The Gomorrah Gambit Read online

  “People adjust in different ways. Would it help if I hit him?”

  Azi thinks for a moment. “Based on experience, probably not.”

  Thirty-eight

  Odi and Ad are escorted out of the building an hour later, into the California night. The air is dry, and loud with vehicles. They’re outside for less than a minute—just long enough for Azi to register the alien scale of the buildings and roads, as if he’s dreaming an oversized world. With a brief gesture, Odi indicates they should stay silent.

  The car they enter is identical to the one that picked them up from the airport, and of a piece with its setting: a jet-black, leather-seated, air-conditioned wagon vaster than anything Azi would previously have labeled a “car.” It feels like an over-appointed London taxi. He and Odi sit side by side, the space between them filled by an armrest filled in turn with half a dozen tiny water bottles. Two anonymously suited men sit up front, fifty percent larger in all dimensions than the pair who shepherded Azi in Athens. Nobody has said anything about where they are going, what they are doing, or which rules apply in this world of seamless transits—so Azi decides to sit back and soak it up.

  They move off with effortless power. Beyond the curvature of the rear windows’ tinted glass, the landscape is a hallucination of headlights snaked along six-lane highways. They must be about halfway along one side of the San Francisco Bay, but it’s nothing like Azi imagined back home: the scale is too great, the tarmac an oceanic sprawl. Out of nowhere a huge yellow moon appears, casting its reflection in a pillar across the water. They join a chain of car lights hurtling over a low, endless-seeming bridge which stretches across the empty heart of the bay. There are no stars, but red lights wink at them in pairs from the shores.

  Because this is the way things are done in America, the car eventually parks in a concrete cavern beneath a concrete citadel islanded by freeways, a beacon of ugliness amid traffic. Presumably the air outside is still warm, but all Azi feels is a recycled coolness as they pass through a reinforced steel elevator door and, after ascending, along beige carpeted corridors for further than ought to be possible.

  Odi and Ad walk behind their suited escorts. Still nobody speaks as they pass multiple automated layers of security: near-invisible keypads and sunken cameras, hidden from hostile eyes. It’s a kind of Platonic Travelodge, Azi finds himself thinking; a building scrubbed of distinctiveness, inside and out, its purposes existing entirely in the realm of data. They haven’t encountered a single other human being since their arrival and, Azi realizes, they probably won’t.

  After further checks, they’re ushered into a long meeting room, where they loiter at the end of an immense wooden table with a pale metallic sphere resting on a spider-like stand at its middle. Azi tries not to picture a malevolent mage muttering incantations over its gleaming surface. While he’s doing so, Odi moves close to him and speaks for the first time since they left the apartment.

  “We’re almost on. Not a word, unless I give the cue. Let me handle all the questions.”

  There’s a crackle and buzz from the sphere. They are gestured to sit down by their escorts, then a processed voice hovering disconcertingly between male and female starts to speak from everywhere in the room at once.

  “Odi. That’s what we’re calling you today, right?”

  Odi nods, his body unmoving. The voice booms louder.

  “Don’t nod. Out fucking loud, that’s how we do this. You understand?”

  Odi speaks very clearly. “I understand.”

  “Goddam right. We’re the only ones who can do a thing, you know. Keep the world from blowing up. We backed you, we backed your boss. And you fucked us.”

  Odi’s voice becomes even clearer. “You reviewed my analysis?”

  The room seems to hold its breath. That’s the only way Azi can think about what’s happening: he and Odi are trapped somewhere inside a living building, its mind immense and inhuman, its senses everywhere and nowhere. And the building is really, really pissed off. Its voice grates and rasps off the walls.

  “We cannot use a single thing you’ve found. We cannot trust a word you’ve written. You know why? Because you’re arrogant sons of bitches who think you know it all. Europe is a whirlwind of shit. You’re going to be kept well out of the way until it’s over. This is your chance to affect what happens after. So, Azi Bello. Tell us about Gomorrah.”

