Regeneration (19 page)

“Yep.”

“It does sound like me,” Pilan said. “But only if I were—” He stopped, then started to laugh. “Damn. I could never have done this.”

Gabriel, his band back on standby and, unsure what was so funny, guessed again. “What, be a politician?”

“Yes.”

“Good thing you've given it up.”

Pilan was shaking with mirth. “That was a brief career: here and gone in one post.”

“Better be sure you got everything right, then.” He made Pilan go through the piece line by line, ticking off all the messages that were being sent or subtly rejected.

“What's this bit about institutions?” Pilan asked.

“You're going to back the UPP, right? And you want everyone who was getting excited at the idea of a new party to do the same, and you want this statement to lay the groundwork. But,” he added anxiously, “it should only say that if it's what you actually mean. I thought that's what I picked up, but we'll take it out if I got it wrong.”

“You didn't,” Pilan replied thoughtfully. “It's something Jack Radbo said. I guess it stuck in my head.”

“That's where I found it. Are you okay with it?”

Pilan read the whole thing over again, then walked around the room, gazed out the window, came back, read it once more. It seemed to Gabriel that he was undergoing some kind of reconciliation.

“Yes,” he said finally, “I'm okay with it. It's stronger than I'd intended, but there's no point being half-assed about things.” He
straightened up and stretched. He was, thought Gabriel, looking and sounding much healthier and stronger, much more himself.

“I've got to show it to a couple of people,” Pilan said, “but I don't think I'm going to let anybody change anything. I like it. Let's drop it into the mix and see what happens.”

The first thing that happened, at least as far as Gabriel was concerned, was that he was hailed from all corners when he poked his head into the hum and chatter of the café. The long tables were crowded with regulars, and Pilan's about-face was running level with the day's incendiary police bulletin as the major topic of discussion. He threaded his way between the tables, stopping to return greetings and assure the diners that the Thames Tidal boss was quite well and had most definitely not been abducted or brainwashed.

“He's fine, really,” he protested to Aster: bone-white, violet-eyed, imperious, and disbelieving. “I think he just realized it was time to make a decision one way or another. He's in good shape.”

“Too good to be true, if you ask me,” she said. “If he'd sounded that impressive from the start, I might have backed the idea.” She sniffed. “Too late now.”

Gabriel grinned and finally made it to the counter, where his mother was checking orders before Delial delivered them to the tables. Eve, standing next to Gaela, was diligently organizing cutlery, although it wasn't the sort of job that would normally hold her attention for long. Their father was busy at the big cooking range, wreathed in steam, alongside his two assistants. He could see they were working flat out, but Gaela shooed him away when he offered to help.

“We're fine, honey,” she said, as Eve grumbled, “
I'm
helping,” sotto voce from her station with the spoons and forks. Gaela looked down at her with a smile that was slightly less troubled than it had been, if no less weary. Relations were apparently not quite as fraught as yesterday, but Gabriel suspected that might change if they were all crammed in behind the counter. “You've had a long day,” Gaela went on. “I'll get Horace in if I need him. Aryel's here; go and join her and the others. I'll send over some dinner.”

Aryel was at her favorite spot in the front corner, where she could sit with her back to the wall and not worry about her wings being in anyone's way. At least, that was the reason she always gave, and he knew it was true; but he also knew she was well aware that a glimpse of her through the window was the best advertising the business could have. Eli was sitting with her, along with Callan and Rhys.

Gabriel worked his way across to her, glad to no longer be the center of attention, overhearing snatches of conversation along the way: mostly about the police investigation and the likelihood of further attacks, some about Bankside, Pilan or politics, and, for blessed relief, occasionally something else entirely.

“Strange things happening with the share price,” he heard Aryel say as he reached her table. She looked up at him and smiled. “So,” she murmured, leaning across as he slid into an empty seat, “win a bet for me. Did you write this thing that Pilan wrote?”

