Resistance (29 page)

25

‘The fuck?’ said Dave, who couldn’t understand why Trinder was standing there in his dark blue, big boy suit, but without the colourful tie this time, and why Boylan was standing next to him, beaming at Paris Hilton, who was still laughing but not as much as she had been in the elevator coming up to the room. He could smell hamburgers too. That was odd.

‘Dave, I’m sorry to interrupt at this special moment between you and Ms Hilton but I never sleep, Dave, I never rest in the pursuit of your interests, and Agent Trinder has approached me with an offer we could totally refuse, and if you want to refuse it, Dave, consider it torn up and thrown to the winds, the four strong winds, Dave. But as your attorney and closest advisor I would advise you to consider his offer very carefully because it could save us a considerable amount of time and effort and, to be quite frank about it, chickenshit administrivia in fending off the outrageous demands of the Internal Revenue Service, and quite possibly the machinations of your good lady wife, or soon-to-be ex-wife and the execrable M. Pearson Vietch
. . .’

‘You’re married?’ Paris asked, nibbling his ear.

‘Was.’

‘That’s cool.’

‘Ms Hilton,’ beamed Boylan, ‘I did so love your work in
The Hottie and the Nottie.
Perhaps we could discuss a role for you in Dave’s upcoming feature with Mr Pitt?’

He detached the hottie from Dave’s arm and steered her gracefully toward the door, all the while discussing in surprising detail her performance in the eponymous movie. Dave was still too surprised and befuddled to do anything about it, and then Paris was gone and he was left with Boylan and Trinder and the very real impression his night had not taken a turn for the better.

‘Mr Hooper,’ said Trinder, nodding at him, as though seeing him for the first time across a crowded room at a party. A party like the one Dave had just left, say. A great party. He wanted to go back to it. ‘I apologise if we got off on the wrong foot in Las Vegas.’

‘Whatever,’ said Dave, still foggy and struggling to catch up. ‘Where’s Paris?’

Boylan reappeared. ‘I shall resist the obvious undergraduate quip, Dave. My wit is better spent in the service of your interests, and Agent Trinder has reached out to us on behalf of the federal government to seek an alignment of our interests, which is to say yours, because your interests are my interests and hence ours, Dave and –’

‘Just get to it, X,’ said Dave, suddenly feeling tired. He dragged himself over to a soft brown square he assumed was a lounge chair, suddenly aware he had no idea where he was, beyond being somewhere in LA in an expensive hotel full of people he’d only ever seen on magazine covers. He saw Lucille leaned up against a well-stocked bar, but only vaguely recalled recovering her from the field outside Omaha.

Man, he’d really hit it hard tonight.

Outside, the city lights reached toward the horizon. The view through the floor-to-ceiling windows seemed to stretch away forever. He squeezed his eyes shut and then opened them wide. His head spun a little and his stomach threatened to flip over and spill its contents everywhere.

‘Mr Hooper,’ said Trinder, taking the soft brown square opposite him and lighting up a cigarette, ‘Professor Boylan is correct. There is much we could do to help each other, although much more I could do for you than I would ask in return.’

Dave frowned. He felt like a hungover undergrad trying to follow a complicated math problem at a morning lecture he really should be sleeping through. Trinder took a small hamburger from a platter sitting on a coffee table that seemed to have been fashioned out of a solid block of aluminium. The platter was full of tiny hamburgers and they smelled great. One mystery solved.

‘Slider?’

‘What?’

‘Pork belly and prosciutto,’ said Trinder, taking one for himself. ‘Which is Italian bacon, I think.’

‘Indeed it is. Tasty, tasty Italian bacon cut very thin,’ Boylan confirmed. ‘But to the business at hand, Dave. They’re willing to wipe out your tax debt, all of it. And here is the cherry on top, Dave. Agent Trinder says the federal government is amenable to an arrangement allowing you to earn whatever you want for a twenty-four month period, tax free, as a consultant to the
. . .’
Boylan looked to Trinder to make sure he was getting it right, ‘. . . the Office of Special Clearances and Records?’

‘You are correct, sir,’ said Trinder, swallowing his tiny pork belly burger in one gulp, like a boa constructor with an unlucky gerbil.

Dave was still having trouble following the thread. Dave was having trouble remembering exactly how much he’d drunk and blown and dropped and
. . .

