Armistice

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Armistice Page 28

by Lara Elena Donnelly


  “I grew up in Porachis,” Daoud said. “I do not fear scorpions.”

  “These are metaphorical,” said Aristide, “and therefore rather different and more worrisome. It’s likely I will be seeking out warlords, mercenaries, and intelligence agents of dubious loyalty.”

  “As if I had never met these, working with Pulan?”

  “Not, I imagine, in quite the same capacity as you’re liable to meet them in Oyoti. Can you fire a gun?”

  That, at least, turned the corners of his mouth down. “Will that be required?”

  “I can’t say for sure. But it would certainly be advisable to learn. Here.” He reached inside the lapel of his jacket and removed a diminutive snub-nosed revolver from the interior pocket. Pearl-handled, very pretty, with a punishing recoil. He’d carried the thing all over Amberlough, kept it in his pocket as he picked his way through puddles in the Culthams. He’d pulled it on a man who tried to rob him in Erlsbord, and when the thief had laughed at the diminutive gun Aristide put a bullet into the wall beside his face, so the flying chips of stone stuck in his skin. The next one, he promised, would strike somewhere more vital.

  “The kick is bad and it’s hard to aim,” said Aristide, letting the gun drag his hand back over his wrist. “But you will get five chances. If you can’t hit whatever’s coming for you by the time the chambers are empty … well.”

  Daoud took the gun, gingerly, and cradled it in his lap, lying flat on his upturned palms.

  Just out of sight of the house, the road curved past a scenic overlook bounded by a crumbling stone wall. Aristide pulled the car into the dusty patch of dirt on the cliff’s edge and killed the engine.

  “If you come,” he started, and Daoud opened his mouth to protest—probably the “if”—but Aristide talked over his indignant indrawn breath.

  “If you come, I want you pulling in the yolk. This isn’t charity. You’ll work as my secretary. If you decide you can’t stay in Oyoti, that’s fine, but I won’t help you get out.”

  Daoud nodded, still looking down at the revolver.

  “And,” added Aristide, then stalled. His falter finally brought Daoud’s eyes up from the sheen of deadly metal and mother-of-pearl.

  “Our … affair,” said Aristide, speaking to the steering wheel.

  Daoud nodded, in a resigned kind of way. “Of course. I understand if you wish to keep it secret from this … the lover you hope to find. I can be discreet.”

  “No, no. That isn’t what I meant at all.” Why was this so much worse than the stern warnings about death in the jungle?

  Because it was awkward. Because it was a relief, and he felt guilty.

  Daoud looked puzzled. “What, then?”

  “I want to end it. It isn’t fair to you.” He knew his altruism was unconvincing, but couldn’t bring himself to speak the whole truth: that the safe, unsatisfying dalliance made him feel disgusted with himself.

  “Please do not…” Daoud struggled for a moment, then said a word in Porashtu Aristide didn’t know. “It means … put your thoughts on me?”

  “Presume?” asked Aristide.

  Daoud nodded, passing one fingertip over the butt of the revolver. “I am perfectly capable of deciding for myself what is fair and what is not.” He hefted the revolver. “Is it loaded?”

  “It is.”

  “May I try it?”

  Aristide shrugged and swept his hand through the air with a trace of his old emcee manner. Daoud opened the passenger door and stepped out into the dust. At the edge of the overlook, thighs nearly touching the precarious stone wall, he lifted the gun and held it two-handed in front of his chest, elbows at his side.

  “No,” said Aristide, and got out of the car as well. He went to Daoud’s side and said, “Arm’s length, and one-handed. In a pinch you’ll pull it and shoot without a steadying palm.”

  Tentatively, Daoud stretched out his slender arm, stringy typist’s muscles cording from elbow to wrist.

  “Good. Now sight along the barrel.” For this, he stepped in closer, bracketing Daoud’s body with his own. An intimate position, but less erotic now than it was charged with some more focused, ferocious potential.

  “Breathe,” he said. “You needn’t aim just now, but you’ve got to get used to what the world looks like over those two sights.”

