Persona

by Genevieve Valentine

  19

  Suyana dreamed of the forest.

  It sat waterlogged, dark and green and teeming with life, filled with the screeches of birds and monkeys and the little clicks of insects and the falls like thunder, far away.

  The forest was always a good dream.

  She’d only seen it once, that first year when the IA was taking a picture for her official card. All the rest of her work had been listening to drunk Faces complaining at Terrain and handlers fighting in offices that were never as soundproof as you thought, and interns who were too busy to shred things for an hour after they were told to. Her environmental revolution was walking through parfum at the department store, talking to a woman she pretended wasn’t a stranger.

  She’d been working for years for a place she couldn’t remember when her eyes were open. When she did, it was mixed up with the idea of Chordata being too fractured to hold on for long (a bureaucrat’s worry), worries about Zenaida, worries about being caught, Hakan’s face every time he looked at her like he was wondering whether to ask her and make her lie.

  But now she stood at the edge of the canopy, ferns tickling her hand as she knelt to touch the ground. The wind in the trees, and the sound of water, and green things all around her growing and safe; it was a good dream.

  × × × × × × ×

  She woke up not knowing where she was.

  It was a hazard of the trade. Faces went where they were told. She was used to it; it hadn’t panicked her for years. It helped remind you that you had to be careful, that you were playing a part from the moment you opened your eyes.

  But just because it was helpful didn’t make it a comfort, and Suyana fought the stomach-sinking moment of disorientation. She kept her eyes closed for a heartbeat, listening for anything that might ground her.

  There was someone next to her, breathing quietly.

  For a moment, her body flooded with panic. Then she remembered. By the time she opened her eyes, she knew it was Grace asleep beside her.

  It was strange, impossibly strange; she felt as if the bed were sinking though she was perfectly still. Maybe this happened once you were in a relationship with someone, contract or not. Maybe one day you could look at someone in bed beside you and not be taken aback that they trusted you enough to just . . . sleep right in front of you.

  But here it was. Her entire body felt prickly, suddenly; it had grown allergic to being this close to anyone. Maybe this was what everyone else felt, when they woke up next to partners they had chosen for themselves.

  She understood now why handlers brought outsiders in for practice. The idea of Ethan being the first man to see her asleep like this made Suyana want to stab something.

  (He wasn’t, she realized—Daniel had been. That was worse. She set it aside.)

  Suyana would have marked Grace as cold as Martine when it came to things like this; even if Grace’s politics were in the right place, Suyana felt as if she’d cut herself on Grace’s edges whenever they’d talked.

  But Grace had changed her mind. Grace was asleep like a child, calm and untroubled. In the late-morning light, her skin was a warm contrast against the white sheets.

  The sheets that smelled like hotel detergent.

  Suyana shot up with a lurching stomach, remembering what she’d realized just before sleep overtook her.

  Someone did the flat’s laundry for Grace. Someone else, in the IA’s employ, had access to the apartment.

  Suyana knew the IA by now. The place was bugged.

  She swung out of the bed and up, gingerly testing her right leg before she set weight on it. It held. Grace had rebandaged the wound, and few hours’ rest had stopped most of the bleeding. She checked her arm; clean.

  That Grace had knelt beside her, wiping blood and wrapping gauze, while she slept helplessly, was something she couldn’t imagine. Suyana didn’t know how to feel about being trusted. Her skin ached. The backs of her eyes were burning.

  She pressed down on the gauze with a shaking hand, but everything held. At least the IA wouldn’t have to worry about her bleeding to death before they could find her.

  She wished she could take a shower, but she wouldn’t be able to re-dress her wounds herself, and there wasn’t time. She had to run.

  First, there was someone she needed to talk to before she lost her mind doubting.

  Her chest tight, she shoved herself into her clothes and approached the viewscreen as if it were a wild animal. If the place was bugged anyway, her secrecy was blown. At least she could get a couple of answers before she hit the streets again.

  (There was something disheartening about running without knowing who you were even running from. She didn’t mind fighting—she was ready to fight—but she liked knowing who her enemies were.)

  Grace’s glass of water was sitting on the kitchen counter, one fingerprint turned obligingly outward.

  Suyana thought, between one breath and the next, about the wisdom of baiting the animal in its den. Then she picked up the glass by the lip, punched a number she knew by heart, and held the glass against the scanner.

  There was a flicker of red light, and Suyana gritted her teeth and waited for the alarm to go off.

  But the green light came on. She exhaled shakily as she angled the screen and punched in the keycode to encrypt. There was a beep as the call connected, and before Suyana could rethink bolting, Magnus’s face appeared on the screen.

  She blinked.

  His shirt was rumpled, his tie was gone, his hair was a mess—he must have just run his hands through it to face the strange call ID. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a week.

  “Samuelsson,” he said without looking up, his hands busy with paperwork, his voice polite and disinterested.

  She knew that trick; he used it when he wanted to get the upper hand at the start of a negotiation. It worked better when he shaved.

  Strange, how much like home it felt to see him. He might be trying to kill her, but there was still something comforting about someone whose tells you knew.

