Evensong

1

“This is still your mission,” Rafiq told Anwar. “My concern is the summit, not her. And no, I’m not sending others, it’d make us look weak and she isn’t important enough. So when we’re through here, you should go back to her. You’re all she’s got.”

Anwar picked up and echoed Rafiq’s unusually direct tone. “And if I’m killed and she’s killed, it’s only a below-average Consultant and an Archbishop and a UN summit; the first two aren’t crippling losses, and there will always be more summits. If their target was you or Secretary-General Zaitsev, it might be different. But neither of you are their targets. Not this time.”

“Yes, I know what Gaetano told you about this being part of something bigger. We’ll come to that. I said I’m not taking you off this mission, and I’m not. But frankly I wish you’d take yourself off it. Some of the others would do better.”

A word like Franklyisn’t one you use much, even when you’re faking. “Then why didn’t you pick them? At least seven or eight of the other eighteen score higher than me.”

“Sixteen,” Arden Bierce corrected him.

Before Anwar could reply, Rafiq’s wristcom buzzed. “Excuse me,” he murmured.

The Cobra had taken Anwar north out of Brighton, past Devil’s Dyke, to the small airfield on the Downs where the VSTOL was waiting. The Cobra’s speed was merely tremendous, but the VSTOL’s was unearthly, covering 6,500 miles in well under ninety minutes with no apparent effort. It did something with ions that made air thinner in front than behind, pulling it into a frictionless vacuum perpetually dancing in front of it. And its power plant used low/medium-temperature superconductors, a technology which when perfected would be close to perpetual motion. Its design, and what powered it, were the product and property of UNEX. Rafiq had been investing in such things for years, to the unease of the UN’s major members.

Arden Bierce was waiting for him on the lawn in front of Fallingwater. He felt a huge relief on seeing her; it seemed like he’d been around Olivia for weeks, not just a couple of days. But from the moment he entered Rafiq’s office, Anwar had been struck by his change of manner. Such directness was almost unheard-of for Rafiq; coming from anyone else it would have seemed like a sign of strain.

Rafiq was still speaking into his wristcom. Anwar could have ramped up his senses to hear the other half of the conversation, but didn’t, out of courtesy. It wasn’t necessary anyway.

“No, Mr. Secretary-General, I won’t budge. UNESCO has enjoyed a comfort zone, on public money, for too long. What they do is important but they’ll do it on my terms, and in accordance with my performance goals.” Rafiq paused, listening to Zaitsev’s reply, then laughed; not his usual quiet laugh, but something louder and more unpleasant. “Vote of no confidence? Your predecessors tried that and failed. So will you.”

He flicked his wristcom shut and turned back to Anwar, switching attention instantly; there was no grimace or shrug or other unspoken comment on the last call.

Anwar, too, resumed instantly. “You said she isn’t important. That she’s not your concern.”

“I meant it, Anwar; she’s appalling. You wouldn’t believe how she negotiated with me for the venue.”

“Yes I would. I know what she’s like,” Anwar said. “But what she stands for is your concern. If it isn’t, it ought to be.”

“Alright, then I didn’t mean it. It was just said for effect. Don’t take it at face value.”

“I’d be ill-advised, now,” Anwar replied, “to take anything you say at face value.”

“You mean about your mission and Levin’s being connected? I genuinely didn’t know when I assigned you. I know now, but I didn’t then.”

Genuinely. Like Frankly. If you’re adding words like that to your vocabulary, and if you need to use them with people like me rather than the media, you’re in trouble.

Rafiq’s skill at working people close-up meant he usually got more from a face to face meeting than they did. And he had called for this meeting, immediately after studying Anwar’s reports; to review, he said, the identity of those who’d killed Asika and Levin and apparently threatened Olivia. But Anwar sensed that Rafiq wasn’t scanning him as closely as usual; and he’d made unguarded remarks, and used words loosely.

It was unthinkable that Rafiq, of all people, could be pre-occupied: Rafiq, whose reputation was that he’d never give whoever was in front of him anything less than his undivided attention, no matter what other things concerned him at the time. Maybe UNESCO is more serious than he’s letting on. No, he has situations like that every day. It’s something else. Miles was preoccupied with something too, the last time I saw him alive, here at Fallingwater.

“They’re like you,” Rafiq said suddenly. “Like The Dead— they have their real identity, and their identity in the world. They come into the world and go back out of it. Like you, in and out. I could be one of them. Or Arden, or Zaitsev. Or Gaetano. Everyone you know, you could re-interpret all they’ve said and done as being one of them.”

Even his syntax isn’t quite as polished as usual. “I know you could be one of them. You’d be perfect. The damage you could do before anyone found you out...And no,” Anwar’s voice hardened, “they’re not like The Dead. Arden made that mistake. They’re more like Black Dawn. A cell, but with trillions and with a network of corporations and subsidiaries and proxies and cutouts. You must have reached that conclusion yourself.”

Rafiq gazed closely at Anwar. Anwar held his gaze.

“A play within a play, Anwar. Shift the world-picture just one notch, and there’s a parallel world. Theirs.”

