Evensong

1

On the last day of September, the weather over southern England was pleasant. It was a warm autumn evening in Brighton when Anwar cried out over the deaths of Asika and Levin; and also in Rochester, as an Evensong service began in the Cathedral.

For he shall deliver thee from the snare of the hunter.

He shall defend thee under his wings,

And thou shalt be safe…

The congregation was small, and mostly elderly. The service took place in the Nave, the part of the Cathedral where the West Door opened out onto College Yard.

The Nave was divided from the rest of the Cathedral by the organ, and to either side of it by the Pilgrim Steps and the stairs to the Crypt. A small altar stood in front of the organ. This divison was known as the Crossing.

Thou shalt not be afraid for any terror by night…

For he shall give his angels charge over thee,

To keep thee in all thy ways.

There was traffic noise outside. Rochester had become down at heel now that the southeast coast and Thames Estuary areas had seen massive new developments. The main road from the new bridges over the River Medway ran parallel to the old High Street, taking traffic past Rochester on the way to and from the new retail centres and business parks, some of them financed by the New Anglicans. They were places as alien to, and as different from, an old conventional town like Rochester as the New Anglicans were to the Old Anglicans. Rochester was dwarfed by them, and left in their wake.

There were only seven people in the choir, and less than fifty in the congregation. The Nave had enough space for many more, but they were almost huddled together in a few pews close to the front. The service was conducted by Michael Taber, Dean of the Cathedral. The Bishop of Rochester was not present.

The service moved on. After Psalm 91, the choir sang the Magnificat.

For he that is mighty hath magnified me,

And holy is his name.

He hath showed strength with his arm:

He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

At the back of the Nave, the opposite end from the organ and altar, was the West Door. Walled off from the Nave, to the right of the organ and altar, was the Lady Chapel. Two other doors, the North and South Doors, were behind the altar, the other side of the Crossing.

On the organ pipes there were painted Gothic patterns, making them look like the spines of books on a Victorian bookshelf. The ceiling was vaulted and groined, made of dark carved wood, with stone Gothic arches supporting it. The pews were also dark wood, glowing with evening sunlight that accentuated the swirl of their grain.

The five figures who, by now, had completed several circuits of the outside of the Cathedral, moved to the West, North, and South doors. At a prearranged time they entered simultaneously, leaving large packages inside each door as they closed it. They bent to make adjustments to control panels on the packages. They unslung their weapons, but kept them concealed, and waited for the next prearranged time to come round.

Those who entered by the West Door made almost no noise, despite the heavy weaponry and packages they were lugging. A couple of the congregation glanced round, but the people who had entered looked official. There was a uniformity about their clothing, and they wore identity badges.

There was a short Bible reading by Michael Taber, then the congregation stood as the choir sung the Nunc Dimittis.

Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace,

According to thy word…

The next prearranged time came round. From the North door, the South door, and the West door, the figures stepped simultaneously into the light. They took up positions at the front of the Nave, to either side of the altar, and at the rear, to either side of the West door, now showing their weapons openly, just as the choir stopped singing.

“Dean Taber, ladies and gentlemen: We have control of the Cathedral. You are hostages. We’ve rigged the entrances and exits: There are explosive devices with motion sensors at every door. In a moment my colleagues will rig more of them at every window. The Cathedral will be irreparably damaged if anyone tries to enter or leave. So will you.”

There were shouts and a few screams from some members of the congregation. Michael Taber stepped forward, arms raised, to calm them. There was something about his bearing that actually did calm them, and most of them fell silent.

Michael Taber looked like a caricature of a patrician: tall, handsome,well-groomed, with grey hair brushed back from a high forehead, and with a natural courtesy towards everyone, even intruders. “You are welcome here,” he said, “but your weapons aren’t.”

There was a brief nod from the one standing closest to him at the altar, who appeared to be their leader. His identity badge said, in large letters, Jones. He was dark-haired and heavily built, perhaps running to fat. Taber didn’t remember the events of ten years ago clearly enough, but if he had, he might have thought the man looked a bit like Parvin Marek. But Marek, if he was still alive, would have been slightly older. And Marek’s face had had a deadness about it which this man’s didn’t, somehow.

“Who are you? What do you want?”

“We’ll come to that. For now, some housekeeping matters. We know your congregation is elderly. We expect that what we’ve come here to do will take all night.” (More shouts.) “So we’ve brought chemical toilets. We’ll set them up in the

Lady Chapel, where people can use them in privacy. And one of us is a qualified doctor, and carries a field medical kit.

“As to who we are: Smith, Jones, Brown, Patel, and Khan.” Addressing the congregation, he added “See? We have name-badges. Mine says Jones. Not our real names, of course. One of us really is called Jones, but it isn’t me. And the two called Patel and Khan aren’t Asian, as you can see…”

His mouth turned down at the corners, and there were fixed frown-lines where his eyebrows met. It was the face of someone who didn’t really want to be doing this; someone who felt out of his depth. But he still brandished a gun, levelly and with precision. They all did.

He turned back to Taber. “We’re mercenaries. We were handpicked for this. Our employers wanted us for a particular reason: we all have terminal illnesses. So we’ll carry this through to the death.”

Taber was horrified, but somehow managed to conceal it. They probably didn’t expect to live beyond the morning, but until then they were invulnerable.

“Why are you doing this?” Taber asked. He thought he already knew the answer but he was playing for time, while he sought a way to establish some rapport.

“To provide for our families. We all have wives and families.Including—” pointing to Patel, “—her. She has a wife. And adopted children. And only the New Anglicans would give her and her partner a proper Church wedding.”

