"Kips, what's your twenty?"
The voice from the receiver snaps you out of your reverie—one you'd not noticed you'd fallen into. Something moves in the corner of your eye, and you spin about to catch it. But the room is empty.
Or is it?
Paranoia keeps you alive, Banks used to say.
You sweep the pistol from the desk and lightly leap over to the door. Your hand is on the knob when you notice that the deadbolt—which can only be opened from this side—is slid shut.
The receiver again: "Kips?"
You glance around and bite your lip. The room—if you can call it that, for it's hardly bigger than a walk-in closet—is bare of everything except an old desk and a stack of cardboard boxes in the corner. Still, you sweep the air with your hand as you glide back over to the window. The hair on the back of your neck springs up as you try not to think about ghosts.
"Kips, where are you?"
"In the Nest, where do you think?" you answer after you've got the receiver to your mouth. You hesitate before adding, "I was watching something on the street." No reason to make Cox jumpy by telling him you were chasing an invisible man.
"If you were pissing into that soda bottle, you can tell me."
"Nah, just scoping out a pair of stems."
"Can you raise Davenport?"
"Why, can't you?" You exchange the pistol for the binoculars, lifting them to your eyes to gaze down into the London streets. No one walks anywhere anymore, fuckin' bad for the planet and everyone's waistline. But good for you at the moment. Makes it easy to spot—
"If I could raise him I wouldn't be asking you," Cox says.
But you don't immediately reply as you tighten your grip on the binoculars. Down on the street a tall, broad-shouldered man in a rust-colored hoodie has stepped to the curb. He's got his hood raised against the light rain that falls from the dim sky, and his face is completely obscured. But there's no obscuring the graceful power with which he moves.
"I'll give him a try," you tell Cox. Even as you keep your gaze locked on the man below, you press a spot on the glass face of the dedicated cell phone. "Rat Hole. Rat Hole, this is the Nest." You stare intently at the man below, willing him to look up so you can see his face. You count to seven. "Davenport?"
The streetlight changes, and the man crosses. Your shoulders tense as he heads away from you, but he pauses to look back at the sound of a truck horn. You get his face only in a flash, but it's enough for you to make out the pale features beneath the dark hair. Your voice tightens. "Davenport?" you call again.
The receiver pings softly, and you switch channels. "I make a celebrity on the street," Cox says. "Greystoke."
"I make him too. Fuck!" The man has paused at the top of the steps leading down to Rat Hole. "I can't raise Davenport either."
Silence from you and from Cox as the man in the red hoodie descends the stairs into the basement of the building where Davenport is hiding. You take a deep breath. "Burn the zampo," you say.
"Concur," Cox says after a fractional hesitation. You start counting. You've just reached "five" when Cox speaks again: "Burn confirmed."
"I'll watch Rat Hole, you scan the street. Watch for Crazy Ivan." You concentrate on the top of the stairs, but occasionally shift the glasses to other spots. The basement where you set up the Rat Hole hasn't got a back door, but reports are that's never stopped Greystoke before.
Ten minutes pass. No movement on the steps.
Another five minutes pass. No movement, and no noise from Cox either. You try raising him.
No reply, even after three tries. Your mouth goes very dry.
You break watch on the street long enough to glance back at the locked door. You switch channels. "Backstage, this is Fox Run One. Mayday." You have to repeat it three times before they answer, and you're sweating hard by the time they do.
"Romeo, go ahead."
"Backstage, we made a celebrity, and he laid a red carpet to Rat Hole. We burned Rat Hole, repeat, we burned our zampo, but now I've lost Cox. Request permission to fold."
"Stand by."
You toss the receiver onto the desk with a soft curse and jam the pistol into the pocket of your coveralls. You wipe the sweat from your brow with a forearm, and glance over at the cardboard boxes. Protocol is to leave a nest clean. But you've already lost Davenport, maybe Cox too, and you might have to burn yourself if you don't toss all the ballast.
"Stand by," the receiver repeats.
You return to watching the entrance to Rat Hole, but there's still no movement. You slowly creep backward, eyes still straining at the street below, until you reach the door. You put your ear to it: Silence. You lay aside the binoculars, draw the pistol, and softly twist the deadbolt; you peek through the crack as you open the door.