  The short barrel allowed for less than a hairsbreadth of error, when aiming, but as Aristide had told Asiyah, he didn’t like to shoot from far away. He didn’t imagine Daoud would need accuracy at any great range, either. Not if the gun was just for protection, or for execution.

  “All right,” he said. “Pull the trigger. Remember what it feels like, when the gun goes off, so it doesn’t surprise you next time.”

  Daoud’s voluptuous lips tightened, pressing together. He closed one eye, and narrowed the other to such a fine slit that Aristide anticipated he would squeeze it shut when he fired.

  He was wrong. Daoud didn’t close his eye, and when the wind blew the smell of powder back to them, he took a deep breath and smiled.

  Djihar met them at the door when they returned. «Ms. Satri’s three o’clock call is postponed,» he said. «She asked for you to meet her in the library, when you returned.»

  Daoud blanched. “She will know you lied,” he said. “She will know we were not planning for your trip as we said we were.”

  Aristide shrugged. “You were going to need to give your notice anyway.” Then, to Djihar, «What is in the library?»

  «The radio,» he said. «And luncheon. There is something interesting on the wireless that you might like to listen to while you dine.»

  * * *

  Wrapped in a satin kaftan, Pulan had her bare feet up on the library divan and a slew of plates and glasses arranged on the low table that held the hookah. It was as yet unlit, but Aristide imagined that would change when the food was taken away.

  «Ah,» she said. «My little schemers.»

  «Pulan,» Daoud began, «I need to—»

  But she held up a hand to stop him, and with her other—occupied by a skewer of chicken spiced scarlet red—she pointed to the radio.

  It was a handsome machine: hardwood case carved in whorls and lacy gingerbread. A showpiece, appropriate for the show unfolding.

  Aristide didn’t understand all of the words—the newscaster was speaking too quickly, and there was a hefty amount of jargon thrown in. But he got the gist, which was all he really needed.

  « … report that Geddan spies … outside the law … Her Resplendent Majesty Queen Yaima … push for information … full extent of their abilities.»

  “That didn’t take long,” he said.

  Pulan waved her skewer at him. “Sit. Eat.”

  “How long has it been on the wireless?”

  “Since this morning. Yesterday it was published in a Geddan rag out of Berer—lampblack printed on lavatory paper, not very reputable. But somebody saw it and it made the afternoon editions. Then, this morning, the wireless. They are still saying … oh, bother … ghahalamida?”

  Daoud tapped his lips with one finger. “Mm. Unsubstantiated?”

  “This.” She jabbed the chicken skewer in his direction. “But it hardly matters now that the story has spread so widely.”

  “Have the Ospies given a statement yet?” he asked.

  “That,” said Pulan, “is what I thought you would like to hear. They are going to give a statement; it comes on soon. So sit. Have wine, some curry.”

  As if he could eat. But he did pour himself a glass of the wine: a light red with weak legs, very spicy and tannic. He felt some kinship with the stuff, and it suited his mood perfectly. Taking up residence in the chair at a right angle to the sofa, he leaned into the deeply curved embrace of its elaborate teak frame and paisley satin upholstery. Cradling the wineglass in his lap kept his hands busy, though he almost dropped it when he heard a familiar name on the radio: Lillian DePaul.

  Silence, for a breath: the crackle of airwaves intercepted by distance and
clouds. Then, her voice. Her textbook-perfect Porashtu with its sibilance and stresses in all the right spots. “What’s she saying?”

  Pulan rolled her eyes. “That the woman Cattayim agreed to come to them. That it is an ‘extended interview.’” She used finger quotes for that, though only managed to crook the fingers of one hand as the other was still occupied with its kebab.

  “Nobody will believe it,” said Daoud.

  “Of course not,” said Pulan. “We don’t want them to. We want a fuss. After this there will be another round of articles, lots of suspicion. They will have to give another statement. Um … give themselves cramps? Is that it?” She shot off a Porashtu idiom and Daoud said, “Ah, knots. Tie knots.”

