Icon (15 page)

Daniel wasn't going to pass up any trick that worked. He wore black pants and a charcoal button-down, no matter what, and a coat whenever it was cool enough to warrant one. It was a smart move—it looked expected pretty much
anywhere you were, and no one ever gave him a second glance.

Kipa and Columbina were walking through Central Park, and Daniel hung back just far enough that they didn't notice his pacing them. (Just in case, he bought a hot dog from one of the park vendors and took occasional thoughtful bites while staring at nothing on his phone. In this crowd, it was close enough to blending in.)

Kipa had grown in the last year. Suyana didn't see her often, so Daniel often went months without really noticing her, but she'd seemed to square her shoulders in the IA. She appeared at parties where you least expected her; he must have half a dozen shots of Kipa in a floaty skirt and impossibly charming top gliding into the VIP section as Suyana carefully never looked over. Daniel had suspected something was wrong—that Kipa knew more than she should, maybe, that during that fight in Terrain a year ago Martine had made a lucky guess and now Suyana had to manage three more people who knew.

But he'd never considered Kipa as Chordata material, which he realized now had probably been the point. Kipa was on an environmental subcommittee that voted to save whales and owl habitats once a year, and never said a word otherwise. She made herself forgettable, and then showed up and listened.

Daniel was impressed and embarrassed. It was one thing
to miss the person Suyana had come to save in the middle of a loud nightclub a year ago, as a stranger was explaining what your life would look like now. It was another thing to keep missing a connection for a year. That's what tunnel vision got you.

He got as close as he dared and moved as quietly as he could.

“It doesn't sound like her to not want to know the reasoning behind anything.” Kipa was frowning.

“Hi, Daniel,” said Dev over the comm. “So, what the hell is happening, exactly?”

Columbina sighed. “I thought so too, but she was so angry—you know how angry Aurelia gets.”

“Aurelia?”

Columbina looked long-suffering. “Lachesis.”

“Oh, sure,” Kipa said, and if the hair on Daniel's neck wasn't already up, the tone of Kipa's voice would have done it, as they realized in the same moment that Suyana's old name had been blanked. There was a replacement, but no one recognized it—that name meant nothing. Daniel knew how easily people disappeared: even Suyana, even Chordata. He cleaned his hands three times on a napkin.

“Yes! And she accused me! Like a setup, like that is something we would do.”

“Mmm.” Kipa stared past Columbina into middle space
for a second, as if remembering something. “And of course you never would.”

“Daniel, repeat, you are off target. Can you read me? Where are you? Where the hell is Suyana?”

Smack between them, he thought, right in the center of it all; can't you tell?

“Of course we wouldn't just abandon her—we'd never betray anyone kind enough to help us,” said Columbina, very nearly as politely as she'd sounded before.

“Oh. Good. I thought so. I don't like to think of you—of us—being that sort of place.” Kipa's thumbnail was picking at the polish on her index finger, on the far side of her body, where Columbina couldn't see.

“I'm just concerned that's the impression she has. She seemed very upset, and she wouldn't even listen to me when I tried to explain. I was hoping you might be able to help me talk to her.”

“Sure. What did you say, when you explained? I mean, what would you be saying differently now?”

Daniel buried his smile in a napkin.

“I'm not kidding,” said Dev through the comm. “This is off assignment, seriously. If you think this is a story of its own, alert us and we'll get someone on it. Suyana could be launching a rocket to the moon right now and you'd
miss the story.”

“This is the story,” Daniel murmured. “Don't worry about her.”

She'd never go to the moon without saying good-bye.

“—so we can speak to her tonight,” Kipa was saying. “I'll find out where she's going from her handler. But I don't know if this will carry much weight unless there are—I mean, it's a big apology. Do they have plans to show they're sorry? If I bring you to her, can you make this right?”

