Zero history

“Fuck,” from Fiona, beside him, just the least little plosive. Then: “On it.”

Gracie pulled something back, on the side of the rifle, released it, sat up and forward, bringing his knees up, settling the orthopedic-looking stock against his shoulder.

The penguin paddling down, it seemed, of its own accord, as Gracie leaned his cheek in. Barrel moving, slightly-

Jerking, as something dark and rectangular shot beneath it. Fiona’s drone.

Gracie looked up. Through the penguin, directly at Milgrim. Who must have done that awkward thing, though he could never remember it, the configuration she’d shown him in the cube.

Something smashed Gracie down, and sideways, out of his sniper’s posture, an idiot giant’s invisible hand, the penguin jerking simultaneously, image blurring. Milgrim never saw the wires at all, those fifteen feet of them, but he supposed they were very thin.

Gracie rolled on his back, convulsed as Milgrim fired the Taser again. “Galvanism,” the word recalled from high school biology. Gracie grabbed invisible strings. Milgrim tapped the screen again. Gracie jerked again, held on.

“Stop!” Fiona said. “Garreth says!”

“Why?”

“Stop!”

Milgrim raised both thumbs, obedient now, terrified that he’d done something irrevocable.

Gracie sat up, clawing at his neck, then gave the invisible string a vicious yank, blurring the image again.

And then the penguin was rising, slowly, away from him. Milgrim’s thumbs went to the wings. Nothing happened. He tried the tail, tried auto-swim. Nothing. Still rising. He saw Gracie stagger to his feet, sway, then run, out of frame, as the penguin, freed of its unaccustomed ballast of Taser, ascended of its own accord into the calm predawn air of the Thames Valley.

He thought he glimpsed the wheel of the London Eye, just as Fiona thrust her own iPhone in front of his.

83. PLEASE GO

What was that?” she asked.

“Milgrim,” he said, shaking his head, “Tasered Gracie. It’s a good thing I’m retiring. Milgrim just saved our bacon.”

“Milgrim had the Taser?”

“On his balloon. Hello? Darling?” To the headset now. “Get us over the car, please. And hurry, you’re ru

“Who was Gracie trying to shoot?”

“Chombo first, I imagine. Do Big End the most harm that way. Either when he saw that we weren’t dealing in good faith, or because he’d pla

“He’s an arms dealer. Didn’t you think he might have a gun?”

“Arms dealers are businessmen. Mild old gents, some of them. I knew there was cowboy potential”-he shrugged-“but hadn’t much way to cover it. Just a bodged-up little exploit.” He gri

“What?”

“Ajay’s sprained his ankle. In a sandbox. Chombo’s run away.” He drew a deep breath, blew it slowly out. “You’re not seeing my machinations at their genius best, are you?”

Something slammed against the back of the truck. “Stay the fuck still!” commanded Heidi, her voice muffled but fully audible through the steel door and two canvas scrims.

Garreth looked back at Hollis. “She’s outside,” he said.

“I know. I didn’t want to interrupt you. Hoped she was just going for a pee.”

The long zip went up then, and Bobby Chombo was almost simultaneously injected through the fly, his face slick with tears. He fell on the aubergine floor, sobbing. Heidi’s head appeared near the top of the fly. “He’s the one, right?”

“I’ve never told you how very beautiful I find you, have I, Heidi?” said Garreth.

“Pissed his pants,” said Heidi.

“In good company, believe me,” said Garreth, shaking his head.

“Where’s Ajay?” Heidi asked, frowning.

“About to get a Ghurka-ride. Piggyback. He’s been wanting to get to know Charlie better.” He turned back to his screens.

Milgrim’s, Hollis saw, was blank, or rather, dimly Turneresque, faintest pink behind steel gray, the greenish hue gone now. But Fiona’s was very busy. Figures climbing into the black car.

“Go,” said Garreth to the car on the screen, with a little chivying gesture. “Please go.”

The car drove out of frame.

“I’m going to have to ask you all to step outside for a moment,” Garreth said.

“Why?” asked Heidi’s disembodied head.

“Because I need to do something very dirty,” he said, producing a phone like the one he’d used to take the American agent’s call, “and because I don’t want him”-with a nod in Chombo’s direction-“weeping in the background. Gives the wrong impression.”

Hollis knelt beside Chombo. “Bobby? Hollis Henry. We met in Los Angeles. Do you remember?”

Chombo flinched, his eyes screwed shut.

She sang the opening line of “Hard to Be One,” probably for the first time in a decade. Then sang it again, getting it right, or in any case closer.

He fell silent, shuddered, opened his eyes. “Do you happen to have anything like a fucking cigarette?” he asked Hollis.

“I’m sorry,” she said “I-”

“I do,” said Heidi. “Outside.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“I’ll go with you,” said Hollis.

“You can have the pack,” said Heidi, spreading the black fly with her white, black-nailed hands.

Chombo was already on his feet, tugging his thin knit coat around him. He glared at Hollis, then stepped gingerly through the zip-toothed vertical gap.

She followed him.

84. NEW ONE

Fiona’s drone’s batteries had died, and it dropped like a stone, almost as soon as Foley and the others had left in the black car. Milgrim had helped her fold the tarp, which was now stuffed into one of the side pockets of his riding jacket, and then had been the one to find the drone, though he’d done so by stepping on it, cracking a rotor housing. She hadn’t seemed to care, tucking it under her arm like an empty drinks tray and quickly leading him to where she’d left her Kawasaki. “We’ll FedEx it back to Iowa and they’ll rebuild it,” she’d said, he’d guessed to stop him apologizing.

Now Milgrim held it as she dug in the eyeball-carrier Be

“Here,” she said, producing a very shiny black helmet, sealed in plastic. She ripped the plastic, pulled it off, took the drone, and handed him the helmet. She put the drone in the carrier, snapped it shut. “You were getting tired of Mrs. Be

Milgrim was unable to resist turning it over, raising it, sniffing the interior. It smelled of new plastic, nothing else. “Thanks,” he said. He looked at the Kawasaki. “Where can I sit?”

“I’ll be on your lap, basically.” She reached out, took the strap of his bag, lifted it over his head so that it was on the other shoulder, diagonal across his chest, then kissed him, hard but briefly, on the mouth. “Get on the bike,” she said. “He wants us away from here.”

“Okay,” said Milgrim, breathily, out of hyperventilation and joy, as he put on his new helmet.

Cornwall’s okay,” said Heidi, on Hollis’s iPhone. “Haven’t found a place to spread Mom ’n’ Jimmy yet, but it’s a good excuse for driving.”