Evensong

by Love, John

  “Do you know who I am?” Anwar asked him.

  “I know what you are. Only a few like you in the world.”

  Anwar did not reply.

  “And now she’s got one of you, for the summit. It won’t be enough, not against what they’ll send.”

  “What you did was cowardly. That kid was totally out-matched. Why not take on someone who can fight back?”

  “Like you? I’d be as outmatched as the kid. And you’d be as cowardly as me. In fact you already are. All you ever do is defeat outmatched opponents.”

  Two-nil to him. Anwar pulled up a chair, and sat facing him. For a while he said nothing, a tactic which didn’t even slightly unsettle Carne. Three-nil.

  He knew Carne was right. The Dead had it easy. Intelligence did all the hard work, before and after. Before, their work was to identify targets: dictators, oligarchs, criminals, political or religious fanatics. Then The Dead came in, to abduct or disable them. Usually abduct, in which case they were handed over to UN Intelligence. Information or compliance would be tricked or blackmailed out of them, or bullied out of them with threats of lifelong litigation or financial ruin.

  The Dead had the most simple and self-contained part of the process, though it was physically impossible for anyone else.The parts before and after were more complex, less clear-cut, and didn’t end. The people who undertook them couldn’t go back into a comfort zone afterwards.

  “Forty-love to me, I think,” Carne murmured.

  But this time, Anwar would have to do the before and after parts himself. He couldn’t just guard her reactively. He had to identify and locate those who threatened her. And here was one of their minor functionaries. Clever and self-assured, and more experienced at this than Anwar; but there might be a way. When the instruments came. Until then...

  “So you’re a member of the Johnsonian Society.”

  “Yes."

  “So am I.”

  “Really?” Carne was mildly, but genuinely, surprised. “I haven’t seen you at any functions.”

  “I don’t often get to London, but I’ve been a member for years. I keep all the Society’s newsletters.”

  “You’ll have seen my articles, then.”

  “Yes, that’s where I remembered your name…What makes you a Johnsonian?”

  “Oh, that’s easy. He had an opinion about everything. His own, original opinion.”

  “Exactly,” Anwar said, nodding enthusiastically. “Always an original opinion. He was High Church, High Tory, but anti-slavery. Risky, in those times. For a man of his class and profession.”

  Carne was now genuinely excited. “Did you hear about my talk the other day? It was called...”

  ‘Mask: The Nature Of Individual Identity In Postmodern Literature.’ Yes, I saw it advertised in the newsletter. No offence, but I thought it sounded rather pretentious.”

  “None taken. I was never really happy about the title.”

  “Also,” Anwar continued, “it didn’t sound like the kind of literary criticism Doctor Johnson would have recognised…Ah, here are the things I asked for.”

  He turned as Gaetano wheeled in a hospital trolley full of surgical instruments.

  “What is it she usually says?” he asked Gaetano.“Leave us. Give us this room.”

  Carne was looking at the surgical instruments, almost as dispassionately and appraisingly as Anwar.

  “Let’s save time,” Anwar told him. “I’m supposed to ask who you’re working for, and you’re supposed to say nothing. So let’s assume we’ve had that conversation. Now we move to the part where I help you.”

  Gaetano had arranged a good selection of laser scalpels on the surgical trolley.

  “Never mind these things here. I promise I won’t kill you, and I won’t cause you pain. I do have the necessary surgical skills...”

  There were even some antique stainless steel scalpels. All arranged neatly.

  “...and before I start using these things, I’ll give you a local anaesthetic. So. No death and no pain. This is what I’m going to do.

  “I’ll trap you, permanently, inside your own head. No light, or sound, or touch, or words, or communication of any kind. I’ll give you to yourself. You’ll inhabit yourself, and nothing else.

  “How will I do that, Mr. Carne? Your Eyes. Eardrums. Tongue. Hands. Feet. I’ll surgically remove them all. I’ll leave your eyes to last, so you can see everything I’m doing.”