“We would, too,” Taber said. “Since 2035.”

“Yes,but not willingly. Your Church held out against it for years. The New Anglicans embraced it without being asked.”

Taber didn’t press the point. “So what happens next?”

“I’m going to call the authorities and describe to them what we’re going to do here. When you hear what it is, remember this: We’ll kill people if necessary, but if we get what we want there’s a high chance that your congregation will all leave here alive.”

“You’re not wearing masks. That means that you don’t expect to leave here alive.”

“Not at all,” he answered, a little too quickly. “When this is all concluded satisfactorily, we’ll surrender.”

Taber didn’t believe him. Taber wasn’t as easy to convince as his appearance might have suggested. He was a good Dean, but many other things besides. Those who knew him well, knew that he possessed a set of sharp perceptions which he usually kept sheathed like claws.

Jones flipped open his wristcom and told it a number. His call went through to Rani Desai, Director of Counter-Terrorism at the Home Office. She listened without interruption or comment, and without asking how he’d got her direct number, and promised to call back in five minutes with confirmation that she had the Home Secretary’s authority to deal with them.

By the time she did so—in four minutes, not five—more packages had been lugged in and fixed underneath the stained-glass windows of the Nave.

“I’m now authorized to negotiate with you,” Rani Desai said. “So what do we have to do to make you stop?”

Jones watched his colleagues fixing floor sensors, threading their way through the congregation and occasionally muttering, “Excuse me.” They released crawlers, self-programming sensor devices like spiders, which scuttled over the walls and ceiling, positioning themselves at optimum intervals.

“I said,” Rani Desai repeated, “what do we have to do to make you stop?”

He told her. There would be a drip-feed of demands. Ransoms, paid to charities. Relatively modest amounts: one million euros each. Jones would announce each charity, one at a time. Rani Desai would call the CEO or equivalent to get formal agreement that the money would be accepted. She would then call him personally to confirm that the Government had electronically transferred the money to the charity. The relevant bank screen, showing the transaction, would be sent to Jones’ wristcom. A maximum of one hour would be allowed for each charity. There would be eleven, announced one by one through the night by Jones.

“So,” he concluded, when Rani Desai didn’t answer, “easily affordable, easily doable, and some good causes benefit. Complying seems better than a firefight, and a live congregation seems better than a dead one. Doesn’t it?”

“If we comply, you won’t harm anyone?”

“If you comply, of course we won’t. Who do you think we are, Black Dawn?”

She didn’t answer.

“Come on, I need to know.”

“No, I don’t think you’re Black Dawn.”

“I mean, I need to know if you’ll comply.”

“Yes, we will.”

“Good. Now, before we get to the details of our demands, there are some administrative matters I need to take you through.

“First, we all have a military background. The explosive devices rigged at each door and window aren’t homemade, they’re of military origin. We have other devices, also of military origin, to detect attempts to enter through the walls, floor, or ceiling. They’ll trigger the explosives, as will any attempt to enter or exit through the doors or windows. The explosives will probably kill everyone here and damage the Cathedral irreparably.

“Second, we know you’ll be deploying people around the Cathedral. I would; it’s only reasonable. But when you deploy them, and when you give them their orders, remember what I’ve said. Only eleven million euros, and it’ll be over by tomorrow morning, and then we’ll surrender.”

“You’ll surrender?” she sounded genuinely surprised.

“Yes, surrender...Why, what’s wrong?”

“Why not give us your whole list now, all eleven? Why do it one at a time? I’ve already said we’ll pay.”

“No. This is how we want it.”

Taber, who’d been listening carefully, knew then that they wouldn’t surrender. He suspected also that there was something different about number eleven.

“Eleven. One at a time,” Jones went on, “an hour for each, and we should be through by early tomorrow morning, and fifty-seven people—Dean Taber, the choir and congregation— will be free to go.”

“What if one takes more than an hour?”

“Then fifty-six people will be free to go. An hour’s a reasonable time. It’s not exactly complicated.” Jones paused, as if he felt the need to soften what he’d said. He did seem out of his depth. “If there’s some genuine reason why you can’t do it, we have a reserve list. So, Number One: Cancer Research UK. Time now is 10:17 p.m. You have one hour.”

“I’ll call you back,” said Rani Desai.

The charities will probably reflect what they’re suffering from, Taber thought. Cancer. And maybe heart conditions. Or neurological diseases. He’d know them one at a time, through the night. It was a line of investigation Rani Desai would be pursuing, and hardly a difficult one.

Within thirty minutes, VSTOLs were hovering outside the Cathedral (though not as silently as the UN’s would have hovered). College Yard and Boley Hill were lit up. There was the sound of boots on cobblestones. Muffled shouts from the lawns, under the spreading trees. Jones, true to his word, did not appear surprised or angry.

Cancer Research UK took a little longer than expected— the CEO was not at the address, or with the partner, that Rani Desai’s staff had been told—but it was still completed inside the hour. Rani Desai obtained his acceptance, made the electronic transfer, and sent Jones’ wristcom the bank screen showing the transaction.

“Good,” said Jones. “One down, ten to go. Number Two is the British Heart Foundation. It’s now...11:05 p.m. You have one hour.”

The explosives and sensors were set. The congregation, perhaps because of Jones’ manner and how smoothly the operation promised to go, were a little more relaxed. Even the sound of boots and muffled shouts from outside had dwindled slightly.

A few minutes later, Jones started stealing glances at Taber. Taber was initially too polite to mention it—especially as he wasn’t the one with the gun—but after a while he turned to Jones and asked, “Can I help you with anything?”

