‘What other remedies are there?’ the president asked.
‘Exactly – science, technology and pragmatic politics. These are the remedies of our time,’ Noah replied.
‘Unlike war and religion, the remedies of our past. Hackman says you’re his best agent.’
‘That doesn’t sound like Hackman.’
‘You don’t give either of us enough credit, Noah. You are his best agent – you know it and I know it. Please don’t offend me by suggesting otherwise. What I don’t know is why he thought an ageing, albeit accomplished, virologist was important enough for you to watch him.’
‘Ageing but accomplished – you could be describing me.’ Noah laughed.
‘You are hardly old – according to your file you’re forty.’
‘In my line of work that’s very old. We usually die a lot younger.’
‘And yet you still live – because you are excellent at your job.’
‘This is my last job. I’m retiring while I still can. All that danger pay is only worth something if you live to spend it. I wanted an easy job and Hackman did me a favour. Perhaps he felt sorry for me – if you’ve read my file then you’ll know why.’
‘Yes, I was sorry to hear about that, Noah. We all love our children. Do you know what caused her illness?’
‘Apparently there aren’t always reasons.’
‘No, of course not. How insensitive of me. I am deeply sorry.’
‘Thank you, Mr President, that’s kind of you,’ Noah replied automatically.
‘If you’ve ruled Khan out – as you say – then why do you still spend time with him? Is he working on something that interests you?’
‘No,’ Noah lied. Hackman’s instructions about the ghost – and Khan’s trial vaccine – were clear.
‘He’s an interesting man,’ Noah continued. ‘Virology produces some eccentric personalities – all that time spent alone in a lab, talking to viruses.’
‘So you’re still here because you like him?’ the president mused.
Noah shrugged. ‘I’m not one for liking or disliking people – I’ll go when the job’s done.’
‘Quite. Would you like us to question him?’
‘No,’ Noah replied, too quickly. He paused casually. ‘I’d prefer to keep watching him in his natural habitat.’
‘The lab is impressive, isn’t it?’ The president smiled proudly. ‘Just as good as Bio’s, no?’
‘Almost,’ Noah qualified. ‘The Head of Immunology there is an old friend. He’ll be very interested when I tell him about Khan’s toys. I wondered about the tech-level – how could you . . .’ his voice trailed off.
‘How could we afford it?’ the president finished for him, laughing. ‘The Western Alliance and the WHO don’t fund us as well as they fund Bio. But we find other ways.’
‘What other ways? Humour me – I’m your guest.’ Noah took a fish patty he didn’t want.
‘Aid money, of course.’
‘Aid is for reconstruction,’ Noah replied. Reconstruction projects required Western Alliance approvals, and there was no way the Western Alliance would have approved that laboratory.
‘You fund us enough to survive – but not enough to flourish as the Western Alliance has. That’s how you like us: poor but stable. I haven’t forgotten my national self-flagellations.’
The president soaked his hands in the fingerbowl. ‘We feed from many teats, Noah – not just on the scraps the West deigns to throw us when you come here to remind us how WWR was our fault.’
‘Do you dispute that history, Mr President?’
‘I do not – my only correction is that in 2020, when the war started, we all hated the Muslims. The difference between your anti-Islamic sentiments and ours was that you weren’t willing to own yours. You were so busy claiming “Islam is a religion of peace, some of my best friends are Muslims; it isn’t Islam – it’s extremism” – it makes me sick.
‘You wanted to blow them all to hell too – ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, the whole lot of them. But you’re crippled by international law and debilitating political correctness that insists you should respect all faiths.’
Rajasuriya paused to inspect his hands and nails. ‘You see, Noah, we knew we hated them. They were savages. We knew we wanted to kill them so we simply began the process – and you let us do it for a while, not just because you needed us as an ally in South Asia but because, well – how shall I say this? We were only doing what everyone else in the world secretly wanted to do.