  Carne said nothing. His expression hadn’t changed.

  “I could leave you in some stinking twitten or catcreep in the Lanes,” Anwar went on, “but I won’t. I’ll leave you near a hospital, where people will find you and care for you. But you’ll never be able to communicate with them. Or with anyone, except yourself.”

  Carne spoke at last. “You know, I’ve actually done things like that; but I bet you haven’t. You’ve only read about them.” He smiled. “I must read the same books you do.”

  Anwar had thought that would be his ace. He’d remembered it from a biography of Parvin Marek, who’d used the threat very successfully in interrogations. And Carne had just batted it back.

  “And you couldn’t do it,” Carne added. “You can keep me for twenty-four hours, then you have to place me in the custody of the local police. They’d probably notice if you’d removed my—what was it?—hands, feet, tongue, eardrums and eyes.”

  “Then we’d ship you by VSTOL to Kuala Lumpur and do it there.”

  “No you wouldn’t. Even Rafiq wouldn’t sanction it.”

  “The Controller-General wouldn’t know.” Anwar didn’t like the ease with which Rafiq’s name rolled off the other man’s tongue.

  “Yes he would. Rafiq knows everything. Or you think he does. Actually, about now Rafiq is probably beginning to realize he doesn’t know everything.”

  Anwar’s turn not to answer.

  “I know what you are,” Carne added conversationally. “Only a few like you in the world.”

  “Yes, I heard the first time.”

  “Two less, now.”

  “What? What did you say?”

  Carne smiled but didn’t reply. Still, he hadn’t tripped any poison implants yet.

  Desperately, Anwar ramped it up. “There are surgical techniques to restore some of what I’ll do to you. New eyes and eardrums and tongue. Prosthetic hands and feet. But they’re expensive. When the hospital identifies you from your DNA, they’ll check your bank accounts, but the UN will have emptied them.”

  Still Carne smiled but said nothing.

  Anwar pushed again, inexpertly, trying to amplify the threat but still speaking quietly. “So that leaves your employers, and they won’t want to be identified. For the rest of your life, the whole world will be a darkness the size of the interior of your head.”

  The quiet voice was intended to sound menacing, but Carne wasn’t buying it.

  “Oh, behave,” he said languidly. “We both know I’ll activate the poison before you get anything useful. Your ham acting threatens to sully the dignity of my passing.” He paused for a moment, then added, “Two less, now. They annihilated Levin. Then Rafiq sent Asika, and they annihilated him too.”

  Anwar wanted to cry out, but he didn’t. Not yet.

  “Who are they? Where are they? How did they do it?”

  “They’re even more subtle and ruthless than Rafiq.They’ve been there since before he was born, and they’ll be there after he dies. They work in long cycles, longer than his lifetime.” His voice was modulated and mocking. “Doctor Johnson used to say that the prospect of imminent death concentrates the mind wonderfully...You’re not very good at this, are you? At what comes before and after the easy bits that you do? Everything I am, I worked for. You, you were just made.”

  Anwar moved in a blur to grab the man by his coat. “Who are they? Why did you come here?!”

  Carne let out a long breath, and Anwar knew he had finally tripped the poison.

  “You wouldn’t believe what they can do. I’m just a m
inor functionary of theirs. And you’re just a minor functionary of Rafiq. So our lives have both been pointless, but you’re still living yours.”

  There was a dark stain spreading over the front of Carne’s trousers: the final effect of the poison, a slackening of his bladder.Urine, which he’d never spilt through any of Anwar’s attempts to scare him, now poured out.

  Anwar turned away. The second person I’ve killed. And both of them by mistake.

  When he needed to mask his feelings, as he did now, he could reach somewhere inside himself and find the ability to do it. He made his features neutral and static, as if he was a shrouded actor in a formal codified Noh drama. It was a minor piece of stagecraft, like the Idmask he used for Tournaments; but it came internally, and didn’t disguise his features, just covered his feelings. Normally he could hold it for hours, but after what he’d just discovered he calculated it wouldn’t last long; maybe long enough to get him through the next few minutes and into his suite where he could cal Arden Bierce.

