Femi Alaagomeji, nervous, hair cropped close, wearing a suit that might seem masculine to some, holding a briefcase for show, waits outside the president’s casual office in Aso Rock. She has been summoned to Abuja because the president appears to have developed some light paranoia about airwaves and electromagnetic radiation. He will communicate through aides on the phone, but he has stopped using holofields or having direct electronic communication.
When he calls her in, she has steeled herself. Whatever she is trying to do, she has to keep this man on side or the whole thing collapses. The stupid man is motivated by revenge. He wishes to crush Rosewater as a proxy for crushing Jack Jacques. He wants Rosewater razed and the soil salted so that nothing will ever grow there again. He has said as much. He has declared the population traitors for not fleeing or defecting.
Femi finds the president buffoonish but malleable. When she explained the alien threat to him, his eyes glazed over. She said she should be allowed to work on it alone, without other duties, and he agreed. In public she was fired from Section 45, but secretly she gained an independent budget. He has her followed, of course. He endorses her need to fight aliens because he hates Jack and considers the two problems sides of a single coin. The president lacks subtlety and does not fully understand the xenosphere and how careful one must be in plotting the downfall of a species that can read your mind. About the same time that he threatened Jack with elections, he was dissatisfied with Femi’s inability to curb him. He verbally fired her, but did not file the paperwork.
In that window, Femi fled to Rosewater, used her funds and contacts and found her way to the mayor’s office.
She caused the war by shooting the president’s candidate, Ranti, and was able to operate under the cover of bombing and food shortages. Orchestrating the isolation of Rosewater was the only way to fight the alien advance. Nobody, not a single one of the simpletons, understood what was going on. Not Jacques, who seemed more awake than most when it came to realpolitik but was amoral; not Kaaro, who was essentially a gun, lovable as a rogue but daft; not the love-struck Aminat, whom Femi found competent but disappointing. Hamstrung by compassion.
The fact is, Femi could have operated under Jacques’ rule. Ranti, on the other hand, was pristine, and beholden to the president. It would take years to corrupt either him or the system around him, time that Femi did not have. If Ranti had a secret, she would have used that, but he did not, and because of that, she sacrificed him, especially in a way that would bind Jack to her.
Nobody grasps that humanity is at total war with an alien species. The design is too wide, spans too many centuries for most people to understand. Kaaro had to read Femi’s mind to see, and even then, it was too late for him. She does not give herself time to mourn him. If she hadn’t sent twin to neutralise twin, maybe Kaaro might be…
“Come in, Mrs Alaagomeji.”
He’s put on some pounds since she last saw him face to face, before she was imprisoned in Rosewater. He is smiling, happy as a pig in shit, wearing an open-neck shirt with his belly bulging outwards.
“I don’t have much time. Have your accommodations been satisfactory?”
An underhanded way of telling her to finish up at the hotel soon. Femi intends to stay there for a year, to make up for the time lost. “Yes, it’s fine.”
“What news from Rosewater? Tell me of Jack’s pain.”
“Crime first. Since my agent went in, organised crime has reduced, and the principal boss has been neutralised, his lieutenants liquidated. My agent unfortunately lost his life in the process.”
“How does this help us?”
“Crime is more sporadic and unpredictable now, people feel unsafe; it adds to the heightened tension.”
“Go on.”
“My second pillar is a unit in Rosewater causing sabotage. Same tactics as during the war, more effective since this is peacetime and no soldiers have mobilised. Every few days there is either a protest or a bombing.”
“How is this making Jack uncomfortable?”
“Sooner or later he will have an uprising on his hands. With the revelations about reanimates being alive and some of the aliens perpetuating mass shootings, the city will come down on his head soon enough. That’s not even including all the court cases that we are sponsoring.”
“I’ve always wanted to ask: does Hannah Jacques work for you?”
“Everybody works for me, Mr President. Even when they don’t know it.”
“That’s what I like to hear.” He laughs for a while. “And what about the other project? The aliens?”
“I’m still working on it, sir. I lost an asset.”
“You seem to have gained another one in your bed,” says the president.
Femi says nothing.
“I mean to say, I know about you having sex with—”
“I know what you meant, Mr President.”
“Don’t be insolent.”
“Sorry, sir.”
“Get out.”
On the drive back to the hotel, she phones Eric.
“Get everyone together.”