Stiletto (17 page)

Armed with the notes of her pre-amnesia self, she had slid into the role of Rook. It hadn’t always been easy, but so far, she had not caused any catastrophes, despite the fact that she was effectively masquerading as herself — a role for which she was not terribly qualified. Unlike her old self, she was not shy, and she was perhaps a little too eager to say what she thought and do what she wanted. The change in her personality had been noted by the organization, but only two people knew that she had lost her memory.

The first was Linda Farrier, the Lady of the Checquy, who had the advantage of being able to walk around inside other people’s sleeping minds and poke into things that interested her. The second was Myfanwy’s executive assistant, Ingrid Woodhouse, because there was really no way of concealing that sort of thing from your EA. Myfanwy suspected that the pet rabbit she’d inherited was also aware of the change, but she had not been able to establish it for certain.

“Rook Thomas?”

Myfanwy looked up with a start. She’d been musing on the oddness of her life and lost all track of time. Ingrid was standing at the door with a steaming beverage balanced on a saucer.

“Oh, thank God,” said Myfanwy.

“You’re going to need it,” said Ingrid grimly. “Bishop Attariwala has sent down word that he’d like to meet with you in his office as soon as possible.”

“Did he say what it was about?” Myfanwy asked. She had a sinking feeling in her stomach.

“I’m afraid not.”

“So that means it’s going to be bad.”

“That means it’s going to be very bad,” agreed Ingrid.

“Fine,” said Myfanwy. “But I’m bringing the coffee.”

“Do you want me to see if I can find something alcoholic to add to it?”

“Probably best not. But I may want something for afterward.”

*

Among the briefs the old Myfanwy Thomas had left for the new Myfanwy Thomas were dossiers on prominent members of the Checquy. In her early days, the new Myfanwy had focused on the people with whom she worked closely. Mostly, these had been the members of the Court. Unfortunately, one of the Court was promptly killed in battle, and two others were revealed to be traitors. One of the Rook’s responsibilities was to help select replacements, and so she’d become very familiar with the histories of the candidates. As she approached Raushan Singh Attariwala’s office, Myfanwy ran through what she knew about the newly minted Bishop.

Raushan’s family, devout Sikhs, had emigrated from India to the United Kingdom when he was an infant and settled in Blackpool. Mr. Attariwala was a pharmacist; his wife was a secretary for the local government council. They had four children (Raushan was the eldest), all of whom grew up speaking with English accents and proudly wearing the tangerine strip of the Seasiders. However, they never forgot where they had come from and remained fluent in Punjabi and Hindi.

Raushan was a sober child who took his responsibilities as eldest son very much to heart. Studious in school, he had friends, but his teachers described him as reserved. Life proceeded along a relatively standard course until Raushan turned nine. At that point, while bowling at a school cricket match, he managed to throw the ball in such a way that, with an earsplitting crack, it shattered the opposing team’s bat.

Nobody was injured, but the batsman started crying out of shock. There was some momentary consternation among the spectators, but then it was generally agreed that the occurrence was the result of a cheap bat getting hit in just the right spot by a lucky bowl. A one-off fluke. The batsman was told briskly to stop being soft, the wreckage of the bat was tidied up, a new bat was produced (the ball was never found), the game continued (Raushan’s team lost), and for a few weeks, Raushan enjoyed some local celebrity.

However, two people knew that it hadn’t been a one-off fluke. The first was Raushan himself, who had felt a powerful tingling in his fingertips as the ball tore itself out of his hand. The second person was one of the cricket umpires, who happened to be a retired Checquy operative. A keen cricketer and former commando, he was able to identify a cheap bat or a supernatural manifestation from a mile away, and he knew that only one of those had been present that day. He passed on his thoughts to some of his old colleagues who were still in the game (of Checquying — not cricket). They were intrigued and placed the Attariwala residence under surveillance.