  She smiled grimly and faced the screen head-on, to fill the frame with her shoulders.

  “Was it you?”

  His head snapped up as if it were on a string. His glance went past her for a second—trying to place the location, checking for any shadows that looked like men with guns. To some people, diplomacy came naturally.

  Then he was looking at her, frowning but trying not to look as if he’d been caught off balance. “Suyana.”

  “Was it you?”

  His mouth was a thin line. The decoy manuscript was forgotten now; the white curve of it buried the tops of his hands. The paper trembled.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I already have two bullet holes in me. No point in being coy now. Was it you.”

  He flinched when she said “bullet holes.”

  The papers sank back to the desk. He was distracted, though he’d hardly looked away from her—more like there were too many things he didn’t dare say.

  Finally he managed, “Are you all right?”

  She wished she’d smoothed her hair where it had come out of place. Maybe then he’d stop looking at her like she was about to keel over. “Still breathing, so far.”

  “The country’s on the verge of real trouble, Suyana. The UARC is not happy with you, and the IA isn’t happy with anyone. Do you know they’ve severed ties with you?”

  “You severed ties.”

  “The Committee—”

  “Can only lean on those who are willing to break.” She was angry, in some vague and distant way. Maybe seeing Colin had reminded her what a handler could be like.

  She lowered her head, looked at him through her eyebrows. “If you want me dead I understand, that’s how some people leave this job, but don’t pretend it was red tape—”

  “Goddamn it, Suyana, I didn’t want to!”

  It stopped her sentence cold.

  Magnus never lost his temper. He got cross—he was of
ten frustrated, given how often she and her country stymied his dreams of success—but he simmered and maneuvered, never broke. This was the first time she’d heard real anger from him.

  “So why did you?”

  “Because I thought it was your best chance,” he said. His hands were fists on his desk now, nearly out of frame. “The Committee was extremely unhappy. If I’d held out to try to bring you in, there would have been unpleasantness.”

  Suyana raised her eyebrows. “I was shot. We’ve already had unpleasantness.”

  A ghost of a smile crossed his face. “I forget how good you are about single-minded conversation around the topic you’d like to discuss.”

  “I forget how good you are at saying things that sound like compliments if you’re not actually listening.”

  He ran his tongue along his teeth. After a moment he said, “I had nothing to do with it. I swear.”

  She believed him—not because of his promise, but because of his anger. “Do you know who did?”

  “No.” He sounded wary again. “I’m certainly trying to find out. I was worried whoever it was finished you off after you disappeared from the hospital.”

  It was an opening for her to tell him who had helped her break out, and explain where she had been. Instead she said, “Guess not.”

  He bit back a smile.

  The list was getting narrower: the Americans, or the IA. Somehow, she didn’t see Ethan making that call, but she didn’t know very much about his team, and the Americans had never been afraid to spill blood.

  “Did you have to explain on the scene?”

  Magnus shook his head. “By the time I had my head about me, the Peacekeepers were taking me in for questioning by committee. Just as well. I’ll never be able to set foot in that hotel again.”

  Suyana knew the feeling. “I don’t suppose the Americans have been in touch.”

  “After word first went out, Ethan sent a note expressing his concern and offering assistance. There was no note after the announcement you had been severed.”

  He was able to say it as if it was a decision he’d never made, a press conference for which he’d never been present. That level of detachment was admirable, in its own way, but goose pimples crawled up her arms.

  When he sat forward, the lamplight fell into the circles under his eyes. “Where are you, Suyana? Are you all right?”

  “Fine. And I’m surprised you don’t know where I am.”

  “Not for lack of trying,” he admitted. “I was worried. At first I thought it might have been some rebellious foolishness, and I ran for the car to tell it not to take you anywhere before I could find out why you’d staged something so dangerous, but as soon as I realized you’d been injured, taken . . .” He trailed off, lifted one shoulder an inch, as much a shrug as he’d ever allow.

  His face looked different when he was tired. More honest. She could almost believe he’d been worried about her all this time.

  “You’ll hear from me soon,” she said, “one way or another. Are you prepared to back me?”

  He frowned. “What are you planning?”

  “You’ll know it when it happens.” A diplomat’s answer; authoritative but without any real facts in it.

  “Suyana, who have you fallen in with?”

  He was skipping the diplomacy. Impressive. But it was a question with too many answers.

  “I’m alone,” she said, and even to her own ears it sounded sad enough to be true.

  For a moment, he looked at her as if he’d missed her. Then he said, “I’ve sent an associate to look for you. A private hire. If you keep to the main roads, he’ll catch sight of you. When he catches up, tell him he’s south of Normandy. He’ll tell you they’re hardy folk. Then let him know what he or I can do to help. He knows how to reach me. It shouldn’t be long.”

  Suyana supposed that was meant to be reassuring. She smiled a little despite herself, and after a moment he matched it, one eyebrow going up as if he was actually enjoying being on her side.

  It would certainly be a novel thing.

  Then his expression shifted. She knew this one; this was the face when he wanted to draw the truth out of you before it was too late.

  “Suyana. Where are you?”

