The Concrete Jungle | Page 3

close to
landscaping Wolverhampton with alien nightmares. "What kind of
students?" I ask.
"Architecture or alchemy. Nuclear physics for an outside straight."
Another word of command and Andy opens the sliding glass case in
front of some gruesome relics that positively throb with power. "Come
on. Which of these would you like?"
"I think I'll take this one, thanks." I reach in and carefully pick up a
silver locket on a chain; there's a yellow-and-black thaumaturgy hazard
trefoil on a label dangling from it, and NO PULL ribbons attached to
the clasp.
"Good choice." Andy watches me in silence as I add a Hand of Glory to
my collection, and then a second, protective amulet. "That all?" he
asks.
"That's all," I say, and he nods and shuts the cupboard, then renews the
seal on it.
"Sure?" he asks.
I look at him. Andy is a slightly built, forty-something guy; thin, wispy
hair, tweed sports jacket with leather patches at the elbows, and a
perpetually worried expression. Looking at him you'd think he was an
Open University lecturer, not a managerial-level spook from the
Laundry's active service division. But that goes for all of them, doesn't
it? Angleton looks more like a Texan oil-company executive with
tuberculosis than the legendary and terrifying head of the
Counter-Possession Unit. And me, I look like a refugee from CodeCon
or a dot-com startup's engineering department. Which just goes to show
that appearances and a euro will get you a cup of coffee. "What does
this code blue look like to you?" I ask.
He sighs tiredly, then yawns. "Damn, it's infectious," he mutters.
"Listen, if I tell you what it looks like to me, Angleton will have my
head for a doorknob. Let's just say, read those files on the way over,

okay? Keep your eyes open, count the concrete cows, then come back
safe."
"Count the cows. Come back safe. Check." I sign the clipboard, pick up
my arsenal, and he opens the armoury door. "How am I getting there?"
Andy cracks a lopsided grin. "By police helicopter. This is a code blue,
remember?"
I go up to the committee room, collect the papers, and then it's down to
the front door, where the same police patrol car is waiting for me. More
brown-pants motoring -- this time the traffic is a little thicker, dawn is
only an hour and a half away -- and we end up in the northeast suburbs,
following the roads to Lippitts Hill where the Police ASU keep their
choppers. There's no messing around with check in and departure
lounges; we drive round to a gate at one side of the complex, show our
warrant cards, and my chauffeur takes me right out onto the heliport
and parks next to the ready room, then hands me over to the flight crew
before I realise what's happening.
"You're Bob Howard?" asks the copilot. "Up here, hop in." He helps
me into the back seat of the Twin Squirrel, sorts me out with the seat
belt, then hands me a bulky headset and plugs it in. "We'll be there in
half an hour," he says. "You just relax, try to get some sleep." He grins
sardonically then shuts the door on me and climbs in up front.
Funny. I've never been in a helicopter before. It's not quite as loud as
I'd expected, especially with the headset on, but as I've been led to
expect something like being rolled down a hill in an oil drum while
maniacs whack on the sides with baseball bats, that isn't saying much.
Get some sleep indeed; instead I bury my nose in the so-secret reports
on GAME ANDES REDSHIFT and try not to upchuck as the predawn
London landscape corkscrews around outside the huge glass
windscreen and then starts to unroll beneath us.

REPORT 1: Sunday September 4th, 1892

CLASSIFIED MOST SECRET, Imperial War Ministry, September
11th, 1914 RECLASSIFIED TOP SECRET GAME ANDES, Ministry
of War, July 2nd, 1940 RECLASSIFIED TOP SECRET REDSHIFT,
Ministry of Defense, August 13th, 1988
My dearest Nellie,
In the week since I last wrote to you, I have to confess that I have
become a different man. Experiences such as the ordeal I have just
undergone must surely come but once in a lifetime; for if more often,
how might man survive them? I have gazed upon the gorgon and lived
to tell the tale, for which I am profoundly grateful (and I hasten to
explain myself before you worry for my safety), although only the
guiding hand of some angel of grace can account for my being in a
position to put ink to paper with these words.
I was at dinner alone with the Mehtar last