Pfefferkorn shook his head.
“Lucian went easy on you, I hope.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Pfefferkorn saw Savory smiling at him in a threatening way.
“I feel like I’m on vacation,” Pfefferkorn said.
A guard handed Pfefferkorn a new plate. There was caviar and crème fraîche and capers and delicate matjes herring in a light tomato sauce.
“Well, good, good. It’s a matter of principle that you be comfortable and entertained.” Thithyich took out another cigarette and stuck it between his lips. “Everyone deserves a taste of what this world has to offer.” He summoned the jet of flame and sucked in smoke. “Not least those soon to depart it.”
85.
Pfefferkorn paused, an unchewed piece of herring in his mouth. He swallowed it down whole and wiped red sauce from his lips. “Beg pardon?”
Savory was grinning.
“You’re going to kill me?” Pfefferkorn said.
“You can’t honestly be surprised,” Thithyich said. “Not after all the inconvenience you’ve caused me. It was no simple matter, kidnapping Carlotta de Vallée, and for you to start running around, playing the ‘hero’—”
“Hold on,” Pfefferkorn said.
Everyone winced.
There was a long silence.
The president smiled.
“Please,” he said. “Go right ahead.”
“I—eh. Eh. I thought the May Twenty-sixers kidnapped Carlotta.”
“They did.”
“But you just said you kidnapped her.”
“Indeed.”
“I’m sorry,” Pfefferkorn said. “I don’t follow.”
“I am the May Twenty-sixers,” Thithyich said. “I created them out of whole cloth. Remember, I’m trying to provoke a war here. What better way to do that than to fan the flames of revanchism? The May Twenty-sixers’ raison d’être is to reunify greater Zlabia under true collectivist rule by any means necessary. It’s expressly stated in their manifesto, which I wrote in the bathtub. Lucian, the relevant part, please, from the preamble.”
Savory pressed keys on his smartphone and read aloud. “‘Our raison d’être is to reunify greater Zlabia under true collectivist rule by any means necessary.’”
“What have you done with her?” Pfefferkorn asked.
“She’s being held at May Twenty-sixer headquarters in West Zlabia,” Thithyich said.
“West Zlabia.”
“Naturally. If I put the headquarters here, it would be rather obvious who was ‘pulling the strings,’ mm? I give my orders through an intermediary. Besides, nothing lends a fake West Zlabian counter-counter-revolutionary movement verisimilitude like having it staffed by genuine West Zlabian counter-counter-revolutionaries. Fabulously committed bunch, they are. Trained from birth to embrace fervent dedication to unattainable goals. God bless the Communist school system.”
“You’re barking up the wrong tree, provoking a war,” Pfefferkorn said. “The U.S. won’t get involved.”
“Bosh. They’d much rather that than the alternative, which is that the West Zlabians give the gas up for pennies on the dollar to the Chinese.”
“It didn’t work the first time,” Pfefferkorn said.
“What first time?”
“When you faked your own assassination attempt.”
“That’s what your people told you.”
Pfefferkorn nodded.
“And you believed them.”
Pfefferkorn nodded again.
“Do you have any idea how much it hurts to get shot in the buttocks?”
“No,” Pfefferkorn admitted.
“If you did, you’d know that that’s utter claptrap. I never shot myself.”
“Then who did?”
“You did. Well, your government, really. They’re the ones who planted the book for you.”
Pfefferkorn was confused. “Which book.”
Thithyich looked at Savory.
“Blood Eyes,” Savory said.
“That’s the one,” Thithyich said. “Smashing title.”
“Thank you,” Savory said.
“That’s impossible,” Pfefferkorn said. “Blood Eyes had a dummy code.”
“My buttocks beg to differ,” Thithyich said.
“But they’re your allies.”
“My buttocks?”
“The U.S.”
“‘On paper,’ perhaps, but you know as well as I do how much that’s worth.”
“You just said they would support you in the event of an invasion.”
“Certainly.”
“Now you’re telling me they tried to kill you.”
“Yes.”
“That doesn’t strike you as contradictory?”
Thithyich shrugged. “Politics.”
“I don’t know why I should believe you.”
“What reason do I have to lie?”
“What reason did they have to lie?”
“Plenty. They were indoctrinating you. It wouldn’t have done to admit that they engage in covert acts of cold-blooded political murder, now, would it? They much prefer that people think of them as the ‘good guys.’ In any event, Lucian intercepted the code shortly before it came off, and I was able to escape with minor injuries. But the whole experience set me thinking. You lot have been meddling with our affairs for nigh on forty years. High time for a taste of your own medicine, don’t you reckon? Hence . . . what’s it again?”
“Blood Night,” Savory supplied.
“That’s the one,” Thithyich said. “Bang-on title.”
“Thank you,” Savory said.
“Let me get this straight,” Pfefferkorn said. “You got Savory to get me to get my publisher to get American secret operatives to kill Dragomir Zhulk.”
“Yes, yes, yes, and no.”
“No to which part.”
“The last bit. About killing Zhulk. I’m afraid you’ve been misinformed. Blood—damn it, I’m at sixes and sevens, here.”
“Night,” Savory said.
“Bang-on. Blood, et cetera, the second one—that contained a dummy code.”
Pfefferkorn stared. “A dummy code.”
“Well, we couldn’t possibly plant a real code. We don’t have the Workbench.”
“But why would you give me a dummy code?”
“To disrupt the pattern of transmission and create confusion.”
“Then who killed Zhulk?”
“Made to guess, I’d say it was your government as well. They’re not big fans of his.”
“But how? According to you, Blood Night was dummied.”
“My goodness, man, you’re not the only blockbuster novelist out there. The order to kill Dragomir could have been in any one of a dozen beach reads.”
Pfefferkorn massaged his temples.
“Take your time,” Thithyich said kindly. “It’s very complicated. More caviar?”
“No, thanks,” Pfefferkorn said. “Why did you have the May Twenty-sixers kidnap Carlotta?”
“Well, the idea was that getting ahold of the Workbench—or I should say, rather, a dummied version of the Workbench, because it should be obvious to anyone who gives it five seconds of thought that your government would never give them the real Workbench, although thankfully we can count on our friends across the border not to give it five seconds of thought—would give the May Twenty-sixer rank and file enough confidence to support a preemptive strike against me, and that’s all the excuse I need to steamroll them.”
“My understanding was that you could steamroll them right now,” Pfefferkorn said.
“True. But it’s better if they move first. Nobody likes a bully. And it’s nice to have the support of the international community. It’s very ‘in,’ geopolitically speaking. Anyway, so far, so good. I’ve had my intermediary suggest that a good time to invade would be right after their fifteen-hundredth anniversary festival. You know, swept along by a ‘tide’ of nationalist fervor and so forth. Fingers crossed, we should be able to get things into full swing by the first week of October.”