BZRK

society thing. She’s helping us, courtesy of our London friends.”
    “You’re sure the president’s going to be there?”
    “That’s never guaranteed,” Vincent said. “Presidential security makes every other kind of security look lazy. If the Secret Service even smells anything . . . But if he is there, we’re in.”
    “And meanwhile?” Nijinsky asked.
    Vincent stopped, retreated beneath an overhang as a light rain began to fall. “There’s a very good chance none of us come out of this alive, Jin. That’s just the reality.”
    “The two kids, though . . .” He didn’t really have a conclusion to that sentence.
    “It’s not just them. Wilkes and Ophelia, too. All of them. All of us. If it makes you feel any better, I argued with Lear.”
    “Did you?” Nijinsky believed him; he just wondered how you argued via text.
    “I reminded Lear of their value. Keats as a twitcher, Plath as the connection to McLure money and technology. Maybe if the Armstrongs hadn’t hit us so hard in China and India. Maybe then we could hold something back. But this is it. This is the fight we can’t lose, and yet AFGC will probably be able to wire the heads of the two most populous nations on earth. We start the day off with a disaster, Jin. Do you get that? We’ve already lost half the battle. We can’t lose it all.”
    It was still raining, but Vincent was done talking. Nijinsky followed, troubled but silent.
    They pushed through the revolving doors and into the lobby of the W Hotel. Nijinsky had been there before, Vincent had not.
    “Where is she meeting us?”
    “Penthouse.” Vincent had a swipe key, and they took the elevator to the top floor. A capably tough-looking man with an Israeli accent opened the door.
    He led them through a hall and into a beautifully decorated suite.
    Tatiana Featherstonehaugh was what an older generation would have called a knockout. Her last name was English by way of her husband, but her skin was a few shades too dark, her mouth too wide and lips too full, to be from a cold, dark country. She had begun life in the less-desirable neighborhoods of Seville, Spain, but had spent her early childhood always on the move with her widowed father, a Romanian by birth, as he chased scarce jobs through Argentina, Uruguay, and Panama.
    Tatiana wore a casually elegant outfit of which Nijinsky approved. Jewelry was of the understated yet very expensive variety, with platinum and diamonds and Peruvian opals to set off her eyes and not a cubic zirconium in the bunch.
    She looked at first glance to be a rich man’s trophy wife—her husband was in fact older and very rich—but there were lines in her face that spoke of pain, a determination in the set of her jaw, and a degree of focused attention that made you feel as if you’d been stripped down to your component parts.
    Possibly she had had a trivial thought once in her life, but it had not happened often.
    “You would be Vincent,” she said, and held out her hand.
    “And this is Nijinsky,” Vincent said.
    That brought a smile from Tatiana. “Interesting name.”
    “Thank you,” Nijinsky said.
    “I was just having tea,” Tatiana said. “I’ve picked up a few habits from my husband: tea with milk, and a love of horses.”
    She served from an elegant china set that had not been supplied by the hotel but had to have been brought in.
    “I would rather not have you crawling around in my eyes or brain,” Tatiana said.
    “That’s . . . understandable,” Vincent said.
    “I don’t want to have to poke myself in the eye before I shake hands with the president.”
    “No,” Nijinsky agreed.
    “So I’ve thought of an alternative. I’ve already had a manicure. My nails are very clean. I can signal you when it’s time, by allowing my fingernail to touch the president’s wrist as we shake hands.”
    Vincent and Nijinsky sipped tea and exchanged a look.
    “That would work,” Vincent said. “If we were quick.”
    “I have some of our British friends on this finger.” She held up her right hand, index finger. “I thought you might take the middle finger.”
    “We often do,” Nijinsky deadpanned.
    Tatiana smiled and said, “Can I ask you both something?”
    “Of course, ma’am,” Vincent said. “Why are we doing this?”
    “Really? I’m a ‘ma’am,’ am I?” She mocked Vincent gently. She waved that question away. “No, I understand well enough the why of it. I’ve . . . met . . . the Armstrong Twins.” There was