  Downstairs, a car door slammed.

  It was nothing—this was Paris, it was daytime, cars were everywhere—but the hair on her neck stood up, and she knew this wasn’t a neighbor home early.

  She shut the connection.

  “How much did you hear?” she asked, without turning.

  From behind her, Grace said, “Enough to know you’re better at this than he thinks.”

  Diplomat answer. Still, nothing Suyana had said could have given her away; she wasn’t in the habit of confiding.

  “I have to go,” she said. “They’re on their way.”

  “Who?”

  “The IA has your place bugged. Either they actually paid attention to the feed for once, or Colin intervened and gave me up.”

  Grace looked her flat in the eye and said, in a voice that had nothing of the diplomat in it, “Not from any signal of mine.”

  “I know,” Suyana said, meaning it. “Thank you. But they’re still here, and I have to go.”

  Grace was throwing off the bedding and moving through the apartment, wiping Suyana’s water bottle free of prints, sliding a slim stack of euros across the counter. She pointed at her comm bracelet.

  Suyana shook her head—it wasn’t worth the trouble Grace would be in if they found Suyana carrying it. At this point, they could still claim Grace had been under duress, if they had to. But if Grace had pulled her ID off the bracelet willingly, it put her under the knife too.

  Grace said, “Ah, right, the hostage scenario, I see. I’ll have a word with Martine, then, in case we need to get a story straight.”

  Suyana froze. “Is that wise?”

  “Don’t worry,” Grace said. “She’s not as bad as she seems. I doubt she could be.”

  “Do you call on her a lot in crises?”

  Grace raised an eyebrow. “You might be surprised.”

  Suyana really would be. But Grace must know Martine better; maybe Martine just sat around off-camera, brimming with goodwill and waiting to be helpful.

  Grace moved to the kitchen and opened a door that Suyana had thought was a pantry. But it was a second set of stairs, narrow and broken-down and filthy, and Suyana could have wept that she wouldn’t be fighting her way down as the IA was coming up.

  “Take care,” Suyana said, nearly under her breath, as she passed.

  Grace nodded. “Good luck,” she said sincerely, and disappeared from the doorway.

  As Suyana caught the landing and pivoted to head down the stairs, the last thing she saw was a sliver of Grace calmly swinging a folding chair, and the conference panel going up in a shower of sparks.

  20

  Daniel still couldn’t quite believe that when Fine Tailoring was recruiting you got a chauffeured car, and as soon as they’d stapled a camera to your temple, you were on the Metro with the rest.

  “This seems insulting,” he said as he and Bo emerged. “How much do you miss in all that time you spend underground?”

  “I don’t miss much.” Bo was already moving, scanning the street as he went, glancing once at his watch as if he were due to meet Margot for coffee somewhere.

  Daniel followed. “What do Kate and Dev do with that footage?”

  “What would you do with hours and hours of people on the subway?”

  Spy on them for all they were worth. “Nothing.”

  “Well, there you go.”

  It was good to know some footage was deleted. It gave him some breathing room, maybe. Somehow. The idea of the rest of his life being on CCTV made the backs of his hands itch and the front of his throat close up.

  “This doesn’t seem like Margot’s kind of neighborhood,” Daniel said. “I would have pegged her somewhere more . . . Ritz.”

  Bo glanced at him for an ins
tant between sweeps of the street. “George V,” he admitted.

  Of course. What was the point in running the IA if you couldn’t sleep in a penthouse suite where your night-light was the glow of the Champs-Élysées?

  “So what are we doing this far south of the river, exactly?”

  Bo pulled out his phone. “Following a pattern,” he said as he dialed. “Keep up, man. Even you must have done some research before you showed up to watch Suyana Sapaki get shot.”

  “Fuck you,” said Daniel politely.

  They rounded a corner and headed for what looked like a fortress that time forgot. A tourist sign proclaimed MUSÉE DE CLUNY.

  Bo headed around to one of the service doors, where a young man was taking a smoke break that conveniently ended the moment they showed. He left the door open as he went back inside, and Daniel and Bo slipped into the museum.

  “Stay one room behind me,” Bo said quietly. “You’re watching me, not her.”

  Frankly, he would have watched Bo even if that hadn’t been his assignment. Margot was worth spying on, but Daniel knew enough about Margot to guess that if she came here as often as she seemed to, it wasn’t to meet anyone. Everyone had one thing they kept just for themselves. If Margot wanted to conduct illicit business, she could do it more easily in the crowds of the Champs-Élysées.

  Bo had to know that too. He’d taken the footage. Which meant they were here just because Bo had a favorite.

  Daniel intended to catch every look Bo shot her way. Li Zhao looked down on personal involvement between a snap and his target; no telling whether this would be leverage whenever he wanted to graduate to his own beat.

  He knew he was being punished for resisting recruitment, but he couldn’t help but be a little insulted at the instruction. You didn’t get from Free Korea to Europe without being able to blend in.

  Bo vanished into the warren of rooms. Daniel picked up a map from the tourist desk and kept one eye on it as he followed Bo’s lazy circle around the ground floor.