Evensong (31 page)

Olivia nodded graciously as some delegates turned towards her, and returned their smiles and words of thanks. But she was scared, and Anwar saw it.
She might have less time to live.
They exchanged a glance which, to anyone around them but not to themselves, was unreadable.

They walked back together through the Garden, through the lobby of the New Grand, and up to her apartments without exchanging a word. Only when they got into the main living room did they speak.

“Our last night in each other’s company.” She made it a statement, not a question, and was careful with the words. Not “together,” but “in each other’s company.”

“Yes,” Anwar agreed. “Our last night, whatever happens.”

It was their own private statement of intent.

While they sat together in her apartment, the drafting in the summit went on. It was going well, as they verified from time to time by listening to news channels or the live feed from the Conference Centre.

The media circus, which was already huge, got bigger. Some of the worthies who had attended the opening ceremony and left early when problems appeared, were wheeled out by news channels to make statesmanlike pronouncements. Other heads of state, who hadn’t initially gone to the summit but were now quick to be associated with it, were similarly wheeled out. Anwar knew a similar frenzy would be roiling in state intelligence and science agencies the world over, as everyone would be hungry to get access to Rafiq’s toys.

Anwar switched back to the live feed and listened to Zaitsev as he luxuriated. The Statement of Intent had been successfully drafted, as expected, and would be formally signed tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. in the Signing Room.

Without actually saying so, Zaitsev was using the outcome to erase his humiliation over the voting in the General Assembly. At one point someone rather mischievously suggested just that. “A fair question,” he said graciously, “but no.”

An accurate question. “A chance to erase your humiliation” would be exactly how Rafiq sold it to him
, Anwar thought. Of course, Zaitsev wasn’t stupid enough to buy something that wouldn’t work, and Rafiq wouldn’t sell him something that wouldn’t work. Rafiq had made sure over the years to do all that research on the technology and all that work on the business model, so that when a time came that was right, all of it
would
work. He always played long.
You really are a clever bastard. It’s always the same when you put these intricate plans together. You get what you want
, and
you make something better
.

Olivia, who’d also been listening, asked, “Did Rafiq really foresee all this?”

Anwar hardly thought it worth an answer, and she didn’t press for one.

Outside it was getting darker. The sky was now the same gunmetal colour as the sea. Celebrations continued along the Brighton seafront, as at midday, but now the horns and music and beach party noises carried more sharply over the evening air, and the lights were brighter in the gathering dark. From Zaitsev’s suite on the floor below—Anwar’s floor, where his suite stood empty—came sounds of celebration.

Also, he could now hear waves. And seagulls. The noises from the sea had been something he’d previously blanked out, but now he was ramping up his senses for the coming night.

He waited until Olivia was asleep. As usual, when she had nobody in bed with her, she fell asleep quickly and slept soundly. When he was satisfied she was deeply asleep, he went out into the main living room of her suite. He left her bedroom door open.

He called Gaetano. “I won’t be able to check the Signing Room tonight. Have you checked it?”

“Yes. It’s secure. I’ll check it again, last thing tonight.”

“Thanks. Talking of last things...”

“Yes?”

“This is their endgame. Between now and the signing, they must move for her. So put your people outside her suite in the positions we discussed. I’ll be in here with her, and I won’t be sleeping. Come for us with your people at 9:00 tomorrow, in the formation we agreed, and escort us to the Conference Centre. If nothing happens there, put them in the agreed positions in the Signing Room and along the mezzanine. And be there yourself. I’ll take it from there.”

They
had
to move before the signing. He would stay awake all night. Not a problem: he could blank out his sleep requirement for a short period, say a day or two. And right now, he couldn’t see further ahead than a day or two.

He left the doors to her balcony open, and the lights off. Now that the endgame had been reached, it became simpler: just throw people at it. He knew Gaetano would have people on other balconies. On the roof. On adjoining roofs. On the corridors, this one and the ones below.

