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by Genevieve Valentine

  Martine had a list he believed. She was brittle, but that kind of sharpness got results. No surprise if she had three dozen countries who owed her a favor.

  “Denmark,” she said, pointing to the paper like it would know exactly why Denmark was a lock, and even Kipa smiled as she wrote.

  He’d underestimated Grace. He suspected a lot of people had underestimated Grace—except Suyana, expert at taking someone’s measure—who had appeared affably diplomatic, but was actually concealing an impressive network. Daniel had images of her getting elevator doors unstuck like a comic-book hero just before it plummeted, while a dozen Faces shook her hand and promised they owed her one.

  Every so often, Suyana glanced at him sidelong and looked ready to smile, which meant she was enjoying the surprise of being believed. He smiled back; he was angry with her, still, but he worried for her more. The fight could wait until they had the luxury of a fight.

  “If you’re not sure, don’t list them,” Suyana said. “We’ll have half an hour, at most, to talk to people before they call the session to order. There’s no time to convince the undecided. Lock down anyone you can, and ask them to talk to people they trust. Margot’s had a whole day on us to shore up support for whatever she’s planning. I don’t think it’s enough, but we have to be efficient.”

  Kipa glanced up from her notes. “How will the people we talk to know who else we need to talk to without implicating themselves in treason?”

  “The people we talk to have people who owe them favors,” Suyana said. “Call them in. All of them.”

  Grace glanced at Suyana’s left hand.

  “Doesn’t anyone have anything on Iceland? This seems ridiculous,” Grace said, and Kipa smothered a giggle, and Martine said, “It’s a fucking miracle, a country that can stand alone,” and they all seemed on the verge of fellow-feeling just before Bo cut across Daniel’s feed and said, “I have something you and Suyana should hear.”

  When he stood up, Suyana looked over, and it was the biggest, most awful relief of his life that she realized what had happened before he had to say a word.

  × × × × × × ×

  The front door of the building faced a little row of shops and felt too exposed for what Daniel knew this was, so he took her around the corner to a side alley, where Bo was waiting.

  Suyana’s first words were, “How did she do it?”

  “Ferry from Calais to London. He bought a ticket in cash, paid someone to go with him as his boyfriend. The guy found him in the engine room just before they pulled into port.” Bo took a breath that seemed to rob him of two inches of height. “The body’s been identified as Ethan, through teeth. Just a few minutes ago. London police don’t know what to do yet.”

  Suyana nodded twice, then held her head stiffly still as if afraid of over-accepting. “What are they saying happened?”

  “Mechanical accident.”

  She made a low, agreeing noise that scratched at the skin on his neck. For a moment, she rested one shoulder against the wall; the shoulder she’d been shot in.

  “I thought she’d wait,” she said. “I thought she’d at least want to see how tomorrow went before she decided. She must—she must know what we’re doing. Of course she knows, sorry, that was a stupid thing to say. She wanted to make sure Ethan could never admit she’d asked him to be a spy on his own kind.”

  There was a little quiet, because Bo was a quiet person, and because Daniel had no idea what you said at a moment like this.

  Then she said, “Whoever’s with Magnus now, tell him to put in a claim for the body.”

  Even Bo made a face. “Are you sure?”

  “I’m his wife,” she said, edged. “I need to put in a claim for the body to start paperwork. The Americans can’t let this look like he died before they called Leili in. I want time stamps.” She looked up. “Bo, does Bonnaire have anyone in London?”

  A beat. “Li Zhao’s dispatched someone from that office. Should be ten minutes.”

  “She should call the BBC and deal, now,” Suyana said. “I want broadcasts before Margot can make this disappear. They can say whatever they want about him, so long as he’s too famous to vanish.”

  She was twisting the ring on her left hand absently; Daniel wondered if she knew.

  “Where is she now?”

  “She’s been visiting a lot of old friends,” Bo said.

  If Suyana thought it was odd that Bo knew who Margot considered friends, she didn’t betray it. “Good. If she was confident of her chances, she’d be calling Committee meetings. Keep Daniel apprised of who she sees.”