He noticed Rafiq had started calling him by his first name.

He’d never done it before. And he is preoccupied. He’s trying to cover it up by being louder and less formal and more direct.

Along one wall of Rafiq’s office was a floor-to-ceiling array of screens, carrying news and current affairs feeds. The sound was muted, but they listened to it for a couple of minutes, in preference to the silence which had started to lengthen between them. Rochester had sparked off a debate about the New Anglicans: whether they should be hosting the summit, whether they were getting above themselves, whether they should be more of a Church and less of a corporation or a political movement. But the New Anglicans were already countering it; their PR machine was as formidable as the rest of their organisation, and Olivia’s five years had given them huge popular support. Rochester might put them on the back foot for a moment, but no more.

“Conventional political parties,” said Rafiq, “detest fundamentalists, but they won’t confront them openly. The New Anglicans will, and do—Olivia saw that niche in the market. So maybe we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Maybe it isn’t the New Anglicans’ founders. Maybe this is all a double or triple bluff, and it’s really the fundamentalists. What do you think?”

“No,” Anwar said. “They don’t have the imagination, or the resources. She was telling the truth about that, at least.”

“And we’d know,” Arden Bierce added. “We have people there.”

“Very well,” Rafiq said. “Then the working hypothesis is the founders. In my briefing I said they don’t like her because she’s taken the Church away from them. She and Gaetano told you that too. And,” he went on, as Anwar started to reply, “I know, not the Bilderbergers and the rest, but a cell operating through them indirectly. Shall we call them The Cell? We can’t keep referring to them as the ones who set up the New Anglicans, are threatening Olivia, and killed Asika and Levin.”

“Yes, The Cell is fine.” I prefer White Dusk, but I don’t share my private nicknames.

“Then let’s consider what she told you, or told Gaetano to tell you. That line about 0.5 percent owning 40 percent is hardly new. Here’s another one: over half of the hundred biggest economies in the world aren’t even countries—they’re corporate bodies.”

“So?”

“So the 0.5 percent aren’t the same people. There’s been an explosion of individual wealth, and corporate wealth: Russia, China, India, Brazil, Indonesia. And others, undercutting China and India in costs—just as China and India once undercut America and Europe and Japan, even though those three are still very wealthy. So if there’s a cell, the members might come from further afield than the original founders. And if the members have changed, the motives have changed. Is that what she meant?”

“Possibly,” Anwar said. “But there’s more. Something she isn’t telling me. Something quite specific. Almost a detail, but it could blow everything else away.”

Rafiq looked at him curiously for a moment, then said, “Maybe. But since you don’t presently know what it is, we can’t process it. In the meantime, let’s stay with who they are.”

“No,” said Anwar. “Forget who they are and focus on where they are.”

“Intelligence haven’t found them yet.”

“So blitz it. Throw masses of stuff against the wall. Check all the known mercenaries and ex-Special Forces with profiles like Carne and Hines, and question them until you...”

“Find who recruited them?” said Arden Bierce. “We’ve already questioned dozens. So far we’ve found five who were recruited like Carne and Hines—indirectly, through multiple layers and proxies.”

This is new. “And was your questioning any better than mine?”

She paused. “I’m sorry, Anwar. I know Miles was your friend. They said he’d been annihilated, and when Chulo was sent to find him, he was annihilated too. They even used similar phrases: ‘What our employers did to Asika. And what they did to Levin, which was worse. And Levin’s face, when he realised he couldn’t defend himself. There wasn’t enough left of him to make into an exhibit like the one they’d made of Asika.’”

Anwar was silent for a few moments, then asked carefully, “Are they still alive?”

“No. They all died like Carne and Hines. Autopsies showed the same crude enhancements as Carne. Nothing like yours, and even less like whatever killed Levin and Asika. And, before you ask, we’re tracing back the manufacture of the enhancements.”

“That’s an obvious direction, so they’ll throw all their countermeasures into it.”

“Then try another direction,” Rafiq said. “How do you think Hines knew about your questioning of Carne?”

“One of Olivia’s people? Not all of them are loyal.”

“How did he know it in such detail?”

“Microbot listeners?” As soon as he said it, and even before he saw Rafiq smile derisively—another unusual mannerism, for him—Anwar knew it was a lame answer. Microbot listeners were pseudo-insects, devices used regularly by the UN, by governments, and by large corporate bodies like the New Anglicans. They were known technology, and there were reliable ways of detecting and neutralising them.

“Fine, not microbots,” Anwar went on hurriedly. “A listener of some kind, but different. That’s something you can work on.”

“Oh, you think? Well, we’d better do that. Arden, will you make a note?” Anwar was startled. Of all the weapons in Rafiq’s considerable arsenal, Anwar had never heard him resort to sarcasm.

“We’ve already found them,” Arden explained quietly. “Nanobot implants, molecule-sized, located in the inner ear. Able to listen and transmit. Carne had one; so did the five we questioned. They’re quite sophisticated devices.”

“But if they don’t do enhancements very well...”

