‘Would it be possible for you to come to the phone for a moment?’
‘Is it important?’ Palstein asked with barely concealed gratitude at being temporarily removed from the ranks of the dead.
‘Orley Enterprises.’ She looked around with an encouraging smile. ‘Coffee, anyone? Espresso? Doughnuts?’
‘Subsidies,’ said an elderly man in a croaking voice. No one laughed. Palstein got to his feet.
‘Have you heard anything yet from Loreena Keowa?’ he asked as he left the room.
‘No.’
‘Right.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I guess she’ll be on the plane already.’
‘Shall I try her mobile?’
‘No, I think Loreena was going to take a later flight. She said something about getting in around twelve.’
‘Where?’
‘Vancouver.’
‘Thanks for that. You’ve just reinforced my certainty that I will keep my job for another while yet.’
He stared at her.
‘Twelve o’clock in Vancouver is two o’clock in Texas,’ she said.
‘I see!’ He laughed. ‘My goodness. What would I do without you?’
‘Exactly. Small conference room, video link.’
A tense-looking group appeared on the wall monitor. Jennifer Shaw, the security chief of Orley Enterprises, was sitting with a fair-haired, stubbly man and a remarkably pretty Asian girl at a battered-looking table.
‘Sorry to bother you, Gerald,’ she said.
‘Not sorry you did.’ He smiled and leaned, arms folded, against the edge of the desk. ‘Good to see you, Jennifer. I’m afraid I haven’t got much time at the moment.’
‘I know. We dragged you out of a meeting. Can I introduce you? Chen Yuyun—’
‘Yoyo,’ said Yoyo.
‘And Owen Jericho. Unfortunately the reason for my call is anything but welcome. However, it may illuminate some questions that you may have been asking yourself every day since Calgary.’
‘Calgary?’ Palstein frowned. ‘Let’s hear it.’
Jennifer told him about the chance of a nuclear attack on Gaia, and that someone had probably wanted him out of the way to make room for a terrorist in Julian’s tour group. Palstein’s thoughts wandered to Loreena.
Someone wanted to stop you doing something. It seems to me it was going to the Moon with Orley.
‘My God,’ he whispered. ‘That’s terrible.’
‘We need your help, Gerald.’ Jennifer leaned forward, grumpy, plump, a monument of mistrust. ‘We need all the picture evidence that the American and Canadian authorities hold about the attack on you, and any other information you might have, texts, state of the investigation. Of course we could take the official route, but you know the people involved in the investigation personally. It would be nice if you could speed up the process. Texas has a busy afternoon ahead, full of hard-working officials who might still be able to give us something today.’
‘Have you called in the British police?’
‘Special Branch, the Secret Intelligence Service. Of course we’ll immediately pass on the material to the State authorities, but as you can imagine my job description doesn’t just involve passing things on.’
‘I’ll do what I can.’ Palstein shook his head, visibly agitated. ‘Sorry, but this is all a big nightmare. The attempt on my life, and now this. It’s less than a week since I wished Julian a pleasant journey. We were going to sign contracts as soon as he got back.’
‘I know. Still no reason not to.’
‘Why would anyone want to destroy Gaia?’
‘That’s what we’re trying to find out, Gerald. And possibly, at the same time, who it was that shot you.’
‘Mr Palstein.’ The fair-haired man spoke for the first time. ‘I know you’ve been asked this a thousand times, but do you suspect anyone yourself?’
‘Well.’ Palstein sighed and rubbed his eyes. ‘Until a few days ago I would have sworn that someone was just venting his disappointment, Mr—’
‘Jericho.’
‘Mr Jericho.’ Palstein was already standing with one foot in the adjacent conference room. ‘We’ve had to fire an awful lot of people recently. Close down firms. You know what’s going on. But there are people who assume the same as you do. That the purpose of the attack was to keep me from flying to the Moon. Except that nobody’s been able to tell me why.’
‘Things are clearer now.’
‘Distinctly so. But these people – or one person, to be more precise – they don’t rule out Chinese interests being involved.’