A figure shifts outside.
You fling the door open and leap back, pistol up. Cox also flies back and raises his own sidearm. You and he, almost simultaneously: "Oh, Christ!" "Fuck!"
You haul him inside, slamming the door shut. "The fuck happened to you?" You jam the glasses back to your eyes, peering down into the street. Greystoke is not in sight. "You went silent, and—"
"Stand by," chirps the receiver.
"I couldn't raise you," Cox says, "and then I couldn't raise Diana." You glance back at him. He's gone pale around his eye sockets: circles of chalky pallor, the color of the skull beneath. "Like what happened to Davenport, I assumed, so I bailed."
"You spot Crazy Ivan?"
"Not visually, but with my electronics gone wonky—"
"Roger that," you mutter. All the stories about the shit that goes down—or blows up—when Crazy Ivan shows ... "Lock the door, will you?"
"Stand by," chirps the receiver. You lower the binoculars long enough to glare at it. What's wrong with them? Bad enough that they can't get you an answer, but to keep telling you to stand by? Still, as long as they're talking, it means you're not cut off, the way Davenport and Cox were.
"What's Diana say?" Cox asks.
"You heard 'em. Stand by," you snort. "I'm asking to fold."
"Seriously? You could still make the shot—"
"Fuck yeah, I'm folding. We don't know where the target is, and we got a celebrity in the neighborhood. Probably two, what with the wacked-out—"
"Stand by," the receiver chirps. A cold streak runs down your back.
"But if we're still standing by when the target shows," Cox says. "Look, all I'm saying is, we're just supposed to rattle the PM's cage, right? So even if Greystoke inserts himself—"
"What time is it now?"
"Nine fifty-four."
"Lotta time for things to go pear-shaped."
"Only six minutes," Cox says.
"Time enough. And the PM always runs late. It could be sixteen or even sixty before he shows. What are you doing?" You glance over at the noise, and find that Cox has opened the false sides on the stacked cardboard boxes, disclosing the tripod and sniper rifle. "I told you, we're folding as soon as Diana—"
"And Diana might not let us fold. We might as well set up."
"I'm not gonna waste time setting up and breaking down while—"
"Stand by," the receiver chirps.
"Hell," says Cox. "Listen to that. They might have us standing by until the PM has come and gone. You know how hard it can be track down Dey. Kips? What is it, you make Greystoke?"
No, you don't see him; you hardly see anything at all. You're trying hard not to vomit at a sudden, panicked thought.
You pick up the receiver. "Backstage, this is Fox Run One. Gimme an ETA on my request. Backstage? Backstage, do you copy?" Silence.
Then: "Stand by," she says in that exact same irritating chirp.
"Seal that shit back up and check the door," you tell Cox. You try to keep the tremble from your voice.
"What the—?"
"I said check the fucking door! If it's clear, there's a handcart out there. Bring it in. We're getting out, now!"
At least he moves, and is back a few seconds later with the cart. Still, he wants to argue. "Until we get orders—"
"We're not getting orders, don't you get it? Diana's not answering—"
"Sure they are."
"It's Crazy Ivan fucking with us, you doorknob! He's pinning us down with a repeated stand-by sign!"
Cox pales again.
You load the fake stack of boxes onto the cart and jam the rest of your gear into the coveralls. "Meet me at Ragu," you tell Cox. "Head out first, I'll follow." You count to twenty after he's gone, rubbing sweaty palms together. Then you slip out to the freight elevator with the boxes.
No one downstairs stops good old Carl—the handyman you're disguised as—and you don't stop to chat either. You move your load into the back of a company truck, and though it should be a driver taking the wheel, you slide into the cab and start it.
As you pull into the street, you ignore the tall figure in the faded red hoodie who is walking quickly along the sidewalk. In the mirror you watch as he turns toward the warehouse you just departed. But only after you've driven for ten minutes and parked down the street from the rendezvous point do you allow your nerves to unspool in a useless tangle.
You turn the receiver back on. "Backstage, this is—"
"Stand by," she chirps.
Inside the restaurant, you set the receiver in the middle of the table and let it play, over and over again, for Cox. Now he turns green, for as he escaped, he too glimpsed Greystoke stalking like Death himself toward the Nest.
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