“Not organic enhancements, like yours. It doesn’t mean they don’t do other things very well.”

Hines said that, or something like it. But it isn’t what he meant. “Can you trace them back?”

“Not easily. Molecules don’t have serial numbers.”

“Those other enhancements—the ones you found in Carne...”

“Yes, we’ve started tracing them. There were smaller and smaller components and sub-assemblies, subcontracted downwards and downwards, until the people who finally made them were tiny one-or two-person machine shops, and the components they made were so small they had no idea what they were; and when we worked back upwards there were proxies and dead-ends and dummy corporations. We’ve been doing that,” she added, “since I got your account of Hines’ questioning.”

Anwar stayed silent. He’d started thinking again of Levin.

“Does nothing else occur to you?” Rafiq asked him.

“Not at the moment.”

“Can’t you do better than that?”

Levin used to say things like that, but mockingly. Not in that tone. “Why don’t you just tell me what should have occurred to me?”

“How about what they’ve done? I don’t mean about killing Consultants and threatening Archbishops, I mean what they’ve done strategically. They set up the New Anglican Church in 2025 and ran it, indirectly, through its founders. They work in long cycles and they aren’t part of the usual landscape. So we must find what pattern they’re working to, and then go back over years and search for what fits it. For what else they’ve done.”

“Isn’t that more your territory than mine?”

“Yes, but I thought you might have suggested we research it... And their network of corporations and proxies and financial holdings and subcontracting, we must unravel it and trace it back. That’s my territory too. But whatever they’re sending for her, whether it’s still on its way or already at Brighton: that’s your territory.”

“I know.”

“And are you sure nothing else occurs to you?”

“If it does, I’ll call you. From Brighton.”

Rafiq’s voice softened. “Remember, Anwar. They’ve got something that kills Consultants. Carne’s enhancements were crude, but they would be. If they had an advanced version of you, they wouldn’t let us see it. You do realize that, don’t you?”

“Of course I do.”

“Because Arden believes it was a single opponent that did that to Chulo. Probably to Miles too. Whoever they are, if they have something that can do that...I know, I’m repeating myself, but I offered you help or a way out and you won’t take either. So I think we’re done here.” And I feel you’re going to your death. I don’t think I’ll see you again.

They stood and shook hands.

Anwar saw Rafiq’s mouth open to speak, and could tell from its shape that the back of his tongue was against the roof of his mouth, about to form the hard G in Good Luck. He didn’t say it. Instead he said, “I’ll see you again, when all this is finished.”

“I’ll walk back to the VSTOL with you,” Arden said.

“That extraordinary car...” she began, as they walked across the parkland in front of Fallingwater.

“You can only get them in England, from a specialist company in Surrey. I’ve always wanted a Cobra. Perhaps, when this mission is over, I’ll have it shipped back here.”

“Perhaps,” she said.

“Rafiq didn’t seem like his usual self.”

“He isn’t,” she said, and, “Anwar, if you want, we could...”

“Don’t, Arden, don’t finish what you were going to say.”

“You’re involved elsewhere, aren’t you?”

“No!” he said, too loudly.

When they reached the VSTOL, which was hovering politely a couple of inches above the lawn where a marquee had stood ten years ago, he added, “Really, I’m not. She’s poison. Whatever she stands for publicly, inside she’s poison.”

“Protesting too much? Be careful, Anwar. Not just of what they send to kill her, but of her.”

She shook his hand, and remained holding it for a moment. A door melted open in the VSTOL’s silvered flank. He stepped inside, and it melted shut behind him. The VSTOL lifted silently into the Kuala Lumpur night. It was 10:10 p.m. local time, on October 1.

“He was a waste of time,” Rafiq told Arden, later. “He gave me nothing. Why didn’t he mention the link with Marek? I gave him at least three opportunities, and he missed them all.”

She said nothing.

“He’s not good enough,” he said, unwittingly echoing Olivia. “I should have sent someone better. Why did I pick him for this mission anyway?”

Still she said nothing.

“I really don’t care about her, Arden. Better if they don’t kill her, but if they do it isn’t the end of the world.”

“Isn’t it?”

“Of course not. It would be sensational, and public, and would throw everything into chaos. But I’d back myself to be better than them in picking my way through the wreckage.”

“Do you think,” she asked him, “the Secretary-General will go to war with you over UNESCO?”

“He’ll try, but a no-confidence vote will fail. I have the voting covered.” He paused, and added, “I’m proud of UNEX. It works. It delivers on schedule and on budget. But it’s unelected; it could turn into a monster. That’s what he’ll argue in the General Assembly. He’ll lose, but he does have a point.”

“Maybe it works because it’s unelected.”

“Maybe...Arden, about Anwar. I gave him at least three openings to mention Marek and he missed them all. He knew, from you, that Marek’s the common factor in Levin’s and Asika’s deaths, but he didn’t mention it.”

“He’s only a Consultant. He’s not good at the Before and After.”

“He was a waste of time. He gave me nothing. I thought I’d shaken him when I started acting like I was in trouble, but it didn’t work. Wasn’t my acting convincing enough?”

