Evensong (15 page)

Surprisingly, Taber laughed out loud. “That’s the last thing God gives me. God shows me some wonderful unexpectedness.” Despite the tension, some members of the congregation rolled their eyes. They’d heard this one before.

But Jones hadn’t. “Unexpectedness?”

“Yes, unexpectedness. Let me tell you a story...”

“A true story?”

“Not yet. This is set in the distant future. Humanity has at last found the actual, physical location of God. It is at the edge of the known universe, billions of light-years away. No human could survive the journey, so they send a robotic probe. Even with faster-than-light travel, the journey takes years, and tension mounts over the centuries: What will the probe find? Eventually it completes the journey, and its robot voice calls back, from the edge of the universe, telling them that it has found God. That it now knows God’s nature and identity.

“And do you know what it said, in answer to all their questions?
She’s black. And an atheist.
”

Some of the congregation, the minority who hadn’t heard it before, laughed. So did Jones and a couple of his colleagues.

Taber decided to leave it there for now. A small bit of rapport gained, but better not to overdo it.

The British Heart Foundation was more difficult. The CEO refused to take individual responsibility for the money, and insisted on contacting Board members, despite Rani Desai muttering darkly about having a heart attack herself. Eventually the necessary acceptances were obtained, and still within an hour, though the process had threatened to overrun. Rani Desai made the electronic transfer, and sent Jones’ wristcom the screen showing the transaction.

“Good,” said Jones. “You see, that’s why we need a generous time allowance. Things like this are bound to happen...

And we didn’t look like we were going to start shooting hostages, did we?”

“No.” She wanted to point out that there was no question of shooting anyway, as the hour hadn’t been exceeded, but felt it was best to let him have that one. She didn’t think he’d react irrationally if provoked, but she wasn’t sure.

“And you’ll remember what I said about those people outside, won’t you?”

“Yes. As long as the hostages are unharmed.”

“Then I think we have a reasonable working arrangement. Now...two down, nine to go. Number Three is the Multiple Sclerosis Research Trust. It’s now...ah, nearly midnight: 11:57 p.m. You have one hour.”

“Turn yourself in,” Taber said suddenly to Jones, a couple of minutes later.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“If you won’t turn yourself in, turn yourself into someone else. Do this some other way. Don’t threaten innocent people.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Why not tell them all the eleven on your list now?”

“Because we’re the ones with the guns, and this is how we want to do it.”

“You mean how your employers want you to do it. You’re no terrorists. They hired you to make some point for them. What is it? And who are they?”

Jones didn’t answer. The cathedral clock chimed. The last September night became the first October morning.

“Number eleven is different, isn’t it?” Taber continued. “We’ll hit number eleven about eight in the morning, when the other ten have been done. When everyone will be getting up, and will hear it on the news.”

“You’re quite smart.”

“So is Rani Desai. You think she hasn’t come to the same conclusion?”

“Doesn’t matter. They won’t come in as long as we have the explosives rigged, and as long as we haven’t killed anyone. They’ll play it out rather than risk lives, because our demands are so easy. Exactly the way we pitched them.”

“‘Play it out’ is right.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Watching you and the others here, all this feels staged. Like a performance. And maybe I’d have the same feeling if I could see Rani Desai and her people. Maybe they’re acting, too.”

Jones smiled ruefully. “You’re wasted here, Dean Taber. But you’re only half right. It’s real enough for them outside.”

Other charities followed. They included The Alzheimers Society, The Brain Tumour Trust, The Muscular Dystrophy Research Campaign, and The British Neurological Research Trust. By seven in the morning, the first morning of October, they reached number ten on the list: The Society of Friends.

“That was my idea,” Jones told Taber proudly, after he’d got Rani Desai to call them. “I’m not religious, or a pacifist, but I admire the Quakers. They always stuck to what they believed in, even when it cost them. Like opposing slavery. Or refusing to fight.”

“Yes,” Taber murmured, “you’d never see them pointing guns at people.” Jones shot him, but only with an irritated glance, which Taber answered with a disarming smile. He’d almost overplayed his reliance on that small piece of rapport.

