The Apocalypse Codex

though.

“AH, MR. HOWARD. COME IN. YOU’RE LATE.” LOCKHART IS CHARACTERISTICALLY curt, but despite the routine chewing-out—I am getting a feeling that this is his usual way of relating to his staff, in which case it’s bloody juvenile and I wish he’d get over it—he seems somewhat pleased with himself.

I shut the door. “Has something come up?”

“You could say that.” The smugness is threatening to burst out. “Yesterday BASHFUL INCENDIARY’s invitation to attend a session of the Omega Course came through. It’s a weekend residential session held at the Golden Promise Ministries headquarters, just north of Colorado Springs, and it starts this Friday. We’ve been trying to get someone inside there for weeks. She’s already on her way there by way of New York, along with Mr. McTavish. So you’d better get moving, eh?”

“Wait a minute. The tattoos—”

“You’ll just have to play catch-up with her in Colorado, Mr. Howard.”

“Okay. What then? What’s the plan? What’s she doing, do we know?”

“I couldn’t possibly say.” Lockhart’s eyes narrow. “BASHFUL INCENDIARY is not one of your, or my, or our department’s employees, so in principle she could be doing anything. As it is, she’s clearly engaged in surveillance activities directed against a protege of the PM. We are therefore sending you to Denver to keep an eye on her and find out what’s going on. We devoutly hope that she will find it amusing to confide in you from time to time, Mr. Howard. That is all you or I know, to be sure. Do I make myself understood?”

“I think so.” I pause. “Isn’t this a little bit open-ended…?”

“Clever boy. Yes, it is.” He nods sharply. Then he picks up a black nylon travel document wallet from his desk and hands it over, along with a form. “Sign this.”

“Sign what—” It’s a receipt. “Just a sec, you know I need to check the contents.”

“Take your time.”

I open the wallet. It contains a passport and a bunch of boarding passes. Return from London to Denver, business class, fully flexible—my eyebrows are clawing at the ceiling even before I see the next item.

“You’ll need to sign that, too,” Lockhart adds.

“But, bu-but—” I don’t usually stutter, honest, but it’s the first time I’ve seen one of these things in the wild: Aren’t they supposed to come on a velvet cushion escorted by a couple of snooty liveried footmen and an armed guard? “This is a gold Visa card. A Coutts gold Visa card.”

“For expenses.” Lockhart sounds perfectly matter-of-fact.

“But, but…” Coutts is a small, obscure, remarkably stuffy financial institution in London. It used to be private but these days it’s the posh subsidiary of one of the mega-banks. Owner of banking license 002—001 belongs to the Bank of England—they won’t even give you a cheque account unless you maintain a minimum balance of a quarter of a million. The Queen banks with Coutts. (Although apparently they had second thoughts about her son: maybe he lowers the tone, or something.) They’ve become a little more accessible since the RBS takeover—I gather they’ll give accounts to rock stars and presidents these days—but even so. “What will the Auditors say?” I finish weakly.

“Nothing, as long as you keep proper records.”

“But, but…what?”

“Mr. Howard. Robert.” Lockhart lowers his voice and speaks slowly and clearly, as if to an idiot child: “You are pursuing an investigation on behalf of External Assets. It’s an open-ended assignment. Let us be very clear, I am handing you a sufficiency of rope with which to hang yourself, should you choose to do so—but we have no way of anticipating what you may run up against. So we’re equipping you accordingly.”

He taps the rectangle of plastic. “This card draws against an account held by the Ministry of Defense— supposedly for entertaining visiting Saudi royalty or equally dubious people. You can pay for your incidentals and subsistence, within reason: hotel bills and car hire and so forth. Just keep receipts. This particular card comes with a call center in London, manned around the clock by a concierge service that will arrange just about any personal service you desire at the drop of a hat—as long as it’s legal. You can hire an executive jet or pay for an emergency liver transplant. You can draw ten thousand pounds in cash per day. It’s the most powerful weapon in your inventory, notwithstanding the silly little toy camera your friends in Facilities have loaned you, or the dead pigeons’ feet in your toilet bag.”

He clears his throat. “I gather you’ve met the Auditors. Just remember that this isn’t your own money and you won’t have anything to worry about.”

“I thought you said that we’re outside Operational Oversight?”

His gaze is icy. “We are,” he says. “But the Auditors make random inspections. And we can always make an exception if you really fuck up.”

“Urp.” I flip the card over and scrawl on the signature strip. Then I sign the receipt. “Okay.” I open the passport. It’s for me, okay, but it’s shiny and new, with the enhanced security biometrics, and there’s an extra page bonded into it—a diplomatic visa good for the United States, accrediting me as a junior cultural attache at the British embassy in DC. “We still have cultural attaches?”

“We still have pulse-dialing electromechanical Strowger telephone exchanges in the basement”—Lockhart startles me by suddenly rattling off the correct but decades-obsolete terminology—“just in case we experience a need for such equipment. And you are now discovering just why we also have cultural attaches in the embassy in DC.”

“Ri-ight.” I glance at the first boarding pass. “Hey, this leaves Heathrow in less than three hours!”

“So you’d better get moving, Mr. Howard. The tag for your reports is GOD GAME BLACK. Don’t forget to write!”

THE NEXT FOURTEEN HOURS HAVE THEIR HIGHS AND LOWS.

The highs: taking a cab to Paddington, breezing through the barriers onto the Heathrow Express, arriving at the airport nineteen minutes later, and zipping through all the usual inconveniences and impediments of air travel as if they barely exist. Priority check-in, special security screening arrangements with no queue, then forty minutes to catch my breath in a slightly run-down business lounge (with free wine and beer! If only I wasn’t on business) and then priority boarding. There are no queues—at least nothing worthy of the name—and my ticket comes with a reclining chair and the kind of meal service that convinces me British Airways are engaged in a sinister conspiracy to prepare their frequent fliers’ livers for sale to a pate factory.

The lows: arriving at JFK to change flights, entering the diplomatic queue in the vast, echoing cowshed that is the immigration hall, and waiting as the uniformed immigration officer stares at my passport, types at his computer, then stares some more until I get that familiar old-time sinking feeling.

“Is there a problem?” I ask, pitching my voice for curious-casual.

He glances up and looks at me. “Please look into the camera, sir.” There’s an eyeball on a stalk—that’s new since I last visited the USA—and I mug for it. “Fingerprints.” That’s new, too. Come to think of it, I haven’t been over here for a decade and my last visit didn’t end well. “Hmm. You’re traveling on an embassy visa, sir. Can I ask the purpose of your visit?”

I’ve been briefed on what to say. “I am here on official business of Her Majesty’s Government.” I try not to look apologetic. “I am an accredited member of a diplomatic mission—accredited by your own State Department— and I am not required to discuss my business.”

I don’t see him press the magic button, but there’s some discreet movement behind him: another Customs and Border Patrol officer—this one a guard—is drifting over, and an office door at the other side of the barn is opening, someone coming out. “If you wouldn’t mind waiting a minute, sir, my manager will take this from here.” Another officer has sidled across the entrance to the tollbooth-like tunnel I’m occupying, effectively blocking my retreat.

“May I have my passport back?” I ask.

“Not yet.”

Palms damp and pulse racing, I try to look bored. It takes an endless minute for the woman in the suit to get here from the office. The immigration goons are courteous but distant—and they’re armed, and a law unto themselves. Also, some kind of shit has definitely hit the fan because they’re absolutely