“How'd you know?” he asked, alarmed. “We tried not to make it obvious.”

“It isn't, don't worry. Process of elimination. I knew he must have had help, and I didn't think it was Lapsa—she's a good speaker but not a great writer. Mikal ruled himself out, and it's not his style anyway. So—” She inclined her head at him. “Well done. Your next job will be speechwriting if you're not careful.”

“Not unless Pilan changes his mind,” he murmured back, to knowing chuckles from around the table. He would have liked to talk to his aunt about Kaboom, and Eve. It was unimaginable that any injunction to secrecy, either from the Varsis or his own family, was meant to include Aunt Aryel, but the café was too busy and noisy and public, and although Uncle Eli and Rhys and Callan were family too, he knew that bringing them in would be a step too far. So he sat back and let his mind wander, until he was brought back to alertness with a jolt.

“Only one still in the hospital,” Rhys was saying. “He's finally showing some improvement, but the damage—” He shook his head bitterly.

“Is that Tamin?” asked Gabriel. “Isn't he going to get better, like the others?”

“I hope so, Gabe, but the scarring on his gill tissue is the worst we've seen. He might never be comfortable underwater again.” Rhys was speaking quietly, his face serious. “Don't repeat that, obviously.”

“I won't—but why was it so much worse for him?”

“We're not sure. He might just have been more susceptible. I've been combing through his genetype looking for anomalies, but . . .”

He paused while Delial and Horace, who had been drafted in from the empty grocery next door, delivered five laden plates to the table. For a few minutes there was no sound except for the clinking of cutlery and chewing. Gabriel, enveloped in the aroma of seashore pie, discovered that he was ravenous. It was one of his father's specialties, and one of his favorites, made from fish and shellfish farmed out in the estuary. He tucked in with relish—and then remembered that Tamin had worked on one of those farms.

“If that's not it,” he said to Rhys, “what else could it be?”

The young doctor examined a prawn on the end of his fork as though it might have the answer. “Another possibility is that his exposure was greater. Cal and Eli saw him swim in from the river and he was immediately symptomatic, whereas it took a while for most patients to start feeling ill.” Eli and Callan both nodded, their mouths too full to speak. “If he was the only one who swam through a cloud of algae as it was releasing the toxin, then he would've gotten more of a hit than anyone else.”

“That would mean it was being released in the river,” Gabriel pointed out, “not actually inside Sinkat.”

“I'm leaning toward that view, especially since he then went back into the water and swam across the basin—that suggests the problem wasn't actually in the basin yet.”

“It makes sense,” Aryel said. “They haven't found anything in Sinkat that could have acted as the catalyst, and it would've been easier to get whatever it was into the main channel without being noticed. Mind you, they haven't found anything there either.”

“The police liaison told Lapsa they think they're looking for some kind of bioplastic or polymer,” Gabriel added, keeping his voice low. “I thought the whole point about those is that they're not reactive,
but they took samples from all the wet buildings, buoys, lane markers, even the hulls of boats. Everything that's underwater.”

Rhys was shaking his head. “The idea was that the catalytic compound might have been incorporated into some perfectly innocent material. Think of the way quantum-energy cells are embedded in the biopolymer structure of the Thames Tidal building—that's pretty sophisticated, but the basic technique has been around a long time. With all the new development in Sinkat recently, the police thought maybe the terrorists had snuck something in through the regular supply chain.” He shrugged and stabbed another prawn. “But there's nothing, not there, or in the river. So I don't know how they did it.”

“We're missing something,” Aryel said. Her eyes, huge and bright in the bronze oval of her face, rested on Gabriel. “There's more going on here than a protectionist energy market or a reactionary political movement or even plain old-fashioned prejudice. It has elements of all those things, but it's bigger than any one of them. And I can't shake the feeling that we're being so bombarded by events and information, we're failing to notice something obvious.”

Mikal Varsi was delivering three noisy children to school early the next morning when his earset buzzed.

