54. AIR GLOW

Ferguson,” said Winnie Tung Whitaker, “the one with the mullet. He was on Gracie’s Heathrow flight, from Geneva.”

In the glow of the Air’s screen and backlit keyboard, Milgrim was huddled at the desk, cowled in the MontBell sleeping bag. He’d tried sleeping, but had kept getting up to check Twitter. On the sixth or seventh try, her response had been this number in the United States. On checking her card, he’d seen that it was her cell number. Some research in the paper telephone directory under the swatch books had provided the necessary dialing prefixes. “The one with the pants?” he asked, hoping he was wrong.

“Mike Ferguson. See? I told you.”

“When are you going back?”

“Actually, this story of yours might call for leave en route.”

“What’s that?”

“The one scam still permitted federal employees, we like to call it. I’m TDY now. Temporary duty, business travel. If I can get permission, I can take two days’ vacation. Sixteen hours of annual leave. When I saw your tweet, I e-mailed my boss. It’ll be on my own nickel, though.” She didn’t sound happy about that. “On the other hand, this is getting really interesting. Not that my boss would find it interesting enough to keep me here on per diem. That trick you played in Paris, though, I wouldn’t have expected that from you. What’s up?”

“I don’t know.” It was true.

“That was the Parsons grad, the designer, the wannabe SpecOps boy. And that dumbfuck attempt on your boss’s truck would be him too.”

“It was,” said Milgrim. “I saw him.”

“I mean it wasn’t Gracie or Ferguson. They were still going through immigration at Heathrow. Once they got through, though, they’d be apprised of what he’d done, and what had happened. The interesting thing, then, becomes how Gracie might react to that. If he were smart, he’d let it go, fire the designer. Who’s clearly worse than clueless. And it isn’t that Gracie’s not intelligent. He’s highly intelligent. Just not smart. Did you tell Bigend?”

“Yes,” said Milgrim. “I think I told him everything you wanted me to.”

“Did you tell him about me?”

“I showed him your card,” Milgrim said. It was on the desk now, in front of him.

“Describe his reaction.”

“He didn’t seem worried. But he never does. He said that he’d had some experience with U.S. federal agents.”

“He might have just a little under five hundred pounds of very highly trained Mike on his hands soon, between the two of them. You’ll need to keep me informed. Got a phone?”

“No,” said Milgrim, “I left it in Paris.”

“Tweet me. Or call this number.”

“I’m glad about your leave.”

“Not a done deal yet. Let’s hope it works out. Watch out for yourself.” She hung up.

Milgrim replaced the weightless plastic handset in its recess on top of the phone, causing a backlit white panel to go out.

He looked at the clock in the upper right corner of the screen. Jun was supposed to arrive in a few hours. It wouldn’t yet be light out now. Wrapped in the MontBell, he went back to the foam.

55. MR. WILSON

There were few guests for breakfast.

The Italian boy and another waiter were arranging screens, to the west of the narwhale rack. She’d seen these deployed here before, for the heightened privacy of business breakfasts. The screens were made of what she’d assumed to be extremely old tapestries, faded to no particular color, a sort of variegated khaki, but now she noticed that they depicted scenes from Disney’s Snow White. At least they didn’t appear to be pornographic. She was about to take her accustomed seat, beneath the spiral tusks, when the Italian boy noticed her. “You’ll be here, Miss Henry,” indicating the newly screened table.

Then Bigend appeared at the head of the stairs, moving quickly, trench coat over his arm, the aura of his blue suit almost painful.

“It’s Milgrim,” he said, when he reached her. “Bring coffee,” he ordered the Italian boy.

“Certainly, sir.” He was gone.

“Has something happened to Milgrim?”

“Nothing’s happened to Milgrim. Milgrim has happened to me.” He tossed his trench coat over the back of his chair.

“What do you mean?”

“He tried to blind Foley, so-called, outside Bank Station. Last night.”

“Milgrim?”

“Not that he told me about it,” said Bigend, sitting down.

“Tell me what’s happened.” She sat opposite him.

“They came to Voytek’s flat this morning. They took Bobby.”

“Bobby?”

“Chombo.”

The name, once heard, recalling the man. Encountered first in Los Angeles, and then, under very different circumstances, in Vancouver. “He’s here, in London? Who came?”

“Primrose Hill. Or was, until this morning.” Bigend glared at the Italian girl, arriving with the coffee. She poured for Hollis, then for him.

“Coffee will be fine for now, thanks,” Hollis told her, hoping to give her a chance to escape.

“Of course,” said the girl, and ducked smoothly behind the apparently four-hundred-year-old Disney screen.

“He was a mathematician,” Hollis said. “Programmer? I’d forgotten him.” Perhaps partly because Bobby, a markedly unpleasant personality in his own right, had been so deeply embedded in that first experience of Bigend being, in many ways, so bad to know. “I remember that I thought you seemed to be courting him, in Vancouver. As I was leaving.”

“Extraordinary talent. Terrifically narrow,” he said, with evident relish. “Focused, utterly.”

“Asshole,” suggested Hollis.

“Not an issue. I sorted his affairs, brought him here, and set him a task. A challenge truly worthy of his abilities. The first he’d had. I would have provided any sort of lifestyle, really.”

“Remind me to be a bigger asshole.”

“As it was,” Bigend said, “because he’s essentially a parasite, with an emotional need to constantly irritate the host, and because I wanted the project to remain separate from Blue Ant, I had Voytek put him up. At home. Compensating Voytek, of course.”

“Voytek?”

“My alternative IT person. My hole card against Sleight. I can’t be certain that Sleight didn’t discover that, but he evidently did, at some point, discover where I was keeping Chombo while he worked on the project.”

“What’s the project?”

“A secret,” said Bigend, with a slight lift of his eyebrows.

“But who took Bobby?”

“Three men. American. They told Voytek that they’d come back for him, and his wife and child, if he tried to alert anyone prior to seven this morning.”

“They threatened his wife and child?”

“Voytek understands that sort of thing. Eastern European. Took them instantly at their word. Phoned me at seven twenty. I immediately phoned you. I may need you to help me with Milgrim.”

“Who were they?”

“Foley, by the description. Unable to stop muttering about Milgrim. The other two, I’d assume, were Gracie, Milgrim’s arms dealer, and someone else. Gracie clearly in charge, calm, businesslike. The third man had a mullet, Voytek said. I had to Google it. Foley apparently has seen the inside of an emergency ward twice this week, and holds Milgrim personally responsible. Gracie, however, assumes that Milgrim may have been following orders. Mine.”

“He told Voytek that?”

“He told me.”

“When?”

“On the way over here. Sleight having given him, obviously, my private mobile number.”

“He sounded angry?”

“He sounded,” Bigend said, “like voice-distortion software. Impossible to read affect. He told me what he requires in exchange for Bobby’s safe return, and why.”

“How much?”

“Milgrim.”

“How much does he want?”

“He wants Milgrim. Nothing else.”

“There you are,” said Garreth, from the opening between the two frames. “Might have left a note.”