Kusanagi‑Jones widened his eyes and spoke in an undertone. “It’s supposed to look like that?”
“The Christ, don’t make me laugh.” He winced, and then flinched, as if the act of wincing hurt.
Vincent handed the bloody cloth back to Shafaqat and glanced at his watch, and Kusanagi‑Jones knew he was thinking about upping his chemistry and dismissing the idea. He was still idly checking readouts when Austin’s speech came to an end, a study in deceptive inattention, but when he glanced up, his eyes were sparkling. They stood when everybody else did, herded by security agents, and filed down the steps and through the crowd again. Kusanagi‑Jones covered Vincent as much as possible, varying distance and pace within the crowd, and for the first time was actively angry that all of the New Amazonian security was female and that Vincent was taller than any of them and all the New Amazonian dignitaries. And, of course, taller than Kusanagi‑Jones. There was nothing to block a head shot, if there was another shooter somewhere in the crowd.
Which meant relying on the agents assigned to crowd coverage and Vincent’s wardrobe to get them through safely. And Kusanagi‑Jones thought that just possibly, he would rather have severed his own fingers with a pair of tin snips than made that endless, light‑drenched walk. Though the crowd was calm, respectful, their attention oppressed Kusanagi‑Jones like the weight of meters of water, cramping his breathing.
He managed a free breath when they stepped out of the square and into the cool shade of the gallery lobby. A brief bottleneck ensued as politicians pulled off shoes and hung them on the racks, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Only the dignitaries, security, chosen observers, and a small herd of media would travel past this point.
When he looked up, Kusanagi‑Jones found himself on the periphery of a glance exchanged between Elder Kyoto and Vincent that Kusanagi‑Jones would have needed all of Vincent’s skill to interpret. Lesa caught it, too, and by her frown she understood it far better than Kusanagi‑Jones–but she said nothing.
Now that he had a plan, the wait was nauseating. He knew how Vincent, having formulated his strategy, would be behaving in Kusanagi‑Jones’s shoes. He would already have assessed the possible ways in which the subject might react, and he’d have a contingency for each. He’d have alternates mapped and a decision tree in place to deal with them, with counterplans in the event of failure or unexpected consequences.
Kusanagi‑Jones had only one idea, and it involved doing something he hadn’t willingly done in his adult life. And he was basing it not on facts, probabilities, and meticulously calculated options, but on three entirely illogical factors.
The first of these was Kii. Kusanagi‑Jones didn’t know what to do about the Dragon’s ultimatum. He was as torn as Hamlet; Kusanagi‑Jones did not, in all impartiality, consider himself capable of making the demanded choice. He wasn’t a decision maker. He would do anything possible to avoid being placed in that position of responsibility.
It was a strength in some ways. One of the things that made him an accomplished Advocate was his ability to argue both sides of a predicament to exhaustion. But he’d been able to rely first on Vincent to make the tough calls, and then, after Vincent, on the fact that he was limited by scandal to unimportant missions to prevent it from becoming a weakness. It was Vincent’s job to decide, and Kusanagi‑Jones’s job to back Vincent up.
Except when he was betraying him over politics, but that, while ironic, was orthogonal to the argument.
The second factor was Vincent himself. Kusanagi‑Jones couldn’t face stepping away from him again. He’d done it once, ignorant of the cost, as the price of something he had thought more important than either of them. He stillthought it was more important. But he wasn’t sure he would live through it twice.
And yes, it would mean his life if Vincent reported him. He had no illusions. Except, perhaps, for the illusion that Vincent wouldn’t do it. Vincent’s loyalty to the job had always been unimpeachable…but Kusanagi‑Jones was about to gamble that his loyalty to the partnership would outweigh it.
In the final analysis–to dignify his gut belief with an entirely unjustified word–he didn’t believe Vincent would kill him. Which led to the third factor. Which was what Vincent had said to him in bed, regarding Skidbladnir,that had flexed Kusanagi‑Jones’s shoulders and neck in a shivering paroxysm. But it was possible–just–that Vincent had done it on purpose, had chosen his moment and found a way of letting Kusanagi‑Jones know he suspected, without allowing it to become an accusation or an admission of retroactive complicity. More, it was possible that Vincent was letting him know that Vincent was about something equally dodgy himself, and wanted his help. It was a daydream. Denial. Fantasy that didn’t want to deal with the reality of how compromised he truly was. But like pearls seeded in oysters, great treasons from small irritations grow.
He couldn’t mount a better option. Michelangelo Osiris Leary Kusanagi‑Jones, Liar, was going to have to tell someone the truth. And now that he’d decided, the wait was killing him.
As they broke into groups for the lifts, Kusanagi‑Jones caught Vincent’s eye and gave him the subtlest of smiles, nothing more than a crinkle of the corners of his eyes. Vincent returned it, careful of his bruises, and Kusanagi‑Jones swallowed a forlorn sigh.
It was going to be a long, long day.
He repeated those words like a silent mantra all through Elder Singapore’s and Elder Austin’s second round of speeches, these taking place against the unpolished back of the black granite panel that blocked the view of the rest of the display from casual eyes, and continued it as Vincent stepped up to the focal point. He didn’t need his mind engaged to run security. After fifty years, his reflexes and trained awareness did a better job of it if he kept his consciousness out of the way.
His thoughts still chased an endless, anxiety‑producing spiral when Vincent joined Elder Austin and Miss Ouagadougou to lead the group around to the polished, graven side of the wall. Kusanagi‑Jones insinuated himself at Vincent’s side, and so he was one of the first around the corner to observe–
–an empty space in the middle of the gallery floor.
Phoenix Abased,all four and a half metric tons of her, was gone.
What followed was more or less predictable. Elder Kyoto took charge of the scene, and Vincent found Lesa hustling himself and Michelangelo to a car, passing through a crowd of insistent media with very little pause for politeness. For a moment, Vincent thought one of them might reach for her weapon, but Lesa fixed the woman with a calm, humorless stare that seemed to persuade her of the better part of valor, and then slid into the backseat opposite Vincent and Angelo.
The door sealed and Lesa slumped. “Miss Katherinessen. You certainly know how to keep a party interesting.”
“Surely you don’t think I–” Vincent fell silent at the wave of her hand. A few minutes passed, silence interrupted only by the blaring of the groundcar’s horn as it edged through streets jammed with Carnival revelers.
“You haven’t the means,” she said. “It had to be somebody with override priority on House.”
“Override?…”
Her eyebrow rose. He fell silent. Sticky leather trapped the heat of his burned skin against his body, and he shifted uncomfortably. Angelo’s regard pressed the side of his face like a hand. Angelo, of course, had been in that gallery until nearly dawn. But he hadn’t said he’d seen anybody, in particular near Phoenix Abased,and Vincent hoped he wasn’t thinking that Vincent was likely to hold him accountable for the theft.