  Bo nodded, and had already taken a step back when she said, “Thank you, Bo. This is invaluable information. It will make the difference for us.”

  He nodded again, more warmly, before he vanished, and Daniel tried not to think about how often Suyana had handled people this way in the midst of some disaster that should have knocked her sideways. How many times she must have handled Daniel, that he hadn’t even noticed.

  Her nails were beginning to scratch her ring finger with every twist. He reached out slowly, his hand over hers—an inch away, not touching her. (It was unimaginable to touch her right now, for reasons he was carefully refusing to examine.) “Do you want to go back upstairs?”

  She nodded—more slowly this time, like she was actually considering it and not just unable to keep still. “Daniel. When this story breaks, I don’t—I don’t know if I want to see the body, if it’s too horrible. I need to see it eventually—I’ll have to talk about it, make it important, how he died—but not . . . not today.”

  It sounded so broken that at first he thought something ugly and beneath him, but when he didn’t answer, she didn’t get any more calm or any more upset; she just looked down the street like she was expecting someone, and after a while, it unnerved him enough to say something.

  “We’ll get news via Kate,” he promised. “No TV.”

  When she’d gone back inside, Kate said, “Shit, this is a mess.”

  He said, “Can you confirm I’m blackout?”

  “Dev turned off the feed collection,” Kate agreed carefully. “But the camera’s still got physical memory, a few minutes at a time that get constantly overwritten. We’re overwriting it as soon as it comes in.”

  “But Li Zhao can look at me in real time. Goddammit, Kate—”

  “I wouldn’t blame Kate for a situation you’ve single-

  handedly brought on us,” Li Zhao answered.

  He barreled through before he could start worrying about being seen. “And I wouldn’t like to think you’re looking the biggest story of the year in the mouth. Don’t blow this by trying to capture the moment too soon. That could kill all of them.”

  She said, “I’m glad you remember that, Daniel. You’ll want to keep that in mind.”

  She’ll be a martyr, Li Zhao had said. She looks good for that.

  He switched off the comm and took the stairs as slowly as he could, so that when he opened the door, they all knew he was coming.

  × × × × × × ×

  By the time Bo got back in touch with his list, it was already nightfall.

  “Ready for this?” Kate asked, and Daniel’s stomach plummeted before she even started.

  Daniel repeated a list of names that, frankly, impressed him. How Margot was moving so fast was a mystery, but you couldn’t say she didn’t have a contingency plan. It went on so long, and Kate’s voice got so grim as she read them out, that he felt like the bed was tilting and he was going to be dumped onto the floor.

  Kipa, working to keep a steady hand, drew lines through name after name. Suyana was doing silent tallies, and he watched the muscle in her jaw come and go as she began to realize what they were up against.

  “Well, this is a rousing game of we’re-fucked bingo,” Martine spat, standing up and raking a hand through her hair. “How can she move that fast?” A flurry of Norwegian that had to be profanity, and then she said, “I’m going outside for a real c
igarette. If I don’t come back, tell Ansfrida I wanted to vote in favor.”

  As she stormed out, Suyana tilted her head in Martine’s direction. Daniel wasn’t surprised by the request, but he still sighed as he stood.

  Martine was waiting for him just outside. “Calm down, I’m not getting a real one,” she said, craning her neck to the sky. “Terrified of them. My grandfather died that way, in some hospital room with a stranger. Not me.”

  “All right.”

  “And you can wipe the concern out of your voice. She might think you hung the moon, but I’ve seen you when you think you have a story, and it doesn’t impress me.”

  The flush of her first words had utterly vanished by the end. “What, exactly, doesn’t impress you?”

  The cigarette in her hand twirled vaguely, pointed up. “That you think this can last.”

  He opened his mouth, closed it.

  “It’s not that I doubt your loyalty, as far as that goes when you’re a snap,” she said, so crisply he almost missed the compliment. “But I don’t doubt this outcome, either.”