Columbina drew up to her full height and looked straight down at Kipa, who had actually dug the heels of her hands into her skirt like she was a precocious nine-year-old who knew she was in the right and was going to be adorably staunch about it. It crawled up Daniel's spine to look at it—she was too young to be looking so young—but he supposed that whole affect had the potential to be disgustingly effective in the right room. Old men with savior complexes. Handlers who liked the idea of anyone too innocent to have a hidden agenda.

And, apparently, women who were playing the big-
sister control agent on the side. Columbina's shoulders softened and she hooked her thumbs absently into her pockets, mirroring Kipa, as she said, “Yes. The Norwegian outposts have promised to see what comes of it before they do anything. At least a year. It will look like another local problem, if it has to be handled. We'll help it
blow over, however we can, and she'll have plenty of breathing room while we try to fix this.”

Daniel wasn't hungry anymore; the rest of the hot dog went in the garbage as he turned and walked back to Fifth. Whatever happened next, Suyana was setting the destination, and that was his primary concern.

She wouldn't be safe for long, the way things were going. Bo was her best option; ex-killers made the most useful snaps in situations like this. (Daniel could pull someone out of the crosshairs once, but doubted he'd be dumb enough to do it again.) Daniel just had to get himself fired before they left New York, while Li Zhao was too focused on Margot to let Bo have her. With Bo doing swing shift, it would be easy for her to move Bo to Suyana—a steady eye instead of the guy who was going to pieces. Bo liked Suyana more than he'd say. That was all Daniel needed to know.

“Dev, what the hell's going on?” he said as he cleared the line of trees. “That wasn't Suyana! Why didn't you tell me? Now I've lost her, I can't believe this, I rely on you for this intel.”

“I'm going to kill you,” Dev said, and Daniel pulled his lips back from his teeth in a fuck-you smile as he peered into the tinted windows of the parked cars along the sidewalk, just to make sure Dev would see.

× × × × × × ×

Turned out those well-cut clothes worked for you even when you pulled up in front of the Concordia Club, where you were not and never could be a member. So long as you looked sharp, you could dawdle long enough to check the windows and the license plates without any of the door staff asking you your business.

Grace's car was in one of the rare parking spaces in the gated courtyard, looking exactly like the other two cars beside it, and something around Daniel's throat loosened when he saw it.

Then he calmly moved around the corner and staked out the staff entrance until someone ran out with a shopping list in their hand, and Daniel could catch the door and go inside like he'd done it every day of his life.

Suyana had pulled the same thing when she wanted to stay beneath notice in a place where she wasn't welcome. Daniel wasn't going to pass up any trick that worked.

The Concordia Club, established on a date important enough to write in stone above the entrance, was exclusively for IA employees. (You could sometimes usher your family in with you for dinner, according to Bo, so long as they kept quiet and seemed suitably impressed.) Faces, handlers, and those in administration who could afford the membership fee got to use the facilities inside, which Bo said included a restaurant, a lounge, a library, a pool, a gym, massage, and
complimentary dry cleaning. Daniel was laughing by the end of the list—something about the combination of dry cleaning and the pool made him imagine handlers sheepishly floating in the water waiting for clean clothes as diners watched them coolly from over their lunch salads—but he'd never questioned the reconnaissance. If anyone could get inside without being noticed, it was Bo.

Daniel hung his coat on the first hook he found and grabbed three glass bottles of seltzer—no way Concordia Club members would settle for tap. And as it turned out, the kitchen had a rhythm that was easy to parse. One staircase heading from the kitchen up to the dining room, another for bringing dishes back down. To avoid collision, but he liked knowing there were two possible exits if he needed them.

“Daniel, what is this?”

“I'm observing the news, Dev.” Daniel moved for the upward stairs.

“Daniel, I've ignored your personal meetings because nothing came out of them except you getting your heart broken, and I figured that was your business. But she's with another Face—oh my God, you're in the Concordia Club, that entire room is Faces. Daniel, absolutely not. Pull out of this right now, or I'm going to call Li Zhao.”

“You should. I'd love to see her come down here.”

