5.

HOT ZONE

IT’S ABOUT THREE IN THE MORNING AND WE’RE BOTH DEEPLY asleep when the red telephone rings.

It’s not a flashy electronic device with a scrambler; quite the opposite: it’s a 1950s GPO-issue telephone. Which is to say it’s made out of bakelite on a pressed steel base, has a rotary dial, and the ringer is a fucking church bell loud enough to wake the dead. It is connected via a Victorian-era twisted pair line to an electromechanical Strowger exchange in the Dansey House basement, all clicking relays and buzzing motors, guaranteed immune to EMP and other civilization-ending disasters.*

The reason we have this archaic monstrosity in the house is that if someone in Ops needs to declare a Code Blue emergency, the only way to stop it from ringing is to hit it very hard with a sledgehammer. Even popping a nuke over London might not be enough to stop it ringing. Both Mo and I are on The List, under different headings; she’s Agent CANDID, and I’m, well, among my other duties—we’re big on matrix management here—I’m there as personal assistant and understudy to Angleton, the Eater of Souls.

Anyway: the phone rings. At the first bell, I awaken with a shudder but am confused and wonder if it’s one of those curious auditory hallucinations sent to torment the somnolent by disturbing a good night’s sleep with phantom dispatches from the Home Delivery Network. But with the second ring (it’s the traditional British ring-ring, not the long-drawn-out American riiiiing) I’m halfway out of bed before I realize what’s happening, and by the third ring I’m at the bottom of the stairs, swearing and fumbling for the receiver as Mo clatters around behind me, bare-arse naked and clutching her violin case.

“Howard speaking,” I say, forcing the words through a sleep-congested larynx.

“Control here. This is a Code Blue call for Agent CANDID.”

Oh fuck. I look round, see Mo looming over me with sleep-disordered hair, violin case in hand. “It’s for you,” I say, and pass her the phone. We squeeze past each other, and I go back up the hall staircase, shivering in the late-night chill as she takes the call.

“CANDID here,” she says.

I go back to the bedroom and pull her go-bag from the closet. What else? Ah, yes. There’s a spare toilet bag packed and ready to go in the bathroom: I fetch that, too, and carry it downstairs. She’s still on the phone, listening intently, as I squeeze past her to the kitchen, plant the bags, then start prepping the coffee maker. Either she’ll have time for a mug before they pick her up, or I can use it in a few hours’ time: it all depends what kind of job it is.