‘You okay?’
‘Stuffed. The Great Dane’s turned into my Caliban — more than Zuiden ever was to you.’
He picked his way forward. ‘How’s the worm in the apple?’
‘Still there. But so are we. Curious, isn’t it?’
He disinterred two chairs. It was safe to talk here. The room was electronically clean at least. ‘Did Karen tell you about Murchison?’
‘Yes.’ She fiddled with a crushed pack of fags.
‘And?’
‘Forget it.’
‘He wasn’t assigned to her?’
‘No.’
‘Then…’
‘Ray, I’m on it.’
‘I just want to help.’
‘And you will. I’ll inform you when. It’ll be the biggest Blue Card job of your career.’
They sat and she lit a cigarette as if she barely had the energy to function.
‘Oh — congratulations on Germany. Fantastic!’ He shook her hand.
That pleased her. ‘And now we’re getting somewhere in South Africa. Quite enough to justify a life.’
‘Shame about Benazir.’
‘C’est la guerre.’
‘Now they’re back with the army and another Zia stooge.’
‘Still, things have moved. I predict she’ll squeak in again.’
He felt something under his foot, picked a squashed jellybean off his shoe. ‘How come Zia’s still here? Thought you would have topped the bugger.’
‘I’ve got all the warrants except for the one from the UK. Muslim influence on their government. Never thought I’d miss Maggie but I do. Trying to get people to agree on an execution is worse than juggling ferrets.’ She found another bean on the floor, picked it up, shoved it in her mouth. ‘So how’s Albino Luciani?’
‘Amazing.’
‘Is the pope a Catholic?’
‘Good question.’
‘I listened.’ She dragged in nicotine. ‘But, lacking the required supernal insight, found it as intelligible as a lecture on multiplexing systems. I was surprised you didn’t both levitate.’ She reached under her chair and pulled out a third-full bottle of scotch. ‘Oh bother. It’s not sacramental wine. Suppose you’re too pure for hard liquor?’
‘I’ll risk it.’
‘Such condescension. Two glasses under your chair, both dirty. But no doubt your sanctified touch will remedy that.’
He felt around till he found the glasses, held them out. She sloshed spirit into them. ‘I think John’s running this joint. Forty adepts… dawn sittings…’
He laughed.
‘And you care for him more than me, fickle bastard. Now, if you’re returned from the unmanifest long enough to attend to business…’ She swayed forward, legs apart, elbows on her knees. ‘There are these two rich sisters who live in a mansion in the South Island of New Zealand. One has a teenage daughter. And wherever this brat goes, things fly across the room, doors open and close, clocks go mad, lights blow…’
‘Ron. The guy who I saw in Queenstown was CIA.’
‘Even so. The sweet doves are leaning on us.’
‘We’re working for the Company?’
She gulped scotch. ‘Funding crisis. Side job. Funds our more important work. Take no notice.’
‘What about our charter? What about PARTISANS ARE PERNICIOUS?’
‘Ray. Please. I’m barely coping here.’ She dragged on her fag. ‘Now, this nymph is to psychic phenomena what Rommel was to the desert campaign. She…’
‘Ronnie?’
An exhausted, ‘What?’
‘Why can’t the person running this handle it?’
‘Because, dear heart, it’s Stromlo.’
‘The guy who replaced the pope?’ He was stunned. ‘But he’d be in his sixties now — a prune.’
‘Verily. The Great Stromlo. Sixty-two and rooted.’
‘Shit, I’m working for the CIA — with Stromlo? You’d better bloody fill me in.’
She sucked in smoke, squinted at him for a time, assessing him. ‘It was the first side job we ever did. The Vatican leaned on Wolf through a government I won’t name.’
‘Wolf did a side job?’
‘You see the problem with information? Up to a certain point, knowledge is power. Beyond that it’s disillusionment. Yes, Wolf did a side job for certain people in the Curia. They wanted two folks out of the way. John and one Amos Stern.’
‘Why?’
‘Gianpaolo had to go because he wouldn’t toe the line. Wouldn’t reject Liberation Theology, rattled skeletons in the Vatican bank and didn’t see extending the natural period of infertility from 24 days to 28 as a sin. Then he was about to meet with a committee from the State Department on birth control. The Curia flipped.’
‘Insane. I mean, nature kills human embryos. The endometrium resorbs them.’
‘Ah, but one mustn’t mess with a manufactured doctrine aimed at multiplying the faithful.’
‘So why not the Italian solution? Haven’t they popped popes in the past?’
‘Because they’re hobbled by this dark age of humanist democracy. No, they didn’t want to kill him — just replace him.’
He nodded, frowning.
‘But the switch went wrong.’
‘It’s getting confusing.’
‘Bear with me.’ She finished her drink. ‘Stromlo was the same intake as Wolf and his best friend. God knows why. Stromlo’s a grotesque creature — sensual, well-developed blood-lust and would have been a blast as a surgeon. But Tigon put him in D and streamed him as a priest.’
‘Why?’
‘Why indeed?’ She threw up her hands. ‘Stromlo then spent years warping his inhibitions in Brazil and ended as a full Grade Four. And our man in the Curia.’
‘Then the switch was requested for the pope.’
‘Yes. But Gianpaolo made waves too fast. That meant Stromlo lost his lead time and everything went pear-shaped. You see, the problem with side jobs is how not to let the left hand know the right hand’s cutting it off. In this case, the left hand was the CIA, because Washington’s big on third-world population control.’
‘And now Stromlo’s working for the Company?’
‘With the CIA — and with you.’ She snorted. ‘Cruddy side jobs! Pains in the arse.’
He was still trying to understand it. ‘So if Stromlo made the switch — then where’s the duplicate pope now?’
‘Buried in St Peter’s. Terrible botch. Everything went wrong. Stromlo was sharp enough to scrape through, but it wrecked his nerve. As for Wolf — he’d been used, compromised, forced to go against the charter. And he’d turned his best mate, the Great Stromlo, into a raving, self-dramatising psycho. He topped himself three months later.’
‘So that was why he did it. And what about Stern? What’s he invented? The ultimate contraceptive?’
‘Nothing so innocent. Nice man but he’ll never get a job in pharmaceuticals.’ She stood up with effort and dug at her dress to ease a bra-strap. ‘Now we’re off to Duplications. Time you saw what you’re in for.’
21
ON ACTIVE SERVICE
Pat’s domain was extensive. It included a TV studio two levels high used for recording duplicates’ postures and expressions during rehearsals. From the control room they gazed down at sandbagged flats arranged into a set. The floor beyond that was marked out in chalk. Rhonda said, ‘It’s a mock-up of the house. It’s too big to do it all here. The sisters are loaded. Their father left them millions. They work but don’t have to.’
He pointed to a workbench. The floor around it was littered with white spatter. ‘What’s that?’
‘One sister has a studio for moulding and casting porcelain dolls. They’re still teaching the duplicate how to do it.’
They left the control room and went to the viewing room where Rhonda slumped on the lounge in front of the monitor and waved at the engineer behind his console. ‘Run it.’