“I know an architect,” said Anwar, “a good friend of mine, who would have seriously considered redesigning that doughnut as a hand.”
She looked at him in puzzlement for a moment, then burst out laughing. But by the time he’d decided to join her (he normally preferred to smile quietly rather than laugh out loud) she’d already stopped and was thinking about something else.
FIVE: SEPTEMBER 2060
1
The following day, promptly a t9:00a.m., Anwar started work. It was an easy commute. Gaetano’s apartment and offices were on the same floor as Olivia’s. She had left three hours earlier on Church business.
Gaetano’s office, like every interior he had seen—though he hadn’t seen hers, yet—was nacreous white and silver. It was tidy and sparse, as Anwar had expected.
“You’re early,” Gaetano said.
“No. It’s exactly nine, as we arranged.”
“I meant for your stay here. September isn’t over yet and the summit isn’t for two weeks. A young woman named Arden Bierce called us last week and said you wanted to come here early. A very nice young woman.”
“Yes, people like Arden. She has a way about her.”
“Well, it made her suspicious.”
“The Archbishop? Why?”
“It was different from what she got Rafiq to agree...She really does feel threatened. You may not think she acts or sounds like it, but she does.”
“Last night she was supposed to give me a briefing about who’s threatening her, but she changed her mind halfway through. Apparently I’m now getting it from you.”
“She was in a strange mood last night...What did she tell you?”
“Only that the people threatening her are the people who really run the Church’s original founders: the ones who aren’t named, even in conspiracy theories, and they don’t like her having moved the Church beyond their control. Is there any truth in that? Do you believe it?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Then why didn’t she say more? If she wants me to protect her, why didn’t she say exactly who she wants protection from? Do you know who they are? Where they are? Why they’re threatening her?”
“I can tell you some of that, but sometimes she’s less than honest with me, too, and I don’t know why. Sometimes she tries to conceal how frightened she is by talking about them lightly, or ambiguously. But I believe she’s genuinely frightened. I can tell you the rest of what she was going to say last night, and I’ll add some ideas of my own that might help you, although my own enquiries haven’t uncovered much.”
“Alright. But if I don’t think it’s enough, I’ll walk away.” No you won’t, he thought, not from this. Not now.
“She doesn’t know their individual names and locations,” Gaetano continued, as if he hadn’t heard Anwar. “They aren’t even members of the Bilderbergers or the Atlanticists and the rest. They just work through them indirectly, when it suits them. They have larger agendas. Maybe Zaitsev’s one of them. Or the presidents of some UN members. Or you, or me, playing a double or triple game. And they stay...”
“Stay dormant for years, then come out once or twice in every generation to give history a nudge. I know, she told me. But why are they suddenly a threat? And why at the summit? How does she know?”
“She’s been dealing with them since she became Archbishop five years ago. She must sense their long-term plans. And they don’t attend our Boards or Assemblies. They communicate only with her, by messages given to Board members. Handwritten messages in sealed envelopes, passed through a network of couriers and proxies which soon disappears if you try to trace it back. I’ve tried.”
“The UN will have to check all this, I don’t have the resources, and personally I don’t buy it,” Anwar said. “A conspiracy inside bodies which are themselves the subject of conspiracy theories. A shadowy cell that manipulates the manipulators. Handwritten notes. I don’t buy it.” But privately he was just beginning to. It fitted some of the observed data, and it felt right. “I really don’t buy it,” he repeated, as if the repetition would drive the uncertainty out of his voice. It didn’t. “And this is what she was going to tell me last night?”
“Part of it. But you need to hear the rest.”
2
I shouldn’t really have come here this morning, Richard Carne thought. But they didn’t tell me not to, so they must have suspected I might. And I’m glad I did. It’s quite striking. Really singular.
It had been an easy journey from London, and only a short detour from where he was headed, to reach Brighton. And an easy journey of ninety seconds from Gateway to Cathedral, in a sleek white-and-silver maglev, to see the Conference Centre at the end of the New West Pier.
Those who employed him were unknown to him. He only dealt with them indirectly, through several layers of proxies and cutouts, but even the little he’d seen of what they could do was deeply impressive. They’d be doing more things between now and the summit, but the summit—here, in two weeks— was where it would really kick off. And what would happen at this Conference Centre would be only a small part of it.
What they could do, he reflected, was quite diverting and singular. He was a relatively minor functionary, but he’d seen and heard enough. There was what they’d done to Asika. And what they’d done to Levin, which was worse. And Levin’s face, when he’d realised he couldn’t defend himself. Now, he thought, let’s have a look at that extraordinary Cathedral, and then a longer look at the equally extraordinary Conference Centre. That was where it would all really begin. The thing which would kill her was quite singular, quite diverting. It might already be here, in this beautiful silver and white building where the summit would begin on October 15.
If not, it would be on its way.
3
“Half a percent of the world’s population,” Gaetano said, “owns 40 percent of the world’s wealth. Four million people. The ones threatening her are a few random and apparently unconnected individuals, out of four million.”
“Individuals running the founders’ organisations?” “Yes, but indirectly, not as members. They operate through networks of proxies and subsidiaries, the way they operate their share holdings and finances. And they don’t have a secret underground HQ in Antarctica, or a hollowed-out mountain in the Himalayas. They have something much better: their corporations. When they want a task done, or an object made, they divide it down to its smallest components and farm it out to subsidiaries and sub-subsidiaries.” When Anwar stayed silent, Gaetano added, “Maybe Rafiq’s one of them.”
“No. He’s rich, but not that rich. He has millions, but the people you’re talking about have billions. Or trillions.” But Anwar was thinking, Currency isn’t only money, it’s also power and knowledge, and there Rafiq must be in their league. This was beginning to worry him. His mind was racing, but he If this is real, it’s the worst combination of threats: a cell, like Black Dawn, but with trillions. I must talk to Arden.
Gaetano waited politely for Anwar to digest this—he hadn’t been convinced by Anwar’s convincing poker face—before he continued. “I think they’re putting together something intricate and far-reaching, and her death is only a part of it. But... a handful of people, unconnected, not even members of the founders’ organisations. Out of four million. I don’t think you can easily locate or identify them.”