Slough House, coming on midnight, and flickering screens were strobing Roddy Ho’s form and throwing shapes—he looked like a disco king, if only there were an audience to admire him. But the way of the data warrior is a lonely one, and his keyboard his only companion. Still, it was a comfort to know there were others like him, out in the darkened city—men on their own, hunched over laptops, putting the world to rights—and it was hard not to believe that they sensed his presence as they went about their duty; that as they spread their virtual seed hither and yon, they were following his path, if not so stylishly.
Were less tasked, too, with vital missions. Earlier in the day, Lamb had pleaded with Roddy to attempt the impossible—as per—and then, secure in the knowledge that the RodJob was on the case, had told him, bantz, to fuck off till it was done. You had to hand it to the old man, he could do a straight face like no one else. But anyway, here was Roddy, monitors alight with life, an orange Post-it affixed to the nearest—he’d always enjoyed digital dancing in the dark. The hummingbird flies by night, he told himself, rubbing his arm. He knew this for a fact. He’d googled it.
But nightbird or not, cracking the Service’s online traffic was no task for lightweights. It took your Stan Lees, your George Lucases, your Roddy Hos, to achieve this level of creative brilliance, and careful pacing was required. So on the clock ticked, and on the RodMeister laboured, weaving a passage through a maze of encrypted corridors, many littered with the virtual equivalent of IEDs, triggering which would set floodlights converging on him . . . A mental image formed of Roddy scaling a high-wired fence, caught in the cross-beams of conning-towers . . . A blaze of bullets; a torn tattered body; a beautiful corpse hanging by the ankles. It would take a heart of granite not to weep.
“The fuck you still here for?”
Roddy gave a note-perfect imitation of a man squeaking in fright.
“I . . . What are
Shirley was chewing gum with her hands in her pockets, like a cartoon rendition of a ten-year-old. She must have been up in her office, because she hadn’t come through the back door: No one did that without a ruckus save Lamb, and even he sounded like a walrus attacking a lobster pot most times. Her hair, what there was of it, was tufted into spikes, which had provoked Lamb into asking,
In fact, she’d been asleep, though the end result was the same: pushing midnight, still at work. She should be on overtime.
Ho had been eating pizza, so she helped herself to a slice from the box on his desk, nearly but not quite tipping it to the floor, and leaned against the wall to eat, choosing a spot where she could see his monitors and attempt to work out what he was doing. This, she accepted, was unlikely. It was akin to watching performance art, which in theory Shirley approved of—it allowed the talentless to call themselves artists, which appealed to her anarchic streak—but in practice was appalling shit that no one understood. But at least Roddy, if he didn’t volunteer explanation, could be coerced into divulging one. Besides: pizza.
He said, “Yeah, this is classified?”
“We, like, literally do the same job? Duh-brain.”
Roddy looked at his screens. There was nothing on them that would mean anything to Dander. Put him in front of them and he was looking at trapdoors and trolleys, tracks and tramlines; he was Indiana Jones on a subterranean railway, avoiding poison darts. But all Shirley would see was streams of glowing numbers. For a moment he hovered between two worlds, the one he mostly lived in and the one he suspected Shirley and everyone else inhabited. Perhaps if they understood more about his world he’d feel more at home in theirs. But the moment passed, and they were on opposite sides of a chasm again. He said, “If I was allowed to tell you about it . . .”
“Yeah?”
“I still wouldn’t.”
“Asshat.”
The pizza box chose that moment to topple to the floor, landing contents-side down as the laws of physics dictated. Both stared at this for a second, then resumed their glare-off.
Shirley said, “This was Lamb’s little job?”
“Yeah. I mean no. And it’s not little.”
“Breaking and entering, right?”
“Like I said. Classified.”
“Into some place or person’s records.”
“Above your pay grade. Loser.”
“Which means you must’ve written it down. Because no way do you remember details.
She stuffed the last piece of crust into her mouth without taking eyes off Roddy, who stared back unflinchingly, almost, until a slight tremble gave him away. Then he grabbed for the Post-it, almost managing to cram it into his mouth before Shirley had him by the wrist, twisting his hand and unwrapping his fingers, forcing him to relinquish it.
