The Arabesk Trilogy Omnibus (87 page)

And in a way he was jealous. Raf sat back in his chair and closed his eyes. He was jealous of Avatar, for retrieving the Colonel. And furious with Zara, who’d known at least some of what Hani was doing.

“Uncle Raf…”

Raf opened his eyes.

“I’m sorry. All right…” Hani picked up her spoon and ate a mouthful of runny vanilla, as if that might make a difference. “I should have told you.”

“Yeah, you really…” Raf swallowed the rest of his words. “Forget it,” he said, turning to more important matters. “You don’t like vanilla ice cream anymore, do you?”

“It’s okay.” Hani shrugged.

“What happened?”

The nine-year-old thought for a second. “I grew out of it,” she said. “It happens.”

A butler met them at the steps. He wasn’t anyone Raf had seen before. And if he seemed surprised to see a blond young man in dark glasses and drop-pearl earring holding the hand of a small black-haired child, he didn’t let it show. At least not that much.

“Ashraf al-Mansur,” said Raf.

“We’re here for the party,” added Hani.

“Can I ask if His Excellency is expecting you?”

His Excellency?
Raf smiled. That was a new one.

“This is the Governor of El Iskandryia,” Hani said crossly. “He doesn’t need an invitation.” She squeezed Raf’s hand, as if she thought the butler’s question might have upset him.

“Hamzah is expecting me… Expecting us,” Raf corrected himself.

“Very good.” The man turned, obviously intending to leave them on the doorstep until Hani pushed her way in with a sigh.

“English,” Hani said loudly, as the butler stalked away down the corridor, back stiff with disapproval. “Madame Rahina’s price,” she added more softly.

“For what?”

“For not throwing a complete tantrum about you and about Avatar.” Hani sounded like a middle-aged woman discussing a small child rather than the other way round.

“Come on…” She set off towards the drawing room, without waiting for the butler to return. And Raf let himself be tugged towards a babble of voices filtering through an ornately carved door.

The Long Drawing Room at the Villa Hamzah, so called to distinguish it from the Square Drawing Room on the floor above, was decorated to Madame Rahina’s taste. Which mostly involved European wallpaper in green-and-silver stripes, gold velvet sofas and faux-Persian carpets from a place called Axminster. At least that was where they came from according to the fox, who layered little bubble facts over every object until Raf ordered it to stop.

“Ashraf…”

Hamzah Effendi stepped forward, hand outstretched and grabbed Raf’s own, wringing it hard. “You found us then…?” The barrel-chested man stopped and grinned at his own stupidity. “Of course you found it. You’ve been here…”

“Several times,” Raf agreed.

“But not as often as me,” said Hani smugly and let go his hand to scoot away across the carpet to where Zara sat, with a cup of Earl Grey, talking stiltedly to the Khedive.

“I remember when she was never going to set foot in this house again,” said Raf. He spoke without really thinking. As the fox kept reminding him, he did a lot of that.

“She told you?”

Raf nodded. “Months ago. After the beating. When I was patching her up.”

“I didn’t know it had happened until later,” Hamzah Effendi said flatly.

“You had other things on your mind.”

The industrialist glanced at Raf, then realized the comment was no criticism. “Yes,” he said, “I did. And I have you to thank for…”

Raf stepped back and held up both hands. “I was there to
prosecute
you,” he reminded Hamzah.

“Ah,” said St. Cloud as he materialized beside them both. “So that’s what you were doing. We did wonder.” He flashed Raf a smile and, when it wasn’t returned, the Marquis just shrugged and lifted a champagne flute from a passing tray.

And as the young waiter stopped dead, embarrassed not to have realized that St. Cloud needed a drink, the elderly Frenchman finished his first glass, put it back and took another.

“Most kind, dear boy,” he said lightly…

“Don’t you think,” St. Cloud said to Raf, “that our host should rescue his daughter from having to talk to that little idiot?” He jerked his head towards the sofa, where Tewfik Pasha still sat with Zara, while Hani squatted impatiently on the arm.

“Maybe she likes talking to him,” said Raf.

The industrialist raised his eyebrows and went to do as St. Cloud suggested.

“What percentage?” Raf demanded, the moment Hamzah was gone.

St. Cloud looked at him.

“What percentage of the Midas Refinery do you currently own?” Raf didn’t bother to keep the anger out of his voice.

