Exact Enumeration of Blurred Flocks
The corroded mirror behind the bar reflects the aqueous glow of Irina’s whisky, the hunch of her shoulders, and the continuum of the motion of travelers passing by. Tasting blood, she washes the liquor around her mouth, holds the cold glass to the swelling on her jaw. It’s okay, somehow, to drink in airports in the morning.
Her other memory offers the columns of smoke over the villa inclining in the wind. She feels no rancor toward Corporal Boyd, in fact hopes he makes it home, for all her hate is reserved for Cromwell, who has to die, however great his strength, however far he stands above the law, while she is alone, and wants to sleep.
For the fifty-third time today, she thinks of what happened in W&P’s servers. Did Cromwell suborn Cloudbreaker, and if so, how? If not, why did it want her memories? In any case, how did it break into her implant? She’s made no progress but can’t let these questions go even for the space of a drink.
If it was the occluded AI that influenced Cloudbreaker, then Cromwell might have been less culpable than she’d thought, which means they could maybe have talked it out, but now their conflict has its own momentum and the situation’s logic requires her to escalate.
She recognizes Fabienne in the mirror by her walk.
“How are the kids?” she asks, as Fabienne sits beside her.
“Chastened,” says Fabienne. “Except the little one, who thinks we’re having an adventure. They’re with friends now.”
“Are they safe?”
“Beyond question,” says Fabienne, her voice iron, her poise fully restored. “I’m friends with the minister of defense. Actually, we used to date. He’s taking care of everything. In fact, he put the military on alert, and he’s invited all the private soldiers to leave the country and its waters within the next four hours. He’s blaming the escalation on Turkey. He says he’s been looking for an excuse, but I think he’s just being polite.”
“What if Cromwell gets to him?”
“You mean, what if he tries to bribe him? Unless he’s been going boar-hunting with Stavros since they were teenagers, he won’t even get a hearing. As for assassination, there have been contracts on Stavros since he got involved in politics. It was exciting, at the time, in hotels, knowing there was someone trying to find him …
“He has a gift for you,” Fabienne says, and in response to Irina’s questioning look she says, “I told him you were a friend of my brother’s, and my father’s guest. My father, just yesterday … He didn’t tell me everything, but I know you fought for us, and suffered for it. So please accept this.” She takes something from her purse, puts it in Irina’s hand. It’s a Greek diplomatic passport; she opens it and there’s her own picture next to the name Elena Vougiouka. She flips through it, sees the colorful stamps of many countries, the record of this fictive self’s trajectory through the world. “Your U.S. passport is flagged, it turns out, so you’ll want to travel with this.”
“A fake passport seems to invite more problems.”
“Eh,” shrugs Fabienne. “What’s fake? It’s a real diplomatic passport. As far as my old boyfriend is concerned, and thus the Greek state, you’re Elena Vougiouka.” She glances at her phone. “Now you must excuse me. My nine-year-old son is declaring that he is now a man, and that it’s his right and duty to raise an army and avenge his grandfather, and so far he’s managed not to cry.”
“I’ll take care of that. Tell him I said so.”
Fabienne’s hand on her shoulder, and, to her surprise, her tension lessens. She remembers when she was thirteen and hiding in the woods near the villa on Patmos, but of course she first set foot on Patmos a few days ago, and this is Constantin’s memory—he’d been the one Fabienne had found among the shadows of the oaks, though he couldn’t have been more than nine—her young face ancient in the dappled light—her presence enough to calm him. “Goodbye, my dear. Good luck to you,” Fabienne says, and then she’s off into the concourse.
Irina remembers being thirteen, sitting in the foyer of her parents’—by then, she supposes, her—attorney’s office, four months to the day out of surgery, still groggy on her ration of painkillers, nauseated from antibiotics. The windows framed grey skies where clouds of birds passed and disappeared, though not in her other memory, where their flight was perfectly preserved, at which she had still, then, marveled. It had seemed like she was being useful, holding on to what would otherwise be lost, but her lawyer, whom she liked, was talking, so she’d let the exact enumeration of blurred flocks fade and wrenched herself back into the present.
