'What's the routine?' he asks. He actually sounds interested.
'Well. We show each other our authorizations first. Then the chair orders the doors sealed.' I wave at the far end of the suite: 'Rest room's through there. Chair this time is — ' I riffle the sheets ' — Italy, which means Anna, unless she's ill and they send a replacement. She'll keep things tight, I think. Then we get down to business.'
'I see. And the minutes ...'
'Everyone who's got a presentation is supposed to bring copies on CD-ROM. The host organization[6 The Geheime Sicherheit Abteilung to their mothers, although everyone else calls them the Faust Force.] provides a secretarial service, that's the GSA's job this time.'
Franz's brow wrinkles. 'Excuse me for saying, but this sounds as if the meeting itself is ... unnecessary? We could take it to email.'
I shrug. 'Yup. But then we wouldn't get to do the real business, over coffee and biscuits.'
His expression clears. 'Ah, now I see — '
The door opens. 'Ciao, guys!' It's Anna, short and bubbly and (I suspect) a little hung-over, judging from her eyes.
'Oh, my head. Where is everybody? Let us keep this short, shall we'
She makes a beeline for the coffee pot. 'Tell Andrew he is a naughty, naughty man,' she chides me.
'What's he done now?' I ask, steeling myself.
'He got my birthday wrong!' Flashing eyes, toothy grin.
'A, what is it, a fencepost error.'
'Oh, uh, yeah, I'll do that.' I shrug. I'm still uncomfortable in this type of situation. Most of the people here were grades above me until six months ago, and half of them still are, I'm very much the junior delegate and Andy — who used to be one of my managers — is the guy into whose boots I've stepped. 'Last time I saw him he was kind of busy. Overworked dealing with fallout from — ' I clear my throat.
'Oh, say no more.' She pats me on the arm and moves on to say hello to the other delegates who're letting themselves in. We ought to have a full house of security management types from Spain Brussels, and parts east within NATO, but for some reason attendance today looks unusually light.
Delegates are beginning to arrive, so I head back towards my seat. 'Who's that?' Franz asks me quietly, with a nod at the door. I glance round and do a double-take: it's Ramona.
She's almost unrecognizable in a business suit with her hair up, but being this close to her still makes the skin crawl in the small of my back.
'That's, Um, Ms. Random. An observer. We're privileged to have her here.' My cheek twitches and Franz stares at me from behind his rimless spectacles.
'I see. I was unaware that we had that type of guest present.'
I get the feeling he sees a whole lot more than I told him, but there's not a lot I can say.
**Hello, darling, slept well?** she asks. I start: then I realize she's still on the other side of the room, coolly pouring herself a cup of coffee and smiling at Anna.
**No thanks to you,** I think at her.
I hear a rude noise. **A girl's got to eat sometime.**
**Yes, but midnight snacking — ** Invisible pink elephants.
Think of invisible pink elephants, Bob. Think of invisible pink throbbing elephants in the night — no, cancel the throbbing — I sit down dizzily. 'Is something wrong?' asks Franz.
'Supper disagreed with me,' I say weakly. Ramona's supper, that is: pfai de gros ingenieur. 'I'll be okay if I sit down.' A hot flush is trying to follow the shivers up and down my spine. I glance at her across the room and she looks back at me, blank-faced.
People are heading towards the table, apparently following my lead. To my annoyance Ramona oozes into the chair next to me then stares sharply at Anna's end of the table.
'Ciao everybody. I see a lot of vacant seats and new faces today! This meeting will now commence. Badges on the table, please.' Anna looks up and down the table pointedly as clusters of conversation die down.
I reach into my pocket and slide my Laundry warrant card onto the table. Everyone else is doing likewise with their own accreditation: the air twists and prickles with the bindings.
'Excuse moi.' Francois leans across the table towards Ramona: 'You have credentials'
Ramona just looks at him. 'No. As a matter of policy my organization does not issue identification papers.' Heads turn and eyes narrow around the table.
I clear my throat. 'I can vouch for her,' I hear myself saying. 'Ramona Random — ' words slide seamlessly into my mind ' — Overseas Operations Directorate, based out of Arkham.' **Thanks,** I tell her silently, **now get out of my head.** 'Here by direct invitation of my own department, full observer status under Clause Four of the Benthic Treaty.'
Ramona smiles thinly. There's a low buzz of surprised conversation.
'Quiet!' calls Anna. 'I'd like to welcome our ...
today's observer here.' She looks slightly flustered. 'If you could contrive some form of identification in future, that would be helpful, but — ' she looks at me hopefully ' — I'm sure Robert's superiors will cover this time-' I manage to nod. I can't cover it on my authority, but this is Angleton's bloody fault, after all, and he actually gets to talk to Mahogany Row. Let them sort it out.
'Fine!' She claps her hands together. 'Then, to business!
First item, attendees, I believe we have takes care of. Let the doors be locked. Second item, travel expense claims in pursuit of joint, investigation warrants on overseas territory, at the request of non-issuing governments. Arbitration of expense allocation among participating member states — traditionally this has been carried out on an ad hoc basis, but since the Austrian civil service strike last year rhe urgency of formalizing arrangements has become apparent...'
The next hour passes uneventfully. It's basically bureaucratic legwork, to ensure that none of the European partner agencies tread on each other's toes when operating on each other's soil. Proposals to allow agents of charter countries to claim expenses for mopping up after another member's business are agreed upon and bounced up to the next level of management for approval. Suggestions for standardizing the various forms of ID we use are proposed, and eventually shot down because they serve very different purposes and some of them come with powers which are considered alarming illegal, or immoral in different jurisdictions. I take notes on my tablet, briefly consider a game of Minesweeper before deciding its not worth the risk of exposure, and finally settle down to the grim business of not falling asleep and embarrassing myself in public.
Glancing around the table I realize things are pretty much the same all round. Anyone who isn't actively talking or jotting notes is twiddling their thumbs, gazing out the window, staring at the other delegates, or quietly drooling over their complementary notepad. Ah, the joy of high-level negotiations. I glance at Ramona and see she's one of the doodlers.
She's inscribing something black and scary on her notepad: geometric lines and arcs, repeated patterns that sink into one another in a self-similar way. Then she glances sidelong at me, and very deliberately slides a blank sheet of paper across her pad.
I shake myself; must stay focused. We're up to item four on the agenda, drilling down into issues of software resource management and a proposal to jointly license an auditing and license management system being developed by a subsidiary of — TLA Systems I sit bolt upright. Sophie from Berlin is soporifically talking us through the procurement process Faust Force has come up with, a painfully politically correct concoction of open market tenders and sealed bidding processes intended to evaluate competing proposals and then roll out a best-ofbreed system for common deployment. 'Excuse me,' I say, when she pauses for breath, 'this is all very well, but what can you tell us about the winning bid? I assume the process has already been approved,' I add hastily, before she can explain that this is all very important background detail.
'Ah, but this is necessary to understand the process-oriented quality infrastructure, Robert.' She looks down her nose at me over her bifocals and brandishes a scarily thick sheaf of papers. 'I have here the fully documented procurement analysis for the system!' The only inflection in her voice is on the last word, making a sort of semantic hiccup out of it. She sounds like a badly programmed speech synthesizer.
'Yes, but what does it do?' Ramona butts in, leaning forwards.
It's the first thing she's said since I introduced her, and suddenly she's the focus of attention again. 'I'm