Jennifer, Jericho and the girl exchanged glances.
‘And what leads these people to make their assumption?’
Palstein hesitated. ‘Listen, Jennifer, I’ve got to go back in, hard as it is. First I’ll make sure that you get hold of the material as quickly as possible. But there’s one area in which I’ll have to ask you to be patient.’
‘Which is that?’
‘There’s a film that possibly shows the man who shot me.’
‘What?’ Chen Yuyun sat bolt upright. ‘But that’s exactly what—’
‘And you’ll get it.’ Palstein raised both hands in a conciliatory manner. ‘Except that I’ve promised the person who found the film that I’d keep it under wraps for the time being. In a few hours I will call that person and ask them to release the video, and until then I ask for your understanding.’
The pretty Chinese girl stared at him.
‘We’ve been through quite a lot,’ she said quietly.
‘Me too.’ Palstein pointed at his shoulder. ‘But fairness dictates that sequence of events.’
‘Fine.’ Jennifer smiled. ‘Of course we’ll respect your decision.’
‘One last question,’ said Jericho.
‘Fire away.’
‘The man the person thinks is the murderer – can you make him out clearly?’
‘Pretty clearly, yes.’
‘And is he Chinese?’
‘Asian.’ Palstein fell silent for a moment. ‘Possibly Chinese. Yes. He’s probably Chinese.’
Cape Heraclides, Montes Jura, The Moon
Locatelli was amazed. He had reached a great insight, namely that his head was the Moon, his scalp the Moon’s surface, with the maria and the craters pulled over the concave bulge of the bone. From this he learned two things: one, why so much moon dust had trickled into his brain, and two, that the whole trip as he remembered it had never happened at all, but had sprung entirely from his imagination, particularly the regrettable last chapter. He would open his eyes, trusting to the comforting certainty that no one could reproach him for anything, and even the impression of constantly whirling grey would find a natural explanation. The only thing that still puzzled him was the part the universe played in the whole thing. That it was pressing against the right side of his face amazed and confused him, but since he only had to open his eyes—
It wasn’t the universe. It was the ground he was lying on.
Click, click.
He raised his head and gave a start. A circular saw was running through his head. Shapes, colours – all were a blur, all bathed in a diffuse light, at once dazzling and crepuscular, so that he had to shut his eyelids tight. A constant clicking sound reached him. He tried to raise a hand, without success. It was busy somewhere with the other one, they were both off behind his back and refused to be parted.
Click, click.
His vision cleared. A little way off he saw ungainly boots and something long that swung gently back and forth and bumped with the regularity of Chinese water torture against the edge of the pilot’s seat, on which the owner of the boots was crouching. Locatelli twisted his head and saw Carl Hanna, who was looking at him thoughtfully, his gun in his right hand, as if he had been sitting there for an eternity. He was rhythmically tapping the barrel against the seat.
Click, click.
Locatelli coughed.
‘Did we crash?’ he croaked.
Hanna we
nt on looking at him and said nothing. Images merged to form memories. No, they had landed. A crash landing. They’d gone hurtling across the regolith and collided with something. From that point onwards he could remember only that they must have switched roles in the meantime, because he was now the one who was tied up. Seething shame welled up in him. He’d messed up.
Click, click.
‘Can you stop tapping that bloody thing against the chair?’ he groaned. ‘It’s really annoying.’
To his surprise Hanna actually did stop. He set the gun aside and rubbed the point of his chin.
‘And what will I do with you now?’ he asked.
It didn’t sound as if he really expected a constructive suggestion. Instead, there were undertones of resignation in his words, a hint of quiet regret that frightened Locatelli more than if Hanna had shouted at him.
‘Why don’t you just let me go?’ he suggested hoarsely.
The Canadian shook his head. ‘I can’t do that.’
‘Why not? What would be the alternative?’
‘Not to let you go.’
‘Shoot me down, then.’