“No, but you can tell me something.”

Unconsciously—he never used his famous charm cynically—Taber put on his I’m Listening face. “If I can. What is it?”

“Your faith.” Jones hefted his rifle angrily. “I’ve never had a faith, either before or after I was diagnosed. Why do you?”

“The answer’s in the question. It’s my faith. It’s what I believe.”

Jones snorted derisively and was about to turn away without replying, but something in the way Taber returned his gaze—maybe the charm was starting to work—made him respond. “Alright, so it’s what you believe. So does God give you certainty?”

Surprisingly, Taber laughed out loud. “That’s the last thing God gives me. God shows me some wonderful unexpectedness.” Despite the tension, some members of the congregation rolled their eyes. They’d heard this one before.

But Jones hadn’t. “Unexpectedness?”

“Yes, unexpectedness. Let me tell you a story...”

“A true story?”

“Not yet. This is set in the distant future. Humanity has at last found the actual, physical location of God. It is at the edge of the known universe, billions of light-years away. No human could survive the journey, so they send a robotic probe. Even with faster-than-light travel, the journey takes years, and tension mounts over the centuries: What will the probe find? Eventually it completes the journey, and its robot voice calls back, from the edge of the universe, telling them that it has found God. That it now knows God’s nature and identity.

“And do you know what it said, in answer to all their questions? She’s black. And an atheist.”

Some of the congregation, the minority who hadn’t heard it before, laughed. So did Jones and a couple of his colleagues.

Taber decided to leave it there for now. A small bit of rapport gained, but better not to overdo it.

The British Heart Foundation was more difficult. The CEO refused to take individual responsibility for the money, and insisted on contacting Board members, despite Rani Desai muttering darkly about having a heart attack herself. Eventually the necessary acceptances were obtained, and still within an hour, though the process had threatened to overrun. Rani Desai made the electronic transfer, and sent Jones’ wristcom the screen showing the transaction.

“Good,” said Jones. “You see, that’s why we need a generous time allowance. Things like this are bound to happen...

And we didn’t look like we were going to start shooting hostages, did we?”

“No.” She wanted to point out that there was no question of shooting anyway, as the hour hadn’t been exceeded, but felt it was best to let him have that one. She didn’t think he’d react irrationally if provoked, but she wasn’t sure.

“And you’ll remember what I said about those people outside, won’t you?”

“Yes. As long as the hostages are unharmed.”

“Then I think we have a reasonable working arrangement. Now...two down, nine to go. Number Three is the Multiple Sclerosis Research Trust. It’s now...ah, nearly midnight: 11:57 p.m. You have one hour.”

“Turn yourself in,” Taber said suddenly to Jones, a couple of minutes later.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“If you won’t turn yourself in, turn yourself into someone else. Do this some other way. Don’t threaten innocent people.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Why not tell them all the eleven on your list now?”

“Because we’re the ones with the guns, and this is how we want to do it.”

“You mean how your employers want you to do it. You’re no terrorists. They hired you to make some point for them. What is it? And who are they?”

Jones didn’t answer. The cathedral clock chimed. The last September night became the first October morning.

“Number eleven is different, isn’t it?” Taber continued. “We’ll hit number eleven about eight in the morning, when the other ten have been done. When everyone will be getting up, and will hear it on the news.”

“You’re quite smart.”

“So is Rani Desai. You think she hasn’t come to the same conclusion?”

“Doesn’t matter. They won’t come in as long as we have the explosives rigged, and as long as we haven’t killed anyone. They’ll play it out rather than risk lives, because our demands are so easy. Exactly the way we pitched them.”

“‘Play it out’ is right.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Watching you and the others here, all this feels staged. Like a performance. And maybe I’d have the same feeling if I could see Rani Desai and her people. Maybe they’re acting, too.”

Jones smiled ruefully. “You’re wasted here, Dean Taber. But you’re only half right. It’s real enough for them outside.”

Other charities followed. They included The Alzheimers Society, The Brain Tumour Trust, The Muscular Dystrophy Research Campaign, and The British Neurological Research Trust. By seven in the morning, the first morning of October, they reached number ten on the list: The Society of Friends.

“That was my idea,” Jones told Taber proudly, after he’d got Rani Desai to call them. “I’m not religious, or a pacifist, but I admire the Quakers. They always stuck to what they believed in, even when it cost them. Like opposing slavery. Or refusing to fight.”

“Yes,” Taber murmured, “you’d never see them pointing guns at people.” Jones shot him, but only with an irritated glance, which Taber answered with a disarming smile. He’d almost overplayed his reliance on that small piece of rapport.

And the Quakers continued to stick to what they believed in. When Rani Desai finally contacted them (a difficult process, since they didn’t have a conventional leader, and certainly not a CEO) they refused absolutely. They would not, they told her, accept money obtained at gunpoint.

“This is ridiculous,” Jones told Rani Desai. “I want you to pay all eleven, you’ve agreed to pay all eleven, you’ve already paid nine, and Number Ten says No. What should I do? Kill a hostage?”

“You’re asking me what you should do?”

“Yes. No. Alright, I’m not asking you. I need to think. Go back and try them again.”

“I can tell you, they won’t budge.”

“Try them again!”

Jones snapped his wristcom shut, a little too forcefully. The hostages, who had been close to lounging, now snapped to attention. Jones turned to Michael Taber and spat, “I thought this might happen! Ridiculous, isn’t it? Everything works more or less sensibly until you add a religion.”

“But the Quakers were your idea.”

“Yes, yes...You know, I was going to suggest Rochester Cathedral itself as number ten on the list. Now that really would have been ridiculous...”