‘Sorry, what?’ he said, ‘They’re gonna gimme a free pass if I work for this asshole?’

‘Yes,’ said Boylan. ‘This asshole and the even more unpleasant, but very powerful assholes for whom he works. And since this work would be defined as combat, even if there was very little actually combat involved,’ he hastened to add, ‘you or a corporate entity legally constituted in the Cayman Islands to contract with you to provide services to the federal government, would attract the tax-free status afforded to all combat pay earned in combat zones as defined by the president who, in your case, would declare the entire world to be a combat zone for the duration of the current crisis, or twenty-four months, whichever lasts longer.’

‘But
. . .
but
. . .’
Dave was struggling to follow any of this and wondered if he should go get Paris back. ‘I just got clear of Heath and his bullshit and you want me to go back into harness again. Plus, you know, I’m still on the clock for Baron’s and nobody’s offered anything like this so far and
. . .’

‘Mr Hooper,’ said Trinder. ‘Let me bottom line it for you. We wipe out your debt to Uncle Sam. We give you a running start, two years, to earn what you can, however you want while we look the other way. I understand Professor Boylan has already come to an arrangement with your commercial creditors, but rest assured if he hadn’t, we could have made them come to heel too. As for your family law issues, a word to the judge, whom we will appoint, and you will find any and all matters quickly resolved to your satisfaction.’

Dave’s head was clearing, slowly, but it was clearing. Sitting directly across from him, Trinder didn’t look any prettier than he had in Vegas, but he didn’t look nearly as much like a rabid dog either.

‘Are you supposed to be smoking in here?’ Dave asked.

‘No,’ Trinder replied, and took another drag on his unfiltered cigarette.

‘Okay. All right then,’ Dave grunted, playing for time to unscramble his thoughts. ‘So what sort of things would you want me to do, and what sort of hours and conditions are we talking, because I gotta be honest, I just walked out on an unpaid gig with Heath and mostly what I got outta that was being told what I couldn’t do and how much I fucked everything up.’

Trinder blew a thin stream of blue smoke at the ceiling.

‘Let me be frank, Mr Hooper. OSCAR sees you as a fall-back option, to be called upon only under special circumstances. Everything has changed since Omaha. We’re now confident we can take these things without breaking a sweat. Hell, New Zealand could probably take them. Are you familiar with military history, Mr Hooper? No, don’t bother. I know you’re not. I understand your antipathy to these things. But let me quote the Duke of Wellington to you, sir, on the arrant stupidity of the French at the Battle of Waterloo. “They came on in the same old way and we defeated them in the same old way.” The Jabberwockies are the French of this war, Mr Hooper. They have come on in the same old way seven times in the hours since Omaha.’

‘Seven?’ Dave couldn’t keep the surprise out of his voice. ‘Jabber what now?’

‘Yes. Seven regiments, all them deploying exactly as happened outside Omaha. Six of them destroyed in very much the same way, with overwhelming firepower.’

‘I heard about China,’ said Dave, trailing off.

‘You heard about the regiment they nuked. Another was targeted and destroyed in Mongolia by us at the request of the Chinese
. . .’

‘But
. . .’

‘They would prefer we didn’t brag.’

Trinder took another burger.

‘These are good. You really should have one before they go cold. Keep your strength up.’

Dave took one of the sliders and popped it into his mouth. It was very good, so fresh it must have been delivered shortly before he arrived.

‘You said seven?’

Trinder nodded.

‘Yes, another regiment emerged in northwest Pakistan. It was engaged by a series of local forces in an uncoordinated fashion. Some Taliban, some Pakistani military, some local tribes, even a couple of Kabul’s units we lifted in. It’s a mess, but we don’t much care about that.’

‘Let me guess, you can see an angle where it works out for you?’

Trinder grinned, showing off his yellowed teeth again.

‘Maybe if we got to Dave’s part?’ Boylan suggested.

The man in the dark suit nodded as if he was making a concession.

‘All right. Mr Hooper, we need people to know we can handle this threat. Without you. You played your role and you played it well, but I’m sure you’d agree it would be better if the whole world wasn’t relying on you to turn up and save them every time some hungry jabberwocky shows its face.’

‘Guess not,’ Dave said, leaning forward and taking another slider. His head was clearing as he ate.

‘No, not at all,’ said Trinder. ‘You see, you’re not normal, Mr Hooper. Why, I imagine if you jumped out that window behind you, you could fall all twenty storeys to the sidewalk and bounce back up like a nerf ball. Couldn’t you?’