  Azi opens his mouth but, before he can speak, is cut off by Odi.

  “It would be better if Azi reported later. He doesn’t know the full situation.”

  Odi by now seems to have achieved an incomprehensible depth of calm, which is more than can be said for the two men who escorted them into the room. Beneath their dark suits, Azi can sense them starting to tense and sweat. This is not how things are supposed to happen.

  “You will let him speak for himself.”

  “No.”

  There’s an incredulous pause. “Do you have any idea how many people get to say ‘no’ to me?”

  Odi remains unruffled. “Being able to refuse you is part of my job. My line manager—”

  “Fuck you. Fuck your boss. You’re in my house now. The European targets are on the move. We will be shutting them down, hard. You have been more than wrong, over a period of months, at a cost of tens of millions of dollars and half a dozen lives. Now you’re asking for another blank check. Do you take me for a fool?”

  “The girl is not who she claims to be. Her current messages are a distraction. What matters is the California connection.”

  When the voice replies, it has cooled—as if rage has been discarded as an ineffective tool.

  “You always were a cold one. I see no sense in prolonging this meeting. I am initiating action as we speak. A proper investigation, good people—not a bunch of hunches and hackers. I have defended your existence in the past. I can handle you paying me back by making me look foolish. But I am not prepared to be paid back in blood.”

  Now Odi is the one doing the interrupting. “I would like to return to—”

  “Enough. My people have been through everything you sent. It is our belief that you are not only reckless, but out of control. The extraordinary autonomy you enjoy is ending. Likewise, your protection of this man and his friend.”

  And with that, they’re escorted back into the night.

  Thirty-nine

  As a matter of principle, she finds at least one fault every time room service is brought to her suite. This morning, she claimed the water was insufficiently hot to infuse her tea leaves, necessitating a new tray groaning with pewter accoutrements. Yesterday, her salad didn’t have the correct dressing served on the side. Tonight, by way of variation, she plans to highlight a dirty piece of cutlery and some imperfectly bleached linen. After all, nobody expects an espionage and infiltration expert to be making a fuss about napkins.

  After the white-coated room service boy departs for the second time, leaving behind a scalding teapot and a written apology from his supervisor, she extracts a burner phone from a concealed compartment deep in her luggage. It’s reserved for one particular class of contact: the senior intelligence officers of the Islamic Republic.

  So far as these fanatics are concerned, she is providing a premium service via the ultra-secure Gomorrah darknet, for which they have already paid tens of millions of dollars. This service entails circumventing every conventional security measure around travel and identity, and installing loyal agents of the aforementioned Islamic Republic throughout Europe alongside an equally secure procurement network for the tools of the terrorist trade.

  So far as she is concerned, the particular version of the Gomorrah darknet client these users have installed is a snooping package that gifts her total access to their systems, and that allows her to subvert the private auction process at any point. Meaning she has been able to place the playing pieces on her board with great precision, betraying fifty of their locations—locations that have, naturally, been under constant surveillance since she revea
led them—while keeping a few dozen others, upon whom her plans rely, well hidden. Now all she needs to do is light the fuse and take a step back.

  She dials the required number, waits for the idiot on the other end to pick up—he always lets the phone ring for at least fifteen seconds, he must think it makes him seem busy—then listens as a brusque male voice puts her in her place.

  “You’re late.”

  Amira exhales demurely. “My apologies, sir. It will not happen again. My employers have been preoccupied.”

  Throughout her dealings with senior members of the Islamic Republic, she has played the role of cowed subordinate, occasionally drafting in a male “superior” to enhance the illusion. They see her as a harmless facilitator—while she gets to scrutinize them in all their transparent pomposity. The man on the phone is one of her favorites: a mid-ranking fanatic who can’t imagine being outwitted by a woman any more than he can imagine his phone turning into a giant spider.

  “Everything is in place?” he asks.