“We’d refuse, for the same reason as the Quakers.”

“...to kill someone in your Cathedral because your Cathedral refused to accept money we’d earned for it.”

“Earned?” Taber asked.

Jones shot him another irritated glance. “Yes, earned! For some good causes. And for our families. You might not like it, but to us and them it’s earned!”

Taber was not perturbed. “Why not just go to your reserve list?”

“I don’t like to.”

“But you said you had a reserve list.”

“I don’t like to. I don’t like it when things don’t go how I said they should.”

Taber looked at Jones, appraisingly. “You’re making too much of this. It’s uncharacteristic.”

“What do you mean?”

“This really is all theatre, isn’t it? The delay on number ten...”

Jones was quiet. Then he leaned in so only Taber could hear him. The parishioners held their breath. “Shut it. You’re too smart for your own good.”

“...and the unveiling of number eleven. Exactly when you want it unveiled.”

“Shut it. This is the last day of my life. Don’t make it the last day of yours.”

Just then Rani Desai called back. She had tried again, but the Quakers absolutely would not budge.

2

Anwar arrived at Gaetano’s office at exactly 7:00 a.m., as arranged. Gaetano was there but didn’t expect him, in view of yesterday’s events.

“Yesterday’s events?” Anwar asked.

“Come on. You know what I mean.”

Better than you think, thought Anwar. He’d told them nothing, of course, about Asika or Levin. They’d know if they had CCTV of his interrogation of Carne, but he wasn’t going to tell them. He’d go on acting as if they didn’t know, though it hardly mattered now. They were both dead.

“Of course I know what you mean. But there’s nowhere for me to go now, except into the details of this mission. So I did some work last night. I’ve added my comments to the implant bead you gave me yesterday. Here it is.”

Gaetano pressed the bead into his wristcom, and projected it onto a bare white wall. It resolved into a simple full face recording of Anwar, listing his comments. Gaetano listened for a couple of minutes. It didn’t take any longer than that;Anwar spoke quickly and precisely, and didn’t have much to say. Most of his points were minor, with only one of substance: the building work in the Conference Centre.

“I’d like to look over it personally,” Anwar explained, when Gaetano asked him to amplify.

“Of course, but what are you looking for?”

“Remember I said those detectors wouldn’t stop me getting through?”

“Yes, but...”

“You’ll have to put probes in the Signing Room. Needle-probes in every bit of work they’ve done there. And you’ll have checked all the Patel employees here?”

“Yes.”

“I’d like to see the results. And I suggest…”

“That we check them again?”

“Yes. And I’ll get the UN to double-check.” “You think I might have missed something?”

“Yes. Like I missed how to get answers out of Carne, where you would probably have done better. This isn’t point-scoring.”

There was a wall screen in Gaetano’s office, playing a newscast. A kidnapping somewhere. The sound was muted, but occasional words and phrases were audible. “Explosives rigged…hostages…list of eleven charities…modest amounts, only a million euros per item…” Anwar blanked it out, concentrated on Gaetano’s briefing. He paused at the oddness of the kidnappers announcing each item one at a time, but he only half-heard it and it didn’t concern him. He left it behind in the detail of what Gaetano was saying, about Olivia.

She had already gone. She’d left the floor at 5:00 that morning, to catch up on meetings cancelled yesterday. Just one day and the media were already sniffing around: when she cancelled meetings to go with Anwar into Brighton, and cancelled more in the afternoon, rumours started. The media were also asking about the man who’d been detained. Only precautionary, had been the line taken by the New Anglicans’ press and PR people, while inquiries continue.

“And something else,” Gaetano added. “She wants to establish an Outreach Foundation for people sucked into fundamentalist cults. She’s got our corporate people doing mission statements, business plans, budgets, everything. She said she wanted their hearts as well as their heads. That she’s running a Church as well as a business. Was that you?”

“Maybe.”

Gaetano looked askance at him, but did not press it.

“And,” Anwar said, “after yesterday I need to know about all your people. What ones I can trust when I’m not around. And she can’t go off like today, not in future. Not without me knowing.”

“Are you going to tell her that?” “Yes.”

“Well,I’ve got the details of my people. Here, I’ve made an implant bead.”

“Thanks, but I need your advice on each of them—who I can trust, who I can’t.”

“That’s there too. I’ve added it, name by name.” Gaetano had ninety staff. About half were frontline ex-Special Forces, and the others were support: analysts, forensics, intelligence, admin, IT. “You might,” Gaetano added drily, as Anwar seemed about to play it there and then, “prefer to read it in detail later. Most of us are loyal to her, including my deputy Arban Proskar and the six people you fought yesterday in the Cathedral. My other deputy, Luc Bayard...”

“Yes?”

“He’s more ambiguous. He isn’t someone you can trust like me.”

“That’s ambiguous too.”

Gaetano smiled briefly, but said, “I’m serious.”

Anwar nodded, and reviewed what he knew about Bayard. He’d done wet work for one of the more obscure of the several agencies attached to the French COS. Large, like Levin. Talkative. Loud. “Quite unlike you,” he added.

“Except,” Gaetano said, straightfaced, “that he makes you uncomfortable. And he also has something in common with you. He detests her cat.”

“I don’t...”

“Rafiq’s briefing,” Gaetano went on, “probably has most of these details about my people, but not the notes of their loyalties. I’ve never put stuff like that on record for anyone before.”

“What made you do it now?”

“If you’re the only one with a chance of protecting her, I decided I had to work with you. And if I have to work with you, I’ll do it properly.”

“I’m grateful.”