“Seven percent, maybe eight… Enough to make Hamzah respectable, not enough to make a difference. It’s in all the records.”

“And you wanted more?”

“More?” St. Cloud spread his hands and smiled mockingly, although Raf found it impossible to tell if he was the person being mocked or if the man was mocking himself.
“Moi?”

“Does Hamzah know it was you?”

“Me what…? Even if that were true,” said St. Cloud, taking a glass from Raf’s hand and finishing it, “which I obviously deny, he can’t touch me any more than you can. My advice is take his cash and leave it at that.”

“Discussing money?” said Ernst von Bismarck as he joined their small group. The German ambassador didn’t know whether to look shocked or intrigued.

“Ashraf Bey’s just reward,” St. Cloud said smoothly. “It’s bound to be vast. Which I gather is just as well…”

“These Arabs.” The Graf’s voice was serious. “Debts matter to them. You must let him give you something. I’m told you didn’t when you saved Miss Zara from that mad assassin…”

St. Cloud laughed. “Which mad assassin would that be?” he asked. “The mad
Thiergarten
one?”

The Graf paid no attention. “People tell me Hamzah Effendi was very hurt…”

“Give me something?”

Ernst von Bismarck looked surprised. “What do you think this is about?” His gaze took in Zara, Hamzah and the Khedive, Senator Liz, Captain Bruford from the SS
Jannah
and General Koenig Pasha…

“Such a miraculous recovery,” said the Marquis. “For which we must all be heartily grateful, no doubt.”

“And then there are those two journalists,” added von Bismarck. He ran together their names and stations, as if they were part of the same thing. “Both of whom are desperate to interview you…”

“About the city’s miraculous recovery, no doubt.” St. Cloud shrugged. “It’s amazing how fast Iskandryia managed to get back on its feet. One’s almost tempted to suggest things were not quite as bad as the world believed.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“Believe me,” said Raf. “Those EMP bombs inflicted enormous damage.”

“Oh I’m sure that’s true. I can even believe that all the cars and trams were affected and all the phone lines. But just imagine, every single electricity substation, every gas-processing plant, the entire IOL network and all of the power supplies to all of the local newsfeeds, even the pumps to the main water supply… Everything, suddenly dead, as if someone somewhere threw a big switch.”

“He knows,”
said the fox.

“The e-bombs were real,” Raf reiterated.

“And as I’ve already said,” repeated St. Cloud, “I don’t doubt that for a minute.” He twirled his empty champagne flute until it hung upside down. At which point a waiter hastily appeared, bearing a silver tray full of freshly filled glasses.

“You do realize, don’t you,” said von Bismarck, “that the reappearance of Abad leaves us with a major problem…”

“I rather imagined,” Raf said, “that you’d all fight over ownership while pretending to be friends…” Reaching for a passing glass of champagne, he casually killed it and took another. “Isn’t that what diplomacy is about?”

“So young,” said St. Cloud, “and yet so cynical.”

The Marquis turned his attention to the German ambassador. “And where Abad is concerned there is no
us
… Paris wasn’t part of making the hideous thing, or subverting it come to that.”

“Soon,” said Raf, “you’ll be telling me you didn’t know Abad still existed… Or where he was hidden.”

“We didn’t.” St. Cloud shrugged. “At least not officially, and that’s what counts. Mind you,” he added, “we certainly intend to be part of trying the monster.”

“Assuming it can be tried,”
said a voice. But the fox’s comment was lost, because somewhere across the other side of the Long Drawing Room Hamzah nodded to Avatar, who hammered a whisky glass down on a wooden overmantel.

“Your Highness, gentlemen, ladies…” Hamzah should have got an
Excellencies
in there after
Highness,
but having had a speech carefully prepared by Olga he’d decided at the last minute to do without notes.

He knew exactly what he wanted to say.

This was payback time, in its way. He had a roomful of notables, most of whom didn’t want to be there but knew better than to refuse. Twenty-seven-point-three percent of the Midas Refinery belonged to him, which was why St. Cloud, its urbane public face, joked uneasily at the edge of a group that included Ashraf Bey and that young German.