  “Yes, good sir. The equipment, the necessary access, the adjustments to all the security systems and lists, everything. They will wave your men through.”

  “If it is not so, our displeasure will cross the world to find you. I envy these men, who will soon reach Jannah, who will strike this blow against the kufars. There is no greater work.”

  Amira musters her enthusiasm. “It is the highest thing!”

  The Islamists certainly practice what they preach. This man, with his guns and his minions and his conquered city, wouldn’t hesitate to die for his beliefs. He genuinely envies the martyrs. Which, of course, is what makes him so useful. After a pause, he continues.

  “There was one complication.”

  “Oh? I am sorry to hear that.”

  “It was nothing. A traitor, with some access to our networks. He is dead now.”

  This time it’s easy for her to sound pleased. “I am glad to hear it, sir.”

  Now that he’s discussing murder, the man on the other end of the phone is positively loquacious. “The faith of one of our best men burns brighter because of it. He killed the traitor with his bare hands, an act of great justice and bravery. We do not believe there was any major breach.”

  “Is there anything we can do? Do you wish me to tell my superiors, sir?”

  There’s a self-satisfied chortle. “I wish them to know that this traitor’s corpse is on display. In several places. I wish them to know that we will not be betrayed, and this is the fate awaiting all who attempt to do so. We are guided by divine grace.”

  Divine grace, my arse, she thinks. Some of the Islamic Republic’s networks are so full of security holes it’s a wonder the NSA aren’t running them.

  “I will convey your message, sir. Peace be upon you.”

  He doesn’t favor her with a formal farewell, perhaps because he believes she too is a kufar, who could do with a good Islamist, or five, taking turns to rape her into a meeker mindset.

  The Islamic Republic’s approach to gender politics makes the power of life and death she wields all the more satisfying. Its leaders truly believe that they came up with the plan she fed them through her discreet manipulations of their messages, through tailored offerings and opportunities regarding Gomorrah, and through the good old-fashioned impersonation of a small army of non-existent informants. And the European intelligence services’ fondness for surveillance over action has only made the opportunity still more golden.

  Replacing the phone in her case, she reaches for her tea before realizing that the pewter pot is too hot to touch, even through the several layers of napkins wrapped around its handle. That will be another thing to complain about later. This may be the Four Seasons, but she has ways of being subtly demanding, demeaning and generally objectionable that even they are finding hard to handle.

  What she needs is for her current performance to be memorable in all the ways she intends, and thus for none of what’s hidden to be remarked upon. You can never be too careful. On which note, she ought to check up on that traitor now decorating Raqqa in several pieces. Not to mention her follow-up messages for Azi and the Organization. Their replies so far have been less than satisfactory.

  Forty

  It’s 8 a.m. and they’re sitting in the same armchairs as last night. In accordance with time-honored British tradition, Azi presented a wordless morning peace offering to Ad in the form of a hot beverage. In similar accordance with time-honored tradition, Ad sniffily accepted it without saying a word. Then he hunched back over the tablet, leaving Azi to talk to the air over his head.

  “Last night’s meeting was a disaster.”

  This opener doesn’t even merit a glance. But Azi has plenty more where it came from.

  “Only I think Odi meant it to be disastrous. And now all of us are confined here waiting for, I guess, a transfer to less comfortable confinement. Odi’s in touch with our hosts, but I don’t think he’s very popular. So…”

  Azi pauses, letting the syllable dangle enticingly. Ad viciously swipes his screen, his gaze downturned, refusing to bite.

  “…I figured we could talk about the Institute, where you used to work. That place where you fell for the dating scam. Remember? The scam you only worked out after you’d revealed enough details to guide half the world to my shed.”

  Now Ad looks up. In the daylight filtering through tinted glass he seems gaunt, his eyes deeply shadowed. Azi feels bad, but there’s no time for niceties. After a pause, Ad stabs the tablet several times with a single finger, then lobs it across the coffee table onto Azi’s lap.