‘I don’t know, Warren.’ Hanna shrugged. ‘Why do you have to act the hero on top of everything?’
‘I understand.’ Locatelli gulped. ‘So why didn’t you do that a long time ago? Or do you have some sort of quota? No more than three in a single day? You bastard!’ All of a sudden he saw the horses galloping away, with him running after them to catch them, because it probably wasn’t the best idea to annoy Hanna even more, but in the meltdown of his fury all his clear thoughts had vanished. He heaved himself up, managed to get into a seated position and glared with hatred at Hanna. ‘Do you actually enjoy this? Do you get off on killing people? What sort of a perverse piece of shit are you, Carl? You revolt me! What the hell are you doing here? What do you want from us?’
‘I’m doing my job.’
‘Your job? Was it your fucking job to push Peter into the gorge? To blow up Marc and Mimi? Is that your bloody job, you stupid idiot?’
Stop, Warren!
‘You fucker! You piece of shit!’
Stop it!
‘You fucking douche! Wait till I get my hands free.’
Oh, Warren. Stupid, too stupid! Why had he said that? Why hadn’t he just thought it? Hanna frowned, but it looked as if he hadn’t really been listening. His gaze wandered to the airlock, then suddenly he bent forward.
‘Now be careful, Warren. What I do has more to do with logging trees and drying marshes. You understand? Killing can be necessary, but my job consists not in destroying something, but in preserving or building something else. A house, an idea, a system: whatever you like.’
‘So what crappy system is legitimised through killing?’
‘All of them.’
‘You sick fuck. And for what system did you kill Mimi, Marc and Peter?’
‘Stop it, Warren. You’re not seriously trying to force a guilt complex on me?’
‘Are you working for some fucking government or other?’
‘In the end we’re all working for some fucking government or other.’ Hanna sat back with a sigh of forbearance. ‘Okay, I’ll tell you something. You remember the global economic crisis sixteen years ago? The whole world was gnashing its teeth. Including India. But there, the crisis also provoked a spike of activity! People invested in environmental protection, high tech, education and agriculture, relaxed the caste system, exported services and innovations, halved poverty. A billion and a half predominantly young, extremely motivated architects of globalisation pushed their way to third place in the global economy.’
Locatelli nodded, puzzled. He hadn’t the faintest notion why Hanna was telling him this, but it was better than being shot for want of conversational material.
‘Of course Washington wondered how to respond. For example they were troubled by the idea that a stronger India, if it got closer to Beijing, might forget about good old Uncle Sam. What bloc would crystallise out of that? India and the USA? Or India, China and Russia? Washington had always seen the Indians as important allies, and would have loved to use them against China, for example, but New Delhi was insisting on autonomy, and didn’t want to be talked round, let alone used, by anybody.’
‘What does all this have to do with us?’
‘In this phase, Warren, people like me were sent to the Subcontinent to make sure all the spin was going in the right direction. We were instructed to support the Indian miracle with all our might, but when the Chinese ambassador was blown up in 2014 by LeMGI, the League for a Muslim Greater India, Indo-Chinese relations darkened just at the right moment, favouring the finalisation of certain important Indo-American agreements.’
‘You are – hang on a second!’ Locatelli flashed his teeth. ‘You’re not trying to tell me—’
‘Yep. It’s thanks to some of these agreements, for example, that your solar collectors make such a huge profit on the Indian market.’
‘You’re a bloody CIA agent!’
Hanna gave a mildly complacent smile. ‘LeMGI was my idea. One of a huge number of tricks to offset the possibility of Chinese–Indian–Russian bloc formation. Some of those tricks worked, occasionally at the cost of human lives – our own, in fact. With all due respect for your genius, Warren, people like you get rich and influential under certain conditions that had to be put in place by other people, if necessary the bloody government. Can you rule out the possibility that your market leadership on the other side of the planet might have been bought with a few human lives?’
‘What?’ Locatelli exploded. ‘Are you off your head?’
‘Can you rule it out?’