“Yes,” Arden said. “It convinced me.”

He glanced at her sharply, but did not reply.

It was in his nature to think ahead, in long cycles. When the time came, he wanted his successor to be a member of his personal staff, rather than an outsider. Arden Bierce was a possible contender, but not the leading one. She wasn’t ruthless enough, though she had other qualities: intelligence, interpersonal skills, motivation. And something else, her empathy.

“And it wasn’t all acting,” she added. “If it was, he’d have spotted it. He’s still a Consultant.”

Rafiq was well aware of her empathy, her instinct for what made people tick. She wasn’t like him—subtle, labyrinthine, always holding something back—but her empathy was a quality even he couldn’t match, either genuinely or by faking.

Maybe she could do his job with the aid of that empathy, but she wouldn’t do it like him. She couldn’t manipulate people, or cheat them, or ruin or sacrifice them. No, people like Zaitsev and Olivia would eat her alive. And yet...

2

Something was in Anwar’s blood. He didn’t let it surface during the flight back from Kuala Lumpur, which he spent reclining in a contour chair in the VSTOL’s lounge, watching the play of shapes and colours moving just under the silvered surfaces of the walls. He didn’t let it surface when the VSTOL arrived without event and ahead of time at the small private airfield on the Downs—a measly collection of buildings, made to look even more so by the presence of the VSTOL and, when he released it from its lockup, the Cobra. There were only a few people there, most of them under contract to the UN; they nodded politely but avoided conversation.

He didn’t let it surface as he drove slowly from the airfield, south towards Brighton, and stopped at the edge of Devil’s Dyke. Lucifer’s Lesbian. He knew he’d be driving the Cobra past this vaginal gash in the landscape at least once more after today. How fast, and whether alone or pursued, would depend on how the mission ended.

Kuala Lumpur was seven hours ahead of Brighton. He’d left Fallingwater at 10:10 p.m. and landed back at the airfield at4:30p.m. Brighton time, 11:30p.m. in Kuala Lumpur. It was now nearly 5:00 p.m. on October 1: not yet wintry, but grey and chilly. It had rained earlier in the day, and the air was still damp. Back in Kuala Lumpur, October 1 would just be tipping over in to October 2. He sat in the Cobra, gazed down a long the length of Devil’s Dyke, and let what was in him surface.

Uncertainty. The meeting with Rafiq was unsatisfactory and unsettling, and compounded the uncertainty which was dogging him. He wanted to hit back at it, but was uncertain how to. He wanted to find these unnamed enemies, and he wanted them all to have just one throat, so he could give it a Verb.

He thought about what Arden had almost offered him. She was intelligent and beautiful and had an instinctive rapport that made people feel comfortable around her. Within the bounds of her job she even showed something like sensitivity. But he couldn’t have taken her offer, because she was a colleague. And, more importantly, because he couldn’t have known where it would lead. Whether it would entail baggage.

Olivia was different: less obviously attractive, and sex with her was sudden and sodden, impersonal and opportunistic, erupting between periods when she barely noticed him. But it carried no baggage, and it was simple and tidy afterwards. Literally in/out, like his missions used to be. Before this one.

He thought about his family, and what it would be like to walk once more along Ridge Boulevard, past the big brownstone house where he’d grown up. His family was still living there. They believed him dead, but didn’t know he’d become one of The Dead. Even if they knew, they wouldn’t have recognised him.

Kuala Lumpur had been his home for years, and he’d been in Brighton for only a couple of days; but going back to meet RafiqmadehimfeellikeKualaLumpur,notBrighton,wasthe interruption. He’d expected Rafiq would manipulate him the way he usually did, and felt uneasy when Rafiq didn’t. In fact Rafiq seemed almost to be struggling, a thought which troubled Anwar; another part of his comfort zone peeling away.

This won’t be decided by Rafiq in Fallingwater, but by me in Brighton. Whatever they’re sending to kill her, I’m all she’s got. That meant that if Rafiq wasn’t acting, if he really was struggling, Anwar needed help elsewhere. There was only one place.

Gaetano was competent, but had his limits; among other things, he was obsessive—a quality Anwar recognised and shared. Most Consultants were obsessive to varying degrees, although two of the best weren’t: Levin (flamboyant, confident) and Asika (settled, comfortable with himself). But that was academic now. Being dead trumped being obsessive.

I’m only a Consultant, he thought, unwittingly echoing Arden Bierce. I only do missions, I don’t do the Before and After. But Gaetano did, and was very good at it. Among the New Anglicans he was the only possible ally, at least until the summit. Maybe I should take a leap now, tell him everything Rafiq said. Or most of it. But I won’t tell him about this car. And working with Gaetano was still only a partial answer. It didn’t address the uncertainty.

Or the other matter, the whatever-it-was that she hadn’t told him, the possibly small and specific thing which might overturn everything else. Had she told Gaetano? Had Gaetano kept it from him? He tried to park it all for a few minutes, so he could sit in the Cobra and breathe in the smell of its leather and oiled metal surfaces, and the smell of the damp earth and grass outside. Maybe, if he stopped consciously trying to solve it, a solution would come unbidden.

