At a temporary office in Leeds, tired and disbelieving emergency workers who have spent the past weeks working sixteen-hour shifts making safe the thaumaturgic debris of an occult war receive their P45s and out-processing paperwork and are sent home, shaking their heads in disgust and asking who will pick up the pieces, many of which are heavily enchanted and still dangerous to approach. The axe swings for employees who have been injured in the line of duty as well as those who are active: Brains reads Pinky his letter of dismissal—Pinky’s eyes are still bandaged, recovering slowly, although he’s been discharged from the hospital—and swears an angry vow of vindication.
Near Bristol, in a windowless aircraft hangar staffed by a mixture of contractors and RAF personnel, the aircrew in the ready room listen with anger and disbelief as the civilian engineering manager informs them that his entire team have been laid off and they can no longer keep Bird Four flightworthy and in readiness. Heated phone calls escalate to the Group Captain responsible, and may make it as high as the Secretary of State for Defense within a day or so, hampered by the exigencies of secrecy surrounding discussing the existence of an unadmitted strategic nuclear strike capability (albeit one tacitly recognized by the other UN Security Council permanent members). Meanwhile, around the country every spare fitter and engineer the RAF can scrape together who has any record of working on similar airframes is being woken up and ordered to head for Filton immediately, in the desperate hope of getting there in time to pick up the pieces, run the checklists, and keep Squadron 666’s strike capability from degrading.
All around the UK, the lights are going out and the shutters are falling across the doors of dozens of offices and remote installations. The lights will stay on for a while longer at a handful of sites that are only tenuously connected to the rest of the nation, sites that are isolated by virtue of the perilous forces they work with or by the most draconian of security perimeters; but the orders have been issued, and by Friday evening the Laundry as an organization will have ceased to exist.
FIVE
BREAKOUT
Zero drives me out of the center of London efficiently and calmly. I sweat inside my rubber fright mask every time we pass a traffic camera or a police car, feeling the itch of gunsights on the small of my back. It’s never nice being a fugitive, but it’s a thousand times worse being a fugitive in your own country. I don’t want to talk to Zero about the situation—if I tell him what happened at Belgravia that’ll make it much harder for him to deny being an accessory when it comes up in court—so I keep my mouth shut and my thoughts to myself. And I’ve got a lot of them, mostly tainted with guilt, mostly attempts to second-guess what else I could have done.
I’m still drawing a blank and wondering if I could have avoided hurting Jo when we drive down a concrete trench in the East End and come out in a maze of spaghettilike roads overshadowed by skyscrapers. Finally Zero turns into the entrance of an underground parking garage—the barrier rises automatically for him: there’s no ticket machine and no human attendant—and parks between a bright red Italian skateboard with a bull-headed badge on the bonnet, and something that looks like Porsche tried to make a stretch limousine. “She’ll see you upstairs,” Zero tells me, passing me a card key. “Eighth floor, suite two.”
“But I—” I rub my face mask. “Really?”
“Yes, really.” Zero nods. “Please move, I’ve got a false trail to lay down.”
I use the contactless ebony card to open the elevator door, and find myself in a darkly reflective infinite regress, subtly distorted versions of myself mirrored to every side between columns of white LEDs. The doors close and the lift begins to rise without waiting for me to do anything so gauche as to push a button; there is a control panel, I eventually notice, but it seems to be emergency controls only. (Secure apartments, I realize: you can only go to the floor you have a key card for.)
When the doors open I recognize the corridor. I go straight to the safe apartment, open the door, and go through to the gigantic living room at the far end of the corridor. Persephone, standing in front of the window, turns to face me; the flash of surprise that crosses her face is balm for my paranoid soul. I whip off the Ronald Reagan mask—or try to whip it off, the sweat sticks it to my face like a hideous alien parasite. “If it wasn’t for you meddling kids I’d have gotten away with it! Uh thanks, ’Seph. Do you know what’s going on?”
“The agency is under attack. If you’re going to kill a man, aim for the head: you’re not the only Mahogany Row staffer with an outstanding arrest warrant.” She raises an eyebrow. “Why don’t you go and freshen up, maybe change into something less instantly recognizable to anyone who saw the CCTV of you making your escape? I’m waiting for the others to get here.” I spot my unmasked reflection in the window. I look like I’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards. “Your bag’s in the spare room.”
“Thanks,” I say, and retreat in confusion. It’s clearly casual Monday for Persephone: she’s got her hair tied back and her outfit is more battle dress than cocktail dress, albeit still in black. “Be back in ten minutes.”
It’s more like fifteen, but by the end of it I’m feeling human again, showered and shaved and changed out of management drag. I slope back into the living room and find we’ve been joined by Johnny and the SA. Dr. Armstrong smiles. “Ah, Bob, glad you could join us. Here.” He hands me a surprisingly heavy mailer.
“You know I—”
“Broke out of a police station, injured a detective chief inspector and a taxi driver, are wanted for receiving stolen goods and assault and, I believe, an entirely spurious murder charge? Yes, Bob, nothing to worry about.” His smile vanishes. “Sit down. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”
“’Aven’t we just,” rumbles Johnny, as I do as I’m told, then absentmindedly open the jiffy bag and pour the contents all over my lap.
“Whoa,” I say, seeing the phone. And, “What’s this?” There’s a well-aged leather wallet—not mine—and when I open it it’s full of cards. Debit, credit, driver’s license, health club, and something else that says CONTINUITY OPERATIONS.
“Pay attention,” says the SA, looking me in the eyes with an expression that makes my blood freeze because I’ve been here before. “Ruby. Seminole. Kriegspiel. Hatchet. Execute Sitrep One.”
And with that, I’m gone. Someone else with my voice replies: “Subjective integrity is maintained. Subjective continuity of experience is maintained. Subject observes no tampering.”
“Jolly good. Bob, repeat after me—”
Ears hear and larynx speaks but I am not consciously aware of what I’m saying. The SA is uttering words of power and I am repeating them, binding myself to something powerful, something that hums and throbs in the empty space where my oath of office once burned, as a huge, silvery icon flames and takes form against the eigengrau background of my mind’s eye.
“Exit supervision mode.” And then I’m back in my own head, not watching from an abstract distance as the SA nods, guardedly. “Sorry about that, Bob. Had to repair the damage.”