“Don’t be. We both want to protect her, whatever our reasons.”

“She wanted to replace me. You know what she thinks of my ability to protect her.”

“And I know what you think of bodyguard duties...But this is different.” The sudden edge to Gaetano’s voice caught Anwar unawares. “Whoever you’ve had to guard in the past—” (“I haven’t,” Anwar said, but Gaetano didn’t hear him) “—they weren’t as important as her. If you protect her, I’ll owe you. If you don’t, you’ll owe me. And I’ll collect.”

Long before he became Anwar Abbas, he’d been fascinated by the difference between containers and their contents. He’d liked to see into things, and people, and catalogue how their exteriors and interiors differed. Gaetano was not unlike him: haunted inside by thoughts that he was good, very good, but not the best. So he understood Gaetano, even the implied threat. Gaetano was only a Meatslab, but Anwar knew that he’d always carry out a threat. Assiduously, intelligently, and persistently. He’d never give up. And, having finally decided they should work together, Gaetano would never give up on that either. He’d do it properly.

All this time the wallscreen had been murmuring more reports about the kidnapping, reports to which Anwar only paid partial attention. Then he heard a mention of Rochester Cathedral, and froze.

“It’s them, Gaetano! Where is she? Where did she go?”

The Quakers still wouldn’t budge.

“It’s nearly seven in the morning,” said Rani Desai. “We’ve been at this all night. You must be as tired as the hostages. Why not just go to your reserve list?”

“What do you mean, I must be as tired as the hostages?”

“Oh, come on. We know who you are,” Rani Desai said. “All of you. And your medical conditions. Come on, we all want this to end. Your hostages are elderly people. Go to your reserve list, we’ll do number ten, then we can move to number eleven and they can all go home.”

Jones paused. “Alright. The first name on our reserve list is the Chronic Disease Research Foundation.”

It took less time than expected—the CEO was an acquaintance of Rani Desai—and was completed well inside the hour. Rani Desai obtained the charity’s acceptance, made the electronic transfer, and sent Jones’ wristcom the page showing the transaction.

“Good,” said Jones. “Ten down, one to go. And Number Eleven is good news: it’s non-financial, so you’re done with paying. It finished at ten million, not eleven. But this one may take all of an hour.” He paused for effect, and glanced at Michael Taber. “You must get Olivia del Sarto to cancel the New Anglicans’ hosting of the UN Resources Summit at Brighton.”

There was a long silence, both from his wristcom and in the Cathedral.

“Go on,” he told her. “Do it.” Rani Desai broke the connection.

The silence persisted in the Cathedral. Some of the congregation had relaxed again after the outburst over the Quakers and had even been starting to talk among themselves and with the kidnappers. Now all that ended.

Taber smiled bleakly. “This was always about Number Eleven, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.” Jones made a show of checking his gun, and wouldn’t look at Taber. “We took the Cathedral last night because it was easier in darkness, and then we had to spin it out until now, so Number Eleven would get morning coverage. We were going too quickly, until the Quakers helped us. That’s another reason I chose them, though I wish they’d taken the money. Still, we got ten million for some other good causes.”

“Yes, but now it gets serious.”

“I told you. This is the last day of my life.”

Gaetano and Anwar burst into the Boardroom.

The news had erupted around her. She had cancelled her meetings before they’d begun and was already at the wall of screens, dealing with Rani Desai and the media and kidnappers and her own staff. Dealing with several screens simultaneously, like Rafiq would have done. Like Anwar could also have done, but he had enhancements. Olivia and Rafiq didn’t.

The motives were obvious. The New Anglicans’ original founders were probably employing the kidnappers. They wanted Olivia to give up her high political profile, of which the UN summit was the latest example. Originally they wanted the Church made rich and powerful, but she’d done it on her terms, not theirs. Originally they wanted the Church to run like a business or political organization, and she’d done that too; but on her terms, not theirs. So they wanted her dead, and until they could arrange that, they wanted her quiet.

Except that Anwar didn’t believe any of it, either now or when she’d first told him, over the dinner which should have been a briefing but wasn’t. There was more. Not necessarily something larger, but something more specific and detailed: perhaps only a single fact, but one which would overturn all the others. And she wasn’t telling him.

And this pantomime at Rochester: too obviously staged and too obviously contrived. She might submit and lose face, or refuse to submit and cause the hostages to die. Either way it would be a PR problem, but not an insurmountable one; the New Anglicans’ popularity, and their formidable PR machine, would see to that. But whatever she did, summit or no summit, they’d still kill her.

It was in Anwar’s nature to look for pockets of darkness, and he’d found them. A whole billiard table of them.

Since Olivia was occupied—she hadn’t even glanced round when he and Gaetano entered, and was busy dealing simultaneously with three screens and her wristcom, as well as her staff—Anwar took the opportunity to tell Gaetano all this. “So,” he concluded, “Rochester is all an act. It isn’t real. They never expected her to give in.”

“It looks real enough to me,” said Gaetano. “You heard their eleventh demand.”

“She’ll refuse. And when she does, they won’t move again until the summit. This was just a try-on. If she really did stop the summit it would be less convenient for them, because she’d have to be killed later. Their preferred option is to kill her at the summit.” Publicly, in a way that gives history a nudge.

One of Olivia’s screens had a CCTV replay of the kidnappers stepping into the Cathedral last night and announcing themselves. Anwar studied them. Assessed their height, size, movement. Not the real thing. Two weeks before the summit is too early. And those five are not good enough. A grade or two below Meatslabs, nothing special. Except that he sensed they were carrying something inside them. He wished he could go there and see them face to face. He’d know what it was.