  “Tie themselves in knots,” said Aristide, “yes. How long do you intend this to go on?”

  “It is out of our hands now,” said Pulan. “We need it to keep up for the rest of the week, until Memmediv crosses the border to Tzieta. And talking of that, are you ready to depart?”

  “Yes,” he said. “All packed.”

  “Good.” She turned to Daoud, and something hard came into the line of her mouth. «Daoud, what about you?»

  «Yes,» he said. «I’m ready. Only, I need to say something.»

  Pulan glanced at the clock. «Make it quick; I need to call the office now that this is out of the way.» She waved her skewer at the radio once more.

  «I’m giving my notice,» he told her. «I’m going to Liso with Aristide.»

  She blinked at him, then turned slowly to face Aristide. “It is not enough to lose my director? You must take my right hand, too?”

  “He asked to come. I didn’t steal him. If it’s any consolation, he’ll probably hate working for me far more than he hates working for you.”

  Daoud glared at him, and he met it with a bland smile.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Lillian didn’t have time to meet Flagg. She had a long-distance phone call coming through shortly from the press office in the Cliff House, three separate briefs to read, and two dozen requests for comment she needed to gracefully turn down.

  “Ask him if he can wait an hour,” she told Rinda, when she ducked in to say the counselor was on the line asking for her again. “Maybe two.” It wasn’t hard to play for time; she really needed it.

  Five minutes later, Flagg was standing in the doorway of her office, rigid and white-lipped. “You will come with me, please.” It was not, in fact, a request.

  He didn’t speak another word as she followed him through the halls. Out the windows she could see night had fallen, and realized she hadn’t yet eaten dinner. Lunch had been black coffee and a piece of pastry, half of which she had forgotten in her rush to get to a meeting.

  She tried to attribute the screeching of her nerves to caffeine and hunger. But many of the nonessential staff at the chancery had gone home, and the halls were quiet except for the occasional swift—sometimes running—footsteps of an aide hurrying off with an armload of papers or a bit of food brought in from the city for diplomats who hadn’t left their offices all day. Every time she heard the clatter of shoes on marble, her heart knocked the inside of her ribs.

  Flagg locked the door of Regional Affairs behind them. Memmediv’s desk was empty. She didn’t look at it, but Flagg still said, “Not a trace, if you’re curious. But I imagine that you aren’t.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Smiling tightly, he half-shook his head and waved toward his office. Another locked door. Stifling air she felt as if she’d breathed ten times already. She didn’t want to sit; she felt as though she should be ready to run. But where to, with so many locks behind her?

  She was on Geddan soil right now, under Geddan jurisdiction. And this was the same man who’d stowed Mab Cattayim somewhere without even official orders.

  There was no reason to think he would smell her treachery, or see some mark on her. He would not know she had switched sides unless she gave herself away.

  This was less comforting than it ought to have been.

  “Sir,” she began. Good manners wouldn’t save her, ultimately, but they might give her room to maneuver.

  He didn’t let her get further than the honorific. “They’re recalling me.”

  It wasn’t what she had been expecting, especially after that remark about Memmediv. “Oh?”

  “Yes. I’ve been relieved of my post and I’m going back to Gedda.”

  She realized that her mouth was open, and shut it.

  “Thanks to this … circus”—with the back of his hand, he slapped at a pile of newspapers on his desk—“it has come to the attention of the CIS that not all my work here received appropriate review or approval before I carried it out. This did not sit well with my superiors.”

  “No,” said Lillian. “I imagine that it didn’t.”

  “If you remember,” he said, force gathering behind the words like bitter wind, “this was exactly what I sought to avoid by bringing you into my confidence in this investigation of Memmediv’s activities.”

  “Did you relate your suspicions?” she asked, trying to keep misgiving out of her voice. If the CIS knew what Memmediv was up to, and decided to pursue it, he was standing on their doorstep. Or maybe already in their house.

  “Absolutely not,” he said, and if she had been standing, relief would have knocked her knees out from under her.

