to jump out of his skin.
Sir John did not notice. His phone had just rung and he was trying to figure out what button to push to answer it. “It’s just a hop, skip, and a scurry across to Buckingham, old man. I won’t be quite an hour. I say -” When the phone failed to ring a second time, Sir John glanced up to find his American colleague rooted in place, his bloodless face the color of Pentagon limestone. “You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”
24 Of All the Gin Joints
“Un fantôme,” the man repeated. “Fort possible.” [“A ghost. Very possibly.”]
“I’m afraid we can’t dilly-dally, the PM expects to be the man with the golden gun before dessert and I’m a little behind my time,” Sir John urged good-naturedly. He had Jane by the elbow and was steering her back the way she had come.
“Of course,” the man recovered sufficiently to join them at the hall door, where he proceeded to stare pointedly at Jane. “It was just - have we met?”
At that, Jane turned her head to meet his scrutiny directly, and presented him with a totally blank façade where her face should have been. She looked more like a marble statue than a flesh and blood woman. A queen or a goddess carved from unfeeling stone or