The bartender, who’s been at a discreet distance, catches her eye, raises an eyebrow, but she shakes her head, stands, puts money on the bar. Time to act.
* * *
Maya picks up on the first ring, though for her it’s the middle of the night. “I’ve got bad news, sweetie,” Maya opens, sounding like she’s in tears. “They’re shutting down the agency.”
“What? Who? I thought you were making all kinds of money.”
“We were, and I was, and now they’re shutting it down. No explanation, and no remorse, as far as I can tell, and I lose all my equity unless I sign a noncompete and don’t talk to any former clients for five years. The managing directors, of whom I was very soon to be one, say they’re sorry and blah blah boilerplate, but the gist is that they’re not allowed to talk about it. Not allowed? My assistant said their assistants said they got bought out, and the buyout had terms. It makes no sense, but fuck them all in their tiny, wizened little hearts. So I’m packing up my office, by which I mean I’m drinking heavily in what used to be my office, while calling my clients to let them know they need to find new representation, and then I’ll leave all this shit for someone else to clean up and go get wasted at the Ermitage bar, where I intend to go home with the hottest, dumbest guy I can find.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know, take up fuckin’ needlepoint? Isn’t that what sixty-four-year-olds are supposed to do?” Maya looks thirty-five, and is, hormonally, about eighteen, with a supplemental testosterone boost, an option that she, Irina, has always chosen to forgo. “It doesn’t really matter—I don’t have to work for the next fifteen years or so, and by then whatever the fuck this is will be over, and the world will have changed.”
“I think I know what this is,” says Irina. “He doesn’t want me to have allies.”
“Fucking who doesn’t want you to have allies?” Faint glugging sound on Maya’s end, as of liquid pouring out of a bottle.
“Is this phone secure?”
“Hell yeah. It’s mine, not the company’s, anonymously registered and encrypted all to fuck. You think I ever really trusted them? I know what business I’m in. Was in. Fuckers,” she says, choking back a sob.
Irina tells her what happened, and is, for once, reasonably forthcoming.
“Wow. Fuck that guy. Seriously, he needs to get his ass liquidated. If TMP still existed I’d say call Parthenon and put it on our tab.”
“As it happens, they’re my next call.”
* * *
The empty chapel is as hushed as a library. It strikes her as theatrical, coming here to order a hit.
She dials Parthenon’s number from memory on the phone she just bought. A brief parlay with a secretary, and then her soldier picks up, saying, “Miss Sunden.”
“I need a definitive solution,” says Irina. “To that difficult problem we discussed.”
“Timeline?”
“As soon as possible.”
“I’ll have a look and get back to you as soon as I can,” he says, his composure so thorough as to be almost offensive. “Any special instructions?”
“Please do this soon. He just tried to have me kidnaped. I still bear the wounds.”
“In that case, I’d best get started.”
* * *
Leaving the chapel, she sees there are more soldiers in the airport now, thanks, she supposes, to Fabienne’s ex. Strange to be the fulcrum of international events, and the source of the headaches and perplexity now being suffered by whatever Turkish officials.
Tempting to linger in this in-between place, but it occurs to her that Cromwell’s rented killers could be taking commercial flights back to the States; she imagines some hard-eyed boy with a crew cut and muscles sitting down beside her and checking her out—the flash of recognition—suddenly remote, he takes out his phone …
The ticketing concourse is huge, chaotic, full of tourists. She chooses Prosperity Airways because the line is shortest. Waiting, she stares vacantly up at their logo, a schematic map of East Asia with Japan and its possessions picked out in red and gold. The board over the ticket counter shows impending departures, which creates a strange sense of pressure, as though she’s late for all of them, but her mind is cloudy and she’s almost at the front of the line when she realizes she’s been drifting, has yet to choose a destination.
It should be someplace where the powers-that-be are likely to take violent umbrage at even a well-connected U.S. plutocrat coming in and playing warlord, but to assess this would require an understanding of the fluid alliances and quiet understandings that define the shape of power in the world, which hasn’t, until now, concerned her.
Front of the line now.
Just have to choose.