‘We were so close to finishing the job but then the Middle East stepped in. You can’t beat oil money, it’s endless. The Muslims reacted so predictably. Suicide bombing after suicide bombing in the East and West. You were forced to intervene and finish it.
‘Under the terms of the Armistice Accord, the people and the religions of the East were found guilty – and we were punished. But you take every opportunity to remind us of our sins; it’s something we carry like a heavy, wooden cross on our backs.’
‘Are you suggesting you resent the ongoing price of peace?’ Noah wondered if he was investigating the wrong man.
‘On the contrary, I embrace the price of that peace and pay it willingly. Religion in the East is a virus and it should be eradicated, not just prohibited. The law isn’t strong enough – the West was right to turn to science. The Armistice Accord was a blessing.’
‘And unlike other leaders in the Eastern Alliance, you weren’t given the Faith Inhibitor, Mr President.’
‘I was given a waiver – the same waiver that every citizen of the Western Alliance was given without realising it.
‘The Information Shield is as important as the vaccine,’ Rajasuriya continued. ‘Can you imagine what would have happened in the Middle East if those head-banging, bomb-wearing camel-fuckers found out that this was the West’s solution to war?’
‘Even our happy-clappy Christians in the West would never stand for it,’ Noah said, ‘despite their closet anti-Semitic tendencies.’
‘Exactly. The full conditions of the Armistice were never disclosed to people on either side for good reason. The shield has other benefits for me too,’ the President said. ‘It allows me to deal with my country as I see fit. I don’t have to listen to the sanctimonious hypocrisy of the West anymore.
‘I don’t resent the price of peace, Noah. I resent you – you and your presence here in my country.’
‘I thought you liked me.’
The president ignored him. ‘This is a sovereign nation and I am its master. How we choose to execute our obligations under the Armistice Accord is our business, not yours.’ He leaned back and smiled, wiping the sweat from his upper lip with his red scarf.
‘Not entirely, sir,’ Noah replied. ‘Bio exists in part to ensure that the obligations of all countries under that accord are complied with. We invigilate –’ he was about to add and enforce.
‘Then invigilate. Instead you look at me like I am a monster. Why? Because I dispose of people who disobey me, because I keep slaves, because I admit that I hate Muslims?
‘Your government does all of that and more. Different methodologies and different marketing.
‘I can see what you think of me, and I don’t care. However, I am aware of what you do for a living and how you do it – and I am galled by the hypocrisy of your revulsion.’ He raised his chin belligerently.
The president’s neck was exposed. Noah saw the artery. He sensed it throbbing in time with the man’s baser rhythm. He saw the dinner knife sparkling silver on the table between them. One swift move. Don’t retract the knife. Arterial spray is messy. Puncture, drag, hide the body, still warm.
No. Break the neck. Catch the slump forward. Break, drag, hide the body, still warm. A clean kill, quiet escape, fast execution at the gate – and then out into the dark street, the hot night air, already fragrant with star jasmine.
He smiled. ‘Dinner was delicious, thank you. What’s for dessert, Mr President?’
Chapter 15
>
Noah pulled his car out of the presidential driveway and waved to the soldiers at the gate. He turned left towards the beach and stopped at the lights. He had no gun and no knife. He cursed. He raised his left hand to his neck, just in case. Wire was painful. He considered reversing hard into the telephone pole he had just passed. Vijay wouldn’t be happy. He looked into the rear-view mirror as he spoke:
‘Whoever you are, I suggest you put three bullets in my back now while the car’s stationary. It’s safer for you. Maybe one to the head – my driver is very particular about his upholstery. Or you could just climb over and come sit with me.’
He heard a woman laugh. It was a nice laugh, surprised and friendly. Unafraid. Perhaps she was like him – perhaps her heart rate hadn’t quickened at all when she realised she was made.
He moved to the right so she could slide into the passenger’s seat. She smelled like sandalwood.
