Evensong

“And please, get her back here before four. She has several meetings.”

“OK. And the briefing tomorrow?”

“We’ll cover the detailed security arrangements for the Archbishop—how they operate now and how they’ll be ramped up for the summit. I’ll give you backgrounds and credentials for all my people. And I’ll put it all on an implant bead, so you can…”

“Study it overnight. Thank you.”

A short silence grew between them. Anwar noticed—for the first time, despite his enhancements and training—the signs of strain on Gaetano’s face: sleeplessness around the eyes, tenseness in the jaw. Signs of the inevitable and mounting pressure of the approaching summit and the threats to Olivia.

Gaetano, as if he sensed what Anwar was thinking, said, “You know, this is only about a tenth of what the summit involves. She has departments dealing with the PR and political aspects. And the legal. And the financial. Especially the financial. There are daily accounts for every item of expenditure connected to the summit. This meeting will be costed down to the last minute, and she’ll see the costing tonight. She doesn’t give any obvious appearance of micromanagement, in facts he professes a huge dislike of it. But she misses nothing.”

Like Rafiq, Anwar thought. When Arden and I deal with him, it’s like we’re the only thing he has in front of him. But there’s legal, and financial, and political, and PR, and intelligence, and the conventional military, and the Agencies Rafiq and Olivia del Sarto. Different characters, but similar styles of working.

Anwar said none of this out loud, so Gaetano continued. “And what about you? I thought you people didn’t like body-guard work, because...”

“That’s how I felt at first.” He remembered what he’d thought, back at his home in northern Malaysia, after watching her Room For God lecture. Frozen hope. My life has been arid, hers is real. “But I feel differently now.” 

4

For two hours Gaetano took him through the security arrangements for the summit. The initial wary courtesy between them had developed into something slightly less guarded. Gaetano went through the briefing in the order he’d outlined and, as promised, gave him the implant bead. Anwar acknowledged politely and promised his detailed comments the following morning. Already he knew there would not be many; Gaetano’s arrangements were characteristically thorough.

They walked out of the New Grand and across the Garden. It was a bright pleasant day for late September, like yesterday when he’d arrived. The domes and spires and latticeworks of the Cathedral complex were lustrous in the sunlight. The Garden showed blues and reds from hydrangeas, gradations of yellow and gold from witch hazel and broom. The trees and shrubs were swaying in the wind from the ocean.

Ahead was the Conference Centre. Anwar noticed some people wheeling luggage trunks.

“Contractors, from Patel. They’re doing building work on the room where the signing will take place,” Gaetano explained.“The UN wanted a replica of the Press Suite in New York. Nineteen-sixties décor and furniture.”

“They don’t look much like contractors.”

“She insisted they shouldn’t. They have to use containers that resemble luggage and are small enough to go in the luggage section of a maglev. She wouldn’t allow anything to be dropped by VSTOL or by sea to the end of the Pier. It all has to go through Gateway Station to Cathedral Station, then up and along here, no matter how many journeys it takes. It means their equipment is disassembled in the vehicles parked on Marine Parade, and reassembled on site in the Conference Centre. It’s taken weeks. And when they travel up here and back, they must wear normal civilian clothes, and change on site. And the site must be closed and soundproofed.”

“She’s very particular about appearances,” Anwar said.

“She is, but it’s also about security. Shall we go in?”