Tangle's Game

by Stewart Hotston

  She was suddenly grateful she’d showered already, that her clothes, if not elegant, were clean.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Ichi as they waited for Brad’s partner.

  ‘No need to apologise,’ said Brad who’d added a square of tiffin to his order before joining them at the table. ‘Amanda knows there weren’t anything you could do about this.’

  He was right, but the way he said it left Amanda wanting to spit in his coffee.

  Instead, she said, ‘He’s right, Ichi. It’s not your fault.’

  Drinks arrived, the tray teetering a little as it was placed on the too-small table.

  ‘This is John,’ said Brad, introducing his partner-cum-waiter then himself to Ichi.

  ‘Which part of the CIA are you from?’ asked Ichi, moving the drinks from the tray and sliding it onto the table next to them. She shook a packet of brown sugar into her hot chocolate and stirred, fast then slow. ‘I’m guessing it’s an utter shit-show for you lot right now.’ She pulled the spoon from her cup, sucked it clean. ‘Do you even know whose side you’re on?’

  The smiles settled a little at her words, brittle in a way Amanda hadn’t expected.

  Not wanting Ichi to alienate them further, she sat up straight, hands flat on the table. ‘How can we help you?’

  The two exchanged glances. ‘We’re… thinking of watching a film. In this film, there’s a group of people wanting to destabilise a government. The government knows what’s happening, but is at war with itself.’

  ‘Split by partisan politics,’ said John.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Brad. ‘What if you found out that their clandestine operation had been documented, laid out in all its gory details? You’d want to know, wouldn’t you?’ He took a sip of his drink. ‘That by itself would be enough to get people interested.’

  ‘I can see how that would work,’ said Amanda. We’re speaking the same language, she thought. They think understatement and vaguery is their world, but I can play this game as well.

  ‘The film raises the stakes higher, though,’ said John. ‘The writers decided that they’d have some guy work out how to stop the bad guys in their tracks and bundle the whole thing up in one little package.’

  ‘I’m guessing that in the second act the world-saving McGuffin gets lost,’ said Amanda. ’Why are you interested in seeing this movie anyway? I didn’t think you lot went in for Euro thrillers. Too much wurst and garlic.’

  ‘You think this is funny?’ asked John, his voice as acidic as his espresso.

  ‘It’s just a movie,’ said Amanda a little more loudly.

  ‘There’s a set piece in Tallinn,’ said Ichi. The other three looked at her, then away again, as if she hadn’t spoken at all.

  ‘You think we’re the only ones interested in this?’ asked John. ‘The package?’

  ‘McGuffin,’ interrupted Amanda. He grit his teeth, eyes bulging like they might burst all over the table.

  ‘It wasn’t us. Okay?’ said Brad quickly, quelling John with a hand. ‘There were a bunch of different agents involved but none of them were us. We aren’t those guys, Amanda. Professor Oku.’ He sighed, the first true sliver of humanity he’d expressed. ‘If we wanted to be like that, we’d have nabbed Tangle weeks ago. When he… well, we followed the trail of what he left behind.’

  ‘We’re on the side of the angels,’ said John, calmer now. Amanda could see he believed what he spoke. That’s half the problem, she thought. She could feel Ichi to her side, winding up to rant, the pressure building up like a champagne bottle.

  ‘And what do the angels want?’ she asked.

  ‘We want our Union saved,’ said Brad. ‘We don’t want it to end. I was born in Kansas, grew up in Connecticut and trained across the country. We just want to save our country.’ His eyes glistened, staring directly at Amanda.

  ‘It’s too late for that,’ said Ichi, letting her accent surface. Amanda heard sympathy in her voice. ‘I really wish you could do it. But it’s impossible.’

  ‘If we can make people see the truth, it’ll give us somewhere to start bringing them together,’ said John. ‘You’re on our side, you know we can’t let the country collapse.’

  Ichi shook her head. ‘Where were you when it mattered? When something could be done? It’s too late now. When people saw I wasn’t white and asked me if I was Muslim; that’s when you should have done something. When people decided I shouldn’t have choices about my own body; that’s when you should have done something. When our president called neo-nazis “good people.”’ She wound down.