  The door opened and Anwar stepped out into the Boardroom, followed by a waft of urine. His manner seemed strangely normal.

  “Anwar! What did you do to him?”

  “Nothing.” The first time she’s used my name. “I threatened him with something, and he said something. Then he tripped his poison implants. Gaetano, I’d like his body kept securely here until the UN come for it.”

  “Bodyguard duties,” Gaetano muttered. “I told you to leave the questioning to me.”

  “What did he tell you?” Olivia asked.

  “Something I need to check first with the UN…And I need permission for a VSTOL to land on the pad at the end of the Pier. They’ll want his body.” Without waiting for her answer, he turned to Gaetano. “I want you to put it around that he’s alive and being held here until the summit finishes. Someone might come for him.”

  “What did you threaten him with?” Olivia asked.

  He told her.

  She stared. “Would you have done that?”

  “Of course not. But the threat works.” Just not for me.

  “Did...did you think it up?”

  “No, Parvin Marek did. Remember Parvin Marek? About ten years ago he…”

  “Yes, I know who he was.”

  “Is. He’s still out there. And don’t gape like that, it makes you look gormless. Eat a cake or something.”

  Somehow, Anwar made it back to his suite. He sent Arden Bierce a report through his wristcom, including word-by-word accounts of his interrogation of Richard Carne and his conversations with Olivia and Gaetano, and waited.

  After ten minutes, about the time he estimated it would take her to digest his report, her call came.

  His wristcom could project a small image on to the air a few inches in front of it, or a larger high-definition image on to a wall or other convenient flat surface. He chose the wall.

  Normally, it would have been good to see her again. Her face was regular and open (unlike Olivia’s, with its sharp small features and changing expressions) and he knew it genuinely reflected what was inside her—including, this time, a look of preoccupation which closely echoed his own.

  “Anwar, I...”

  “Levin was assigned to find Marek, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes. There was a possible lead, but it...”

  “And when were you planning to tell me about Levin?”

  “Until your call, I had no idea of any connection between his mission and yours.”

  He let the silence grow between them.

  “I’m sorry. But we don’t have his body. Maybe he’s not dead.”

  “Annihilated, Carne said. Like Asika. Did you see Chulo’s body?”

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  She told him.

  “Miles...and Chulo.”

  “We don’t know for certain about Miles. His body hasn’t been found.”

  “Yes; you said that.” He studied her face. The distress was genuine enough. “But you’d say that if his body had been found. You want me functional. You’re just beginning to see what’s in this mission, aren’t you?”

  “Anwar, listen. Whatever did that to Chulo, when it comes for her, do you think you can stop it?”

  “Find them, Arden. Find who they are and where they are.”

  “You heard what Gaetano said. A handful of people out of millions,connected informally. What does that remind you of?”

  “You tell me.”

  “The Dead. Moving in and out of the real world, back to a comfort zone where nobody can touch them.”

  “You’re wrong. They’re a cell. Like Black Dawn, random and untraceable, but in every other way the opposite of Black Dawn. A cell with trillions. Which doesn’t publicise itself, which plays long and patient, which operates through proxies and cutoffs, and uses corporations and conglomerates and shareholdings and banks and networks of subsidiaries.” The exact opposite of Black Dawn. White Dusk, he named them privately.

  “This is bigger than even Rafiq knows.” She was unaccustomed to saying such things, and it showed in her face. “I spoke to him this morning. It’s beginning to worry him.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He didn’t, I did. But he didn’t argue. An enemy who hasn’t been around for years, and now is. And knows all about us. And when they kill her, it will only be the first move of something larger.”

  “I think you meant If, not When.”

  She didn’t seem to hear him. “It’s not her, Rafiq doesn’t particularly care about her, but it’s what they do afterwards...” She took a breath, and made her voice louder. “And there’s something else. Rafiq’s concerned you’re having to do what UN Intelligence usually does. You don’t have the experience.”

