Midnight Empire by Andrew Croome Page B

begin thinking about the value of the money you are betting and what you might do with it, by considering your future for example, then you will be scared. You will be at a disadvantage. The other players, who do not care about the value of money, they will run right over you. They will figure out what you are saying to yourself in your head and they will kill you dead. So the moment you have a plan for the future, that will be the moment the game turns and you begin to lose. In other words, for a card player, what you and I are doing, this is a dangerous conversation to have.’
    He understood, or thought he did. The waitress came over and Ania ordered another round. ‘What about you?’ she said then. ‘I do not see a professional player, therefore you must have plans?’
    â€˜Well,’ he began, but he couldn’t immediately think of anything, so he said, ‘I suppose I’m just here for now, like you.’ But he wasn’t sure whether that was true.
    â€˜Fighting a war,’ she said.
    â€˜Well . . .’
    â€˜Tell me why you wanted to do that. Why did you volunteer?’
    â€˜I didn’t volunteer.’
    â€˜You did not? Were you conscripted?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜Then why are you here?’
    â€˜It is simply that I have a job. I am doing my job.’
    â€˜You are at war because of your job?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    She seemed to find this amusing. ‘But that is not romantic,’ she said. ‘How am I supposed to believe that you are my hero, if it is your job?’
    â€˜I . . .’ he began.
    But Ania was still thinking. ‘Will that be your epitaph,’ she joked, ‘when you are killed? “Doing his job.”’
    This annoyed him. ‘To begin with, I won’t be killed,’ he said.
    â€˜You are fighting a war, but you won’t be killed?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜That doesn’t make sense. If what you are fighting is a war, then you must surely be in danger of dying. Otherwise, what you are fighting is not a war. It is something else.’
    â€˜We drop bombs on people,’ he said. ‘They are trying to harm people and we blow them up. I don’t know what else you’d call it.’
    She thought about this as the song finished. ‘Then you must be wrong,’ she said. ‘And somebody out there is hoping to kill you.’

6
    T he city of rooftops and the maroon Toyota Crown. They spotted it parked in the Pakistani dawn, two blocks from the safe house near the police station. The early light gave its hood a serene glaze. This was north of the Old City—an alleyway off a main road.
    Raul rang Dupont. The agent’s voice was flat calm. It was agreed that Dupont would send someone, one of the paramilitaries, a boy who’d check the bumper for a specific dent—the car’s plates were often changed.
    From this height you could see the city getting started, the streets beginning to fill, the bazaars setting up. In the control station they sat in silence but you could imagine the becoming rumble, the trade of voices and the traffic and a million domestic sounds, the hammer of small industry. The light grew more golden before it turned white. They climbed and then circled as high as they could, the city below and the mountains in the west.
    Raul was at Daniel’s shoulder, checking the encryption. Then they were all watching the screens, the Toyota at the apex of their vision, a building stream of people flowing past it on their morning way; you could actually see some of them brushing their teeth.
    The car was the car: Dupont rang to say his boy had confirmed it. For a while they looked for the boy in their vision, but even knowing he was there they could not tell who or where he was. Raul plucked one of the images of Abu Yamin from the wall, taken from height, from a Predator, and stuck it above the command console. Then they watched the flow of people, their view of the