  ‘I can’t speak to that,’ countered Brad, but his voice said he dreamed the same dreams.

  ‘You have no idea what we tried, how we worked,’ said John, his voice heavy.

  ‘But we serve the Constitution, ma’am. It’s not an easy thing to see someone drag us away from that duty, inch by inch. When do you stop and say “enough is enough”? We’ve never had that kind of discretion. By the time the institution moved, it was already undermined, weakened beyond the unity we needed to stand up.’

  ‘We were shouting on the streets,’ said Ichi. ‘What were you doing, that you didn’t hear?’

  ‘What would you do with the information?’ asked Amanda, knowing there was no answer that would salve consciences or satisfy Ichi.

  ‘The enemy has been slowly sapping the strength of the Union for three decades. We’re on the precipice now, staring down at a country forever broken in two.’

  ‘At best,’ interjected John.

  Brad nodded. ‘Maybe more. But if we can stop it here, perhaps we can keep it from destroying everything we love.’

  Amanda listened to their argument, could see the sense in it. ‘What about Tallinn, though?’ she said eventually. Their cups were empty, the dregs of their froth slowly collapsing on the drying interiors.

  Brad opened his mouth to speak, then shut it again. Finally, ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘You want to save the Union. I get it. Trust me, I love your country almost as much as I love my own, but that’s where we part ways. You’re going to take what we’ve got and go home. You’re going off to fight a war, a third side in an already disastrous conflict.’

  ‘It’ll be worse if we don’t find a way to stop it,’ said Brad.

  ‘I agree completely,’ said Amanda. ‘I really do. But that’s the problem. Even if you win, whatever you do won’t touch us here. Europe will still burn.’

  John pursed his lips, waved his hand above his cup as if he couldn’t decide whether to caress it or throw it against the wall.

  ‘I can’t give it to you,’ said Amanda.

  ‘Now, come on,’ said Brad.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Amanda. She’d declined enough trades with people who really needed them to know where it was going and how to get to a place where both sides could walk away with dignity. ‘You know how this works. I live here. This matters to me in the same way what’s going on at home for you matters. I can’t just give it up, I won’t.’ She didn’t know why she cared so suddenly, but underneath her confusion about the last few days there was an Amanda who wanted to change things, if only to stick a solid two fingers up at those pressuring her to back away.

  ‘Share it with us,’ said Brad. John was looking out the window, barely paying attention.

  Amanda thought about it, but Ichi spoke up, her voice losing its US twang, a citizen of the world once more.

  ‘This has to stay secret.’ She stopped, pouted. ‘As secret as it can be. If the GRU find out the material is real, they’ll act, change their tactics. You running around telling the world about your very own Bay of Pigs won’t help anyone. It won’t win you your war and it won’t save people’s lives here in Europe.’

  ‘So what, then? We continue to watch as everything falls apart and hope you don’t burn up here?’ John turned back to them, angry. ‘No way. That isn’t acceptable.’

  ‘John,’ said Amanda. ‘This isn’t what I do.’

  He snorted in violent
agreement.

  ‘But the information was sent to me.’ She looked at Ichi. ‘There are at least—what—six different groups trying to get the information? Somehow they all know I have it. But I’m not giving it up to anyone, because none of you want what I want.’

  ‘You’re not in Europe anymore, why do you even care?’ asked John.

  ‘I didn’t vote on that,’ said Amanda. ‘I was too young. But really?’ Did they truly know so little about her? ‘I’m a citizen of the world and love my country at the same time.’ She was hot, the words spilling out of her like steam. ‘Why do I care? I care because it’s the right thing to do, because Europe doesn’t deserve to be picked apart by a bunch of callous men sat at the top of their own totalitarian state while the rest of us struggle along. I wish we could both use this information at the same time, but we can’t. You know what Ichi’s said is true.’ She took a deep breath, looked both John and Brad in the eyes. ‘It’s the right thing to do.’

  Brad inclined his head, watched his partner in the oblique. ‘Okay.’

  ‘“Okay”?’ said John. ‘Brad, have you lost your fucking mind?’ He reached over the table. ‘Just give me the drive, lady.’

  Brad moved smoothly, his hand grappling John’s wrist.

