Evensong

“Especially not how they’ll kill her, though you wouldn’t believe it if I did...And don’t,” he drawled, “try that thing about disabling all my senses, one by one, and leaving the eyes till last. You don’t have time, and you wouldn’t do it anyway. Even Marek didn’t actually do it.”

How the hell did he know about that? thought Anwar, without bothering to ask or show any reaction. Not that Hines was particularly looking for a reaction.

Anwar studied him. They both knew he’d be tripping a poison implant soon. His employers had sent him here to die, merely for tactical reasons: not to find out about Carne, but probably just to create another level of uncertainty. There was nothing of value he could learn. Not now. Hines really was one of the dead.

“My employers are still perfecting body enhancements. You’ll see when your people do the usual autopsy on me, as they’ve probably already done on Richard. They don’t do enhancements as clever as yours. Not yet.”

“What…”

“But they’re unbelievably challenging. They do other things much better.”

He tripped the poison. Anwar looked away. 

3

Back in his suite, Anwar called Arden Bierce. He gave her another verbatim report of another interrogation, and made arrangements for another body to be taken at night by another VSTOL from Brighton to Kuala Lumpur. Then he asked her about Carne’s autopsy.

“Yes,” she said, “it revealed some physical enhancements. But they’re crude; just bits of metal and circuitry and servo-mechanisms. Nothing organic. Hines will probably be the same. Your enhancements are far more sophisticated.”

Anwar nodded, remembering. They do other things much better.

That was the housekeeping part of their conversation, and was concluded satisfactorily. The rest of it was more difficult.

“And Proskar...” he began.

“No,” said Arden Bierce yet again, “he isn’t Marek. I know, he’s Croatian, he’s the right build, he’s the right age, and...”

“He’s got those hands.”

“Anwar, he isn’t.”

Anwar looked away. Proskar had done nothing remotely questionable, and Gaetano had listed him as one of those to be trusted. But all that would be true if he really was Marek. Better kill him anyway? Fortunately, Anwar managed to dismiss that thought without showing on his face the surprise it caused him. Where did that come from? What’s this mission doing to me?

ArdenBierceclearedherthroat.“Anwar...Rafiqwantsyou back at Kuala Lumpur.”

“I told you before, I’m not leaving.”

“I remember what you told me before.”

“I don’t know what made me say those things, Arden...”

“Neither do I.”

“...but I won’t leave. I mean it. I will not give up on this mission!”

“He’s not taking you off the mission.You have my word, and his. He wants to talk face to face about who’s behind this.”

“Face to face?”

“Imagine,” she went on, “I’ve just stepped out of a VSTOL on your lawn, carrying one of his letters. You’ll be back in Brighton by tomorrow morning.”

“Did you get that car I ordered?” “How can you think of that now?”

“Because I’ll need it now. It is where I wanted, isn’t it?”

“Yes. In the underground lockup garage in Regency Square. I made all the arrangements, just like you said. I can’t believe what it cost.”

“I’m good for it. If Rafiq wants to see me I’ll drive to the airfield. You can send a VSTOL there.”

“Why not just...”

“No. Not the one you send for Hines’ body. Send me one of my own. You have plenty.”

“It’ll be at the airfield on the Downs in ninety minutes. And Anwar: I’ll be with Rafiq when you arrive. You won’t be alone.”

Anwar left his suite and walked up to the floor above. Her floor. Proskar was lounging on a sofa—stone white, the colour of those at Fallingwater, but more angular—just outside the door leading to her section of the floor. Anwar nodded politely, and Proskar, politely but awkwardly. Anwar did not go in, however. He walked past her door to Gaetano’s office.

“Rafiq’s ordered me back to Kuala Lumpur,” he said. He’d deliberately phrased it like that so he could assess Gaetano’s reaction, and he was gratified to see an initial approval replaced immediately by concern, both of them genuine.

“Rafiq’s standing you down? Why?”

Anwar assessed his body language: facial muscles, voice inflexions, hand movements, moisture on skin. Gaetano’s initial approval stemmed from his first reluctance to have Anwar there at all, but the concern which replaced it came from his decision to work properly with Anwar. All the things which are right in him are often wrong in her when I look for them.

“No, he’s not standing me down. I understand he has some new information about who’s trying to kill her, and he wants to talk it through face to face.”

“Face to face?”

“Yes, he prefers face to face meetings. If he’s got something of substance.”