Evensong

“Miles...and Chulo.”

“We don’t know for certain about Miles. His body hasn’t been found.”

“Yes; you said that.” He studied her face. The distress was genuine enough. “But you’d say that if his body had been found. You want me functional. You’re just beginning to see what’s in this mission, aren’t you?”

“Anwar, listen. Whatever did that to Chulo, when it comes for her, do you think you can stop it?”

“Find them, Arden. Find who they are and where they are.”

“You heard what Gaetano said. A handful of people out of millions,connected informally. What does that remind you of?”

“You tell me.”

“The Dead. Moving in and out of the real world, back to a comfort zone where nobody can touch them.”

“You’re wrong. They’re a cell. Like Black Dawn, random and untraceable, but in every other way the opposite of Black Dawn. A cell with trillions. Which doesn’t publicise itself, which plays long and patient, which operates through proxies and cutoffs, and uses corporations and conglomerates and shareholdings and banks and networks of subsidiaries.” The exact opposite of Black Dawn. White Dusk, he named them privately.

“This is bigger than even Rafiq knows.” She was unaccustomed to saying such things, and it showed in her face. “I spoke to him this morning. It’s beginning to worry him.”

“What did he say?”

“He didn’t, I did. But he didn’t argue. An enemy who hasn’t been around for years, and now is. And knows all about us. And when they kill her, it will only be the first move of something larger.”

“I think you meant If, not When.”

She didn’t seem to hear him. “It’s not her, Rafiq doesn’t particularly care about her, but it’s what they do afterwards...” She took a breath, and made her voice louder. “And there’s something else. Rafiq’s concerned you’re having to do what UN Intelligence usually does. You don’t have the experience.”

“Oh, I see. First the Archbishop, now the Controller-General, telling me I’m not good enough.”

“What? No, that’s not what I...”

But Anwar wasn’t listening. “And her guard, Proskar: you’re sure he isn’t Marek?”

“Of course I’m sure.”

“But you’ll check again?”

“Of course.”

“He’s Croatian. Fortyish. And those hands.”

“I said, we’ll check again. We already checked, before you even took this mission—the surface resemblance was obvious. But nothing else matches—DNA, fingerprints, retinal scans, dentition, nothing. And his database ID is genuine.”

“But you’ll still...”

“...check again. Yes.”

“Because if he is Marek, tell me and I’ll kill him.” Anwar had never intentionally killed, or offered to kill, anyone. It must be the mask slipping, he could feel it. Dissolving. Corroded by the feelings he’d kept underneath it.

“Well, say something.”

“Anwar, listen. Maybe she was right. Maybe Rafiq should send someone else.”

“You bring in anyone else, I’ll kill them. I’ll come back and kill Rafiq too, right in front of Fallingwater where Marek…” He stopped, horrified. What made me say that? I’ve never said anything like that. “Arden, listen to me! I want this mission, but not for her, she’s appalling. I want it for what she stands for.” It might have been his voice, but it sounded to both of them like rambling.

Embarrassed, she changed the subject. “So why this summit? Why now?”

“It’s not about the summit. The summit is only important because it’s live and public and gives them the perfect stage to make their move for her.”

They both let it hang there for a while, and went on to safer things: when they’d pick up Carne’s body by VSTOL from the Pier, how they’d pretend he was still alive (to see who might come for him), and how they’d fake his death later. Fake death was easy, real death wasn’t. When Anwar joined the Consultancy, they faked his passing as thoroughly as they always did. The UN databases thrummed with his exhaustively-documented death from a virulent strain of flu. They sometimes did car/plane/boat accidents, but that involved corroborating wreckage: not impossible, but more troublesome. His new identity, later, was slipped into the world’s electronic landscape as if it had always been there.

Carne was genuinely dead, but they’d still have to fake it. After they did all the things they needed to do with his body.

“Will you be aboard the VSTOL?”

“No.I need to stay here and brief Rafiq on what Carne told you.”

She went to say something else, then cut the connection. Anwar stared for a while at the empty projected rectangle on the wall. His mask, now he was alone, collapsed.

Arden Bierce replayed Anwar’s report and started making notes. Like Anwar, she worked quietly and reflectively, and worked best on her own.