Devil’s Dyke was hardly the Grand Canyon, but still impressive: a mile long, three hundred feet deep, the largest dry valley in Britain. Clumps of trees and bushes dotted its slopes. The remains of an old Victorian funicular railway ran up the steep sides of its northern end, and there were other traces of its history as a tourist attraction: rotting concrete pylons which had once supported an Edwardian cablecar.

A few cars went past as he sat there, some of them slowing to look at the Cobra. Light was fading. He heard the buzzing of insects, the calls of rooks and starlings flying inland to roost before night set in, and the songs of finches and linnets in the trees. He’d read somewhere that birds weren’t singing when daylight dimmed, they were screaming: screaming because they didn’t know the dark would ever end. Chaos seethed under every serene surface: the grassy slopes where small chitinous things ate or were eaten, the silver and white interiors of the New Anglicans, even the impeccable quiet control of Rafiq. He thought of the figure in Munch’s The Scream, clamping its hands to its head under a red streaky bacon-rasher sky while all the world screamed its underlying chaos.

Chaos was normally anathema to him; he liked comfort zones, places where everything was just so. But now he had the germ of an idea, and it involved the deliberate creation of chaos. A particular kind of chaos that came from doing something unexpected and which would give him, at last, the initiative.

He considered it from all angles, and it seemed viable. It was almost worthy of Olivia: she did it all the time, leaving uproar and mess behind her, on her way to somewhere else. With her, doing the unexpected was natural. With him it would be acting, but he could still do it. He’d already done it once, on a smaller scale, when he’d changed his usual fighting style against Gaetano’s people in the Cathedral.

And maybe it wouldn’t entirely be acting. Maybe this is what I really am, inside. He’d never had a mission like this. Look at what it’s making me do. He’d always studied the differences between outside and inside in other people, never in himself.

Time. He fired up the Cobra’s motors and turbine, and drove swiftly back through the gloom and traffic thrombosis, to Brighton and the summit, Gaetano and Olivia.

He put the Cobra back behind the bars of its cage in the underground lockup. He strode across Regency Square, across Marine Parade, and past the huge Patel vehicles still parked outside the entrance to the New West Pier. He strode through the security checks—as far as they could tell, he was still unarmed and still had an identity—and into the concourse at Gateway, where he took a maglev to Cathedral. He strode through the Garden, through the reception of the New Grand, and into Gaetano’s office.

He gave Gaetano an exact, word-for-word account of the meeting with Rafiq, omitting only the references to the number and names of Consultants, and the conversation with Arden as he boarded the VSTOL. He spoke quickly and precisely, and with an unexpected energy. In less than half a day he’d travelled 13,000 miles to and from a difficult meeting, but he didn’t look or feel tired. He felt fresher now than he’d felt at Kuala Lumpur, because his idea still looked viable.

“So,” he finished, “Rafiq was a waste of time. He gave me nothing. For the first time since I’ve known him, I think he was struggling.”

Gaetano had listened calmly to Anwar’s account of the meeting, even when it touched on some of Rafiq’s stranger remarks. He listened no less calmly to Anwar’s assessment of Rafiq. After a moment he said quietly, “We’re struggling too, unless we work together. You know I’ve already made that decision.”

“So have I, now. That’s why I came here and told you all this. I think we’re all she’s got.”

“And you still think there’s something she hasn’t told you. You said to Rafiq that it was something specific, but it could overturn everything.”

Good, he thought, you zeroed in on that. “Gaetano—” It was the first time Anwar had used his name. Somehow it conferred a new and different identity. “—I need to be sure of this. The briefing you gave me: you left nothing out?”

“Nothing.”

“Not even some detail she mentioned which didn’t seem worth repeating?”

“I said, Nothing.”

Anwar needed only the briefest of scans to ensure Gaetano wasn’t acting. “Then I know what to do next. We must go to the Conference Centre. I want to see the Signing Room. I want you to bring at least ten of your people, ones you can trust, and I want them armed. I want Proskar and Bayard kept away. And I want the Patel contractors there too, the ones who’ve been working there. And I want her kept away, by force if necessary. And I want...”

3

Anwar and Gaetano walked swiftly through the Conference Centre. One by one, they were joined by the people Gaetano had urgently summoned—his security staff, the Patel contractors, the Patel site manager. Their varying states of dress reflected the urgency of the summons: drop everything, Gaetano had told them, and come here now.

The ragtag procession, increasing in size as it went, made its way through the huge main interior space of the Conference Centre with its clean swooping lines, white and silver walls, and citrus air. The Conference Centre was even bigger inside than the Cathedral, because there was no full upper floor, only a mezzanine: a balcony running round the entire circumference, with doors leading off. Anwar, Gaetano, and the others made their way up the wide staircase to the mezzanine, and through a set of pale wood double doors which opened into the large room set aside for the signing ceremony.

Anwar stood there silently for a few moments, waiting for stragglers to arrive; it was the first time he’d seen the Signing Room, and he studied it carefully.