Over the next few weeks, the Checquy observers watched as Raushan secretly experimented with his newfound abilities to manipulate kinetic energy. His efforts were crude but impressive. He flipped a coin through the roof of his house and threw a tennis ball two miles out to sea. When he kicked a football through the trunk of a pine tree, they decided it was time to acquire him.

It was an aspect of the Checquy that Myfanwy had experienced some difficulty coming to terms with. Apparently, in the United Kingdom, the monarchy reserved certain rights for itself, entitlements known as “the Royal Prerogative.” Many of these rights had to do with government policies, defense, foreign affairs, and judicial matters. They also included a few unexpected privileges, such as automatic ownership of all unmarked mute swans in open water and any whales, sturgeons, or porpoises that might turn up around the place. If you found an unclaimed porpoise, it belonged to the monarch.

But an unpublicized element of the Royal Prerogative was automatic guardianship of “any and all persons or creatures exhibiting traits and capabilities for which no explanation can be divined.” If you gave birth to a child whose breath baked bread, it too belonged to the monarch.

Of course, the monarchy didn’t want these people (and creatures) hanging around the palace, being all unnatural and touching the furniture. Thus, the throne delegated this authority of guardianship to the Checquy, so, by royal writ, the Court of the Checquy held the right and the obligation to take into its custody any person on the British Isles who was possessed of supernatural abilities.

In times past, it had been a fairly simple (if cruel) process. There were different approaches depending on the social class of the target. For the literate classes, a representative of the Checquy would present a flowery letter from the King or Queen ordering that the child be taken and impressing upon the parents the requirement for secrecy. There would be a discreet stipend and possibly some sort of medal awarded. For the illiterate (read: poor) classes, if they were lucky, they’d get a coin or a ham chucked at them before their kid got picked up. If the Checquy sensed that the parents were going to make an inconvenient fuss, they might just snatch the child away and offer no explanation at all, leaving distraught and bewildered families to mourn and wonder for the rest of their lives. In none of these cases would the parents ever see their child again.

But society moved on, and eventually it wasn’t as acceptable to just bludgeon people with the authority of the Crown (which was becoming a trifle averse to its name getting thrown around in relation to stolen children). And so the Checquy adapted its methods. Families would be observed for weeks or months before the target was acquired, and an appropriate approach would be designed. Paramount, however, was the requirement that the families not raise a fuss. In the age of newspapers, radio, and outraged citizens, there could be no trail leading back to the government. Parents were left with the belief that their child had died, or run away, or been kidnapped. It was ugly, but it was necessary.

The acquisition of Raushan was not as smooth as others had been, owing primarily to the Attariwala family traits of suspicion and strength of will — traits that would serve Raushan well in his later career. But eventually, after some missteps, he was placed in the Estate school on Kirrin Island to be tutored in the use of his abilities. And while he would attend the Church of England–based services at the Estate with the other students, he was unyielding in his insistence that he would continue to receive instruction in Sikhism. It was one of a series of compromises he successfully negotiated with an organization whose usual level of compromise was along the lines of “We don’t exist. Now do what we say or Claire from Accounting will bite your head off.”

During his time on Kirrin Island, Raushan pursued his studies with determination and focus. Like all the students, he worked closely with the Estate scientists, exploring the extent of his supernatural abilities. Soon, he could flick a toothpick clean through an egg, toss an egg clean through a car, and shove a car clean through a wall. It turned out, after some painful experiments with tennis balls, that he
couldn’t
drain the kinetic energy out of an object that was traveling toward him. Nor could he increase the speed of vehicles he was traveling in, although he could give them a hell of a push start.

Naturally, he broke all the Estate records for the throwing sports (except for the javelin, because one girl in his class managed to fold space so that her javelin landed in China). He also became a master of the bank shot, sending his weapons ricocheting off walls and around corners before traveling much farther than they should have.

All of which was very nice and impressive, especially at school sports days, but proved to be of little use in his career with the Checquy (beyond getting him in the door). Though Raushan excelled in all his studies, he showed special aptitude for business and the law. At the age of seventeen, he underwent the
amrit,
the Sikh ceremony of baptism. There had been some concern among the Checquy higher-ups that this dedication to his faith might constitute a conflict of interests, but Raushan never wavered in his loyalty to the organization.

