Invisible Armies (19 page)

   "Don't," she whispers. "Don't say anything. Let's forget about everything. At least until tomorrow."
* * *
    "I'm going back to London today," Keiran says, over morning coffee and tartines at the Brasserie de la Reine. He does not look directly at anyone else at the table save for Danielle, who gathers she has somehow escaped his wrath, perhaps by protesting, however feebly, last night. "I'm done."
    "I understand," Angus says. "But we need you to teach whoever we get to replace you. Give them the files you've found, the network access, everything."
    "I'll send you a CD. I'm done. I'm leaving Paris today."
    "We all are," Estelle says.
    Danielle looks at her. "What?"
    "We've got everything we can get here. We're all going to meet with the foundation, back in London."
    "The foundation," Keiran says scornfully. "And what can they do for you?"
    "Give us direction," Angus says.
    "You don't need direction. You need to have some fucking sense knocked into you. You say you want to help the world's poor and you wind up torturing an innocent man. And you're still trying to justify it. You don't know fuck-all about the poor and downtrodden, you just want to fight the powers that be, because you love being a romantic outlaw. You say businesses exploit the Third World, and that's why its people are so pitiable and deprived? You stupid selfish cunt. The Third World is hopelessly poor and sick and ignorant because it's been hopelessly poor and sick and ignorant forever, and its governments are corrupt sociopathic kleptocracies. Free trade, big business, capital investment, globalization, all the things you hate, those are the
only fucking hope
of the people you say you want to save. What's really going on is that
you're
exploiting the poor, the sick, the slaves, you exploit them as your excuse to fight the only force that has a real fucking chance of helping them. You make me sick."
    "Keiran, mate –"
    "Don't call me mate. Our friendship is over. Is that clear?"
    After a moment Angus nods. He looks like he has just been punched in the gut.
    "I'm on the 3PM Eurostar. Pick a different train. I'm going to pack." Keiran empties his espresso and exits the brasserie. Angus and Estelle look at one another.
    "The foundation," Laurent says. "At last. I hope they're worth the wait."
/p>

Part 4
London

Chapter  
22 

<    Danielle has not been to London for years. After two months in Paris it seems ugly, dirty, dark, unfriendly. They walk from Waterloo Station across the muddy Thames. Even at night the Circle Line is overcrowded and running late. They have to push their way through a crowd to get themselves and their luggage on board, and are rewarded with glares from other passengers that simultaneously condemn and look right through them, as if they are both evil incarnate and do not exist. Estelle has booked a short-term two-bedroom flat just south of Euston Station. The flat is small, the furnishings wilted and impersonal, the beds lumpy and creaky. Danielle wishes they could have stayed in Paris.
    They meet the foundation's representative the next morning in a temporary office near Green Park, gray-blue carpet and fake wood panelling and a conference phone in the middle of the oak conference table. It reminds Danielle of the office in Bangalore where she worked, once upon a time. The foundation is personified by a lean, wolfish white-haired man named Philip. Faded tattoos are visible beneath the sleeves of Philip's blue button-down shirt. His business-casual dress is entirely at odds with his taut body language and alert expression. Danielle gets the same kind of impression she did from Laurent at first, that he is constantly holding himself back from physical action.
    "You've done excellent work," he assures them. "Bloody excellent. Don't let anyone tell you different. And don't get cold feet. I can see that you might. Don't let it happen. You're saving lives. You're making the world a better place. The worst thing the money bastards who run the world have done is set things up so this is the only way they can be overthrown. They figure, people who aren't willing to do the hard things can't touch them, and the people who are willing, they are them. We have to be the third way. We have to be hard men with hearts of gold. I don't like it any more than you. But that's the way the game is rigged. It's the only way to possibly win."
    "Spare us the inspiration," Angus says. "Motivation is not our problem. Our problem is we stuck our necks out and didn't find anything."
    "Of course you did. You broke their system wide open. If this Campbell doesn't say anything – and you say you don't think he will?"
    "I think we put the fear of God into him," Laurent says. "Or at least the fear of us."
   He actually sounds amused. Danielle looks at him and wonders where yesterday's remorseful, self-doubting Laurent went.
    "He promised to say nothing and to resign next month," Angus says.
    "And you believe him?" Philip asks.
    "He was passionately convincing," Laurent says.
    "He might change his mind."
    Angus says, "He seemed impressed by our detailed knowledge of where his sisters and his sainted mother live."
    "We wouldn't," Estelle says quickly, seeing Danielle's expression. "It's a bluff. But he doesn't know that. He's got good reason to take our threats seriously."
    Philip looks at Danielle with a concerned expression. "Danielle Leaf, yes? You're the recent volunteer?"
    Danielle nods. Philip looks at Angus.
    "We trust her completely," Angus says firmly.
