James Webb had entered in the same way earlier. Up on the seventy-seventh now, he was considering placement. The tricky thing was, it wasn’t immediately clear which side of an oval table was the head. He tried the chair facing the window. All he could see was a lone plane scarring the blue. Some days you could sit here and be at the heart of a cloud. Right now, he was higher than parts of the sky.
Though hadn’t yet flown as high as he intended to.
“So, Mr. Pashkin. How can we make things easier for you?”
That was the line he’d be taking. That Pashkin had nothing Webb wanted; all that mattered was that Pashkin’s path be made smooth. Later, debts would be called in; suggestions made as to how Pashkin might repay the kindness of foreigners. Even if no tangible favours were bestowed, simply meeting Webb rendered Pashkin compromised. But that was the lure of power. Ambition tended to the reckless, a seam Webb planned to mine.
“I’m here to help. Officially, I don’t speak for HMG.” Modest cough. “But any requests you make will find a sympathetic hearing where it will do most good.”
Cosmetic aid was what Pashkin would want. To be seen in the company of movers and shakers, and reckoned a force in the world. A photo op with the PM, drinks at Number 10, a little attention from the press. Once you were taken seriously, you were taken seriously. If Pashkin’s star rose in the west, it would cast light in the east.
His phone buzzed. Marcus Longridge. They were in the garage. Webb listened, said, “Oh for Christ’s sake, he’s an honoured guest, not a security risk. Use your common sense.”
After hanging up he rose, walked round the table, and tried the other side, so he was facing into the room, with the big view behind him.
Yes, he decided. That was it. Leave the windows for Pashkin to gaze out of. Show him the sky was the limit, and wait for him to bite.
He went to the lobby to wait for the lift.
Behind him, in the far distance, the sun glinted off the wing of a tiny aeroplane, making it seem, for a moment, far larger than it was.
“This Arkady Pashkin character?” said Ho.
Catherine didn’t want to ask. “What about him?”
“You read that feature? Supposed to be from the
“Supposed to be,” she repeated flatly.
Ho said, “You look at it closely?”
“I read it, Roddy. We all did.” She shuffled papers, moved a folder, found it. Not the actual newspaper, but a printout from the web. She waved it at him. “
“It’s not my problem.” Ho plucked it from her hand. It ran to three pages, complete with photograph. “Here.” He stabbed the address box at the top of the page. “See that?”
“Roddy. What are you on about?”
“It looks like the
“It’s all over the web,” she said numbly.
“Course it is. Because some dude’s posted it all over the web.
But you know where it’s not? In the newspaper’s own archive.”
“Roddy—”
“I’m telling you, that thing’s fake. And you take it away, you know how much evidence there is for Arkady Pashkin even existing, let alone being some bigshot Russian oligarch?”
He made a zero sign with finger and thumb.
“Oh,” Catherine said.
Ho said, “There’s references, true. He’s got Facebook presence, and a Wiki page, and he’s on lots of sites where you drop your marker in and everyone assumes you’re someone. But chase the mentions down, and they’re all referring to each other. The web’s stuffed full of straw men.” He coloured slightly: must have been excitement. “Pashkin’s one of them.”
“But how …?” But she already knew how. The research on Pashkin had been done by Spider Webb: Regent’s Park’s Background section had been out of the picture, because of that damned audit. Odds on it had been Pashkin who’d approached Webb in the first place …
She said, “This Needle summit. Whatever Pashkin’s up to, that’s what it’s about. I’ll pull the plug. Roddy—get over there.”
“Me?”
“Take Shirley.” He stared as if she’d slipped into another language. “Just do it, okay?” She reached for her phone, and even as she did so it rang. To Ho’s departing back she said, “And Roddy? Don’t ever say dude again,” and answered her call.
“Catherine?” said River. “Call the Park. Possible Code September.”
