Persona (16 page)

But there was more than one way to suffer. There were at least two IA boys Grace had dated in the last three years (the boy from Russia who'd since aged out, and someone else, briefly. Suyana couldn't remember—Hong Kong Territories, maybe). Had those contracts been carefully negotiated with PDA limits that were humiliatingly explicit about Grace's wishes, or—worse—had she been told to sign the contract as given, and fend for herself?

“Why doesn't Colin just let you date other girl Faces? The IA has plenty.”

It had no more impact than a numbers game like that usually would. The only scandal Suyana could think of was that the Icelandic Face and the Swedish Face had been together so long people were starting to think those girls weren't even in a contract.

“Colin and I agreed a long while back that what I do on my own is my own business, and what I do as a Face is the business of the United Kingdom,” said Grace, quietly, as if it was something that was often repeated.

Suyana felt someone in Grace's position might be bold, and defy what everyone expected. But the dynamics of power were only obvious in retrospect, no matter how high up you went. And since Suyana, at this time yesterday, had been letting Oona the stylist deep-condition her hair for her meeting with Ethan, she had nothing to say about what people were willing to do when they had to.

Since then she'd been shot, and followed, and blacklisted, and on the brink with the people for whom she'd risked it all, and had trusted a liar because she'd been desperate. She had absolutely nothing to say about how badly things could go wrong for you, if you tried to be bold and failed.

“We're here,” said Grace.

Her hand was already on the door as the car slowed, and as soon as it stopped she was outside and moving. For a moment the light reflected off the windows and caught her dress; she was looking left and right, and the sequins on her dress blazed to life. With the next step she fell back into the shadows, and it was snuffed out, and Suyana wondered how many times Grace had hurried into this building with someone she couldn't afford to see again.

Grace stood inside the shelter of the lobby, holding the door for Suyana. As Suyana crossed the threshold, she passed Grace's mobile to her. At the top of the landing, Grace handed it back. She had the start of a smile on her face, as if she wanted to say something kind but knew better.

(They were trained never to give thanks if they were sincere, because if you cared about something, it could be used against you.)

“This wasn't a gallant gesture,” she said. “This was so you'd have a fighting chance against whoever comes after you next.”

“Wonderful. Thanks.”

Grace grinned in earnest. “Let's get upstairs. You need to make sure your wounds are all right, and I want to check in with Colin and see what he knows.”

Suyana blinked. This all felt like tripping into a feather bed at the moment you knew you couldn't take another step.

Please don't be a trap, Suyana thought, examining Grace's expression. Just this once. Please just give me enough room to breathe, that's all.

“All right,” Suyana said.

(It meant, “Thank you.”)

Daniel was silent for a long time as the car snaked though the early-morning traffic. If he was smart, he'd be chatting up Bo. Clearly, snaps had screwed Bo over; knowing how it had happened and making sympathetic faces could have gotten Daniel a friend in the organization, and prevented him from making the same mistakes that had led to Bo doing forcible recruit duty on a Friday night.

That's what you did to sources—you cultivated them, and you milked them for all they were worth, and then you got away as clean as you could.

But somehow he couldn't pull a good front together. He felt empty and ill, like he'd been punched in the stomach on his way out of Terrain, and his mind clicked to a null value over and over.

“We'll get out here,” said Bo.

They were on a nondescript corner of a neighborhood of quiet shops and attorneys' or dentists' offices. (Daniel's uncle did his forging from the back of a dentist's office that had once been an attorney's office—you could hardly tell anything had changed.)

The hair on his neck stood up. Don't think about home, he thought. Don't think about anything that happened before right now. You have nowhere to go. You have nothing to fall back on. Swim or drown.

Daniel looked at the still-closed storefronts and the tidy quadrants of streets angling away from them. “So what, I get a blindfold and you spin me around and just push me along until we're there?”

Bo curled his lip. “We're not that kind of organization.”

