(no subject)
The man standing at the foot of the steps is tired and stern. Your typical overworked cop. Grey hair ascends from his ears and fades into deep brown. A brunette with long, flat hair, baggy clothes and a similar expression paces next to him. The man stands still, his gaze set on Silvia. It makes her uncomfortable. And…something else.
They are seated in one of the lobbies. He hands her a card. His name is Tobin Keller, an agent of the Secret Service Dignitary Protection Squad. “We’re responsible for visiting heads of state,” he clarifies. Silvia examines him, trying to remember his face.
“I don’t recall seeing you around.”
“They hire us for our forgettable faces.” A sardonic grin. Silvia doesn’t respond with a laugh, or a smile. She regards him as if he had made a ridiculous, and false, statement, then opens her mouth as if to refute it. No-she’s being obvious. She looks away, towards the fidgety woman who accompanied him. Unsurprisingly, she is pacing.
“Is she on guard?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“‘Ma’am’,” she says, facing him, this time with an amused grin. “Why is it that guys who carry guns always sound like cowboys?”
No response.
Well, Silvia wasn’t a comedienne. And this man…he was too serious. Or too…suspecting, but maybe that was due to his profession. Yes, his profession: he had to be that way, otherwise he wouldn’t know who to trust. “I don’t concentrate on faces in my job,” she says. Perhaps a comparison of professions would lighten him up.
He replies, “But you listen to voices. Do you think you could identify the voice you heard if you heard it again?”
Right back to the investigation. Silvia remains calm-as calm as she can be-and casual. “Well I’d say yes. If it-I mean, it was almost a whisper. Whispers disguise the quality of a voice.” She smiles, proudly, indulgently. Keller does not respond. The smile fades. “You, I imagine, study faces.”
Maybe he did. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe the way he stares at her is his own silent way of answering. She drops the card on the table in front of her and leans back in the chair. “You know, I’m not really a dignitary.”
“I know.” A smile. Silvia lets out a small, nervous laugh. “How’d you happen to be up there after hours?” he asks. Casually. Suspiciously.
She blinks. “We had an evacuation. I left some of my things in the sound booth. I had to go back for them.”
“Mmmhmm. And at that moment there happened to be a couple of fellows talking about an assassination in a language that you and…maybe eight other people understand in a room full of microphones.”
Her shock, agitation, is not shown in the smooth way she leans forwards. It’s blazing in her eyes. It’s beating in her heart. “Do you think I’m making it up?”
He nods.
A brief pause. “Why would I report a threat I didn’t hear?”
“People do,” flatly.
“I don’t.”
“Some people like attention.”
“I don’t.” She leans back, breathing heavy. He still looks at her with calm condemnation. Maybe he looks at everyone that way. Maybe he doesn’t trust anyone.
“Maybe you don’t want Zuwane at the U.N.”
She insists: “I didn’t make it up.”
“How do you feel about him?”
She shrugs. “I don’t care for him.”
“Wouldn’t mind if he were dead?”
“I wouldn’t mind if he were gone.”
“Same thing.”
“No it isn’t. If I interpreted ‘gone’ as ‘dead’ I’d be out of a job. If ‘dead’ and ‘gone’ were the same thing there’d be no U.N.”
“Your profession is playing with words, Ms. Broome.”
“I don’t play with words.”
“You’re doing it right now.”
“No, you are.” She leans forward, gazing at him evenly, blue eyes flashing. “If I wanted him dead, I wouldn’t have reported it. I would sit back and let it happen. That’s not what I want. That’s not why I’m here.”
“Here?” he asks, and it’s clear he understands she’s not talking about the lobby itself.
“Here,” she replies. “Working at the U.N. instead of standing on a road somewhere with a machine gun.”
“Because you believe in diplomacy?”
“Because I believe in this place. I believe in what it tries to accomplish.”
“Well, you’ve had a tough year, lady,” he says dismissively, and he’s right. Countries have started wars on a whim, in spite of the U.N., in spite of what it stood for. But what was at steak? Legitimacy, or her safety? He seemed more concerned with the latter, and nothing she said made him focus on the former.
She takes a breath, shaky and nervous, and says frankly: “Listen, I’m scared. And my protector is someone who doesn’t believe me.”
“You don’t look scared.”
Well. Mr. Keller wants games, and she’s had enough of playing the yes-you-did/no-I-didn’t game. Really, it’s for children. “People handle fear in different ways, Mr. Keller,” she says to him, and the frankness and vulnerability is gone. “It turns some people into stand up comedians. You don’t know me at all.” She looks away, frustrated and tired. “Maybe I should talk to someone else about assigning someone to look after me who’s better suited to the job.”
“My job is not to look after you, it’s to look after the man who’s being threatened. If there was a threat. My job, as it concerns you, is to investigate you.”
“So you’re not here to offer me any protection whatsoever?”
“No, ma’am.”
A long pause. She picks up Keller’s business card and hands it back to him.
“And we were getting along so well.”