The Network - Jason Elliot [78]
‘But it’s right at the bottom of the pond where things get interesting,’ I say. ‘That’s where all the debris sinks to, where you find all the life that has no place in ordinary pond society. There’s a whole world down there with its own rules. That’s where you get the mud dwellers and the scavengers, the parasites and the leeches.
‘Don’t get me wrong,’ I say. ‘Some of the creatures that live in the mud are actually beautiful, so beautiful you can’t really imagine what they’re doing down there.’
I’m watching their faces quite closely now. Summer is confused, but trying hard not to let it show. The Tigress is ahead of her and close to glowering at me.
‘There’s a family of parasitic worms, I think they’re called planarians, which produce slime that allows them to move over any surface. There’s little hydras which hunt by waving their tentacles around to entrap their prey. Then there’s the medusa. Surely you’ve heard of them. They belong to the Coelenterata phylum. They’re free-swimming. Free agents, you might say. Difficult to identify if you’re not trained to spot them of course, but unmistakable if you know their distinguishing features.’
The girls exchange glances again, and their body language is betraying their restlessness. Neither of them is smiling any more. There’s actually a frown on the face of the black woman.
‘There’s little crustacea. They’re very active. Nocturnal too. They swim on their backs and capture their prey with their legs. Imagine that. I mean, what creature would fall for that?’
‘We need to go,’ says the black woman, quietly but abruptly.
‘I do believe you’re right,’ says Summer, or whatever her name really is. The smile hasn’t entirely left her face, but it’s a different kind of smile now. Her lips are held tighter against her teeth than before, in the manner of someone swallowing a bitter medicine. The two of them reach for their handbags.
‘Wait,’ I say. ‘I haven’t told you about the best creature of all. It’s a beetle which beats the surface of the water with its little feelers to attract its prey. They say it’s a sexual signal, but who knows what sex with a beetle is really like. Anyway, there’s another beetle that knows this trick, so you know what it does? It swims up and goes through all the motions of being attracted to the other one, and it gets really close, and just as the other one is getting ready for its snack – gotcha! It swallows it whole. Doesn’t even chew.’
I don’t get up as they stand. They leave without looking back.
I feel bad that I’ve deceived them. It isn’t pond beetles that trick their prey at all, but a tropical species of land beetle, which flashes fake signals to fireflies. Somehow I don’t think this detail will get as far as the reports they have to make. But I do wonder if Seethrough will reconsider when he’s about to make another joke about ponds.
I finish the champagne and walk back to the lobby. I give a twenty-dollar bill to the concierge and thank him for his vigilance, because it’s he who’s told me about the two good-looking women asking after me by name earlier in the evening.
Then I’m alone in my room. My mind spins in a black whirlwind of thoughts. Soon I will meet Gemayel and confront him with the news that one of his own staff will attempt to be the instrument of his murder. I’m sickened at the deceitfulness of the people I’m mixing with. I wonder if I will be sent to the Sudan. And I wonder about a friend I haven’t seen for ten years.
But it’s something Grace said that worries me the most. All they need is an excuse, she says, and there’ll be war in Afghanistan.
I loathe the duplicity of some of my own countrymen, but I am even more afraid of the power of America, and of what will happen if the giant is unexpectedly provoked.
9
In the few days that I’ve been in America Seethrough has been busy, as usual. He’s liaised with the Italian intelligence service, SISMI, and managed to borrow a team of watchers to help arrange a meeting