“Honey? Have you dropped the kids yet? Oh, you haven't—why are they making such a racket? I've got news.”

“They have decided to form a band,” Mikal told Sharon solemnly. “It will be a global sensation. They are going to travel the world and be on every stream, everywhere, all of the time. Won't that be lovely? I've been treated to their first rehearsal.”

He ushered the children through the school gate, across the narrow front yard, and up to the building's entrance, managing to keep a straight face as down the line Sharon dissolved into helpless laughter. The aide checking pupils in and dispatching them to their classrooms took in the dancing, prancing, screeching trio and planted herself in front of them with arms folded and a look of polite inquiry. The clamor died away with a speed that Mikal, who had suggested in vain that they lower the volume during the tramp through the misty, sleepy streets of Riveredge Village, found little short of miraculous. The woman, who moved with the solid grace of an athlete, had tattooed hands and glowing teal-colored hair and an expression that
said she'd seen it all before but would be happy to accept an explanation if one were to be forthcoming. Eve, Misha, and Sural grinned up at her. She gazed down at them thoughtfully, as though they were a particularly interesting and knotty problem, before turning her querying expression on Mikal. He decided it would be wrong to deny her the joy of discovery and returned his most sympathetic look.

“Morning, Teri. Children?”

“Good morning Miss Teri,” they chorused raggedly.

“Good morning, Mikal,” she said, imperturbable. “Good morning, Misha. Good morning, Eve. Good morning, Sural. In you go. We are
walking
, not running, and
talking
, not shouting, correct?”

They scampered past with a volley of “Yes, misses,” and an added, “
Singing
isn't
shouting,
” from Eve.

Mikal called, “Have a good day!” after them, thinking that in their case the encouragement was entirely unnecessary, waved at Teri, and backed away, pointing at his earset. She flapped an understanding hand at him, and he made his escape.

“Sharon? You still there? I've handed them over to Terissa. Is it too late to go back to bed?”

“Not for you.”

“If it's just me, there's not much point.”

“I can't help you with that at the moment, Councillor,” she said sedately. “Maybe later. I do have some other diversions that you might appreciate.”

“I'll take what I can get.”

“Our two terrorist suspects have been identified. They have a history of working together, even before this latest venture. I thought you'd like to know that both are recent ex-employees of Bankside BioMass.”

That bombshell stopped Mikal dead on the pavement, where other hurrying parents almost collided into him. He sidestepped, mumbling an apology, and strode swiftly out of their hearing. “You don't say.”

“I do say. Several former colleagues got in touch overnight, all giving the same names. They were checked against the employment records, and the EM officer arrested yesterday has now looked at their
file photos and confirmed that they are indeed the men she met. I'm about to update the bulletin.”

“Has Bankside responded?”

“Not exactly,” Sharon said drily. “The press officer I just spoke to was dumbfounded. Given that no one in the chain of command has come up with a credible explanation for how a random pair of low-lifes gained access to their hydroponics farm, I can't imagine why. I expect someone rather more senior will be in touch any minute now.”

“Any leads on where the terrorists are?”

“Hmm . . .”

He sighed. “Oh, right, you're not supposed to tell me that. Shall I just assume there's no sign of them at their last addresses, and known acquaintances have no knowledge of their current whereabouts?”

“I couldn't possibly comment, except to observe that you would have made an excellent detective.”

He laughed. “Nice to know there might be a career for me to fall back on. Although that news should smooth my way today considerably.” He remembered that it was not the news he'd been expecting. “Is this what they called you in at the crack of dawn for? I thought it was Kaboom-related.”

“It was. Are you in a secure location?”

He looked around the residential street, quiet now the kids were all safely delivered to school, and with no one in sight except for a dog-walker far ahead. “Nobody's within a hundred feet of me.”

