WHAT FUCKERY IS THIS?”
We all stopped to look at Roger. His Majesty demanded an audience for his latest performance.
“That’s right,” he said. “I said, ‘What fuckery is this?’ to the high-and-mighty Laird-fucking-Collins. How dare he come into my town and pull this malarkey on my people.”
“Is this true?” I asked Cheryl.
“More or less,” she said with a shrug.
“That’s where we were,” continued Roger. “I wasn’t neglecting you, my children. I look after my people. I tracked down—”
“Actually, I tracked him down,” Cheryl said.
“Yes.” Roger flinched. “Cheryl found the hotel where His Murderousness was staying while in town for the arms fair. She even got his itinerary and knew when he had a gap in his meetings with warlords and despots so we could ambush him.”
“So where did you pull said ambush?” Mark asked lazily, knowing he was feeding the rhythm of Roger’s showmanship. He just had to put on a show, even to us, his employees.
“Would it surprise you that the bastard was staying at the Chesterfield Mayfair? Nothing but the best for his poxy, born-again arse. We knew he booked up the whole tearoom for afternoon tea, one of his few weaknesses. With other bigwigs, it’s sex or dominatrices and whips and dog cages. With him, it’s his love for a civilized English tea with crumpets and champagne. That I might make him choke on his champers gave me great pleasure.”
I glanced at Cheryl, who rolled her eyes.
“He always has two armed bodyguards with him,” she said.
“Didn’t matter. It was just Cheryl and I, alone and unarmed, demanding he call off his fucking dogs.”
“Bit late for that, isn’t it?” I said. “Two people are already dead and they have our client.”
“Well, I impressed upon him that we are in England, the First World, not some village in Mosul where they could just bump people off willy-nilly.”
“Not to mention that we’re supposed to be on the same side,” Cheryl said.
“What ‘same side’ is that supposed to be?” I asked.
“Why, Western Democracy, of course,” Roger said. “Western values. Market capitalism.”
“The CIA,” Cheryl said.
“And we now have a conflict of interest,” Roger said. “Interzone have been tasked with recovering the stolen files and hush up anyone threatening to blow the whistle, and we have been hired by one of those people who are in their sights.”
“So what are the chances,” I asked, “that any of us here might end up one day mysteriously and ‘accidentally’ dead? Car accident. Mugging. Drug overdose. Slashed wrists in the tub. Stepping off a rooftop. Faked autoerotic asphyxiation like poor Darren Cowley.”
“Blimey, you have been keeping score,” muttered Ken.
“Never say never,” Roger said without batting an eyelash. I guess he’d thought about all this, too. “But what’s keeping that from happening is that technically, we’re on the same side as Interzone.”
“We don’t kill people,” I said. “Not in our brief, anyway.”
“We’re at the service of our clients,” Cheryl said. “And at the end of the day, the biggest client we have is the same one they have.”
“The CIA,” I said.
“We call ’em the Company,” Mark said.
“Why should the CIA care?” I asked.
“Daddy doesn’t like to see the kids fight,” Olivia said. “Makes everyone look bad.”
“I might as well see this to the end,” I said. “I’m fucked anyway.”