But not in her apartment. If anything came for her, he wanted to be alone with it.

He stayed awake all night, and nothing happened and nothing came. It was about 8:00 a.m. Two hours to the signing. He made a quick check-in call to Gaetano,confirmed Olivia was still asleep, and put in a call to Arden Bierce.
Maybe my last one to her
, a voice inside him said.
Don’t be morbid
, another voice replied.
Or self-indulgent
, a third one added.

“Still nothing,” he told Arden. “They didn’t move for her throughout the summit. They didn’t move during the night. It must come today. They want it live and public, and everyone will have gone tomorrow.”

“What about your Detail? The one she wouldn’t tell you?”

“I’ve left it. No time, not any more.”

“There’s something I should tell you...” She was going to tell him about Rafiq and herself, but stopped as she realised how wrong it would be at this time.

“Something you should tell me?”

“Not tell you, ask you.” She was floundering, uncharacteristically.

“Ask me what?”

She cast around desperately. “Something,” she blurted, “about what Carne said to you. No,” her voice shook as she realised this was what she’d been looking for, “about the
way
he said it.”

“You weren’t there.”

“I know, but your account covered everything as if I was. Why do you think we give you all eidetic memories? It was the
way
he said it! Dammit, Anwar. I’ll call you later.”

When she flicked her wristcom shut, she was shaking. This was pivotal. There really
was
something, and she’d only thought of it when she’d been trying to avoid telling him about Rafiq and he’d been pressing her and now she
had
to chase it down and would there be time? He only had about two hours until the signing, and if they were still going to move for her then this—whatever it was—might be something he needed to know. She
had
to chase it down.

Anwar went into Olivia’s bedroom. She was still sleeping. The act of watching her sleeping, and the act of waking her, which he’d do in a moment, could in different contexts both be acts of intimacy. But not in this context. Her face was small and sharp-featured against the bulk of her pillow. Far from ugly, but not beautiful like Arden’s, either. It didn’t matter now. Her face carried too many associations for him to bother about its aesthetics.

You’ve shown me more double meanings
, he thought,
more things under the surface, in the last three weeks than I’ve seen in the rest of my life. I don’t know if love exists, but I’ve listed all the pros and cons about you and I think it must Nothing else seems to fit.

She moved slightly, but didn’t wake.

And now it’s academic. We both mistimed. Whatever happens today, whether I protect you or not, the mission will finish and we won’t see each other again.

He reached down and shook her shoulder to wake her. “Time,” he said.

Anwar and Olivia left the New Grand at 8:55 a.m. on October 20. Gaetano was with them. They walked through piazzas and gardens to the Conference Centre. Anwar wore his light grey linen blend suit and dark grey woven-silk shirt from his first day at Brighton. Olivia, coincidentally, wore the dark red velvet dress she’d worn when she first greeted him. It had to be coincidental, because they no longer dressed or undressed in each other’s presence.

Anwar also wore his Yusuf Khan badge, though it was probably too near the end to worry about details of identity.

Anwar and Olivia said nothing to each other while they walked. There wasn’t much to say, not now. The weather was like yesterday: cold, but sharp and clear, with pale sunlight. The sea was calm. Not so much placid, perhaps, as unconcerned. Gulls swooped and soared gracefully around the Pier. There was something wistful and sad in their calls, redolent of savage lonely shores; but also, if you listened a little differently, something like a cruel cackling laughter.

For the walk, Anwar briefly ramped up his senses to check where everyone was. It seemed like there was just the three of them, but Anwar saw (and heard,
and
smelt—that was one of the irritations of sense-heightening) Gaetano’s people all around, covering them discreetly.
Must be most of his staff today,
he thought. Proskar and others he recognised, but he didn’t see Bayard; he hadn’t seen him for a few days.

“You won’t see him here,” Gaetano said, when Anwar asked. “I wasn’t sure of him.”

Anwar reduced his senses to normal for the rest of their walk. He never liked heightening them for too long; people might infer, from his behaviour, what he was.