  Daniel was on the verge of replying—something awful, something way too honest—when he noticed that the man at the tabac across the street hadn’t moved since getting his paper, and was trying to sneak looks at them above the edges of the finance section.

  He looked down at her, put on his biggest grin. “We’re being watched.”

  She raised her eyebrow and looked at him without any sign of tension or distraction (of course, he thought, that’s what she is, but still he was impressed). “So what are you suggesting?”

  “Kiss me,” he said, and wasn’t sure how deeply he meant it. From her smile as she slid her arm around him, she had a better sense of it.

  When they broke apart, the stranger looked less certain of who he was watching. Daniel murmured, an inch from her mouth, “We should go get some food and a bottle of wine to bring back, until this guy decides we’re together and gives up. Plus, we’ll need to eat, and after this no one’s going anywhere until morning.”

  “Why, Daniel,” Martine said, and it was awkward how good his name sounded in her voice, “that’s the closest thing to a plan I’ve heard all day.”

  He frowned despite himself. “Really? All day?”

  She never moved, but her face clouded, and he had the sense of her pulling back until she was on a shore so remote he’d never find her.

  “This is what you don’t understand,” she said, as kindly as she’d ever said anything. “People like you and me make plans—take our best shot and hope we walk away from the worst. People like Suyana don’t. They push until something cracks and then they fall in. They don’t care.”

  For a moment he felt like his fingertips had turned to ice. Then he tried to answer, but his throat closed so tight no answer could ever get out of it, and he felt as numb as he had watching Suyana give orders for her husband’s body; the first moment Li Zhao ever spoke to him; the first time Suyana ever looked him in the eye.

  After a little while, Martine took pity and slid closer to him, shifting them until she blocked him from sight of the stranger, and guided them down the street toward a little cluster of restaurants. They walked side by side with their arms around one another, silent and in no hurry, like two people who knew what love looked like.

  22

  Martine took with admirable calm the decision that they’d be using the flat as a safe house overnight, until Suyana specified that no one would be allowed to drop off supplies.

  “You can kindly go fuck yourself. I’m not going to appear in front of the International Assembly with dirty teeth in a shirt I’ve been wearing for twenty-four hours. Some of us have standards.”

  “You’ll do better to look a little like you’ve been on the run,” Suyana argued. “Make them wonder if she’s after you, too.”

  “She wasn’t, until yesterday when you got us involved in this.”

  Daniel said, “Martine, we both know that’s not true.”

  Suyana looked over her shoulder at him; Daniel made a tiny leave-it motion.

  “And it’s not Suyana’s fault you picked an ugly shirt,” added Kipa, who had grown less afraid of Martine with every comparative page of allies, as their number of supporters nearly matched.

  Grace said, “I have some clothes here. Martine, you can borrow a shirt. Something formal, so the jeans look disrespectful and not just careless.”

  “Fine. Perfect.”

  “I’ll change too,” Grace said, halfway between Suyana and nobody. “I should be wearing something a bit more serious, I suppose, if we’re going to nominate me to lead the free world. Jesus Christ.”

  “Nothing fancy,” Suyana said. “Don’t look like you expected it. First day of session, with a six a.m. call time—it makes sense to look subdued.”

  “Oh God, I’ll be a no-show at Lyta’s for styling. Colin’s going to realize. I’ll have to tell Lyta I have a woman over for the evening and hope she buys my apologies without telling Colin.” Martine winked at her, and Grace gave her a look that suggested a decade of silent understanding. Suyana’s envy passed; no time to linger over small things.

  “I told Elizabeth I was spending the night,” said Kipa. “No one ever looks for me until the afternoon junket anyway. But won’t Magnus be worried?”

  Suyana said, “We’re in touch with Magnus.”

  Martine looked at Daniel like he was an open window in a rainstorm. “How awful.”

  But Daniel was looking at Suyana. “What are you going to wear? Do you need anything?”

  Shame on him for asking, if this was coming from him; shame on Li Zhao if it was coming from her. They would never do better than this. Suyana let her hand drop along the front of the gray sheath.