The lights changed and he kept driving. The surveillance vehicle was three cars behind. At most, they would see another silhouette through the darkened windows of Vijay’s SUV.
He looked at her properly, and his heart rate did change. ‘What did you think of half-time at the Super Bowl this year?’
She rolled her eyes but repeated the required verification phrase. ‘It was fine but Bruno Mars’s drum solo in 2014 was much better.’
She didn’t wait for his response. ‘To be honest, I think Bruno Mars was fine too, but 1994 was my favourite year. I remember watching it on a Top of the Pops retrospective. I’m not that old. The line-up was Clint Black, Tanya Tucker, Travis Tritt and the Judds. It was spectacular.’
‘I wouldn’t have picked you for a country music fan,’ he replied, although wary. A beautiful killer was still a killer.
*
Sahara could tell Noah was on guard. She would have been the same. Trust required more than verification phrases. Anything could be extracted under the right kind of torture.
‘It’s the pain in the melodies coupled with the redemptive hopefulness of the chorus lines. Lose the tail. Would you like me to drive?’ she asked.
‘No, thank you.’
‘It wasn’t a question. I outrank you.’ At the junction, she reached across and gripped his door handle.
‘My turn.’ She pulled herself over, giving him just enough space to move into her seat.
‘Don’t you think we should get to know each other first?’ He strapped the passenger seatbelt on.
As they approached the next red light she accelerated and ran through it. He looked behind at the cars that braked in the middle of the intersection. One car went around the mess, chasing them.
‘You’ll need more than speed.’
‘No problem.’ She pulled the vehicle to the right, onto the wrong side of the road. Lights flooded into the car, blinding them for a moment. Outside they heard the familiar screech of brakes being pushed beyond their limit; the screams of frightened people; the roar of metal on metal as cars collided.
She crossed three lanes of oncoming traffic and then braked hard again, skidding the car into a tight U-turn using the emergency lane to help her. They were centimetres away from the balustrade.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Mingling.’ She sped back into the flow of traffic, and then cut left at a slip lane that took them into narrow back streets. People crowded around small campfires. The light danced in the ocean breeze, casting long shadows on the crumbling buildings behind them. Ownership of land was delineated by hedges of rubbish and fences of cardboard sheets.
Finally, she finally parked the car, under a broken streetlight.
‘Where are we?’ he asked. Sahara could tell he was identifying escape routes, but also troubled by the slum surrounding them. She hadn’t seen Colombo through a stranger’s eyes for many years.
‘A Rapture commune. The army and police don’t like coming here – unless they’re buying the drug. Sometimes they’re selling.’
‘What’s the plan now?’ he asked.
‘We talk fast, there are still cameras everywhere. They’ll find us eventually. Hackman told me you were coming.’
‘Are you the other car watching me?’ he asked.
‘Yes, I was being discreet. Sahara.’ She held out a hand politely.
‘Noah,’ he replied, ‘but then I suppose you knew that. Hackman didn’t tell me anything about you.’
‘There’s not much to tell.’ She looked in the rear-view mirror. ‘How was dinner?’
‘As you’d expect.’
‘I’d expect it to be repugnant. Rajasuriya is a survivor – and somehow, with him, that means there’s always a body count left behind. He has a lot to say for himself, doesn’t he? Although, I’ve never met a quiet despot.’
She saw the corner of his mouth twitch. ‘Me neither. He said he actually wanted the accord.’
‘That’s right. The other governments of the East were duped – they agreed to the Global Vaccination Programme but didn’t know about the Faith Inhibitor. Rajasuriya knew what was happening – I don’t know how. But he agreed to fast and complete national vaccination.’
‘And, in return for compliance, he and his family didn’t have to take the vaccine?’
Sahara liked the way his dark hair fell forward onto his forehead. It almost touched his eyebrows. He pushed it back again. Perhaps he cut it himself, she thought.
‘His brother, the general, insisted on taking it – something to do with the military brotherhood and loyalty to his soldiers. I can understand and admire that. Even assassins have standards.’