Dave shrugged.

‘I’m not planning on trying.’

‘Fair enough. But, sir, the less we see of you on the frontline, the better. The more you just put in the occasional appearance, calming everyone down, assuring them the government, their government, has everything under control, the better.’

‘Fine by me,’ said Dave, who was starting to think he didn’t mind the idea of not being Heath’s fireman, rushing here and there, and never on his own say-so. Hell, if Heath had his way, Dave would never have met Jen Aniston or come this close to having his way with Paris Hilton.

‘But there are things you can still do for us,’ said Trinder, interrupting his thoughts.

‘Like what?’ Dave asked cautiously.

‘Oh, don’t be like that, Mr Hooper. We’re not about to put you in harness, as you describe it. Most of the time, sir, you’ll be free to pursue your own interests.’

Trinder waved his hand at the world outside the hotel room, where the great glittering map of Los Angeles at night receded toward infinity. ‘All this can be yours, sir. The whole world, if you want it. I’m sure Professor Boylan has plans and schemes
. . .’

‘Oh yes,’ Boylan confirmed. ‘Cunning plans, ingenious schemes. The world, Dave, it’s a sweet, sweet plum for you, just waiting to be plucked.’

‘And what do I have to do?’ Dave asked, still suspicious. This wasn’t the Trinder he’d met in Las Vegas; the arrogant bully and blundering oaf. But it was another version of the same man, he was certain. In fact, if he reminded Dave of anyone, or anything, it was the carpet-walking assholes back in Houston, the ones who’d been ready to throw him to the wolves when the Longreach went up.

‘We don’t need you to sell war bonds or anything like that, Mr Hooper. But from time to time there will be certain jobs that you can do for us that, to be honest, nobody else can handle.’

‘I thought you said you could handle the orcs.’

‘Oh yes, they’re going to be no trouble at all, sir.’

‘So what’s your problem, Trinder? I’m guessing you already have one, or you wouldn’t be here offering me pork sliders and the world.’

Trinder grinned again, but it was not an expression which sat well on his face.

‘Yes, Mr Hooper. I do have a problem. In New York. Her name is Karen Warat.’

‘What? Girlfriend?’

Again, Trinder moved his face into the shape of someone being friendly and engaging, but it wasn’t convincing.

‘No. And I can’t tell you anything more about her until you have signed the papers Professor Boylan is holding.’

Boylan held up a sheaf of documents with his own guilty grin.

‘Heath never got me to sign anything.’

‘Remind me again what Captain Heath did do for you, Mr Hooper. Besides blackguarding you to the media, by omission, if not commission, after the Battle of Omaha.’

Dave felt as though he should defend the man, but when he thought about it, he couldn’t actually think of anything Heath
had
done for him, whereas he’d been as busy as a one-legged man at an ass-kicking contest on Heath’s behalf. Boylan offered him the sheets.

‘I’ve read them, Dave, and I’ve struck some pars which were unconscionable, and added a few of my own which are also unconscionable, but favourable to your interests, specifically as regards your ownership of any intellectual property which might arise from you performing services as a consultant which, in my view, the federal government should have no call on. But they have accepted the amendments.’

‘Sorry?’ said Dave, trying to read and listen at the same time, and finding himself unable to make any sense of the impenetrable jargon of the documents he now held. They were worse than the ones the process server had laid on him in Vegas.

‘Should there be a comic spun off your adventures as a consultant to the Office of Special Clearances and Records, or a video game, or some other property, rights are vested in you or whichever tax-exempt entity you assign such rights to, not to Washington, as your retainer or “employer” in the first instance.’

He used air quotes around employer.

‘So, are they gonna be paying me? Do I have to tell Baron’s?’

‘Oh they’ll be paying, Dave. They’ll be paying handsomely,’ said Boylan who shot Trinder a look, as if daring him to disagree. The other man seemed profoundly uninterested.

‘Should I sign this?’ Dave asked.

‘You should, Dave, with all dispatch. I believe Agent Trinder is anxious to be about his business. You’ll notice the documents are backdated to cover the period in which you consulted for Captain Heath and the Office of Science and Technology Policy. That’s a generous concession, which allows us to include the deals we’ve already struck under the rubric of the tax concessions for your twenty-four month consultancy period.’