  ‘Enough, John. This isn’t what we agreed.’

  John remained in place, coffee drinkers around them watching surreptitiously. Amanda wondered if anyone would intervene if the men became violent. Certainly people looked uncomfortable but she knew that was no sign they’d step in if it got out of hand.

  John breathed out heavily, the tension draining from his body. ‘C’mon, let’s go.’

  ‘Amanda,’ said Brad. ‘I hope I’m not making a mistake in trusting you.’ He stood to leave.

  Amanda said, ‘It was sent to me for a reason.’

  ‘I HAVE NO idea why Tangle sent it to me.’

  Ichi regarded her with a blank expression Amanda was growing to recognise; she didn’t want to say what she was thinking.

  They were still in the coffee shop. A barista was wiping the table down around them. Deeper in, a bunch of teenagers were playing an augmented reality game over their iced teas.

  ‘I don’t know why I’m here,’ said Ichi. Her hands were shaking, her skin wan.

  Amanda listened. There were any number of obvious answers to Ichi’s statement, but she wasn’t looking for someone to solve her problem and Amanda’s insights felt useless for herself, let along anyone else.

  ‘Can we get some clothes?’

  The tube was noisy, a mix of business people, students, tourists and the unidentifiable on their own errands. The pack and press of bodies meant they didn’t talk. Ichi reverted to silence. Given the chance, Amanda watched her closely, tracked the conversation playing across Ichi’s face and tried to empathise with what she was going through. They hadn’t talked about who she’d lost in Tallinn, what had been left behind.

  If Ichi was in London, it was for her own safety. In between moments of panic and fear, Amanda entertained the idea Ichi would help with Tangle’s information, but the twitches in her face as she quietly debated revealed a fragility Amanda hadn’t expected.

  Watching Ichi helped keep her own problems from crowding out the rest of her mind. They whispered at the back, around the sides, waited in the wings asking what she was going to do. Amanda had no answer, preferring to focus on Ichi, on what she’d do next, where she might go. She could help with that. Maybe.

  There was no joy in Ichi’s browsing. She walked a little ahead of Amanda, or behind her, hands carelessly trailing over rails, her eyes unfocussed. They traipsed from shop to shop until Amanda, leaving yet another store without buying anything, stopped.

  ‘What is it you want?’ she asked.

  Ichi swallowed hard, tears springing from her eyes. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  Amanda folded her unresisting into a hug and held her while she cried, body gently beating to her darkness. She tried not to think about how she was to blame.

  They got home with clothes enough for a week, cotton shirts, thin woollen jumpers, even a pale grey skirt and a couple of pairs of slacks. Ichi wore her age lightly, her frame still slender into her seventies.

  Ichi apologised repeatedly, almost each time they spoke.

  Emerging from the bathroom, dressed in new clothes, she came and stood before Amanda. ‘Thank you.’ Her hands clung to one another as if they might fall off.

  Amanda couldn’t make things right, but she’d thought hard about what she could do. ‘Let’s make a deal,’ she said. ‘I’ll give you some space here until you’re ready. You just stop apologising to me.’ She didn’t feel generous saying it: there were bodies bouncing off the bonnet of the getaway car that wouldn’t leave her alone. But it felt like some small move in the right direction.

  ‘I’m not Satoshi Nakamoto,’ said Ichi suddenly.

  I never believed you were, thought Amanda. ‘How did they come to think you were?’

  ‘I don’t remember,’ started Ichi. She tutted, almost a hiss. ‘When I arrived they were lost, scattered hackers pulling in a dozen different directions, none of it sustainable, no one staying more than a few weeks before burning out, or being pushed out.’ She moved to sit at the coffee table, hands flopping onto her lap.

  Amanda wanted to know how Ichi had come to Tallinn at all, but that wasn’t the story she was getting right now.

  ‘First thing I noticed was how they were being bilked for money by every authority they came across: police, tax officials, estate management, even the goddamned road sweepers. Nothing worked for them and they had no money. Bit by bit, everything was falling apart. So I showed them how to find the money they needed, how to find the information they needed so they didn’t need so much money.’ She sighed, almost happily. ‘It was the former that made them ask more about who I was.’ She rumpled her face. ‘I had no interest in them knowing I was some washed-out academic from the Midwest.’