    "Well," Philip says. "Of course we trust your judgement. And you are Laurent Cinq-Mars of Justice International?"
    "I am."
    "You and your organizaton have impressive CVs."
    "We try," Laurent says. "And who are you?"
    Philip pauses. "How much do you know about the foundation?"
    "Almost nothing."
    "That's the way we prefer it. I'm sure you understand. We don't even have a name. Security through obscurity. But in broad strokes, we are a group of activists who have come together, aided by a number of wealthy supporters who believe in our cause but feel that their role is to support rather than take the risks that we take, in order to be a counterbalance to some of the world's more egregious examples of corporate exploitation."
    "You talk like a vice-president," Laurent observes.
    "I've been a vice-president," Philip says. "I've also been a convict, a drug addict, and a punk musician, if you're questioning my bona fides. I've spent months sleeping rough. I've broken bones at demonstrations. I've negotiated million-pound contracts. The foundation is not some fly-by-night group of freaks and misfits with a single 'sugar daddy', to use your lovely North American phrase. We are a thoughtful and professional group. And we think it behooves us to sound thoughtful and professional."
    Laurent nods, satisfied.
    "So," Philip says. "To continue. However convincing Mr. Campbell may have sounded, we agree that it's best that you stay out of France for the foreseeable future. Losing Mr. Kell is regrettable, but he has agreed to perform knowledge transfer to our chosen replacement, yes? Or at least intends to document everything?"
    Angus nods.
    "Mr. Kell isn't himself a disclosure risk, is he?" Philip asks. "I gather he's leaving because he's become disenchanted –"
    "No," Angus said shortly. "Keiran won't talk."
    "Well then. We're still in a favourable position. We have no smoking gun, but our plan never called for one. We have full access to everything Kishkinda knows. Pulling you out of France on a precautionary basis means we can't move against their management there. But we have developed a new strategy based on the information you uncovered. Specifically, that Kishkinda is in takeover talks."
    Angus looks at Philip quizzically. "What does that have to do with us?"
    "Terre," Philip says. "They own forty percent. Effective control. It's time to move up the food chain and go after the big dog. We need to show them, and this Zulu Fields outfit, that owning the Kishkinda Mine is not worth the risk. If we convince Terre to shut down the mine, the battle is won. And Terre is based right here in London."
    "What are you suggesting?"
    "A few visible actions, a few heart-to-heart conversations with Terre's senior management, and they will crumble."
   Danielle knows what that means. More violence. Kidnapping or mugging Terre's management, threatening them and their families with worse if they don't leave the company.
   "We'll know when it's working," Philip continues. "We'll see it in the stock price. We'll make owning Kishkinda uneconomical. And nobody else will want to buy it and risk the same thing happening to them. They'll have no choice but to shut it down. The City and Wall Street will demand it."
    "Sounds lovely," Angus says. "Let's return to the world of specifics and details, shall we? What exactly would you like us to do next?"
    "We need to announce to the world that Terre is under assault, and make it clear that Kishkinda is the cause. Something public, to make the City take notice. But nothing drastic. An obvious but unexercised option of violence. The specifics?" Philip shrugs. "Your bailiwick. Do whatever you think is right."
    "This is a whole new kettle of fish," Estelle says skeptically. "Kishkinda was one thing, but Terre, how big are they again?"
    "Eight billion pounds of revenue in the last year," Philip says. "They're an elephant. Once roused they'll be enormously dangerous. That's true. But they're also slow and clumsy. A little group like you can dance around them as long as you need to. So long as you're careful. Remember, they're a business. Your job is to be a thorn in their side that is cheaper to have removed than to destroy."
    "Where is their London office?" Laurent asks.
    Philip says, "Hammersmith."
* * *
    For weeks, Danielle's imagination of the future ended with the protest, like it was an opaque wall at which the road of time ended. But now they have left Paris she finds herself once again contemplating what is to come. She doesn't really want to. The distant future has always frightened her. She has lived her life in increments of a few months, a new boyfriend, a new project, a new place to live. Part of what terrified her about law school was the way it made her future stretch out visibly for years; passing the bar, articling, years as a junior lawyer at some firm, a bland red carpet paving the way to being old. She has been content not knowing where she will be, what she will be doing, or who she will be with six months from now. Long-term plans seemed like stagnation.
   But now that she has found a man she can picture spending her life with, the future terrifies her even more, because she can't imagine, or doesn't want to, what it could possibly be. Her voice is thin with trepidation when she brings up the subject that night.
    "What's going to happen to us?" she asks.
    Laurent lies on their bed reading the Guardian, wearing only jeans, his tattoos lurid against the pale flowered bedspread. He looks at her quizzically. "What do you mean?"
    "I mean, all this. What we're doing. What are we doing?" she asks.
