Evensong

“Yes,” she said, “and we’re tracking them. There were nine in the original party. They were helped by Olivia’s insistence that they should work away from public view. She didn’t want her Conference Centre looking like they had the builders in.”

“Gaetano checked them, and so did you. How did they beat the checks?”

“We’ll know that when we find them. Maybe techniques like those they used on Levin. Also, the misdirection of sending people like Carne and Hines didn’t help, and—” she paused “—neither did your obsession with Proskar.”

Anwar smiled bleakly. Not to mention my obsession with Olivia. The Detail. Not the one Arden found, but the one I’m still looking for. Unfinished business. “The best plans are always simple. Hiding in plain sight. They made a replica of the original wall at the other end of the room, and put Levin behind it, while they were shut in there building the panelled wall. The panelling was such a major piece of work, especially when I made them tear it down and remake it, that nobody would think they’d built another fake wall elsewhere. I didn’t.” Usually I look for pockets of darkness, but I missed that one. “And I’d already told Gaetano how I’d be able to stay undetected if they got me in there.”

He remembered his conversation with Gaetano. Quite detailed and precise, given that they hadn’t then known or trusted each other very much. I’d go to near-death. Hibernation. No body-heat detectors would find me: surface temperature would be the same as my immediate surroundings. No heartbeat or breath detectors would find me: pulse and breathing would be almost nonexistent, and random. No scanners or imagers or DNA detectors would find me: my body would echo the texture and shape of its immediate surroundings.

And then, an electronic signal to activate. From the next room or the next continent. A single pulse. Two targets, Olivia primary, Anwar secondary (because Anwar, though out-classed, was still the only one there who might be able to do something). Simple: two faces, kill both.

“Yes,” Arden said, as though she’d heard what Anwar had been thinking. “Their primary objective was to kill Olivia publicly. But also, as a bonus, to kill a Consultant publicly, the way they had Levin kill Asika privately. Not quickly, but piece by piece, limb by limb. To send a message, live and worldwide: total functional annihilation. Of a Consultant, by a Consultant.”

“Who are they, Arden?”

“Laurens is already fighting back. He knows more about them.”

“Laurens?” In two syllables she’d told him what she’d tried to hide earlier. “You and Rafiq. I didn’t see that coming.”

“Neither did I. But it feels right.”

“Yes, I think it will work...what’s he found out?” He was assessing it like a chemical or mechanical process, the way he’d repeatedly (and unsuccessfully) tried to assess himself and Olivia.

“Thank you for your good wishes.” Her deadpan expression took any sarcasm out of the remark.

“Sorry. What’s he found out?”

“They miscalculated. About how you had changed, how you survived Levin, and how Laurens had engineered the summit outcome. And something else, that made them reveal Marek’s body earlier than they wanted.”

They don’t do bodies as well as we do. But they do other things better.

“Well, they’re his problem now. But I think they’re going to find they’ve never had an opponent like him before.”

He stayed there for most of October 21, alternating between waking and sleep. Still unexpectedly dreamless and deep sleep.

Arden was still there when he woke. It was late afternoon on October 21.

“I don’t think Rafiq expected me to survive. But he always does. He gets the girl, and he gets what he wanted from the summit. I still don’t know why he picked me for this. Do you?”

“No. He told me he didn’t know himself, and I think I believe him. But...”

Her voice trailed off, and he didn’t attempt to fill the silence that grew between them.

“Anwar,” she said suddenly, “I’m so sorry about Levin! About what they did to him!”

“I did my grieving for him at the right time. It wasn’t Levin I fought. He really did die days before.”

“When you faced him, how did you do it? Where did it come from?”

“You didn’t think I could do it?”

“Of course I didn’t! Remember what I do for a living, Anwar. If Chulo was killed, I couldn’t see how you could...”