Giacomo watched them settling into their chairs, and as usual he marveled at their apparent ability to find pleasure in this whole ethos of Don’t fuck with us; we’re here to do business and we know what we’re talking about: their salmon-striped cashmere suits, thousand-dollar handbags, polka-dot silk ties, expensive splashes of aftershave or perfume, the hiss of tights as legs were crossed, then those shoes, polished and sharp-heeled, lurking under the table like malevolent insects. Warburg, on the other hand, affected a sort of disheveled slacker appearance, always glum, always arrayed in a baggy tracksuit, long hair shedding a light rain of dandruff, a diamond stud in his left earlobe.
Giacomo frowned: Oh, blast it, it was just a lot of ego-posturing, the whole thing. The trouble was he needed them.
He cleared his throat. “I’ve called you in this morning because we must analyze the state of play. As you know we’re having a problem with mortality; we’re talking here about significant people — bishops, cardinals, proper religious people — dying without any prospect of ever coming back. It’s never happened before.”
“Could I ask…ah…you, whoever you are,” he said awkwardly, glancing at Chase, “to give us a rundown of the situation.”
“Certainly,” said Chase with a repressed frown: “Guys, can I have the projector?” She stood up and walked up to the screen, showing a world map with all the countries color-coded according to their “maggot saturation.”
Using her electronic pointer she clicked first on Beijing. “What we have is a statistical problem that’s pretty damn complex, kind of interesting too…”
“Really?” scowled Giacomo. “What’s so interesting about it?”
“Well, let’s take an example. At current maggot levels available to the Beijing market it’s going to take like two hundred and sixty-three years to neutralize the population.”
“That’s absurd,” said Giacomo. “I’ve got ten or twenty years at most.”
“Right,” said Chase. “The problem we have, sir, is if we move more maggot product into the region we’re looking at significantly higher maggot die-off levels. Even if we ram Beijing with five times more maggot, the projected timeframe only improves by…” Her face froze as her brain crunched into the equation: “…just short of a century.”
“That’s absurd!” roared Giacomo.
“Anyway, we can’t move that much maggot into China, sir. There’s a political issue. The Chinese secret service is onto us, and according to our information, they’re starting up a maggot program of their own.”
“The Americans are doing the same, and the European Union, too. The technology is very easy,” Smithsonian cut in, with a lovely grin. “Any imbecile can breed them. All they need is oxygen and sugar. Let’s just hope North Korea doesn’t get hold of them.”
There was a thunderous silence.
Chase continued. “The problem is the die-off factor. If we tried to blitz Beijing with a really massive program, say a tenfold increase, the maggots would actually die off before we got them there.”
“What we’ve got here is a sort of entropy,” Warburg whined. “If we could figure out the problem, we might be able to recalibrate the program and stabilize our targets. Or even modify the maggots… change their hard-wiring.”
“But then we’d have to get into genetic engineering,” Smithsonian sighed, with a look at Giacomo. “What does the Church feel about that?”
“I really couldn’t give a fuck,” said Giacomo irascibly. “I’m faced with a classic Patton-Montgomery conflict of interest.” He stood up, grasping his cigar and bottle of Armagnac. “At the end of the Second World War, Churchill wanted to use Montgomery’s armored brigades to punch aggressively through the lines of German resistance and race for Berlin. But the Americans insisted on Patton’s lines advancing very slowly, taking out all the resistance as they went. And this is why we lost Eastern Europe to the Russians.” He stopped, and swigged his Armagnac. “Just in case any of you have any doubts about where I stand, I want you to know I’m more of a Montgomery man, myself. That means I want the populations of Beijing, Mexico City, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Los Angeles, Moscow, and New Delhi punched out within ten years… or I’ll decommission you all… and I won’t put you in coffins. I’ll throw you in the fire.”
He sat down.
Barings had been very quiet up until now. “Sir, what possible advantage would you gain by having us liquidated?” he said in a muted, gentlemanly tone. “Don’t you see? This thing is quite out of our hands: the maggots are a force in their own right. To be frank with you, sir, we are doing our utmost. We have no choice but go along with…”
“Oh, shut up, you English prick!” said Giacomo. “Always the same posturing self-confidence. Don’t expect me to be reasonable; I am not fucking reasonable at all. I’ve always hated your country, ever since that fat, gut-bucket king of yours murdered our brothers and took over our Church and spurted his sterile, diseased spunk into all those poor girls and then one by one had them murdered on the scaffold.”
Barings went pale. “I’m not sure this is getting us very far… sir.”
“I’ll show you where it’s getting you… you atheist fuck,” said Giacomo, pressing a button under his desk. Immediately the door opened and a couple of security men walked in accompanied by a priest. Giacomo turned to them: “Take this man below, empty him, and put him in the incinerator. No, that’s too severe,” he muttered under his breath. “Put him in storage for a hundred years.”
Barings stood up. “I simply don’t understand,” he wailed. “I’ve done nothing against you.”
“There’s no reward for that. You’ve done nothing for me,” said Giacomo, “and that’s what counts…old chap.”
“What about my family?”
“Don’t you worry about them. I’m not a horrible man, I’ll have them maggotized as well, then decommissioned. We’ll reactivate them at the same time as you, how’s that? When you wake up, my friend, you’ll find a nice, clean, empty world without so many annoying people in it. It’ll be quite lovely for your family; you’ll see. But you’ll have to take up gardening, because there won’t be any banks and no money, either. Or boarding schools!”
Barings was led off weeping.
Giacomo tried not to look too smug as he refocused on his think-tank. By this time they were looking mesmerized and uncomfortable, like rats lined up in front of a python. “You see,” he informed them pointedly, “my problem is I don’t like most people very much. People don’t seem to realize the world is an arena where God and the Devil are slugging it out. They think our planet is a place for humans to live, build factories, and drive cars. How very silly.” He turned to the biologist: “Smithsonian… do you actually understand the significance of the problem we’re facing? I need to get rid of the human race, quickly!” With a shake of his head, he refocused on her. “I mean you seem like a sweet woman; why on Earth didn’t you just stay at home and get married?”
Smithsonian worked hard to control herself — she grew intense and positively glowed with resentment. “Isn’t it enough for you that you took my life from me? Must you make me crawl on the ground? Do you understand what I’ve paid… my personal sacrifice for my liaison with you?”