Rule 34

“This is Bhaskar.” Whoever Bhaskar is, he sounds amused. “And you are?”

“This is the Scottish consulate,” you say, your voice barely above a dry-mouthed whisper. “I need to talk to the colonel.”

“The—you say the Scottish consulate?”

“Yes.” You swallow, hoping the phone app they gave you is adequately encrypted. “There’s a problem.”

“A problem. And for this problem you need to talk to Felix Datka.” His tone sharpens.

“Yes.” You realize you’re clutching the edge of your desk as if it’s a life-belt. “I know what you’re doing, what you’re using me for, and I don’t, I can’t . . .”

“Wait, please. Ah, Felix—you, you had better explain this to the colonel himself. He will speak to you now.” There’s a muffled noise, as of a phone being passed between hands, and then a new speaker.

“This is Felix Datka. Identify yourself.”

The background music has stopped. “It’s Anwar, Anwar Hussein. From Edinburgh, your honorary consul.”

The colonel snorts superciliously. “And you are calling because . . . ?”

All your indignation comes boiling up at once.

“My cousin’s dead, Colonel. Since your man arrived in my city, with his curious demands. Surely this is not a coincidence? And it is not bad enough being held up to ridicule by the other diplomats of this city, oh no! Everybody knows that Issyk-Kulistan is a front for some strange diplomatic game. And the trade delegations with the bread mix that is a culture medium for illegal nanosystems, you have me handing this stuff out openly as if on the street-corner! Where the police can find me, red-handed! And this week, this week even the news stops. There is no news, as if you cannot even be bothered to maintain the pretense! Have you no decency, sir?”

There is no sound from the other end of the phone, but a glance at the screen tells you the connection is still there.

“Sir?”

There is a pause. Then Datka asks, softly, meditatively, terrifyingly: “What do you mean, ‘bread mix’?”

Light-headed and nauseous, you collect your possessions and walk out of the consulate. You leave behind: the safe and its contents, the travelling trunk with its commercial samples of bread mix, the laptop, the furnishings, the stale posturing and lies. You are going home, home to your family and your future and the things that matter to you. Fuck Adam and his stupid get-rich-quick scheme, scamming scammers. Fuck Colonel Datka and his secret policeman’s eyes. Fuck the colonel’s man Christie, whoever he is. You don’t need any of them. They can’t give you back Tariq’s annoying jokes, his sly word-play. They can’t give you an extra minute to say good-bye to your cousin. And if they can’t do that, how heavily should your children’s futures weigh on your shoulders?

If it comes to it, you’ll turn yourself in to Mr. Webber and shop the lot of them. Go back inside Saughton, if that’s what it takes to keep them away from Bibi and the bairns.

You are hungry—you forgot to make yourself breakfast this morning—and you are sick at heart as you march determinedly towards the tram stop. You’re walking away from a good solid job that was paying you—well, it wasn’t paying you well in purely monetary terms, but it got you respect. And after what you threw in Colonel Datka’s face (or more accurately, his ear) you have zero expectation of keeping the job. Bibi will be livid. She’ll also be exhausted from sitting up all night with Aunt Sameena and Uncle Taleb and the kids, and she’s probably back at work by now—

Yes, you can see all this. Nevertheless.

You check your phone for the tram schedule, and it flashes a red warning at you: delays expected due to an accident on Leith Walk, get the bus instead. You can see at least one tram with your own eyes, but who knows how the network works? So you stop by the foot of the Mound, outside the big art gallery, and poke at the time-table. You’ve hit the morning lull after rush hour, it seems, when half the buses return to their depots. Irritated, you put your phone away and start walking. It’s only a couple of kilometres, and the weather’s fine. You’ll even chance a short-cut over the Mound, normally a steep climb best left to the buses’ fuel cell.

Halfway up the first flight of worn stone steps behind the gallery, your phone shivers. You glance at it, startled. It’s an invite to join a new start-up group on some business network, one of the half-assed by-blows of LinkedIn and Facebook that offer virtual corporate hosting to folks too cheap to rent an office. Somehow it’s dodged your spam stack. You’re about to flag it when you see the sender’s name. JOHN CHRISTIE. You mash your thumb on the delete icon with a shudder, like you’re crushing a sleepy autumn wasp. A minute later, the phone buzzes again: It’s a different invite, this time for some kind of file repository. Same sender. The menacing buzz of the hornet circling your head, looking to sting: He’s relying on your natural curiosity to make you break cover, nose inquisitively into his new business scheme. It’s a trap, of course. You’ve had enough. You flip the phone to flight mode and pocket it. It’s not like you need a map to find your way home, and when you get there, you’ll—

What will you do?

You’re breathing harder as you climb faster, but you know exactly what you’re going to do. You’re going to take his luggage and dump it out the back yard. You’re going to call Inspector Butthurt and cough everything you suspect, the weird coincidences, the job that’s too good to be true. Give them the bucket, the bread mix, and Colonel Datka’s phone number, much good may it do them. You’re going clean, the cleanest you’ve been: an end to the tears and the in-between . . . yes. Get your priorities right: Naseem, Farida, Bibi, your parents and uncles and aunts and cousins and nephews and nieces and family—

There’s a buzzing as of an angry swarm of bees from your pocket, then your phone rings.

You pull it out and stare at it. It’s in flight mode: How can this be? It’s ringing, though. The screen says INTERNATIONAL CALL.

You answer the phone. “Hello.”

The voice at the other end of the connection is heavily accented, male. “Presidential palace,” it says. “Please wait.”

You stop and lean on the iron railing near the top of the steps, just below the intersection with Market Street. Turning to face back the way you came, you stare out across the deep gulf of Princes Street Gardens, the classical stone pile of the Royal Scottish Academy, towards the stony frontages of the New Town, blocks hacked out of history. There’s a light breeze blowing, and high above you it tears cotton-wool shards from the passing clouds. There’s a sour taste in your mouth. After a moment you realize it’s fear.

A new voice, gravelly, with a faint American accent: “Good afternoon. Am I speaking to Mr. Anwar Hussein?” You half recognize it, but you can’t quite place where you’ve heard him before.

“Yes,” you say cautiously.

“Excellent. Please accept my apologies for intruding on you—I understand, I’m told, you have recently had a death in your family?”

“Yes.” You bite your lower lip, then glance around. Just in case somebody’s watching you.

“I’m very sorry about that.” A momentary pause. “I gather that when you called Felix Datka half an hour ago, we had a slight misunderstanding.”

“I resigned,” you say icily, tightening the shreds of your dignity around you.

“Yes, he told me that. Mr. Hussein—Anwar—I want to explain to you: Matters are not so simple that you can just resign.”

You’d tell him to fuck right off except he rang through to your phone while it was in flight mode, and that’s supposed to be impossible, isn’t it? Or isn’t there a backdoor for the emergency services? You vaguely remember hearing something about that, something about external emergency reactivation—“I’m quitting,” you repeat, less firmly. “Who are you, anyway?”

“I’m Colonel Felix Datka’s boss,” says the man on the phone. “You can call me Bhaskar. Or Professor Tanayev. I am, very indirectly, your employer. Or ex-employer, if you insist on resigning.”

The tram bells far below might as well be fire alarms, telling you to get out now. “Professor Tanayev. You’re the colonel’s boss? How exactly does that work?”

He chuckles. “They can kick me out of the presidential palace, but they can’t strip me of tenure.”