Rani Desai had gone quickly to Rochester by VSTOL, and had taken charge of negotiations and operational matters. By about number three on Jones’ list she was speaking to him not from London but from an operations vehicle in the Cathedral precincts.

She had Special Forces in position around the Cathedral, but she wouldn’t send them in unless negotiations failed. And, before number eleven was announced, negotiations had been going well, even despite the Quakers. Now all that was changed.

On her own set of screens, Rani Desai was watching. Body heat scanners picked out the congregation and the kidnappers. There were three figures standing separately at the front of the Nave by the altar (one of them Taber?), and others moving among the congregation and choir. She didn’t know how many there were. She guessed five or six, maybe more; five, said her analysts, who had studied the body language of all those in the Nave, as revealed by the scanners, and had noted that five of them carried themselves differently.

Other scanners confirmed the location of the explosive devices. Sometimes you could deep-scan them, disable them remotely with motive beams, but their casings were impenetrable and they had beam-scramblers. They really were military ordnance.

Yet more scanners got snatches of conversation from the hostages. Before number eleven their relations with the kidnappers had not been particularly unfriendly, but now conversation had all but ceased. Would Jones kill them all if the Archbishop didn’t acquiesce? Or was he, as she suspected, out of his depth? The conclusion was still the same for Rani Desai: go in only if gunshots were heard.

There was a continuing commotion outside the Cathedral: helicopters and VSTOLs, operations vehicles gunning their engines, figures striding back and forth across College Yard and Boley Hill, under the spreading trees. Jones and the others watched them calmly.

“What are those trees?” Jones asked Taber.

“Magnolias. And the big one’s a Catalpa—American Indian Bean Tree. It’s more than two hundred years old...I met her once, you know. Olivia del Sarto. She came here as our guest, at an Evensong service like tonight’s, five years ago when she became Archbishop. She won’t give in.”

“You know her?”

“No, I just met her that one time. But that was enough. She won’t give in.”

“Then, as you said, things will get serious.”

Rani Desai said, “Archbishop, their leader wants to speak to you.”

“Is this being broadcast?”

“No, it’s a secure link. Only him and you.”

“Put him on.”

Jones appeared on one of the screens in the Boardroom. Now that number eleven was known, he was in no mood to waste time. “You know what we want.”

“Yes. And you can’t have it.”

“Unless you comply,” he said, “we’ll execute them.”

“I won’t comply, and you won’t execute them.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course we’ll execute them.”

“No,” Olivia replied, “you won’t. Not execute. You’ll murder them. And I won’t comply. The summit will save more lives than you can take. So, murder or slaughter or kill or whatever, but don’t call it Execute. Don’t give yourself a fake judicial authority. You’ll murder them. So No, I’ll decline your invitation. And Fuck You.”

She cut the connection, and the screen died, then relit with Rani Desai.She was dark-hairedand well-groomed, a slightly older and plumper version of Arden Bierce.

“That wasn’t smart,” she hissed at Olivia.

“Look, I know you’ve been trying to handle this all night, but—”

“No, I meant it wasn’t smart. The summit isn’t yours to proceed with or call off. It’s the Government’s.”

“And the UN’s.”

“Yes, and the UN’s. But—”

“If the kidnappers were serious about getting the summit called off, they wouldn’t go to minor players like you and me, or even to your Government, they’d go to Rafiq. He’s the real authority. He could switch venues if he wanted. It wouldn’t be ideal,” she glanced at Anwar as she said this, “not at short notice, but Rafiq could do it. Except, of course, that he never would. They know the summit’s never going to be called off, and you know they aren’t going to murder anyone if the summit proceeds. At least,” another glance at Anwar, “not anyone in Rochester Cathedral. It’s all a performance.” She killed the screen, and swiveled to face Anwar. “So what’s your problem?”

“Most of it will keep for later...But you’re right, this is a UN matter. Rafiq would send in someone like me, it’s exactly that kind of mission. But the Government would have to ask him.”

“What, and have one of The Dead running around Rochester Cathedral? I don’t think so.” She smiled at him; it was like a rat baring its teeth. “The thing about Governments asking Rafiq for help is that he usually succeeds, and then they owe him, and his prices are high.” When Anwar didn’t press the point—she’d expected he wouldn’t—she went on. “This drip-feed leading up to the last demand. They wanted it to break now, when the whole country’s woken up. But why didn’t they demand more money?”

“You know why,” said Anwar, with a trace of impatience. “To get it to proceed amicably through the night. To get to where we are now. So you mustn’t—”

“I have no intention of complying. You heard me.”

“Yes. It’s better that you don’t, because then they’ll come for you at the summit. If you did comply, they’d still come for you, but we wouldn’t know where or when. And I don’t intend on living here indefinitely.”

She looked up at him sharply; one of the occasions when she actually seemed to notice him.

From one of the screens, showing the exterior of Rochester Cathedral, came the sound of gunfire.

“The Archbishop’s refused number eleven,” Jones told Taber, “as we expected. So we have our orders.” He put down his rifle and drew a sidearm. He spoke a few words in his wristcom to Rani Desai, snapped it shut, and smiled ruefully. “You’re a good man, Dean Taber,and a perceptive one. I wish I’d known you better.” When he and his four companions shot themselves, they made no formal leave-taking of each other. They’d probably done that before they even entered the Cathedral. It must always have seemed inevitable to them.

“Time for us to die,” Jones had told Rani Desai, in his final call to her. “You’ll hear our five gunshots. If you trust me, send in your people. The hostages are safe and the bombs are fake.”

