Evensong

One of Olivia’s screens had a CCTV replay of the kidnappers stepping into the Cathedral last night and announcing themselves. Anwar studied them. Assessed their height, size, movement. Not the real thing. Two weeks before the summit is too early. And those five are not good enough. A grade or two below Meatslabs, nothing special. Except that he sensed they were carrying something inside them. He wished he could go there and see them face to face. He’d know what it was.

Rani Desai had gone quickly to Rochester by VSTOL, and had taken charge of negotiations and operational matters. By about number three on Jones’ list she was speaking to him not from London but from an operations vehicle in the Cathedral precincts.

She had Special Forces in position around the Cathedral, but she wouldn’t send them in unless negotiations failed. And, before number eleven was announced, negotiations had been going well, even despite the Quakers. Now all that was changed.

On her own set of screens, Rani Desai was watching. Body heat scanners picked out the congregation and the kidnappers. There were three figures standing separately at the front of the Nave by the altar (one of them Taber?), and others moving among the congregation and choir. She didn’t know how many there were. She guessed five or six, maybe more; five, said her analysts, who had studied the body language of all those in the Nave, as revealed by the scanners, and had noted that five of them carried themselves differently.

Other scanners confirmed the location of the explosive devices. Sometimes you could deep-scan them, disable them remotely with motive beams, but their casings were impenetrable and they had beam-scramblers. They really were military ordnance.

Yet more scanners got snatches of conversation from the hostages. Before number eleven their relations with the kidnappers had not been particularly unfriendly, but now conversation had all but ceased. Would Jones kill them all if the Archbishop didn’t acquiesce? Or was he, as she suspected, out of his depth? The conclusion was still the same for Rani Desai: go in only if gunshots were heard.

There was a continuing commotion outside the Cathedral: helicopters and VSTOLs, operations vehicles gunning their engines, figures striding back and forth across College Yard and Boley Hill, under the spreading trees. Jones and the others watched them calmly.

“What are those trees?” Jones asked Taber.

“Magnolias. And the big one’s a Catalpa—American Indian Bean Tree. It’s more than two hundred years old...I met her once, you know. Olivia del Sarto. She came here as our guest, at an Evensong service like tonight’s, five years ago when she became Archbishop. She won’t give in.”

“You know her?”

“No, I just met her that one time. But that was enough. She won’t give in.”

“Then, as you said, things will get serious.”

Rani Desai said, “Archbishop, their leader wants to speak to you.”

“Is this being broadcast?”

“No, it’s a secure link. Only him and you.”

“Put him on.”

Jones appeared on one of the screens in the Boardroom. Now that number eleven was known, he was in no mood to waste time. “You know what we want.”

“Yes. And you can’t have it.”

“Unless you comply,” he said, “we’ll execute them.”

“I won’t comply, and you won’t execute them.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course we’ll execute them.”

“No,” Olivia replied, “you won’t. Not execute. You’ll murder them. And I won’t comply. The summit will save more lives than you can take. So, murder or slaughter or kill or whatever, but don’t call it Execute. Don’t give yourself a fake judicial authority. You’ll murder them. So No, I’ll decline your invitation. And Fuck You.”

She cut the connection, and the screen died, then relit with Rani Desai.She was dark-hairedand well-groomed, a slightly older and plumper version of Arden Bierce.

“That wasn’t smart,” she hissed at Olivia.

“Look, I know you’ve been trying to handle this all night, but—”

“No, I meant it wasn’t smart. The summit isn’t yours to proceed with or call off. It’s the Government’s.”

“And the UN’s.”

“Yes, and the UN’s. But—”

“If the kidnappers were serious about getting the summit called off, they wouldn’t go to minor players like you and me, or even to your Government, they’d go to Rafiq. He’s the real authority. He could switch venues if he wanted. It wouldn’t be ideal,” she glanced at Anwar as she said this, “not at short notice, but Rafiq could do it. Except, of course, that he never would. They know the summit’s never going to be called off, and you know they aren’t going to murder anyone if the summit proceeds. At least,” another glance at Anwar, “not anyone in Rochester Cathedral. It’s all a performance.” She killed the screen, and swiveled to face Anwar. “So what’s your problem?”