David Shafer - Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

“You mean, what’s my employment history?”

He gave a small look-down that meant Don’t be obtuse . But he said only, “No. More broadly.”

She took a sip of her tea. So delicious, that tiny bit of nuttiness. On a plate on the table there were biscuits spilling from a torn-open packet. “I don’t like it that a baby girl can get born into a place where it sucks to be a girl. Or, for that matter, where she’ll be from the wrong tribe or sect, or just be dirt poor. Obviously, that’s not fair, so, yeah, I’ve been trying to do something about that.” She took a biscuit from the plate, snapped it in half. “I haven’t exactly made massive headway, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

“No one has,” said Nicotine. “The problems are rather systemic, are they not?”

“Listen, Mr. Lozenge, I don’t want to discuss development politics with you. I’d rather know who was trying to follow me through a horse market, how you guys think you can help me, and when is this meeting you dragged me here for.”

“The man we kept from following you was one of the Committee’s men. They’ve started to move on us in a way that we weren’t expecting, and everyone around here is pretty scared. They decapitated London and New York and Berlin last week. We can’t even find some of our key people. That’s why we got you out of London directly. And I wouldn’t say we dragged you, exactly. So there’s that. As far as helping you, we might be able to clear your father. There’s a man who works for the Committee’s frame shop. We know a man who knows that man.”

“You really just call them the Committee?”

“When they started — when they still called themselves anything — they were the Committee for Cloud Acquisition.”

“But why’d they screw with me in the first place? What did I see in the forest?”

“One of their computers.”

“What do you mean, one of their computers? ”

“Their computers are very big — big as in they drive golf carts around them. And your e-mail was seriously inconvenient. A librarian at the CIA tried to unmask some imagery, and when he couldn’t, he asked questions of the geospatial people, questions that other people heard him ask.”

“Yeah, that would be Joel. He’s dogged,” said Leila, a bit proudly; they’d had the briefest of flings, years ago. Joel was a Jew from Maine, into vinyl and beer and palindromes.

“Well, then I’m sorry to tell you that Joel was dogged. He died two days ago.”

The biscuit went dry in her mouth. “Joel is dead?”

Nicotine nodded. Then paused in a way that was meant to convey something. “Brain aneurysm,” he said.

Her heart fell into her guts. “You’re telling me that the Committee killed Joel. That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

She kept from bursting into tears only by looking very hard at Nicotine Lozenge. He had just upped the stakes. If it turned out he was fucking with her, she wanted to recall the moment exactly. “Did I get anyone else killed?”

“No. Everyone you contacted had their scrutiny numbers turned way up. But only Joel did anything with your question, so he was the only one they intervened on. And then you, of course, and your father.”

“So why didn’t they just, you know, ‘decapitate’ me? Or my father? Isn’t a frame job more expensive than killing someone?”

Nicotine did the quick, exaggerated frown that meant fair point . “Yes, it is. I don’t know why they didn’t just kill you”—he said it a bit breezily for her liking—“though, in fairness, they generally try to avoid such direct interventions — murder, frame jobs, all that. At least, they used to avoid those things. Most of their interventions are the kinds you don’t know have happened. They make you sick, they get you fired, they keep you down by numbers. But ever since Parker Pope came on board, they’ve gotten nasty. Aggressive.”

“Parker Pope, the CEO of Bluebird?”

“Indeed.”

“So they can just get a middle-school principal dragged away by the FBI?”

In answer, Nicotine snapped his fingers expertly— snap! — as if cutting the air before him.

“So tell me what evidence they left behind so I can bring it to the police and get my dad cleared of this shit.”

“It’s not that easy, Lola,” said Nicotine.

“Quit it with the code names, would you? My name is Leila.”

At that, a young dark-black man came into the kitchen. Dude must have been in the other room, not making a peep, thought Leila.

“We generally do not use our real names in this organization,” said the young man.

Leila didn’t show her surprise at his entry. “So Lola Montes is my code name? That’s a lame one.”

“You pick your own,” he said. “They needed to give you a temporary for the Caracas. But if you want a code name, you’ll have to join us, and if you want to join us, you’ll have to take the eye test.”

“No, thanks. What’s yours?”

“Kwame X. Nkrumah.”

“That’s pretty good.”

“Thank you. I like it.”

“You going to this meeting also?”

“I am.”

“What’s on the agenda?”

Kwame nodded at Nicotine. Nicotine said, “There are a few new people, like yourself. So we’ll do the eye tests there. And we’re trying to decide whether we can advance the launch.”

Leila swam in the words— advance the launch . What was going on? Where was Sarah?

Nicotine saw her swimming. “Sorry. You don’t know what the launch is. We hardly ever bring people in this fast. It’s just that we need you up to speed very quickly.”

“What for? What do you want me to do?” She could hear in her own voice the catch that meant desperation. Maybe all this nonsense intrigue was only to soften her up. But for what? And, no — they had let her nap.

“Do you know where I am from, Lola?” said Kwame.

“Ghana,” she said. Leila knew some Africans and was good with accents.

He was surprised and showed it, briefly. “Yes. Bukom. In Accra. We say it is self-evident that we have the right to move about this planet. An inalienable right. So one of the things we do is help people move around outside of the legal systems they were born into.”

She thought: That just makes you traffickers . But she held her tongue.

“After your e-mail, we analyzed you and saw that you have a very wide net. People who love and respect you are sprinkled all over.”

Okay, first of all, she thought, that last part was just some good-cop mindfuck. What was sprinkled all over were people hurt by her not loving them enough, hurt by her greener-pastures shtick.

“You analyzed me?”

“Don’t feel all special,” said Nicotine. “It takes about a minute. Anyway, we’re going to need your help getting a bunch of machines to some remote parts of the world.”

“What do I know about that?”

“A fair amount. But it’s mainly who you know. Phone calls you could make to people in certain places who have a lot of time for you.”

“What kind of machines do you need to get where?”

“Maybe you should limit the amount you’re trying to take on board right now,” said Nicotine. “At least until after the eye test.”

“It’s just the hardware we need to ship,” said Kwame. “The software we can beam out.”

“But what are you people trying to do? Your person in Heathrow said you’re going to give people back their stolen information and issue them numbers.”

“I wish Paige wouldn’t do that,” said Nicotine to Kwame. “It’s really not her remit.”

“We are a horizontal organization, no?” Kwame said to Nicotine.