  “Here you go, mate. Eat your heart out.”

  Azi sees that Ad has opened up the Institute’s website. Against a background of oceanic blue, the head of a luminously bald man hovers alongside a block of text. Across the top of the screen in slender letters is written “The Existential Institute,” with an italicized slogan underneath: saving the human future. The block of text is a mission statement written by the bald man, beginning with the words “I wake every day and worry about the future of humanity.” Me too, thinks Azi, although he suspects it’s for different reasons. He smiles at Ad, endearingly.

  “It’s a nice website.”

  Ad grunts. “I know, I helped build it.”

  Azi’s charm doesn’t have much of a recent track record—but that doesn’t mean he’s going to stop trying. “It’s stunning, Ad. Really. What was your bit?”

  “Backend. Obviously.”

  On second thought, perhaps the time for charm has passed. “Fuck’s sake, Ad. Grow up. Yes, everything is shit and I’m sorry about that. I really, truly, genuinely wish that we weren’t here. But we are, and we don’t have much time.” He pauses. “Please. Tell me about the Institute.”

  Ad takes a deep sip of coffee, then another, draining his mug. Then he casts Azi a look of pained self-pity. “I’m usually halfway through my Bikram yoga class by now. Dammit, my life is totally fucked, isn’t it? I mean, I’d fucked up a few things already, but this is…I don’t even know what this is.” He stares at Azi, who stares blankly back. Ad looks away. “Okay, fine, you win. What do you want to know?”

  Azi points at the website. “The bald guy with the cheekbones—that’s Erasmus, right?”

  “Of course it is. You’ve seen his TED talks. Erasmus is the Institute.”

  “So, did you meet him? What was he like?”

  Ad leans back. Despite himself, there are few things he enjoys more than lecturing Azi on a specialist subject that he knows much, much more about than Azi does.

  “You don’t meet him, it’s not like that. He’s the real deal, unlike some of the twats who work there: a certified genius. He’s raised billions. And he believes every word he says. Saving the world from existential threats, from the stuff that could wipe us all out. Environmental collapse. Meteorite strikes. Nuclear war. Pandemic disease. My personal favorite, rogue AI. Mate, it was a dream job.”

  “So why did you leave?”

  “Oh co
me on, Azi, you know me. They were secretive as fuck and I don’t like that. I snooped around, did a few things. Did something seriously fucking clever—not that they caught me. They couldn’t prove anything, so they let me go on medical grounds.”

  This catches Azi by surprise. “Medical grounds? What, they sacked you because you were ill? They can’t do that.”

  Ad shrugs. “It was bullshit. I’m better now, but…it made sense for me to go. Anyway, some of them are pretty weird. Everyone’s obsessed with the mission, which gets creepy. Only ultimate questions deserve our attention, that’s the theory.”

  Azi shoots him a sidelong glance. “Is that what you think, Ad?”

  “Hell no. It was like…People used to play a kind of game, internally, where they came up with scenarios. Thought experiments about the future of humanity. One guy got obsessed with what he called a fertility attack: a way of making people have less children. Not some bullshit nudge—literally doing something to reduce global fertility. Chemicals in the water supply, radiation, targeted diseases. Because he calculated that what the world needs, more than anything, is massively fewer people.”

  “Because he was a sociopath.”

  “Obviously. But some of them thought that was a good thing. There were people who seriously believed that being a sociopath could help you see things more clearly—because, if you’re physically unable to care about anyone else’s rules or feelings, you’re better at focusing on the truly long-term.” Ad’s eyes flicker between memories. “So, imagine if that guy actually did it: dropped a dirty bomb, released a chemical into the environment, sterilized a million people. He’d be called a criminal, a terrorist. Right?”

  Azi is not comfortable with where this is going. “Right.”

  “Except, in a hundred years, two hundred, three hundred—what would people say then? What would history say if it turned out he succeeded in reversing population growth, saving the planet? He might be considered a hero.”