“Okay, so I figure I can tell you this because arrests are imminent and you brought us Kaboom in the first place, but I'm going to be keeping it quiet until we've had a chance to question them.” She hesitated, then said, “There's another reason too, I'll get to that in a minute. Last night two of the four streamers we'd identified visited the same address, a couple of hours apart. It's a public venue with a lot of traffic, so the first one went in and came out without the officers being able to tell whom they were meeting. The second was spotted parting company with a man outside when the premises closed, and we added this man to the stakeout list. Just before dawn this morning, said man was seen meeting another unidentified person in a
night-workers' café. We think she's going to turn out to be the fifth streamer, because shortly after she left, another of those we'd already identified showed up—that's when I got the call. We're just giving it a little longer to see if he'll be obliging enough to meet with all five before we collar the lot.”

“Detective Superintendent Varsi,” he said admiringly, “very well played.”

“You haven't heard the rest.” She sounded reluctant.

“Which is?”

“The first two meetings took place in the financial district, in a fashionable restaurant . . . one with a private members' club upstairs.”

Once again Mikal was shocked into immobility. He looked around, found the nearest wall, and leaned against it. In his ear she said, “Mik? Are you there?”

“Sorry—I'm here. Just . . .
What?
”

“I know. Remember, it might be coincidence.” She used the overly firm voice that meant she too had reached the obvious conclusion, but was determined not to fall for it too easily. “The Karma Club is busy; it's popular and there're a lot of comings and goings, which makes it the perfect place for this kind of rendezvous.”

“So they met in the restaurant? The bar?”

“We don't know. The officer trailing the first one circled through but couldn't spot him—and yes, that might be because he'd gone to the members' area upstairs, but it could also just mean he was hidden by the crowd. It's too soon to read anything conclusive into it.”

“If you say so.”

“Mik, if you repeat this and they use it and it doesn't stack up—”

“—then my new associates will be the ones who end up looking irresponsible, if not downright unscrupulous, whereupon they will deflect the blame onto me. Got it. Do you know anything about the person they were meeting? Not another old Banksider, by any chance?”

“No.” She sounded even more reluctant. “He did work for Standard at one point—the parent company. But that was years ago. He's had several positions since then; now he runs his own consulting business.”

“How convenient.” Mikal pushed himself away from the wall.

“Honey, I
know
.
But
.”

“Don't worry, I'm not going to tell them any more than I need to. I haven't been married to a cop for ten years for nothing.”

By the time Mikal got to Westminster, public screens were regularly flashing up the names of the Thames terrorists. The artist's impressions from the day before had been replaced by photos from their Bankside employment files, with the special Met comcode for sightings or other information prominently featured, along with the words
DO
NOT
APPROACH
. He paused at the corner of Parliament Square as the feed shifted to a live shot of an UrbanNews reporter standing outside a monolithic office block. The legend
BANKSIDE
B
IO
M
ASS
was clearly in frame over her right shoulder.

Mikal adjusted his earset to pick up the sound and listened for a few seconds, until the image transitioned to aerial footage of the wetland from three days before, when it had been crowded with police and EM vehicles, and boats had been clustered around the barricaded drainage channel. He flicked the earset back to standby and set off again, feeling grimly vindicated.

His destination was a large office building on one of the capital's busiest and most venerable streets. Unlike the Bankside complex, it was at least a century old: stolid, functional and architecturally undistinguished, with the slight shabbiness that comes not from disrepair or disuse but from unrelenting traffic and endless pressure for space. Though it had other tenants, it was primarily known as the headquarters of the United People's Party.

Mikal wondered if the entrance was being watched. He hoped so. As always, his height drew every eye on the street, and for once he did not mind. He took the steps two at a time, and walked in through the front door.