  “I will answer for the debacle over Cattayim,” he said. “I have to, at this point. But so far they have no knowledge of our intriguing over Memmediv’s deal with Satri, and I want to keep it that way.”

  “Your replacement will—”

  “My replacement will fend for himself,” snarled Flagg. “There are no records. I have plausible deniability.”

  “What about Lehane?” she asked. “Did you pass on the photographs? Do they know she was at Hadhariti?”

  “They were impossible to bury,” he said. “But never linked to Memmediv. Yours and Mr. Addas’s value to the CIS increased immeasurably after you delivered those photographs. You can expect that my replacement will increasingly make use of both of you.”

  Mother and sons, they had to get out of this bramble or Jinadh would be trapped spying inside the palace forever. The more valuable his intelligence became, the more tightly controlled his movements would be. He would be truly strangled. And she would be the noose around his neck.

  If Memmediv and Lehane didn’t make it out of Gedda … she needed a fail-safe. Something that would break the Ospies’ hold on her family forever.

  “However,” Flagg went on, drawing her attention away from the gears that had begun to turn in the back of her mind, “you are not to tell him anything about Memmediv.”

  “Him?”

  “The man they’re sending to take my place. You will not breathe a word of my investigation into Memmediv’s arms dealing. One insubordination, I can paint as a misstep, an error in judgment. Two will ruin me.”

  Oh, how she wanted to ruin him. But this was not the way.

  “Rest assured,” he said, “if he learns anything about that area of inquiry, things will not go well for your son.”

  “That won’t be your purview anymore,” she said, striving for polite but only achieving affectless. At least her fear didn’t make it through. Oh please, let Lehane make good on her promises.

  “At this point,” he said, eyes unforgiving as pewter, “my purview consists of nothing more than clearing my name.”

  “Is there anything else, sir?” she asked, pinching the hem of her skirt between thumb and forefinger until the seam left a divot in her skin. She was so close to slipping out from under his heel.

  “Who did this to me?” he asked. “Is this the Catwalk? The Porachins? Memmediv? Was it you?”

  “I think you did it to yourself,” she said.

  “I was doing my job!” His fists closed on the newspapers piled on his desk, crumpling the cheap paper until it tore. Lillian jumped, but Flagg didn’t notice. />
  “There will be someone to blame,” he said, voice dropping into eerie calm. He was staring at his own hands like he didn’t understand how they had come to such violence. She was terrified of the leap he seemed about to make—that she had led him here on purpose and planned to run while his face was to the wall.

  “Will there be anything else, sir.” She came down heavily on the last word, and strove to keep any ounce of inquiry from the sentence. If there was anything else, she didn’t want to hear it.

  He peered at her from beneath thick eyebrows, lips so tight over his teeth she could almost count them. There were more red veins in his eyes than there had been, and she caught the thinnest edge of a gray ring at the fold of his collar.

  If he had been anyone else, she would have pitied his unraveling. But Flagg, she suspected, would become more liable to lash out the more helpless he felt: a wild beast caught in a snare.

  She did not dare step nearer, but nor would she give ground. Showing weakness would be just as dangerous as antagonizing him.

  “You may go,” he said finally, sagging into his chair when she failed to present a threat or an opening. The newspapers made a racket as he released them from his grip.

  “Oh,” he said, catching her at the threshold, “there’s a bit of news for your next press conference: We’re releasing Cattayim from custody.”

  “I can’t say that,” she told him coolly. “‘Custody’ isn’t the term we’ve been using.”

  “Use whatever word you want,” he said. “But we’re letting the bitch go free.”

  * * *

  Once she was out of his office, past Memmediv’s empty desk—she didn’t dare look at it, as though doing so would give Flagg an inkling of her continuing involvement with the man and his cause—once she had gained the tall marble arches of the corridor, she sagged into an alcove and took a long, shaky breath. Sweat had soaked the armpits of her blouse beneath her jacket, and her heart kept hammering despite the two locked doors that had shut between her and Flagg.

  It wasn’t over yet. It wouldn’t be over until she crossed the border and had Stephen in her sights. But it was ending.

 

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