The room was about fifty feet wide by sixty feet long. One end was effectively a stage-set for the signing ceremony. There were expanses of wood panelling: exact matches of the 1960s-style teak and mahogany panelling from the UNHQ Press Suites in New York. They covered the walls in the direction where they would be facing the cameras, which would all be massed at the other end of the room. The rebuilt area had been calculated exactly from the camera angles and lines of sight. The rest of the room was unchanged. There was an abrupt division between the newly-built replica panelling and the original curving white and silver walls. It was curious, seeing two such different styles in one space. Levin wouldn’t have liked it.

The wood panelling stood three to four feet proud of the original walls, as the room’s natural shape was curved and organic and the UN wanted to give the impression, where the panelling had been fitted, of a conventional rectangular space. The contractors had done it carefully and very well, Anwar concluded, with no detail missed. It was immaculate andvery convincing.

He continued to admire it (and, being who he was, also to record it) as the final latecomers arrived. They were all there now, the people he’d asked Gaetano to summon: ten of Gaetano’s staff, carrying sidearms and rapidfire rifles, which they held rather self-consciously; the nine Patel contractors who’d worked round the clock for the last three weeks in this room to create the painstaking illusion of a Press Suite; and nineteen more Patel contractors who’d worked on board the vehicles parked at Gateway, pre-assembling and disassembling panels and material so it could all be carried unnoticed to the Conference Centre, as Olivia had insisted. The final latecomer was the Patel site manager, a large beefy man who’d been dragged out of another meeting and who burst in dramatically, glaring. The Patel people shot glances at Anwar and Gaetano, and asked each other and Gaetano’s staff what this was about. Nobody knew, and the conversation gradually died to a murmur; then to silence.

“Tear it down,” Anwar said.

“What?” the site manager shouted.

“I want it pulled apart, all of it, and then I want it rebuilt while I’m watching.”

There was uproar. Anwar used it to turn to Gaetano. “Starting now,” he said above the noise around them, “I’ll stay here twenty-four-seven while they work on it. I want at least five of your people here, also twenty-four-seven and armed like now, until they finish work. After they finish work I want three of them here, round the clock, until the summit starts.”

He was hoping to find, buried in the walls, the entity or device they’d sent to kill her. But even if he didn’t, it would put him on the front foot. Give him the initiative. And it would ensure that even if it hadn’t already been buried there, it wouldn’t be buried there before the summit.

“Can we talk this over privately?” Gaetano whispered. “I understand the reasons but I’d like to discuss the scale, and I don’t want us to be overheard if we have differences.”

“No,” Anwar said. “I’m not leaving this room until the work is completed. Even if it takes days.” The uproar was continuing unabated. Anwar took Gaetano to one side and continued. “This isn’t negotiable. Whatever they’re sending for her, it’ll be concealed in these new walls. If it’s an advanced version of me, it could have got past security in the same way I could. If it’s some kind of mechanism, it could be disassembled, brought in piece by piece, and reassembled.”

The uproar intensified. The Patel contractors were now arguing furiously with Gaetano’s staff—quite unreasonably, since Gaetano’s staff had also only just been summoned there and were no wiser than anyone else.

The site manager finally pushed through the melee and located Anwar and Gaetano where they’d moved to one side. “It’s taken three weeks,” he shouted at Anwar, “THREE WEEKS, to do this work, and you want it torn down? We’ve got less than twelve days to do it again!”

“You’ve got a lot less than twelve days,” Anwar said. “I want it done in six.”

The site manager turned to Gaetano, whose face he at least recognised, in the hope that he might mediate. “We had to get exact replicas of the panelling from New York. Grain, texture, density, all had to be matched exactly. We can’t do that again, not in twelve days! Certainly not in six days!”

“Then bring in more people,” Anwar said, before Gaetano could reply. “Work them round the clock. Just throw people and money at it.”

“But...”

“And screw the texture and density and grain. As long as it’s teak and mahogany, that’ll do. Get it from ordinary timber merchants in Brighton.” Anwar left him red-faced and apoplectic, and turned back to Gaetano. “I want her orders cancelled. No disguising workers as tourists, or disguising material as luggage and bringing it here in small amounts. There isn’t time. Bring in workers and materials openly. Load everything on the maglevs. If it won’t fit on the maglevs, bring it to the Pier by sea or helicopter.”

“But...”

“Youmustconvinceher.She’snottocomeanywherenear this room until it’s rebuilt, and until I say so.”

“She’ll be...”

“I don’t care if she’ll be furious, tell her I’m quitting if she enters this room before I say so. I’m staying here for as long as it takes them to rebuild it. I’ll watch everything they do. I want food and drink brought in here, and I want you to bring it personally. And I want a bucket. And I want at least five of your people, armed, here all the time until the work is completed.

And I want your deputies Bayard and Proskar kept away. And I want her kept away. And I want...”

So his stay in the Signing Room began.