Upon graduating from the Estate, Pawn Attariwala did not go for initial placement within the Checquy or a cadetship in the regular government. Instead, he went to Cambridge to study law. He did well enough that the Checquy altered the career course it had previously mapped out for him.

After earning his degree, he worked for a year in the Rookery before being seconded to the Ministry of Defence. Unusually, he was not provided with a cover identity; he merely presented himself as Mr. Raushan Attariwala, on loan from some other government department. He spent the next twelve months working hard, making friends, and learning how things worked in the nonsupernatural civil service. Then he was recalled by the Checquy, who put him to work at the Annexe helping to coordinate foreign operations. After that, he was on secondment to the normal government again, this time to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. His career continued in this vein for several years, Pawn Attariwala alternating jobs at the Checquy with jobs in the regular civil service. Apex House; the Home Office. The Checquy’s outpost in Edinburgh; the Cabinet Office. The Comb; the Attorney General’s Office. Always working under his own name.

At the end of the decade, Pawn Attariwala was transferred permanently to Apex House. By that time, he was familiar with most aspects of the Checquy and had extensive contacts throughout the regular civil service. He was also married and had two small children, neither of whom gave any sign of possessing unusual capabilities.

Attariwala spent decades in the higher echelons of the Checquy in the role he had been groomed for, working under the Bishops as the key liaison between the Checquy Group and the central government. A true mandarin, he was accustomed to dealing with the most powerful politicians and bureaucrats in the United Kingdom and to exerting the Checquy’s authority.

His career was marked by impressive highlights. He fabricated an outbreak of meningitis so that the entire nation was inoculated against mind-controlling maggots. He drove a Gorgon out of the country, not through any supernatural or military means but rather by unleashing constant audits upon her personal and business finances. He argued successfully with the Treasury for a 5 percent increase in the Checquy’s budget allocation.

Indeed, he was so adept that he was usually the person called upon to act in the role of Rook or Chevalier when the regular person was away. As a result, when one of the Rooks was promoted to the rank of Bishop, almost everyone in the Checquy expected that Attariwala would replace that Rook in Domestic Operations. There had been much surprise, and not a little outrage, when instead the young and notoriously timid Myfanwy Thomas was put in the role. Pawn Attariwala impassively accepted the massive injustice, went into his office, and, to the astonishment of his staff, didn’t smash anything at all.

Even when Rook Thomas proved to be capable (if incredibly introverted), some resentment on Pawn Attariwala’s behalf still lingered. When Bishop Grantchester was revealed as a traitor and discreetly assassinated, there was no question who would fill the vacancy. Bishop Attariwala was installed in his new office in Apex House and assumed his duties without hesitation or difficulty.

There was, however, considerable friction between him and Myfanwy. He still resented her for taking the position that should have been his. The fact that he now had authority over her only made it worse, and it would have done her no good at all to explain that it was a different Myfanwy Thomas who had taken his job. Whenever the two met, his manner was imperious, and Myfanwy, who felt a certain affection and protectiveness for her previous self, was disinclined to be diplomatic.

*

When Myfanwy entered Attariwala’s office, the Bishop had his back to the door and appeared to be reading an extremely important and absorbing paper. It was so important and absorbing that he did not acknowledge her arrival even though she had knocked and his executive assistant had buzzed him to advise she was there. Myfanwy rolled her eyes and moved to the chair in front of his desk. She noticed that he was twirling a pen around his thumb, and she couldn’t help but tense up. Given the Bishop’s abilities, it was like anyone else absently twirling a loaded gun.

I’m not clearing my throat,
Myfanwy thought, and she sat herself down comfortably in the chair. She opened her notebook and began industriously writing down a shopping list. The sound of her scribbling apparently made an impression because Attariwala put down his paper, turned, and acted surprised to see her there.