Rani Desai ordered the Special Forces to go in the moment she heard the first shots. They found the hostages safe and unharmed, as Jones had promised, and the kidnappers all dead. Subsequent checks confirmed what Rani Desai had figured out. They were mercenaries—not in Richard Carne’s league, but like him they had no known current employers. They all had terminal illnesses. That’s what they were carrying, Anwar thought when it came out later.

Also as Jones had promised, the bombs at the Cathedral entrances and windows were fake: casings only, with nothing inside them. The sensors on the floor, walls and ceiling were all genuine and active, so their operation would be detected, but the explosive devices weren’t. They were just empty containers.

The congregation and choir and Dean Taber were all physically unhurt, but traumatized. Even at the end, after the announcement of number eleven, they couldn’t bring themselves to hate Jones and the others. They were grief-stricken, not at having been held hostage, but at having to watch five people who they didn’t hate and in some ways had grown to like, putting pistols to their heads.

As the wall of screens relit, Arban Proskar burst into the Boardroom. Burst awkwardly, because his left shoulder and collarbone were still heavily strapped. Anwar again noted the hands, broad and long-fingered.

He was breathless. “We’ve taken another one. Like Richard Carne. We think he was checking whether Carne was still here, after we put out the story that we were holding him. This one’s called Taylor Hines. Similar CV to Carne. He’s trussed up in a private room in the hospital. Says he wants to see you.”

“I’m a little busy,” Olivia snapped, as one of her staff pointed to a screen where Rani Desai’s image had reappeared.

“No,” Proskar was looking at Anwar, “you.”

Taylor Hines looked more formidable than Carne, though he’d let them take him easily. As if it didn’t matter. He was tall, dark-haired, and sinewy. Slim to the point of cadaverousness. His thin face, over whose bones the skin was almost shrinkwrapped, radiated the same ease and insouciance as Carne. Even manacled and chained in a hospital bed, he still looked like he was lounging.

“Another one like Richard Carne,” Anwar muttered to himself, but Hines heard.

“Yes, Richard was another one like me.”

Anwar noted Was.

“And,” Hines went on, “the answer is No. I won’t tell you who I’m working for, where they are, or how they’ll kill her.”

Physically, Taylor Hines wasn’t like Carne at all. There was no fleshiness, just sinew. He was all sinew. His shirt was tightly buttoned up to the top, as if to conceal his thin lizard-like throat. But even so, there was a gap between his throat and the shirt. A gap which, when he spoke, opened and closed like a second mouth.

“Especially not how they’ll kill her, though you wouldn’t believe it if I did...And don’t,” he drawled, “try that thing about disabling all my senses, one by one, and leaving the eyes till last. You don’t have time, and you wouldn’t do it anyway. Even Marek didn’t actually do it.”

How the hell did he know about that? thought Anwar, without bothering to ask or show any reaction. Not that Hines was particularly looking for a reaction.

Anwar studied him. They both knew he’d be tripping a poison implant soon. His employers had sent him here to die, merely for tactical reasons: not to find out about Carne, but probably just to create another level of uncertainty. There was nothing of value he could learn. Not now. Hines really was one of the dead.

“My employers are still perfecting body enhancements. You’ll see when your people do the usual autopsy on me, as they’ve probably already done on Richard. They don’t do enhancements as clever as yours. Not yet.”

“What…”

“But they’re unbelievably challenging. They do other things much better.”

He tripped the poison. Anwar looked away.

3

Back in his suite, Anwar called Arden Bierce. He gave her another verbatim report of another interrogation, and made arrangements for another body to be taken at night by another VSTOL from Brighton to Kuala Lumpur. Then he asked her about Carne’s autopsy.

“Yes,” she said, “it revealed some physical enhancements. But they’re crude; just bits of metal and circuitry and servo-mechanisms. Nothing organic. Hines will probably be the same. Your enhancements are far more sophisticated.”

Anwar nodded, remembering. They do other things much better.

That was the housekeeping part of their conversation, and was concluded satisfactorily. The rest of it was more difficult.

“And Proskar...” he began.

“No,” said Arden Bierce yet again, “he isn’t Marek. I know, he’s Croatian, he’s the right build, he’s the right age, and...”

“He’s got those hands.”

“Anwar, he isn’t.”

Anwar looked away. Proskar had done nothing remotely questionable, and Gaetano had listed him as one of those to be trusted. But all that would be true if he really was Marek. Better kill him anyway? Fortunately, Anwar managed to dismiss that thought without showing on his face the surprise it caused him. Where did that come from? What’s this mission doing to me?

ArdenBierceclearedherthroat.“Anwar...Rafiqwantsyou back at Kuala Lumpur.”

“I told you before, I’m not leaving.”

“I remember what you told me before.”

“I don’t know what made me say those things, Arden...”

“Neither do I.”

“...but I won’t leave. I mean it. I will not give up on this mission!”

“He’s not taking you off the mission.You have my word, and his. He wants to talk face to face about who’s behind this.”

“Face to face?”

“Imagine,” she went on, “I’ve just stepped out of a VSTOL on your lawn, carrying one of his letters. You’ll be back in Brighton by tomorrow morning.”

“Did you get that car I ordered?” “How can you think of that now?”

“Because I’ll need it now. It is where I wanted, isn’t it?”

“Yes. In the underground lockup garage in Regency Square. I made all the arrangements, just like you said. I can’t believe what it cost.”

“I’m good for it. If Rafiq wants to see me I’ll drive to the airfield. You can send a VSTOL there.”

“Why not just...”

“No. Not the one you send for Hines’ body. Send me one of my own. You have plenty.”