St. Mark’s relied on Hamzah’s generosity for its recent scholarships. He could see the headmaster across the room, a drab Christian Brother wrapped in dirt-coloured tweeds. The city’s famous library still needed new glass, somewhat urgently after the recent bouts of rain. Madame Syria was smiling fondly at Hani, but she’d been less happy earlier, when she’d been talking to Zara about the library’s need to find finance for repairs.

The two thickset men in suits, standing over by the door, headed up the Kharmous and El Anfushi crime families and were both doing their uncertain best to look happy at finding themselves in the same room as Mushin Bey, Minister of Police.

“Your Highness, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen…” Hamzah draped one arm heavily around Avatar’s narrow shoulders. “I don’t think any of you have been formally introduced to my son Kamil.”

“Avatar,” insisted Avatar, but his heart wasn’t really in it.

On the other side of the boy stood Madame Rahina, her face dark as thunder, her arms heavy with new and unwanted gold bracelets. And it was obvious that Hamzah was as oblivious to his wife’s smouldering anger as he was to the tears running down his own broad cheeks.

“Very clever.” Senator Liz handed Raf a fresh glass of champagne and instantly a waiter materialized to spirit away his dirty glass, depositing it on a passing silver salver. Both waiter and salver-carrier were models of professionalism, right down to the shoulder-holstered guns under their left arms. Hamzah might be everyone’s favourite son but he was still taking no chances.

“What was clever?” Raf asked.

“Taking the Colonel into protective custody.” The Senator’s smile was tight. “Can a synthetic intelligence be tried for crimes against humanity?” She shrugged. “Thanks to you, I think we’re probably about to find out.”

“Only if it’s first possible for software to be extradited…” Raf said lightly.

The woman opened her mouth and forgot to close it.

“And that’s always assuming the Khedive accepts the extradition papers. Which he probably won’t.”

“What?”

“Colonel Abad has asked for political asylum.”

“On what grounds?”

“That it won’t get a fair trial elsewhere.”

“Then try the thing in El Iskandryia,” said the Senator. “I don’t see that being a problem. If you can stand having the reptiles crawl all over you again.” She glanced at C3N’s Nick Richardson, accidentally caught his eye and immediately smiled.

“I hear you’re going to put Colonel Abad on trial,” St. Cloud said, about five minutes later, when he tracked Raf down to a window seat overlooking the grey waters of the Mediterranean. “If Paris can be of any help…”

Raf shook his head. “It’s not going to happen.”

“Are you sure?”

“Oh yes,” said Raf, taking another sip from one glass too many. “As sure as anything.”

“Such certainty in one so youthful.” The Marquis shrugged. “The sign of true breeding. And yet, a German recently suggested to me that you were a fake and that, for undisclosed reasons, Koenig Pasha has been colluding in this pretence.”

“Really?” said Raf. “I’d love to meet this person.”

“That might be difficult. She died in the basement of a derelict house. After someone took out her throat.”

“Which is what happens,”
said the fox,
“if you build your city on top of a graveyard. The dead forget to stay dead.”

Raf raised his glass to his lips and wondered why St. Cloud was looking at him, then realized the glass was empty, again.

People nearby looked surprised when the fox made Raf click his fingers but the fox was too tired to care. It needed more champagne and then some sleep. A long dark sleep with no dreams. But most of all it wanted this party to end before Hamzah got round to making more speeches.

It just knew Raf was going to offend the man.

“She was right,” Raf told the Marquis, once both their drinks were refreshed and a nervous young waiter had vanished. “Your woman got it right. I’m not a bey. I don’t belong in El Iskandryia. My name isn’t Ashraf al-Mansur…”

He watched the man walk away.

“I doubt I’m even Berber,” Raf added quietly, to no one in particular. “Hani probably isn’t my niece.” He glanced across to where the small girl stood next to Zara, half-listening to someone, half-staring at Raf. “Maybe I’m just someone who got lucky…”

“Uncle Ashraf.”

Everyone in the room was looking in his direction, Raf realized. Hamzah, in particular, was waiting expectantly for something.

“He wasn’t listening,” said Hani. She sounded obscurely proud of this fact. “He was probably talking to his fox.”

“His what…?” Zara sounded puzzled.

“It’s a long story,” Hani told her. “Weird too.”

“Well,” said Zara. “Are you going to take Dad’s money this time?”

“Your reward.” Hamzah’s grin had become slightly anxious.

“No,” said Raf. “I really don’t think…”