Evensong

Time, he thought, a few minutes later. He drove the Cobra—it fitted him as well, and felt as right, as one of his expensive tailored suits—out of the underground car park, out of Regency Square, and out of Brighton; towards the airfield, and Kuala Lumpur, and Rafiq. 

SEVEN: OCTOBER 1 - 6, 2060

1

“This is still your mission,” Rafiq told Anwar. “My concern is the summit, not her. And no, I’m not sending others, it’d make us look weak and she isn’t important enough. So when we’re through here, you should go back to her. You’re all she’s got.”

Anwar picked up and echoed Rafiq’s unusually direct tone. “And if I’m killed and she’s killed, it’s only a below-average Consultant and an Archbishop and a UN summit; the first two aren’t crippling losses, and there will always be more summits. If their target was you or Secretary-General Zaitsev, it might be different. But neither of you are their targets. Not this time.”

“Yes, I know what Gaetano told you about this being part of something bigger. We’ll come to that. I said I’m not taking you off this mission, and I’m not. But frankly I wish you’d take yourself off it. Some of the others would do better.”

A word like Franklyisn’t one you use much, even when you’re faking. “Then why didn’t you pick them? At least seven or eight of the other eighteen score higher than me.”

“Sixteen,” Arden Bierce corrected him.

Before Anwar could reply, Rafiq’s wristcom buzzed. “Excuse me,” he murmured.

The Cobra had taken Anwar north out of Brighton, past Devil’s Dyke, to the small airfield on the Downs where the VSTOL was waiting. The Cobra’s speed was merely tremendous, but the VSTOL’s was unearthly, covering 6,500 miles in well under ninety minutes with no apparent effort. It did something with ions that made air thinner in front than behind, pulling it into a frictionless vacuum perpetually dancing in front of it. And its power plant used low/medium-temperature superconductors, a technology which when perfected would be close to perpetual motion. Its design, and what powered it, were the product and property of UNEX. Rafiq had been investing in such things for years, to the unease of the UN’s major members.

Arden Bierce was waiting for him on the lawn in front of Fallingwater. He felt a huge relief on seeing her; it seemed like he’d been around Olivia for weeks, not just a couple of days. But from the moment he entered Rafiq’s office, Anwar had been struck by his change of manner. Such directness was almost unheard-of for Rafiq; coming from anyone else it would have seemed like a sign of strain.

Rafiq was still speaking into his wristcom. Anwar could have ramped up his senses to hear the other half of the conversation, but didn’t, out of courtesy. It wasn’t necessary anyway.

“No, Mr. Secretary-General, I won’t budge. UNESCO has enjoyed a comfort zone, on public money, for too long. What they do is important but they’ll do it on my terms, and in accordance with my performance goals.” Rafiq paused, listening to Zaitsev’s reply, then laughed; not his usual quiet laugh, but something louder and more unpleasant. “Vote of no confidence? Your predecessors tried that and failed. So will you.”

He flicked his wristcom shut and turned back to Anwar, switching attention instantly; there was no grimace or shrug or other unspoken comment on the last call.

Anwar, too, resumed instantly. “You said she isn’t important. That she’s not your concern.”

“I meant it, Anwar; she’s appalling. You wouldn’t believe how she negotiated with me for the venue.”

“Yes I would. I know what she’s like,” Anwar said. “But what she stands for is your concern. If it isn’t, it ought to be.”

“Alright, then I didn’t mean it. It was just said for effect. Don’t take it at face value.”

“I’d be ill-advised, now,” Anwar replied, “to take anything you say at face value.”

“You mean about your mission and Levin’s being connected? I genuinely didn’t know when I assigned you. I know now, but I didn’t then.”

Genuinely. Like Frankly. If you’re adding words like that to your vocabulary, and if you need to use them with people like me rather than the media, you’re in trouble.

Rafiq’s skill at working people close-up meant he usually got more from a face to face meeting than they did. And he had called for this meeting, immediately after studying Anwar’s reports; to review, he said, the identity of those who’d killed Asika and Levin and apparently threatened Olivia. But Anwar sensed that Rafiq wasn’t scanning him as closely as usual; and he’d made unguarded remarks, and used words loosely.