He wouldn’t take food from anyone other than Gaetano. He had screens wheeled in from the Pier hospital and arranged so they curtained off a small area at the far wall where he used the bucket regularly and copiously. He refused any change of clothes. He stayed unshaven and unwashed, with stale breath and body odour—a condition of such total novelty to him that he privately catalogued its development. And through it all his expensively tailored suit still kept its shape impeccably despite his dirtiness. Elegant container, foul contents, he mused, picking at one of his favourite themes.

He almost revelled in it. All his life he’d never been anything less than immaculate. But in all his life he’d never done anything as unpredictable, as Olivia-like, as this. He was learning things from this mission: how to do the unexpected, how to take the initiative, even how to tear down and replace wooden wall panels.

On the first day he watched them start work. They decided to uncover a small area first, no more than ten feet square, to test their techniques before tackling the main area. He watched them rip out the old wooden panels, revealing the structures underneath: layers of plaster and, underneath the plaster, a latticework of carbon-ceramic laths. The laths had been fixed to the original walls with polymers which, although immensely strong, could be removed by the application of contra-polymers so they left no mark on the walls. As the first panels started to be torn away, he motioned to Gaetano’s men to have their guns ready. Nothing was there so far. The rubble and dust and debris mounted.

Then, the layers under the panelling were also ripped out: plaster, laths, back to the original silver and white surface. The first small area of the original wall was uncovered. The room’s shape was curved and the panelling was designed to create, at that end of the room, the impression of a regular rectangular space.

They paused. Nothing was there but the original walls. Anwar let out a breath and retired to the curtained alcove holding his bucket, where he called Gaetano and reminded him to double-check the Patel employees. Then he called Arden Bierce and told her to do the same. His priority was to find whatever (if anything) was hidden in the Signing Room, but his next priority was to find who put it there, how, and on whose orders.

The Patel contractors started on the main area of panelling. As the hours passed more of them joined the work, partly because the operation was becoming more frantic, and partly because Anwar’s cancellation of Olivia’s orders made it possible. Anwar observed them minutely. More teak and mahogany panelling was brought in from local timber yards to replace the panels that would be torn out. Anwar couldn’t tell the difference in grain or texture or density, and didn’t care.

After two days he had a visit from Bayard.

“I told Gaetano not to let you come here.”

“He doesn’t know,” Bayard replied. “I came on my own initiative. You know about initiative now, don’t you? At least, a bit more than you did before.”

There was some more of this. Bayard mocked him like Levin used to, but without the underlying friendship. They had to raise their voices above the noise of the Patel contractors. There were more of them than yesterday.

“...and you wouldn’t believe,” Bayard continued, “how furious she is at being kept out of here. But Gaetano kept his word. A couple of times, he even threatened to restrain her physically. Imagine, in her own Cathedral...”

“That’s enough,” Anwar snapped.

“...and all her orders cancelled. She was incandescent. Almost converted her mass to energy.”

“I said, that’s enough. Just go.”

“Alright, I’m leaving...But honestly, the mayhem and confusion you’ve caused. I’d have done it much better. If you want to know how you should have done it, no further than me.”

He sauntered out, aware that Anwar was trying unsuccessfully to think of a one-line rejoinder. As with Levin, Anwar would only think of one later, when it didn’t count.

The contractors carried on. The rubble and debris mounted. The dust thickened. The bucket filled, and was emptied.

After three days he had a visit from Proskar. This time, protocol was observed. Anwar got a call on his wristcom from Gaetano to say he’d given Proskar permission to see him.

“I told you he’s not to come here. I don’t trust him.”

“I do,” Gaetano snapped back. “And he wants to speak to you.”

Proskar had never mocked him like Bayard, had never said or done anything questionable, but Anwar still couldn’t get past his resemblance to Marek. When Proskar arrived, they again had to raise their voices above the noise and activity of the Patel contractors. It didn’t make for much nuance of expression.

“I came here,” Proskar began, “because…”

“Your collarbone healed yet?”

“Still healing. And your knife-wound?”

“Healed...You’re skillful with a knife,” Anwar murmured. “It’s a Marek type of weapon, a knife.”

“I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“Come into my office, we can’t hear ourselves think out here.” He took Proskar to the screened-off alcove he had rigged in a far corner of the Signing Room, where he kept his bucket. The alcove stank, as did Anwar.

“I said you’re good with a knife.”

“It’s my speciality, that’s all. Look, I came here because…”

“I said it’s a Marek type of weapon, a knife.”

“I heard you. That’s why I came here. My resemblance to Marek. I know you think he’s me.”

Anwar said nothing.

After a while, Proskar added, “And about knives: there’s no record of Marek having any close combat skills, with knives or anything else.”

“He wasn’t bad with bombs and guns.”

“I said close combat.”

“So you did. You know about him, do you?”

“Yes, after years of having to prove I’m not him. I’ve learnt so much about Marek that at times I thought I was turning into him.”

“I want you gone.”

“What?”

“I know you’ve convinced others you’re not Marek, but I can’t get over your physical resemblance.”

“If I was Marek, would I still choose to look like this?”

“A reasonable question if you’re not, and a clever one if you are.”