  “My wedding dress.”

  × × × × × × ×

  Bo had been waiting somewhere, and in between one corner and the next he appeared at the edge of the procession.

  “Li Zhao says she’s got everyone she can in the gallery, and eyes on the ground. Whatever you need.”

  Suyana looked into the camera. “And how is she feeling about this?”

  Bo paused as Li Zhao’s response trickled in through the comm. Daniel looked increasingly mortified. After ten seconds Suyana said, “Thank you, Bo, that answers me.”

  “You’re welcome to the details.”

  “Should I, though?” she asked, and when he smiled at her there was a little ease behind it, which was all she’d wanted.

  Paris in the predawn was the most beautiful Paris; even Suyana knew that, and when Bo asked the four of them to walk ahead in silence for a moment, Suyana understood. In this light they looked like ghosts or witches, something powerful and untouchable and lovely, even in pencil skirts and jeans and sequin tops and Kipa’s sensible cardigan with the top button on her blouse left undone.

  “This isn’t a clothing commercial,” Martine snapped finally. “Can we actually talk or what?”

  Daniel grinned. “Sure, Martine. We’ve grown so used to your dulcet tones, what would we do without them?”

  “Keep it down,” said Bo, glancing around.

  The streets here were narrow, and the roofs low enough to climb onto. Suyana walked faster. After a moment, Kipa and Grace moved to keep pace. Martine sighed, long-suffering, before she caught up. Daniel and Bo kept two or three paces behind, catching two angles that might pass for a single camera if the public were gullible enough.

  No one spoke until they passed an intersection with enough early shops—a florist, a baker, an awkward family of tourists arguing about the Metro—that the noise covered Martine from the mics as she leaned in toward Suyana. “I’m sure you’ll take this as an insult, but if this doesn’t work, do you have a plan?”

  It was a startling show of concern, and Suyana must have looked it, because Martine said, “Withdrawn,” just as Suyana said, “I’ll be all right. Daniel and I will do something if we have to.”

  “Good,” Martine said with a twist of a sm
ile, “because if this doesn’t work—”

  “Daniel!” Bo shouted.

  There were two gunshots in quick succession.

  Suyana was moving already, but without knowing where the shooter was, it was no better than last time, outside a hotel, where something was wrong and she was helpless. She was scrambling to cover Kipa as she tried stupidly to look at the rooftops for the gun, and someone knocked into her, forcing her hard to one knee.

  Bo was pointing his gun (he had a gun?) straight ahead, and Suyana followed the line to a man who’d dropped on the sidewalk. She’d knocked over Kipa, Grace was crouching beside Martine—they were shaken but she saw no wounds, and she was looking down at herself with the first cold wash of shock when she heard Daniel make a wet, horrible sound.

  No, she thought, like that would make any difference, but as soon as she looked at him she saw the blotch of glossy red he was covering with one hand.

  “Get to the Assembly,” Suyana said. “Now.”

  “Come on,” Grace said quietly, reaching for Kipa, and then all three of them were running for it, against the stream of people who had come outside to see what the noise was about.

  “Not here,” Daniel said.

  Bo said, “Don’t move him, it will make the bleeding worse,” the gun hanging from his hand like an extension of his fingers, but Suyana looked him in the eye as she took Daniel’s hands in hers (numb but working, they could be numb so long as they worked) to pull him staggering behind her like something broken.

  It was a gut wound. If he wanted to die out of sight of strangers, she’d make sure he did.

  He sank to the filthy pavement as soon as they were out of sight in the alleyway, melting back to rest against the wall.

  “No,” she said, “lie flat,” and after a moment he tilted his head so it dragged him slowly sideways and toward the ground.

  She arranged him as best she could (a funeral, no, not a funeral). She’d never seen him disconnected from himself; the lying down worried her more than the wound did, in some childish useless way. She rested a hand on his shoulder, moved it toward his neck, moved it back. He followed the motion with half-lidded eyes; his head was as still as if he was recording.