Back in his City Hall office a couple of hours later, Mikal was unsurprised when his tablet once more signaled an incoming call from Moira Charles. This time he swiped to receive immediately. She came up against a different backdrop than before: the wall behind
her was a rich crimson, and the furniture was gleaming dark wood. The bland professionalism was also gone, replaced by a pinched tension around the mouth and eyes that he found immensely cheering. “Ms. Charles,” he said heartily. “Barely a day goes by. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Councillor Varsi,” she replied, sounding strained. “Good afternoon. Your appearance alongside the energy minister earlier was extremely . . . unexpected.”

“Was it? You surprise me, Ms. Charles. Surely it's the business of government to take an interest when its citizens' lives are endangered?”

“That might be, but it's unacceptable for him to infer corporate involvement in a criminal enterprise . . .”

“In my experience, corporations are entirely capable of engaging in criminal enterprises,” Mikal interrupted, idly flexing his double-thumbed hands where she could see before lacing them together atop his cocked knee. “Whether that has happened in this case is yet to be determined, but Mr. Radbo isn't alone in noting connections and expressing concern.”

“Your comments give the impression that you share his opinion.”

“That's reassuring, since I do. The possibility that the terrorists have received support—illicitly or otherwise—from within Bankside BioMass should be investigated as a matter of extreme urgency. I trust you don't disagree with that?”

He trusted also that she would hear the echo of her own words thrown back at her. She grimaced, then drew herself up. “Standard BioSolutions will cooperate fully with the authorities. We will also vigorously defend our subsidiaries from any suggestion of involvement in these matters. A company is not responsible for what employees do once they leave, nor for unauthorized actions taken against company policy by those still employed.”

“Duly noted.”

“Councillor Varsi, we anticipated a more measured response from you on these matters. I wish to convey our profound disappointment.”

“Consider it conveyed. Anything else?”

“I—You don't seem to—” She broke off and looked to one side, listening to something he could hear only as a muffled growl. Then
she moved aside, out of the tablet's field of view, and said, “Someone would like to speak with you.”

Abraham Mitford took her place. Mikal knew immediately that wherever they were, it was his space: she had been sitting too far forward, perched uncomfortably on the edge of the chair as though she was not certain she was really allowed to be there, while Mitford dropped into it with the carelessness of ownership. The color in his face was high. He did not bother with a greeting.

“Varsi,” he said, “what the hell do you think you're doing?”

“Rejecting your offer,” Mikal replied with equanimity. “I should have thought that was obvious.”

“It'll never come again, do you understand? We can just about pull this back, but if you walk away now it's over.”

“I'm delighted to hear that. This is me, walking. I would hate to have to have this conversation again.”

“What do you think this stunt is going to accomplish?” Mitford asked, his voice rising. “Where can you possibly imagine it's going to get you? You are
finished
, do you understand? That's what's
obvious
.”

“Are you threatening me, Mr. Mitford?”

“
You?
” he spat. “You think—? I don't make
threats,
Varsi. I told you what has to happen, and some damn-fool gem turning down the chance of a lifetime is not going to change that.”

“There are a great many chances in a lifetime,” Mikal observed peaceably. “The chance to undermine a lawful and progressive business because you don't like the competition is not the kind I'm interested in. The chance to let a new technology develop and flourish under the stewardship of the people who invented it is the kind I like. I choose the chances I take, Mr. Mitford.”

“This isn't over.”

“You just said it was.”

“No,” Mitford said. He had his voice back under control, but his face was beet-red and he spoke slowly, as though Mikal might otherwise fail to understand. “
You
are. And Thames Tidal won't be far behind.”

There were, Sharon Varsi thought, few satisfactions equal to having suspects in custody. She would have been even more pleased if the two fugitives from the hydroponics farm were also locked up in the cells, but for now the six members of the Kaboom propaganda operation—the streamers and their handler, one Conrad Fischer—would do nicely. Every property in southern England that was owned by, leased to, or otherwise connected with Bankside BioMass or any of its subsidiaries was now subject to one of the broadest search warrants in the Met's illustrious history, and she had no doubt that Achebe's teams would eventually turn up something.