  “Oh, I see. First the Archbishop, now the Controller-General, telling me I’m not good enough.”

  “What? No, that’s not what I...”

  But Anwar wasn’t listening. “And her guard, Proskar: you’re sure he isn’t Marek?”

  “Of course I’m sure.”

  “But you’ll check again?”

  “Of course.”

  “He’s Croatian. Fortyish. And those hands.”

  “I said, we’ll check again. We already checked, before you even took this mission—the surface resemblance was obvious. But nothing else matches—DNA, fingerprints, retinal scans, dentition, nothing. And his database ID is genuine.”

  “But you’ll still...”

  “...check again. Yes.”

  “Because if he is Marek, tell me and I’ll kill him.” Anwar had never intentionally killed, or offered to kill, anyone. It must be the mask slipping, he could feel it. Dissolving. Corroded by the feelings he’d kept underneath it.

  “Well, say something.”

  “Anwar, listen. Maybe she was right. Maybe Rafiq should send someone else.”

  “You bring in anyone else, I’ll kill them. I’ll come back and kill Rafiq too, right in front of Fallingwater where Marek…” He stopped, horrified. What made me say that? I’ve never said anything like that. “Arden, listen to me! I want this mission, but not for her, she’s appalling. I want it for what she stands for.” It might have been his voice, but it sounded to both of them like rambling.

  Embarrassed, she changed the subject. “So why this summit? Why now?”

  “It’s not about the summit. The summit is only important because it’s live and public and gives them the perfect stage to make their move for her.”

  They both let it hang there for a while, and went on to safer things: when they’d pick up Carne’s body by VSTOL from the Pier, how they’d pretend he was still alive (to see who might come for him), and how they’d fake his death later. Fake death was easy, real death wasn’t. When Anwar joined the Consultancy, they faked his passing as thoroughly as they always did. The UN databases thrummed with his exhaustively-documented death from a virulent strain of flu. They sometimes did car/plane/boat accidents, but that involved corroborating wreckage: not impossible, but mor
e troublesome. His new identity, later, was slipped into the world’s electronic landscape as if it had always been there.

  Carne was genuinely dead, but they’d still have to fake it. After they did all the things they needed to do with his body.

  “Will you be aboard the VSTOL?”

  “No.I need to stay here and brief Rafiq on what Carne told you.”

  She went to say something else, then cut the connection. Anwar stared for a while at the empty projected rectangle on the wall. His mask, now he was alone, collapsed.

  Arden Bierce replayed Anwar’s report and started making notes. Like Anwar, she worked quietly and reflectively, and worked best on her own.

  She hadn’t looked at Anwar’s earlier files, when he was Rashad Khan, for some time. She did now. Most of them she already knew well, but she found something she’d almost forgotten, tucked away in a subfile: The Story of Arnold the Wart. It was Anwar’s (then Rashad’s) entry for a short story competition at his school, written at the age of twelve.

  Hubert had a large wart on his head. It was growing larger every day. Hubert grew attached to it, in every sense of the word, and after living with it for a while he decided to give it a name. He called it Arnold.

  Hubert and Arnold went through life comfortably together, but Arnold grew bigger and bigger. Eventually he got so big that Hubert became a wart on Arnold, and Arnold’s friends kept saying to him “Arnold, why don’t you cut off that ugly wart?” So he did.

  Rashad’s teachers told him that the Arnold story was cold and careless and brutal. It needed more work, particularly on Arnold’s and Hubert’s relationship to each other and their social interaction with their peer groups. Rashad went away and thought about it, then came back with a new ending.

  ...Arnold’s friends kept saying to him “Arnold, why don’t you cut off that ugly wart?” So he did, and they both died.

  Not only did the story not win the competition, but it led—after a series of worried meetings with educational psychologists—to the school principal asking for a conference with Rashad’s parents. The outcome was inconclusive.