The dining room was busy and dim, and he paused a
moment to get his bearings before he set two seltzers down and headed over to Suyana's table with the third. He didn't have to look to see where she was; he'd known before his eyes adjusted exactly where she was.

He stopped at the table next to them and poured, smiling at the two men sitting there (one of Egypt's handlers, and someone Daniel didn't recognize).

“You were nearly at the end of your contract,” Grace was saying. “I was beginning to wonder what was going to happen between you two.”

“It was such a surprise. I can't imagine how he ever got that idea in his head,” said Suyana in a voice that some people might buy.

“I'll bet,” said Grace, who was not one of those people.

A photographer, UK national credentials, stepped up to their table, and Daniel stepped smoothly back until he was out of frame. Suyana bent a little forward, rested the fingertips of one hand on the table between them—bridging the gap visually, or looking as if she was in serious discussion, Daniel couldn't tell. Grace turned to her and looked sharp, surprised, for half a beat before she could smooth it back into the sly, beautiful canvas the UK always wanted her to have when she represented the nation: always present, never involved.

When the photographer had moved on, Suyana said,
“I'm not sure how I'm supposed to look after a press conference like that. Without Ethan soaking up the sincerity, sometimes I forget what to do.”

Grace smiled around her wineglass, the edges of her arms softening, her body easing an inch forward along the table.

He couldn't blame Grace for believing Suyana's lie; he wanted to believe it himself.

Daniel moved to another table in their line of sight and poured for two of the administrators he recognized vaguely from the IA offices.

“Listen,” Suyana said. “If anyone were to ever . . . require a press conference from you where you had to admit things you didn't think, what would you say?”

“If you mean because of personal developments, I'd refuse. Nothing to address. And we're in enough wars at the moment that the UK has template speeches ready for allying with one country and vaguely apologizing for striking another. Colin and I just write press releases without me having to stand there and answer questions about things I can't help. I'm not sure I'd ever agree to give a press conference like one of yours, actually.”

A muscle in Suyana's jaw flexed and disappeared. “Sure. But you're Big Nine. I'm not sure I'd survive another disagreement with Margot.”

It was spoken like hyperbole, but her face was serious
as stone, and after a moment it looked like something was falling into place for Grace.

“Well, of course, if Margot made the request, I suppose that's quite another thing.” Grace picked up the wineglass with slightly shaky fingers. “Then I can see the advantage of a press conference with your fiancé.”

Daniel stepped back to let two waiters through. Neither of them glanced over—a waiter didn't have to concern himself with what the water boys were wearing.

Suyana glanced around the room, and Daniel was already half smiling despite himself, the instant before she saw him.

Absolutely nothing crossed her face—the mask never dropped, and when the waiter came by she turned toward him and smiled placidly and ordered dessert and coffee and joked with Grace that she'd need all the caffeine she could come by, and when she laughed, the Egyptian handler looked over and smiled faintly, like it was nice to see someone trying to overcome adversity over dessert.

Suyana didn't look back at Daniel. She didn't turn her body an inch toward him, like she'd done in the early days. (Sometimes even when it wasn't a signal to meet her—sometimes it just seemed like she wanted to be that much closer to him, for no reason at all.) He might as well really be some water boy, instead of the only friend she had. His knuckles were white around the bottle.

“Excuse me a moment,” Suyana said as she stood, and tilted her head toward the hallway to the restrooms. Grace nodded and reached absently for her tablet.

Daniel moved for the ladies' room.

It was empty, thankfully, and when he heard her coming he opened the door, threw the lock behind her. She frowned over her shoulder. Then she turned the faucet on, her fingers trembling a few inches above the water before she turned to look at him. It drowned out the sounds they made, white noise shielding them.

“Not my first time meeting this way,” she said, and he realized he must have been staring.

Dev had gone silent in Daniel's ear. He couldn't remember the last time Dev had said anything—maybe nothing since the threat to call Li Zhao. She needed to see this if it was going to work, but God, how many people were watching this feed?