“Would I keep my hands like this?” He waved them in front of Anwar’s face. Large, spadelike hands, with long and slender fingers. “Who else has hands like this?”

Anwar said nothing.

“Look,I came here in good faith. Iknow you’re concerned about my identity, but I can prove I’m not Marek. There’s endless proof. Do you want me to take you through it?”

“I’m tempted,” Anwar said, “to kill you here and now. You may be innocent...”

“I never said I was innocent. I said I’m not Marek.”

“...but I’m still tempted to play the percentages and kill you anyway.”

“This is the only job I’ve ever had that really amounted to anything. Before I came here I was just freelance muscle, doing things I wasn’t proud of for people I didn’t much like. Then Gaetano took me in and I got to do something worth-while. I’ve served him and the Archbishop for five years. I’d go and die for either of them.”

“Don’t die, just go. I want you gone.”

“Didn’t you hear what I said? This is everything I am.”

“You’ve had five good years. Don’t try for six.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“To protect her. If you’re loyal to her, you don’t want me watching you when I should be watching her. And I would be watching you, because I can’t be sure you aren’t Marek. I’d never leave you alone. Better for her, and you, if you were gone.”

Proskar went to reply, then changed his mind and walked quietly out. Anwar was left looking at the walls, where still, after three days, nothing had been found.

But his initiative continued to buoy him. He’d never have done that with Proskar before. He’d only decided to do it while they were talking. But it made sense. Whatever they were sending for her, if it wasn’t in the Signing Room yet, it wouldn’t get there now. If it was a person, it might already be walking among them. Proskar wasn’t the only possibility, but he was the easiest to remove. Privately Anwar thought Proskar was worth ten of Bayard, but he couldn’t get over the resemblance to Marek. After all the evidence to the contrary, he still wanted to stick with his instincts.

Proskar, after this, would probably slip quietly away. Gaetano would just have to make do without him.

This mission, he thought. When he’d first come here the New Anglicans hadn’t known what to make of him, and they suspected he didn’t know what to make of himself either. Then he’d found out about taking initiatives and creating chaos, and they still didn’t know what to make of him.

He still didn’t know what to make of himself either, but he knew that he wasn’t quite the same.

Another day passed. More of the panelling was ripped out, and still nothing was found behind it. The plaster and the carbon-ceramic laths holding the panelling were also ripped out. Contra-polymers were applied to the adhesive holding the laths to the original walls, and it relaxed its huge grip and dissolved away as though it had never been there. The original walls were unmarked.

Anwar’s abrupt decision to abandon exact matches for the wood panelling had provoked uproar among Zaitsev’s staff at the UN in New York, but Gaetano dealt with it and made sure it didn’t reach Anwar—who, even if he’d known, would have ignored it.

The bucket got filled and was emptied. Food came and was eaten. Gaetano’s five armed people started to look a little excessive, even to Anwar. They were also starting to look irritated. Gaetano was getting worried at the distraction. Each time he brought food, he reminded Anwar that the summit was getting closer and these people should be on other duties. Anwar wouldn’t budge.

The panelling and plaster and laths were now completely ripped out, and nothing had been found behind them. The whole Signing Room was now back to its original curving shape. The walls were pristine: white and silver and gleaming. Even the dust didn’t seem to settle on their surface, though it settled everywhere else. Anwar finally and grudgingly admitted there was nothing to find. It still didn’t detract from his feeling of having the initiative.

He ordered the Patel contractors to start fitting the new panelling. He told Gaetano over his wristcom that he now needed only three security staff while the new wood was being fitted. But they should be armed, and should stay there round the clock until the summit.

“How much longer will you be staying there?” Gaetano asked him.

“Until I see them complete the new panelling.” It occurred to him to ask something he should have asked before. “How are your preparations for the summit?”

“Satisfactory. But the Archbishop is getting difficult.” “About the summit?”

“No. About being kept away from the Signing Room. And,” Gaetano’s voice sounded uneasy, “about you. You’ve been in there four days, and she intended to see you the instant you got back from Rafiq. She doesn’t usually go more than a day without...”

“Why not one of your people? Or you?”

“Not me, we don’t do that... and she laughed when I suggested the others. Normally she has no trouble in fixing herself up, often just this side of rape, but she wasn’t interested this time.”

Anwar felt a stirring of unease. “Keep her away from here.”

“I’ve already impressed on her the need to keep away.”

Anwar stayed to watch them finish. They did what they’d done before to fit the earlier panelling. They made a new lattice work of laths which they fixed by polymer against the silver and white of the walls, extending out in regular rectangular shapes. On this they put a layer of plaster. Anwar was fascinated by the skill of those making the laths and applying the plaster: accurate without much apparent measuring, quick without much apparent hurrying.

And then, after another day, the new panelling was done. There was mess and dust on the floor and in the air, and a smell of sawn wood and wet plaster. The room still had to be cleaned and prepped. By early evening he was still there, smelly and unshaven, when he got another call from Gaetano.

“I hear you’re finished in there.”

“Just about. I’m going for a shower and cleanup.”

“No you’re not. She wants to see you. Now. In the Boardroom.”