Invisible Armies

Chapter 38

After the initial shock she gives up her instinctive thrashing attempt to escape and just goes limp. No point trying to fight. Her lungs begin to ache, as if they are compressed in an ever-tightening clamp, and then they cramp with the agonizing need for breath, and she begins to fight again, she can't not, her muscles spasming almost at random, as the world goes dark around the edges, as her mouth opens up involuntarily to try to breathe water, her body betraying itself despite her fevered attempts to stay in control, the tiny part of her brain that can still think understands that Laurent isn't just shutting her up, he's killing her, as simple and final as that, this is the moment of her death – but at the last possible second her head is pulled back up into the air, she can breathe again, two great rattling whoops followed by a coughing fit that sounds like an artillery fusillade. She breathed only a little water in but it takes a whole minute to get it all out, during which she isn't aware of anything but her lungs. By the time it is over she feels exhausted, her core muscles so worn from the coughing that she can barely sit up. Her chest aches with every breath like her lungs are full of broken glass.

"That's enough out of you," Laurent says. "Understand?"

Danielle barely manages to nod.

"No," Sophia says. "Nice try, but no. You're not going to social-engineer me like that. Shadbold couldn't have done that to my dad. His drugs don't reliably cause the right kind of cancer in an individual. Let's get back to the subject."

She turns to Keiran. "Shazam."

"It wasn't just you," Keiran says.

"What?"

"We did some research. There were a dozen young bright computer whiz kids whose parents fell sick or died in the same two-month period that year."

Danielle knows Keiran is bluffing. They never did any research. But he might be right.

"Enough!" Laurent says angrily.

"Look it up," Keiran says. "You're being used. You've been used for years."

Laurent takes two steps around the table, intending to punish Keiran. Keiran says, "Why do you think he's so desperate to shut us up? It's because your boyfriend here knows it's true too. He knew all along."

Laurent stops.

"But never mind," Keiran says. "What do you care, right? You want Shazam? I'll give you Shazam."

He starts into his technical deposition again. Danielle understands none of it. But she can tell that Sophia isn't listening. She is lost in disturbed thought.

Laurent sees this too. "Sophia, are you getting this?" he asks in a pointed voice.

Sophia looks at him a moment before answering. "I'm a little seasick," she says. "Can we do the other two questions first?"

"Seasick?" Laurent is skeptical.

"That's what I said. Seasick."

He and Sophia exchange a brief hard look.

"All right," Laurent says. "Question two. Where is Jayalitha?"

Keiran shrugs. "Fucked if I know."

The flippant answer earns him a broken nose. Keiran's chair rocks back with the force of Laurent's punch, and nearly deposits him on the floor before it rights itself. Blood streams from his nose, drips down either side of his mouth like a gory handlebar moustache. Keiran, incredibly, smiles.

"Then where do you think she might be?" Laurent asks.

"I honestly haven't a fucking clue."

Laurent shifts the bowl of water to Keiran's side of the table.