    The question isn't entirely rhetorical. When she first came to Paris, the idea of fighting Kishkinda seemed like just and noble revenge for having been captured, beaten, pursued and nearly murdered by the company's thugs in India. Breaking into their headquarters to uncover whatever explosive secret had gotten Jayalitha murdered, and organizing a huge anticorporate protest to cover the break-in, that had been both reasonable and rewarding. But kidnapping and torturing a man Danielle is now sure was innocent – and now this new, equally disturbing plan, one intended to damage Kishkinda's stock price rather than unearth Jayalitha's secret – have made her wonder. Are Angus and Estelle and their foundation just flailing about at random, trying to attack Kishkinda by any means they can, with no real strategy? She wants revenge, she wants to help Angus and Estelle, and the children poisoned by Kishkinda, but surely there must be some limit to how far she and Laurent will go. When will they have to say enough and dissociate themselves from this war? Or are they, perhaps, already past that point? And what will she do if, as she fears, Laurent is ready to go further – much further – than her?
   "Are we just going to keep going?" she asks. "Keep on breaking the law in the name of a better world until we get caught and thrown in jail? Even if we win, what happens next, we go on to the next company?"
    "No," Laurent says.
    "You don't know how glad I am to hear you say that."
    "No, when this is over, when Kishkinda has been stopped, you and I will go to New York. I will do work there, peaceful work, legal work, for Justice International. You will too, if you like. We won't join Angus and Estelle in their endless war."
    "How does JI feel about you doing it now?"
    He shrugs. "They've been busy in India, getting our people out of jail. Their blood is boiling. Anything I can do to hurt Kishkinda, they support. But this kind of destructive activism, it isn't what we do, not usually. When I left the Legion I never intended to go to war again. But I suppose sometimes your war finds you."
    "So when this is over we move to New York," Danielle says. She wants this to be very clear.
    "Yes. Maybe soon. I think our next action might be decisive."
    Danielle swallows. While no one will actually get hurt, the 'next action' he and Angus and Estelle have been talking about is in some ways far more drastic than kidnapping and torturing Jack Campbell.
    "I don't want to sound like a stuck record," she says, "but I don't know about our next action either."
    Laurent puts down the newspaper and cocks his head at her inquisitively.
    "It's so major. If we get caught, we'll seem like…I thought we were going to be subtle. Invisible. Like Keiran always says."
    "Keiran isn't with us any more. This time circumstances call for a frontal attack, not stealth."
    "I don't think we should do it," she says. In her nervousness it comes out with more hostility than she intended. "Something else, maybe. But not this. It makes me feel like I did before we, before Campbell."
    "Come on," Laurent says, smiling thinly. "It'll be a valuable learning experience. I'll teach you how to build a bomb."
    "I really don't want to know."
    "You never know when it might be useful."
    "You think this is
funny?
" Danielle asks, appalled.
    Laurent shrugs. "Black comedy. I'm sorry."
    "You should be. Jesus. We're talking about – how can you fucking joke?"
    "It's my way of dealing with being angry at you."
    At first she doesn't know what to say to that. She sits at the end of the bed and looks at him. She feels cold and frightened. "Angry at me? At me? For what?"
    "Because you're acting like a tourist. Sometimes I wonder if you are a tourist. Everything you do. Just visiting, trying things out, moving on. You've never belonged to anything. You've never given yourself to anything. Or anyone. You've never committed yourself to anything enough that your actions have real consequences. And then you wonder why the world seems so meaningless. So you run back to your daddy's bank account and find some new thing to try to make yourself happy. You try being with me, you try being political, working for a better world, and then you find out it doesn't happen overnight, it requires years of hard work, and doing things you don't enjoy, and we can't have that, can we? You're not willing to make sacrifices. You don't even know how."
    "You're talking about building a bomb," Danielle says after a moment. "And you're angry because I won't support that?"
    "It's no more a bomb than a movie prop. It won't go off. It's performance art. You know that. But you think it's awful. No, you think it's beneath you. Like maybe you think I'm beneath you."
    "What?"
    "Maybe I'm just your man of the hour. A little excitement, a little military revolutionary fun, but soon it's time to move on, isn't it? Is that what you've been working up to? Is it time to run back to Daddy and find a nice corporate lawyer to marry? If so, just tell me now and walk away. Please. Tell me now. It will hurt less."
    "No," Danielle says. "No, no, no, no, no. I love you. That hasn't changed. That won't change. Jesus, Laurent, if you believe anything I've ever said, believe that. Please."
    "I want to."
    "Then do. God. How long have you been thinking this?"
    "I've been worried I wasn't worth you since the day we met," he says.
    "Well, stop worrying. That's, that's an order."
    He smiles faintly, warming her heart, the fight, and it wasn't much of a fight, is over, and they have passed through it OK. "Yes, ma'am," he says, and snaps a salute.