‘Is that why you’re here in Sri Lanka? You assassinate people at Hackman’s request?’
‘No. I like to think of myself more as a cultural attaché. I speak English, Sinhalese and Tamil. I’m fluent in the religious and cultural practices of the Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims and Catholics here – I’m ambi-religious. I can move seamlessly between the communities. That’s why I was assigned here.’
She thought about the babies she’d infected. She’d moved seamlessly in and out of their ward. In and out of their lives.
‘Those communities – or at least those religious communities – haven’t existed for fifteen years. The languages and some of the cultural practices might remain but your ability to fit into different groups is redundant,’ Noah suggested, not rudely.
‘I was sent here a long time ago – it was my first assignment and I never left.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know – I like the weather. I was born in London – the rain there got me down.’
‘I hear this place was genocidal – that doesn’t get you down?’
‘No, just the rain.’
He smiled finally. There was a reluctant warmth in it. She was right. It was a good smile.
‘So were you here when . . .?’ he asked.
‘Yes, during The Great Pandemic, while Ebola was taking root around the world, I was here.’
‘For cultural reasons?’
‘Exactly.’ She smiled. ‘This country is Patient Zero, as it were – it started World War R.’
‘I can imagine,’ Noah said.
‘No, actually, you can’t. Despite what you’ve seen and what you’ve done for Bio, you cannot imagine the bloodbath that happened here.’ Sahara fell silent. She worked hard on keeping those memories buried deep. She knew that when she allowed one through, others – each more horrific than the last – would follow.
Forty-three thousand Muslims had died in the first week of World War Righteous. The rate had slackened eventually. Even bigots have to rest. Over a hundred thousand by the end of the month. It was such a big number.
Stop it, she said to herself. Stop it.
They both sat quietly for a while.
Sahara finally spoke. ‘Do you think Khan is the ghost?’
‘I’m not sure – he’s using the AILA – this robot thing – to develop his own vaccine. I don’t know if it’s the one we’re looking for, but I’m sure Bio will want t
o take a look at it. He’s doing something.’
‘I’ve killed men for less, so have you,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ he replied simply.
‘Then why not him?’
‘Maybe I’m sick of killing; maybe this time I want to stop and be sure.’
‘And then kill him?’
‘I suppose so.’
She was intrigued by his hesitancy. It wasn’t what she expected from a Bio agent. And she was annoyed by her intrigue. It wasn’t what she expected from herself.
‘It’s a little late for a righteous kill, isn’t it?’ she asked. When he said nothing, she kept talking. ‘It’s the sad eyes, isn’t it?’
‘What?’ he said.
‘You can’t kill him because of his sad eyes.’
‘Maybe,’ he replied.
‘You don’t talk much.’
‘I’m surprised you talk so much.’ He checked his side mirror.
‘You’re the first company I’ve had in a while. Except Hackman, but that doesn’t count because I don’t like talking to him.’
‘No one does. We all expect him to shake our hands and then break our necks.’
‘Do you think that story’s true?’ she asked.
‘I’m sure of it,’ he replied. He paused for a moment and then changed the subject. ‘The president talked about receiving unrestricted aid. All Western Alliance aid is tied to specific reconstruction priorities – namely public health, disease control and sanitation. Every dollar is accounted for in some way – it either goes to a project or it goes to the president’s personal slush fund.’
‘His “In Case of Emergency Exile Fund”.’
‘Exactly. The lab – Khan’s lab – is ultra high-tech. It gives him the same capabilities as Bio, but the funding couldn’t have come from the West.’
‘Perhaps a company?’ Sahara suggested.
‘Western companies still have to go through the Western Alliance approvals process in order to trade with an Eastern Alliance Government. You can’t just show up in Colombo bearing high-tech and potentially dangerous gifts for the locals.’
‘So you want to know who supplied the equipment?’ she asked.
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