“But satellite systems would have detected this.”
“They can be dealt with,” Salai said offhandedly. “It’s not difficult to crack them.”
“I suppose if you can crash into the megacorps, then that wouldn’t be so difficult,” Michael tried as a gambit This time he got no reply.
“This seems too easy, too quiet,” Michael fretted after their attempts to grill Salai got them nowhere. “We can’t just turn up and meet the man here. Something’s got to go wrong somehow. It doesn’t feel right.”
“Feel right?” Kristen smiled. “I don’t usually hear you talk like that, Michael.”
“I’m not usually in this kind of situation.”
“Where you’re not in control.”
“When I have no control whatsoever.”
The conversation was cut short as the car came to a halt before the domed structure, and Salai hopped out to open the rear doors for them.
“Oh, and don’t wave that silly gun at me,” he told Streak in a bored voice. “I don’t need men at my back here. One false move and you’ll have the flesh stripped from your bones by spirits in a second.”
“He’s not lying,” Serrin said flatly. He’d been as self-absorbed and quiet as he had been all day, thoughts and theories spinning in his head, but he took note of the presences here and warned Streak not to step out of line. Geraint, too, could sense the strong magical presence of the place. though no magician, he had some latent psychic gift, and something this strong he could sense. He was uneasy.
The automatic doors of the building opened, but before Salai could show them in, a small group of local men rushed toward them, one of them grabbing Michael’s arm as he walked toward the door.
“Is this not a great time? Are you with the prophet?’ the man said eagerly, his eyes wide with near-rapture. Astonished, Michael could only mumble some inane pleasantry and bolt for the door like a rabbit for its hole.
“What the frag-”
“This way,” Salai said with no word of explanation. They got into the elevator and descended some unknown distance before the doors swished open again to reveal the neat, cool, air-conditioned corridors of a subterranean complex.
“How the hell did you build this out here?” Michael asked, astounded.
“These people have been working on it for nearly twenty years,” Salai said slowly. “They really are faithful. They have been for a very, very long time.”
“The Mandaeans, you mean,” Serrin said lightly, as if it were an offhand observation.
“Yes,” Salal answered him with a gleam in his eye. “So you have begun to form a picture.”
“I think I finally realize the importance of the image outside the basilica.”
“Ah, that was a fine work. My master can craft great illusion-illusion that is great because it reveals the truth. So you think you know, then.”
“No,” the elf said slowly, “but I think I’ve learned not to ask the wrong questions.”
Salai stopped and looked at him hard. “I may have underestimated you,” he said. “Perhaps you will be ready for the move beyond. You’ve put your finger on the Johannite heresy.”
“I read about it,” Serrin confessed. It had only been a recent acquaintance.
“What on earth are you two talking about?” Michael demanded.
“It’s the belief that John the Baptist was the true divine figure,” Serrin said. “The people here have always believed that. Their sacred text is the Book of John. It was the image in the photo ID from the airport, the raised finger. ‘Remember John’. It’s something to do with this belief. That’s why we’re here. It’s the only thing about Ahvaz that’s singular. The cult is very small.”
“Good, you’re still only halfway there,” Salai said with the relief of someone who’s found that a bright and thoughtful child was not, after all, more intelligent than he or she ought to be. And they may be few in number, but one faithful and loyal man is worth more than a hundred fainthearts. Isn’t that true, Mister Mercenary?”
He looked at Streak and the elf saw him as someone not half so foppish and supercilious as he’d taken him to be.
“Too true, mate,” the elf said. “Well, now where?”
“To meet my master. But I cannot permit any form of weaponry. That means, I regret, that our fine friend here”-he looked disapprovingly at Juan-will have to remain outside. I cannot allow that thing,” and he pointed to the cyberarm, “inside a room with my master.”
“Of course,” Michael said. He handed over his own gun, and told the others to do the same.
“I don’t like this,” Streak growled. “I feel naked.”
“Get used to it,” Michael told him. “We have no choice. We’re not here to be threatened or harmed.”
“Far from it. You are called as witnesses,” Salai said with a returned air of annoying superciliousness.
“Bugger that. When they knock on the door it’s definitely time to get the Predator out,” Streak growled.
“I hardly meant Jehovah’s witnesses,” Salai said impatiently. “Nothing could be less apt, under the circumstances.”
“And now enough of this. If you’re ready, it’s time to meet my master and behave with the deference he deserves.”
Michael already had whoever they were going to meet tagged as a serious nutcase. Brilliant, obviously, but the man gibbering about the Prophet outside made him think they were about to meet someone with some very serious delusions indeed. He couldn’t know that the belief was useful to that very person, and one he allowed to remain unchallenged not least because it gave comfort to simple people who had, in return, given him sweat, labor, and love for many years now.
The internal doors down the corridor swung open. They were made of smoked glass and revealed nothing inside the room, so when what lay beyond them was revealed, the newcomers did not have the benefit of forewarning, and they were astounded by the scene before them.
The figure sat with his back to them in a high-backed chair, only the long, flowing gray hair visible to them, save for his long-fingered hands resting on the arms of the chair. The walls were covered with designs and sketches, finely rendered, apparently blueprints for optical systems of extraordinary complexity. On the desk before the figure was what had to be a cyberdeck, though it was unlike any they’d ever seen. It made the finest customized Fairlight look like a child’s toy. There was not a right-angle on it. It was sculpted, apparently of ivory or something similar, and had fluted edges and the eerie, unreal hyperreality of some alien artifact. It looked like it could only ever exist inside the extreme geometrical perfection of the Matrix, not out here in a real world of chaotic imperfections. Pearly light glowed around it, and in the near-darkness of the room it seemed for a moment that a reflection of that light covered the head of the seated figure like a halo. The nimbus winked out of existence and the figure turned around, the chair swiveling through a hundred and eighty degrees.
My God, Michael thought, this is the finest cosmetic job I’ve ever seen in my life. Forget the supermodels and the simsense stars, this is an absolutely perfect replica. Younger, of course. The photo ID wasn’t decked at all.
Staring at them, quietly and gravely and with his hands folded gently in his lap, was a person who for all the world was the perfect image of Leonardo da Vinci.
28
“I must commend your plastic surgeon,” Michael said. “It’s a magnificent job.”
“Shut up,” Serrin said swiftly. He knew, although the others-including Streak-had not realized it, that the figure was an elf. The long, flowing hair concealed the most obvious distinguishing feature, the ears, and the Looseness of the figure’s simple robed garment hid his body shape. But Serrin could tell instinctively that the man was elven, and that he was not the kind of person to trivialize himself with cosmetics. And all the implications of that made Serrin very worried indeed.