Daniel shot him a look. “You sure?”

“To your left,” Bo said, long-suffering.

He definitely should have asked what mistake Bo had made that landed him with this backwater beat. Bo couldn't be older than thirty—he shouldn't sound eighty. Suyana might think Daniel was the scum of the earth, but Daniel was too good at what he did to get trapped in rookie-babysitting duty, that was for sure.

Daniel slid his hands in his pockets and started walking. The necklace scraped his knuckles, bit into his fingers when he gripped it.

“Stop,” Bo said, in front of a slightly shabby window that read
BONNAIRE ATELIER
. Two headless mannequins decorated the storefront; one was wearing a hideous wedding dress, the other had on half a blazer that was chalk-marked and missing a sleeve.

Daniel frowned. “Does this fool anyone?”

Bo didn't answer.

Past the counter was the door to the service stairwell, which Bo locked behind them. Daniel turned and headed down.

“Wrong way.”

Daniel was impressed. It took a real entrepreneur to put the offices of her black-market agency on the upper floors of a building, where surveillance by the opposition was much easier to come by.

That meant she didn't like being in places where there was only one way out. Worth knowing.

Bo led the way up the stairs, and unlocked the door on the second floor that led into the entrance hall of a flat. It was meticulously decorated. The sitting room had mismatched velvet sofas and tables adorned with lamps and sculptures and stacks of art books. There were sideboards against the walls (one with a television), and a dining table with an upholstered chair at the head of it that looked like a throne. There was a little kitchen that had never been used, and a washroom.

On the far side was a closed door, and just looking at it made Daniel's fingertips go numb with dread. She could decorate in glamorous disarray all she wanted, but Daniel knew this wasn't a flat anyone lived in.

It was a war room.

“She's expecting us,” Bo said, and knocked.

And either Bo must have been higher up on the food chain than Daniel thought or his new boss knew everyone who crossed her doorstep, because Bo didn't wait for a response before he opened the door, and she was already saying, “Daniel will meet you in the shop, Bo, thank you.”

Bo looked over at him and raised an eyebrow.

Daniel shrugged, crossed the rest of the sitting area, and stepped inside.

The room had been meant as a bedroom, once—there was even a fireplace—but it was a stronghold now. There was a monstrous desk stacked on one side with tech; a small chair sat empty in front of it, and behind it, she was waiting.

He'd pictured her in a huge curved chair that turned slowly to reveal her, like a villain in a movie. But it was just an office chair, and she was already facing him, her hands laced together on the desk, her gaze exactly at his eye level even before he was in sight.

There hadn't been any cameras in the windows of the shop. They must have been in the mannequins, and she'd gauged his height from that. He took it back about the storefront not fooling anyone.

“Have a seat,” she said.

He did. What else was he supposed to do?

She wore bright red lipstick, seemingly an inch thick, its lines perfect; the collar of her black suit curled at the edges, and her hair was pulled back, and if he had to guess he'd put her in her late thirties with the confidence of someone who'd killed that many.

“You must be thirsty,” she said, and set a bottle of water, still sealed, within his reach.

Her voice wasn't as low as he remembered from the phone call, but he'd been remembering a monster. In this well-appointed office in the early-morning light, the words were alto and round and clear as a bell, and he imagined she'd done her share of recruiting at this desk, with a voice like hers.

But he had no name to put to her voice, because she still hadn't given him one, so he sat back and crossed his legs like he was actually comfortable, and reminded himself she was the enemy.

“We haven't met,” he said.

She smiled without parting her lips. “Li Zhao,” she said. “Owner of Bonnaire Atelier, Bonnaire Fine Tailoring, and Bonnaire Workshop.”

Bo hadn't been a very informative hostage-babysitter. Daniel didn't even know where the other two places were. One in New York, he guessed; maybe London. Maybe Hong Kong. Maybe it was one name for each continent where she had countless snaps crossing borders twenty-four hours a day.