And the Quakers continued to stick to what they believed in. When Rani Desai finally contacted them (a difficult process, since they didn’t have a conventional leader, and certainly not a CEO) they refused absolutely. They would not, they told her, accept money obtained at gunpoint.

“This is ridiculous,” Jones told Rani Desai. “I want you to pay all eleven, you’ve agreed to pay all eleven, you’ve already paid nine, and Number Ten says No. What should I do? Kill a hostage?”

“You’re asking me what you should do?”

“Yes. No. Alright, I’m not asking you. I need to think. Go back and try them again.”

“I can tell you, they won’t budge.”

“Try them again!”

Jones snapped his wristcom shut, a little too forcefully. The hostages, who had been close to lounging, now snapped to attention. Jones turned to Michael Taber and spat, “I thought this might happen! Ridiculous, isn’t it? Everything works more or less sensibly until you add a religion.”

“But the Quakers were your idea.”

“Yes, yes...You know, I was going to suggest Rochester Cathedral itself as number ten on the list. Now that really
would
have been ridiculous...”

“We’d refuse, for the same reason as the Quakers.”

“...to kill someone in your Cathedral because your Cathedral refused to accept money we’d earned for it.”

“Earned?” Taber asked.

Jones shot him another irritated glance. “Yes, earned! For some good causes. And for our families. You might not like it, but to us and them it’s earned!”

Taber was not perturbed. “Why not just go to your reserve list?”

“I don’t like to.”

“But you said you had a reserve list.”

“I don’t
like
to. I don’t like it when things don’t go how I said they should.”

Taber looked at Jones, appraisingly. “You’re making too much of this. It’s uncharacteristic.”

“What do you mean?”

“This really is all theatre, isn’t it? The delay on number ten...”

Jones was quiet. Then he leaned in so only Taber could hear him. The parishioners held their breath. “
Shut it
. You’re too smart for your own good.”

“...and the unveiling of number eleven. Exactly when you want it unveiled.”

“Shut it. This is the last day of my life. Don’t make it the last day of yours.”

Just then Rani Desai called back. She had tried again, but the Quakers absolutely would not budge.

Anwar arrived at Gaetano’s office at exactly 7:00 a.m., as arranged. Gaetano was there but didn’t expect him, in view of yesterday’s events.

“Yesterday’s events?” Anwar asked.

“Come on. You know what I mean.”

Better than you think,
thought Anwar. He’d told them nothing, of course, about Asika or Levin. They’d know if they had CCTV of his interrogation of Carne, but he wasn’t going to tell them. He’d go on acting as if they didn’t know, though it hardly mattered now. They were both dead.

“Of course I know what you mean. But there’s nowhere for me to go now, except into the details of this mission. So I did some work last night. I’ve added my comments to the implant bead you gave me yesterday. Here it is.”

Gaetano pressed the bead into his wristcom, and projected it onto a bare white wall. It resolved into a simple full face recording of Anwar, listing his comments. Gaetano listened for a couple of minutes. It didn’t take any longer than that;Anwar spoke quickly and precisely, and didn’t have much to say. Most of his points were minor, with only one of substance: the building work in the Conference Centre.

“I’d like to look over it personally,” Anwar explained, when Gaetano asked him to amplify.

“Of course, but what are you looking for?”

“Remember I said those detectors wouldn’t stop me getting through?”

“Yes, but...”

“You’ll have to put probes in the Signing Room. Needle-probes in every bit of work they’ve done there. And you’ll have checked all the Patel employees here?”

“Yes.”

“I’d like to see the results. And I suggest…”

“That we check them again?”

“Yes. And I’ll get the UN to double-check.” “You think I might have missed something?”

“Yes. Like I missed how to get answers out of Carne, where you would probably have done better. This isn’t point-scoring.”

There was a wall screen in Gaetano’s office, playing a newscast. A kidnapping somewhere. The sound was muted, but occasional words and phrases were audible. “Explosives rigged…hostages…list of eleven charities…modest amounts, only a million euros per item…” Anwar blanked it out, concentrated on Gaetano’s briefing. He paused at the oddness of the kidnappers announcing each item one at a time, but he only half-heard it and it didn’t concern him. He left it behind in the detail of what Gaetano was saying, about Olivia.