‘I’m not the damned government! Of course I can—’
‘But you’re a beneficiary. You think I’m a bastard. But you only looked on while I did something that everybody does, and from which you profit every day without a thought. The paradigm shift in energy supply, aneutronic, clean fusion, that sounds good, really good, and the improved yield of your solar cells has revolutionised the market in solar panels. Congratulations. But when has anyone ever risen to the top without others falling? Sometimes you need a bit of help, and we’re the ones who provide it.’
Locatelli looked into Hanna’s eyes for the twitch that betrays the presence of lunacy, – tics, traumas and inner demons – but there was nothing but cold, dark calm.
‘And what does the CIA want from us?’ he asked.
‘The CIA? Nothing, as far as I know. I’m no longer part of the family. Until seven years ago I was paid by the State, but one day you realise that you can get the same job from the same people for three times the pay. All you have to do is go independent on the free market, and call your boss not Mr President, but Mr CEO. Of course you’ve always known that you were actually working for the Vatican, the Mafia, the banks, the energy cartels, the arms producers, the environmental lobby, the Rockefellers, Warren Buffets, Zheng Pang-Wangs and Julian Orleys of this world, so from now on you’re just working directly for them. It may of course happen that you go on representing the interests of some government or other. You just have to extend the concept of government appropriately: to groups like Orley Enterprises, which have accrued so much power that they are the government. The world is governed by companies and cartels, crossing all national boundaries. The overlaps with elected parliamentary governments are anywhere between random and complete. You never really know exactly who you’re working for, so you stop asking, because it doesn’t make any difference anyway.’
‘I’m sorry?’ Locatelli’s eyes threatened to pop from his head. ‘You don’t even know who you’re doing this for?’
‘I couldn’t tell you unequivocally, at any rate.’
‘But you’ve killed three people!’ Locatelli yelled. ‘You stupid arsehole, with your secret-agent attitude, you don’t do something like that just because it’s a job!’
Hanna opened his mouth, shut it again and ran his hand over his eyes as if to wipe away somet
hing ugly that he’d just seen.
‘Okay, it was a mistake. I shouldn’t have told you all that, I should be cleverer! It always ends up exactly the same, with somebody saying arsehole. Not that I’m insulted, it’s just all that wasted time. Annihilated capital.’
He got to his feet, grew to menacing, primeval height, two metres of muscle encased in steel-reinforced synthetic fibre, crowned by the cold intelligence of an analyst who has just lost his patience. Locatelli feverishly wondered how this ridiculous conversation could be held in check.
‘There was no need to kill Mimi and Marc,’ he said hastily. ‘You did that out of pure pleasure at least.’
Hanna shook his head thoughtfully.
‘You don’t understand, Warren. You know people like me from the movies, and you think we’re all psychopaths. But killing isn’t a pleasure or a burden. It’s an act of depersonalisation. You can’t see a person and a goal at the same time. Back in the Schröter Valley, those three were too close, even Mimi and Marc. Marc, for example, would have been able to climb back along the cantilever and follow me in the second rover, not to mention Peter. I couldn’t take any kind of risk.’
‘In that case why didn’t you just kill all of—’
‘Because I thought the rest of you were up on Snake Hill, and therefore too far away to be dangerous to me. Whether you believe me or not, Warren, I’m trying to spare lives.’
‘How comforting,’ Locatelli murmured.
‘But I hadn’t reckoned with you. Why were you suddenly there?’
‘I’d gone back.’
‘Why? You didn’t want to see the lovely view?’
‘Forgot my camera.’ His voice sounded awkward to his own ears, embarrassed and hurt. Hanna smiled sympathetically.
‘The most trivial things can change the course of your life,’ he said. ‘That’s how things are.’
Locatelli pursed his lips, stared at the tips of his boots and fought down an attack of hysterical laughter. There he sat, worrying about whether his confession of forgetfulness would be posthumously weighed against his actions, reducing his heroic status. Would it? At least there would be some kind of obituary! A stirring speech. A toast, a bit of music: Oh Danny Boy—