“I've seen your work,” Daniel said. “Not sure I like some of your methods.”

“I'm not sure I do either, but as long as they keep working, I'll keep using them.”

“How often do you threaten people's families just to get them to come in and meet you?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Funny thing. Most snaps are happy to meet with us, so you're the first in a while where I've had to apply pressure.”

Like a wound, Daniel thought.

“But honestly, I wasn't worried. Your family seems like nice people, and I had a feeling nothing would have to get ugly. You strike me as a reasonable man.”

He almost said,
Why are you talking to me like I'm your brother?
but he stopped himself. You came this far without anyone else, he thought; you have defenses. Use them. Don't let this be the end of the line.

“I'm trying to be a reasonable man. I can't say the same for the guy you sent to fetch me. I hope his recruitment skills aren't indicative of the company.”

She turned to something on her computer. “I gave Bo a task, and he did what it took. That's very indicative of this company.” She said it coolly, though her mouth was just barely turned up, a red crescent just at the edges.

“Bo's strong-arming probably drove Suyana Sapaki into an assassination attempt,” he said. “That's pretty involved behavior for a snap.”

“If Bo pushed Sapaki into danger, he'll have to live with that. But that's between Bo and the story he's willing to settle for, and frankly, I'm not sure you get to say very much about being nosy.”

She angled one of her monitors so he could see it. He steeled himself to look at a shot of the kiss. But it was a shot of Café de Troyes—grainy from exposure, and fuzzy in one corner where a streetlight had bled into the feed.

He was distracted, and it took him a second to see that he and Suyana were coming out the door. He was so close behind her the hem of his coat was brushing her leg. She was looking down the street, focused, determined. He was looking at her.

His expression didn't bear thinking about.

“I know it's strange to be on the other side of the lens,” she said, with real sympathy.

Ice slid up his spine. Daniel wanted to look up at her, look her in the eye, see where she was going. He didn't dare.

He reevaluated some things in the few seconds it took for him to be able to breathe again.

“I was after a story with all this, you know,” he said. He forced himself to sound as disconnected as he could. He was lying, and they both knew it, but sometimes you just really needed to try out the lie. “It was shaping up, too, before Bo dragged me off-site in a fit of pique.”

“You're too close to that story,” she said in a cut-the-shit voice, sitting back. “It will be reassigned. But your instincts are good—you got further than most amateurs would have. It helps that you're without compunction.”

She said it without fanfare, as if it was an advantage he couldn't help, like being tall.

“Thanks,” he said. Then, “Reassigned?”

“When she left Terrain, she was still all right. So long as she can keep herself alive, we'll watch her.”

Daniel frowned. She sounded almost proud of Suyana; almost excited about her.

And someone would be looking after Suyana, then. She wouldn't be alone. That was something. Maybe it was best that it wasn't him. The knot of her necklace hung heavy in his pocket.

“I see.”

Li Zhao shot him a look. “You may not like my methods, but what we do is more important than that. The story you brought us is important.”

“I agree,” he started, but when she looked at him, he closed his mouth over the rest.

“Whether or not Sapaki lives,” she said, “there are alliances that will break because of this, and probably a colonial occupation, and the IA would rather no one know about it in time to get angry.”

Jesus. “Who would colonize?”

“The usual suspects. All of whom have press corps that will fight to keep their countries' secrets, because that's what they're trained to do. You won't hear a word about this from them.”

She looked at him level. “The free press is gone, except for us. And both sides would be happy to see the end of us, except that they benefit too much from us to risk it.”

He had questions about the safety of this pitch, and even more about propaganda of this pitch, but still, he was holding his breath.

She leaned forward. “It's complicated, to do what we do. Sometimes it's dirty work, and sometimes people die. We don't get involved. That's the cost of doing business.”

Before he could think better of it, he said, “So why are you so happy Suyana Sapaki isn't dead yet?”