Why would you have thought that? she asked, a random response pathetic, she thought masking the terror she now felt, that she allowed herself at last to feel, which was fear of some loss of self, of will and direction, fear of the love she still felt. She took the other chair and seated herself as the young waiter arrived, a Spanish boy in a striped apron, to take her order. She asked for Vichy water.
Nothing else? Alain asked. The waiter hovered No, thank you.
Ive been trying to reach you for weeks, he said, and she knew that that was a lie, and yet, as she often had before, she wondered if he was entirely conscious of the fact that he was lying. Andrea maintained that men like Alain lied so constantly, so passionately, that some basic distinction had been lost. They were artists in their own right, Andrea said, intent on restructuring reality, and the New Jerusalem was a fine place indeed, free of overdrafts and disgruntled landlords and the need to find someone to cover the evenings bill.
I didnt notice you trying to reach me when Gnass came with the police, she said, hoping at least that he would wince, but the boyish face was calm as ever, beneath clean brown hair he habitually combed back with his fingers.
Im sorry, he said, crushing out his Gauloise Because shed come to associate the smell of the dark French tobacco with him, Paris had seemed full of his scent, his ghost, his trail. I was certain hed never detect the the nature of the piece. You must understand: Once I had admitted to myself how badly we needed the money, I knew that I must act You, I knew, were far too idealistic. The gallery would have folded in any case. If things had gone as planned, with Gnass, we would be there now, and you would be happy.
Happy, he repeated, taking another cigarette from the pack
She could only stare at him, feeling a kind of wonder, and a sick revulsion at her desire to believe him.
You know, he said, taking a match from the red and yellow box, Ive had difficulties with the police before. When I was a student. Politics, of course. He struck the match, tossed the box down, and lit the cigarette.
Politics, she said, and suddenly felt like laughing I was unaware that there was a party for people like you. I cant imagine what it might be called.
Marly, he said, lowering his voice, as he always did when he wished to indicate intensity of feeling, you know, you must know, that I acted for you For us, if you will But surely you know, you can feel, Marly, that I would never deliberately hurt you, or place you in jeopardy. There was no room on the crowded little table for her purse, so shed held it in her lap; now she was aware of her nails buried deep in the soft thick leather
Never hurt me... The voice was her own, lost and amazed, the voice of a child, and suddenly she was free, free of need, desire, free of fear, and all that she felt for the handsome face across the table was simple revulsion, and she could only stare at him, this stranger shed slept beside for one year, in a tiny room behind a very small gallery in the Rue Mauconseil. The waiter put her glass of Vichy down in front of her.
He must have taken her silence for the beginning of acceptance, the utter blankness of her expression for openness. What you dont understand this, she remembered, was a favorite opening is that men like Gnass exist, in some sense, to support the arts To support us, Marly. He smiled then, as though he laughed at himself, a jaunty, conspiratorial smile that chilled her now. I suppose, though, that I should have credited the man with having at least the requisite sense to hire his own Cornell expert, although my Cornell expert, I assure you, was by far the more erudite of the two...
How was she to get away? Stand, she told herself Turn. Walk calmly back to the entrance Step through the door. Out into the subdued glitter of Napoleon Court, where polished marble overlay the Rue du Champ Fleuri, a fourteenth-century street said to have been reserved primarily for prostitution. Anything, anything, only go, only leave, now, and be away, away from him, walking blind, to lose herself in the guidebook Paris shed learned when shed first come here.
But now. he was saying. you can see that things have worked out for the best. Its often like that, isnt it? Again, the smile, but this time it was boyish, slightly wistful, and somehow, horribly, more intimate Weve lost the gallery, but youve found employment, Marly. You have a job to do, an interesting one, and I have the connections youll need, Marly. I know the people youll need to meet, in order to find your artist.
My artist? Covering her abrupt confusion with a sip of Vichy.
He opened his scarred attach and removed something flat, a simple reflection hologram. She took it, grateful to have something to do with her hands, and saw that it was a casual shot of the box shed seen in Vireks construct of Barcelona.
Someone was holding it forward A mans hands, not Alains, and on one of them, a signet ring of some dark metal. The background was lost. Only the box, and the hands
Alain, she said, where did you get this? Looking up to meet brown eyes filled with a terrible childlike triumph.
It s going to cost someone a very great deal to find out. He ground out his cigarette and stood. Excuse me. He walked away, headed in the direction of the restrooms. As he vanished, behind mirrors and black steel beams, she dropped the hologram, reached across the table, and flipped back the lid of his attach. There was nothing there, only a blue elastic band and some crumbs of tobacco.
May I bring you something else? More Vichy, perhaps? The waiter stood beside her.
She looked up at him, struck suddenly by a sense of familiarity. The lean dark face.
Hes wearing a broadcast unit, the waiter said. Hes armed as well. I was the bellman in Brussels. Give him what he wants. Remember that the money means nothing to you. He took her glass and placed it carefully on his tray. And, very likely, it will destroy him.
When Alain returned, he was smiling. Now, darling, he said reaching for his cigarettes, we can do business.
Marly smiled back and nodded.
11 ON SITE
HE ALLOWED HIMSELF three hours of sleep, finally, in the windowless bunker where the point team had established the command post. Hed met the rest of the site team. Ramirez was slight, nervous, perpetually wired on his own skill as a console jockey; they were depending on him, along with Jaylene Slide on the offshore rig, to monitor cyberspace around the grid sector that held the heavily iced banks of Maas Biolabs; if Maas became aware of them, at the last moment, he might be able to provide some warning. He was also charged with relaying the medical data from the surgery to the offshore rig, a complex procedure if they were to keep it from Maas. The line out ran to a phone booth in the middle of nowhere Once past that booth, he and Jaylene were on their own in the matrix. If they blew it, Maas could backtrack and pinpoint the site. And then there was Nathan. the repair-man, whose real job consisted of watching over the gear in the bunker. If some part of their system went down, there was at least a chance he could fix it. Nathan belonged to the species that had produced Oakey and a thousand others Turner had worked with over the years, maverick techs who liked earning danger money and had proven they could keep their mouths shut. The others Compton, Teddy, Costa, and Davis were Just expensive muscle, mercs, the sort of men you hired for a job like this. For their benefit, hed taken particular care in questioning Sutcliffe about the arrangements for clear-out. Hed explained where the copters would come in, the order of pickup, and precisely how and when they would be paid.
Then hed told them to leave him alone in the bunker, and ordered Webber to wake him in three hours.
The place had been either a pump house or some sort of nexus for electrical wiring. The stumps of plastic tubing that protruded from the walls might have been conduit or sewage line, the room provided no evidence that any of them had ever been connected to anything. The ceiling, a single slab of poured concrete, was too low to allow him to stand, and there was a dry, dusty smell that wasnt entirely unpleasant. The team had swept the place before they brought in the tables and the equipment, but there were still a few yellow flakes of newsprint on the floor, that crumbled when he touched them. He made out letters, sometimes an entire word.