  ‘So you told them you invented Bitcoin?’ Amanda was stunned.

  ‘I didn’t tell them anything,’ said Ichi. ‘I just didn’t tell them anything else. After a while the conversations would happen when I wasn’t there, with newcomers, people who didn’t know the history or who, like you, are—were—too young to know any better.’

  Amanda chose not to remind Ichi she’d never accepted her story.

  ‘I was at a party once,’ Ichi said. ‘I was introduced to a fantastic-looking man, exactly what I go for—better, he was smart and seemed kind.’ She smiled and only a little of it was with embarrassment. ‘I was told his name right at the start of the conversation and we talked. My God did we talk. Typically, I’d forgotten his name almost the moment it was told me. There came a point where he was saying, “Ichi this,” and “Ichi, what about that?” And I realised it was too late to say anything. It was the same sort of thing.’

  ‘I always find someone else to introduce them to, and get them to do it themselves,’ said Amanda. Ichi’s face closed down, and Amanda hurriedly amended, ‘I understand what you mean.’

  ‘So when I say I’m sorry, I mean it. Because I’m useless to you.’ She rubbed at her eyes as if they ached from seeing. ‘I’ll stay tonight, but tomorrow I’ll go.’

  Amanda didn’t really want to argue her into staying, and didn’t.

  ‘I’m going to ring the number the dickhead police officer gave me,’ said Amanda.

  ‘Why?’ Ichi was dismayed.

  ‘I’ve got to try,’ said Amanda. ‘If this doesn’t work, we’ve got no other options.’

  ‘They won’t help you,’ said Ichi.

  Amanda’s face tightened. ‘You’re probably right. But if I don’t try them, my own government, then what?’

  ‘It’s funny,’ said Ichi, her voice flat. ‘I’ve told you a lot about myself, but you’ve not shared anything with me. Why not?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Amanda, wincing. I know exactly why, she thought. I don’t give myself away to strangers.


  ‘It must be lonely,’ said Ichi. Amanda started to protest, but Ichi cut through it. ‘I mean, I’ve been lonely a lot of times. You probably haven’t clocked it, but I’m half-caste too.’

  Amanda stopped trying to interrupt. Ichi was right, she’d not thought about her background, even though she’d been told. She twisted inside, unsettled by how it reflected back on her own idea of who she was.

  How do I admit it? she wondered, knowing the truth would start other ways of thinking, challenges on who she was that she didn’t want to face. That I judged her by the colour of her skin?

  ‘It’s okay,’ said Ichi. ‘The natural unit for people like us is one. Get any two of us into a group and we spend our time working on how we’re each more unique than the other. I met a man who looked like you, you know, brown-skinned, but he was a mix of six different countries. He was more Jewish than he was Indian. He liked to say he could go anywhere in the world and find someone to hate him.’

  She sighed. ‘I’m American, our resting state is self-revelation. You Brits hold it together. Upsides to both approaches, I guess, they’re both ways of dealing with it.’

  ‘With what?’ Ventured Amanda.

  ‘The loneliness.’ She didn’t ask if she was right. She didn’t need to.

  ‘You think that’s what’s driving me to find someone else to take this off me?’

  ‘Besides not having the skills?’ asked Ichi drily. ‘No, it’s your natural deference I’m referring to. Why keep asking people in authority if they’ll do the right thing? How many of them will it take, bluntly telling you they only care about their own agendas, before you break out from their thrall?’

  ‘Like I did with the Americans?’ asked Amanda angrily.

  ‘You should have just told them to fuck off,’ said Ichi, showing her teeth, lips curled back.

  ‘Getting what you want sometimes needs more than just barging your way in,’ said Amanda. ‘Trust me, it’s what I do for a living, and I’m pretty good at it.’

  Ichi tossed her head. ‘For God’s sake. If they wanted it, they’d have come for it. You really think they’ve let it go just because you’ve asked them to? Are you that trusting? That naïve? Is that how Tangle strung you along for so long?’ She raised her eyebrows as if Amanda was finally coming into focus. ‘No wonder you hate him so much. You trusted him and he took that and used it against you.’