“It’ll be at the airfield on the Downs in ninety minutes. And Anwar: I’ll be with Rafiq when you arrive. You won’t be alone.”

Anwar left his suite and walked up to the floor above. Her floor. Proskar was lounging on a sofa—stone white, the colour of those at Fallingwater, but more angular—just outside the door leading to her section of the floor. Anwar nodded politely, and Proskar, politely but awkwardly. Anwar did not go in, however. He walked past her door to Gaetano’s office.

“Rafiq’s ordered me back to Kuala Lumpur,” he said. He’d deliberately phrased it like that so he could assess Gaetano’s reaction, and he was gratified to see an initial approval replaced immediately by concern, both of them genuine.

“Rafiq’s standing you down? Why?”

Anwar assessed his body language: facial muscles, voice inflexions, hand movements, moisture on skin. Gaetano’s initial approval stemmed from his first reluctance to have Anwar there at all, but the concern which replaced it came from his decision to work properly with Anwar. All the things which are right in him are often wrong in her when I look for them.

“No, he’s not standing me down. I understand he has some new information about who’s trying to kill her, and he wants to talk it through face to face.”

“Face to face?”

“Yes, he prefers face to face meetings. If he’s got something of substance.”

Gaetano’s relief was as genuine as his earlier reactions. “It’s about time we had something of substance. Both of us.”

“I’ll be back by tomorrow morning.”

“Then you must be getting one of Rafiq’s VSTOLs.”

“Yes. Not the one that’s coming for Hines. A car,” he said carefully,“is taking me to the airfield on the Downs, where the VSTOL will pick me up.” Something told him not to say what car, or where. He might need it later, if everything went wrong and he had to get her away.

Anwar took the maglev and walked out of Gateway alone, across Marine Parade and into Regency Square. Obvious symbolism, but it was now October. Everything seemed a little colder and greyer.

Regency Square had a small Green at its centre, with eighteenth-century town houses overlooking it. They were quite grand houses, three or four stories, with black wrought-iron balconies and railings. Some had external spiral staircases.

There was an underground car park on the Green, with private lock-up garages. He went down into it and saw the car he had ordered. It was in one of the private lockups, behind bars like a beast in a cage.

It was a replica Shelby Cobra. Not with the original 427 cubic inch petrol engine, of course, but four computer-synchronised electric motors, one for each wheel, charged by a jet turbine. Twelve hundred bhp (three hundred per motor) and four wheel drive. Its paint was simple matt black, not one of the fashionable kinetic or pseudoliving surfaces; that would have been wrong for a Cobra.

But otherwise, it was thoroughly modern. The jet turbine was variable-cycle for optimum power and fuel efficiency. It took air through the car’s front grille, mixed it with biomass-derived jatropha oil fuel, and used the resulting controlled explosion as a constant charge to the four electric motors. It didn’t need storage batteries. The body was ultra lightweight ceramics and plastics, so there was a huge power-to-weight ratio. It would easily out-accelerate and out corner the original Shelby Cobra which raced at le Mans in the early 1960s—and most current cars too.

Modern high-performance cars were stunningly beautiful, almost unearthly, and filled with similar technology to that of the Cobra, but the Cobra was different. Although its shape was designed over a century ago, it had a quality of timelessness. It was simultaneously ugly and beautiful. Squat, muscular, and brutish, with a low crouching stance and hugely flared wheel-arches. The shape of the grille, like a snarling mouth, made it look like it was saying Fuck You to the world. A genuine original, like the ginger cat.

These days, replicas were a strong subculture choice. Some people, like Anwar, preferred them to their modern rivals, for many different lifestyle reasons. For Anwar, it was the tension between outside and inside: old on the surface, brilliant and cutting-edge underneath.

He inserted a finger in the orifice concealed in its flank. After checking his DNA it unlocked for him. Arden Bierce had dealt with its programming and specification and delivery with her usual precision. He sat in it and allowed himself a moment to take it in. Considering what it had cost, the interior was quite spartan. Almost industrial, with lots of exposed oiled metal. Two things were very close to his heart, and he knew it was impossible they could ever come together, unless there really were infinite alternate universes: Doctor Johnson and the Shelby Cobra. He tried to imagine the former, riding as a fractious and querulous passenger in the latter.

The car didn’t have the wet-throated roar of the 1960s V8 original. When he told it to start and it recognized his voice (another piece of Arden Bierce’s attention to detail) the four electric motors merely hummed. Microseconds later the jet turbine fired up, but that too was almost silent: a soft, throbbing whine.

The drive from here to the airfield would take a matter of minutes: a few miles of countryside, past the spectacular gash in the Downs known as Devil’s Dyke. (He’d noticed it on the drive from the airfield to Brighton when he’d first arrived, and following his habit of bestowing private nicknames, he’d called it Lucifer’s Lesbian.) At the airfield they’d lock the car away somewhere securely (Arden Bierce again) and the VSTOL would probably already be waiting, hovering politely a couple of inches above the ground.

But it wouldn’t have arrived just yet. It was about 6,500 miles from Kuala Lumpur to Brighton: a flight of less than ninety minutes, including acceleration and landing, and it was nearly an hour ago that Arden Bierce had told him she’d send it. So he sat back in the Cobra smelling the leather and oil and metal of its interior, listening to the thrumming of 2060s technology inside its 1960s body.

Time, he thought, a few minutes later. He drove the Cobra—it fitted him as well, and felt as right, as one of his expensive tailored suits—out of the underground car park, out of Regency Square, and out of Brighton; towards the airfield, and Kuala Lumpur, and Rafiq.