She had already gone. She’d left the floor at 5:00 that morning, to catch up on meetings cancelled yesterday. Just one day and the media were already sniffing around: when she cancelled meetings to go with Anwar into Brighton, and cancelled more in the afternoon, rumours started. The media were also asking about the man who’d been detained. Only precautionary, had been the line taken by the New Anglicans’ press and PR people, while inquiries continue.

“And something else,” Gaetano added. “She wants to establish an Outreach Foundation for people sucked into fundamentalist cults. She’s got our corporate people doing mission statements, business plans, budgets, everything. She said she wanted their hearts as well as their heads. That she’s running a Church as well as a business. Was that you?”

“Maybe.”

Gaetano looked askance at him, but did not press it.

“And,” Anwar said, “after yesterday I need to know about all your people. What ones I can trust when I’m not around. And she can’t go off like today, not in future. Not without me knowing.”

“Are
you
going to tell her that?” “Yes.”

“Well,I’ve got the details of my people. Here, I’ve made an implant bead.”

“Thanks, but I need your advice on each of them—who I can trust, who I can’t.”

“That’s there too. I’ve added it, name by name.” Gaetano had ninety staff. About half were frontline ex-Special Forces, and the others were support: analysts, forensics, intelligence, admin, IT. “You might,” Gaetano added drily, as Anwar seemed about to play it there and then, “prefer to read it in detail later. Most of us are loyal to her, including my deputy Arban Proskar and the six people you fought yesterday in the Cathedral. My other deputy, Luc Bayard...”

“Yes?”

“He’s more ambiguous. He isn’t someone you can trust like me.”

“That’s ambiguous too.”

Gaetano smiled briefly, but said, “I’m serious.”

Anwar nodded, and reviewed what he knew about Bayard. He’d done wet work for one of the more obscure of the several agencies attached to the French COS. Large, like Levin. Talkative. Loud. “Quite unlike you,” he added.

“Except,” Gaetano said, straightfaced, “that he makes you uncomfortable. And he also has something in common with
you.
He detests her cat.”

“I don’t...”

“Rafiq’s briefing,” Gaetano went on, “probably has most of these details about my people, but not the notes of their loyalties. I’ve never put stuff like that on record for anyone before.”

“What made you do it now?”

“If you’re the only one with a chance of protecting her, I decided I had to work with you. And if I have to work with you, I’ll do it properly.”

“I’m grateful.”

“Don’t be. We both want to protect her, whatever our reasons.”

“She wanted to replace me. You know what she thinks of my ability to protect her.”

“And I know what you think of bodyguard duties...But
this is different.
” The sudden edge to Gaetano’s voice caught Anwar unawares. “Whoever you’ve had to guard in the past—” (“I haven’t,” Anwar said, but Gaetano didn’t hear him) “—they weren’t as important as her. If you protect her, I’ll owe you. If you don’t, you’ll owe me. And I’ll collect.”

Long before he became Anwar Abbas, he’d been fascinated by the difference between containers and their contents. He’d liked to see into things, and people, and catalogue how their exteriors and interiors differed. Gaetano was not unlike him: haunted inside by thoughts that he was good, very good, but not the best. So he understood Gaetano, even the implied threat. Gaetano was only a Meatslab, but Anwar knew that he’d always carry out a threat. Assiduously, intelligently, and persistently. He’d never give up. And, having finally decided they should work together, Gaetano would never give up on that either. He’d do it properly.

All this time the wallscreen had been murmuring more reports about the kidnapping, reports to which Anwar only paid partial attention. Then he heard a mention of Rochester Cathedral, and froze.

“It’s
them,
Gaetano! Where is she? Where did she go?”

The Quakers still wouldn’t budge.

“It’s nearly seven in the morning,” said Rani Desai. “We’ve been at this all night. You must be as tired as the hostages. Why not just go to your reserve list?”

“What do you mean, I must be as tired as the hostages?”

“Oh, come on. We know who you are,” Rani Desai said. “All of you. And your medical conditions. Come on, we all want this to end. Your hostages are elderly people. Go to your reserve list, we’ll do number ten, then we can move to number eleven and they can all go home.”