They entered the Conference Centre. The main auditorium, and the wide staircase up to the mezzanine, and the mezzanine itself, were already crowded with people not able to get into the Signing Room: junior delegates, support staff, broadcasters from minor channels. The big screen in the main auditorium would show a live feed of the signing.

They walked along the mezzanine, Olivia trailing her hand along the balcony rail. They went through the pale wood double doors and entered the Signing Room at 9:01 a.m. The signing was scheduled for 10:00, but already the room was starting to fill.

Once through the double doors they came immediately, on their left, to the panelled area mocked up to look like a UN Press Suite. The rest of the room, which was about sixty feet long by fifty wide, stretched away to the right, and still had the original curving walls of white and silver.

In the panelled area to the left was the top table. It held Zaitsev and three others, the senior politicians who’d drafted the Statement yesterday. Olivia, in deference to her position as host, also had a place there. She took it, leaving Anwar and Gaetano in the main body of the room. Anwar stayed in the middle, near to the top table, and Gaetano moved to the wall. Other security people—Gaetano’s, and those of the delegates — had already taken up positions.

Olivia sat quietly at the top table, next to Zaitsev. Her expression was unreadable. Anwar made brief eye contact with Zaitsev (A to Z, he thought irrelevantly) but neither of them said anything.

The Signing Room was large, but not large enough for all the summit delegates. Only the delegation heads—usually political leaders or senior ministers, with their security people—were allowed in; many of them were now standing in the main area of the room. At exactly 10:00a.m., Zaitsev would formally read out a communiqué incorporating the Statement of Intent. The heads of delegations would then come up and sign in the alphabetical order of their countries’ names.

Anwar saw Zaitsev’s array of Meatslabs: the one who’d threatened to tear off his penis, the one who couldn’t operate the button on Zaitsev’s pen, and some others. The one who’d threatened to tear off his penis sauntered up to him.

“Hello, Yusuf. Glad I let you keep your prick? I understand it’s
her
property these days. Good fuck, is she?”

Anwar smiled but didn’t answer.

To him, and he suspected most of those present, the panelling didn’t look any different. It covered the walls in the direction where it faced the cameras, which were massed at the other end of the room with mikes and lighting and reporters.

Every time he’d been in this room he noticed the same thing: the jarring division between the newly-built replica panelling and the original curving white and silver walls. He’d always thought it looked ridiculous. He couldn’t imagine two interior styles which so completely contradicted each other. Levin would have mocked both of them unmercifully.

It wouldn’t show on the broadcasts, though. The cameras were angled so that the panelled area would fill their entire picture. 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 panelling was meant to look like a conventional rectangular space. The contractors had done it carefully and very well the first time, and equally well the second time after Anwar ordered it ripped out. But it still seemed a lot of trouble. Just for a theatre set.

Anwar tried to stare through it. He’d been there while it was actually being fitted, and armed guards had been there ever since, so he knew nothing was behind it. Yet he still ramped up his senses in the hope that he might see or smell or hear something there. He didn’t, though he saw and smelt and heard rather more than he wanted of the other people crowding the room.

They wore a mixture of modern clothes and traditional robes and he saw the microscopic texture and weave of the fabrics, the tiny dust motes in their interstices. And smelt them, though they’d all been painstakingly laundered and pressed for the occasion. Their colours were different when seen microscopically, because colours didn’t really exist, they were only selective light filters.

And the textures of their faces, in unforgiving close-up: minute tips of embedded stubble despite careful shaving, or traceries of cracks in makeup carefully applied for the occasion. Hair smelling stale despite careful shampooing. Body odours, bad breath, sweat, and subcutaneous grease despite careful morning toiletries. Snatches of conversation, normally indistinguishable in the background murmur, now each one a separate and distinct thread, some benign and some embarrassing. Sexual liaisons were a regular feature of most summits and conferences, and of ten had more far-reaching results than the formal business itself.