Evensong

All Consultants had genuine occupations outside: usually one-person businesses, operated anonymously online. The online world, at least the higher end of it, was virtually unhackable. Terminals, whether desktop or wristcom-sized, were peculiar to their operator. Their processors were not silicon chips but cloned neurons and synapses from the operator: keyed to his or her DNA, with security scanners reading lifesigns and doing further retinal and fingerprint scans. Anwar, Levin, and the others all did their book deals or architectural designs remotely worldwide with no personal interaction. Older silicon-chip computers still remained, but those who could afford the new type—wealthier individuals and businesses—did so. Even though engagement with the outside world was encouraged, Consultants’ contracts still stipulated they should not appear personally in a business capacity, even under an assumed name. Those working in Anwar’s bookshops, or in Levin’s studios, had never met or seen their ultimate employer.

Their personal contact with the real world outside was different. It was merely social, a network of shifting relationships of limited duration. They never stayed long in one place. They had different identities in different cities, and cover stories involving frequent travel. Their relationships formed and unravelled, grew and died.

Anwar turned his attention back to the inside of his retina. Rafiq was finishing up. “So, that’s the New Anglicans. To anticipate your question, and purely for completeness, a brief word about the Old Anglicans. They’re the original Church of England. They still have their great cathedrals, like Rochester and Canterbury, and their parish churches, but they’re in gentle decline. Even in the cathedrals, congregations are small and aging. But they’re generally a force for good, or at least not a force for harm. Some attitudes towards them may be dismissive, but very few people actually hate them.”

There were no closing salutations. Rafiq’s face was replaced by Further Material Follows. That would be a mass of supporting documents and images and recordings. Anwar decided he’d speed-read it later.

He touched his wrist, and the image on his retina disappeared. He gestured, and Fallingwater’s reception disappeared. He remained sitting in his living room. He actually felt more at home in the Fallingwater hologram, among the natural colours and shapes and textures. His Bauhaus interior, black and silver and grey, reflected his taste but didn’t feel like home. 

7

Olivia del Sarto: a theatrical-sounding name, but quite genuine.

Anwar checked the UN databases, the most detailed in the world. He found nothing he didn’t already know, or which wasn’t already covered in the supporting documentation to Rafiq’s briefing, but he always liked to check for himself before a mission.

There had been one earlier attempt on her life, three years ago, as she was leaving the BBC after her famous Reith Lecture, popularly known as the “Room For God” broadcast. It was not significant, Anwar decided. It was a spur-of-the-moment affair, carried out by a handful of zealots, enraged at what she had said that night. Their rage was a neat way of proving her point, so neat she might almost have staged it herself. Her security people dealt with it efficiently, keeping her safe and not hurting anyone. Anwar liked the way they conducted themselves.

She came from a wealthy London family of fourth-generation Italian immigrants. Her mother was a noted food journalist and broadcaster, and her father owned several restaurants. From them she acquired her ease with all branches of the media, and her prodigious appetite for food. Her equally prodigious sexual appetites were acquired later. A previous partner once said that if you were a half-presentable male she hadn’t seen before, she’d be into your trousers like a rat up a drainpipe.

She didn’t share her family’s traditional Catholicism. She felt closer to the Old Anglicans, though she never joined them; she decided, reluctantly, that they weren’t going anywhere.

When she found the New Anglicans, it was as if they were made for each other.

Rafiq had included among his briefing documents a recording of her “Room For God” broadcast. Anwar already knew it well, but something told him he should watch it again before leaving for Brighton. He put it on the wallscreen in his living room, and settled back.

She was onstage in the main theatre in BBC Broadcasting House in London, a small slender figure in an immaculate long dress of dark velvet. She was on her own, facing an invited audience of three hundred, representing all the major faiths. There were ayatollahs and immams, Archbishops and

Bishops, European Orthodox priests, various questionable TV evangelists, and self-styled religious scholars; an impressive array of costumes and hairstyles and beards and dentistry, with only a small scattering of women and Old Anglicans.