PART TWO
-20-
Argentine beef fillets, topped with caramelized shallots, accented with fresh peppercorns and red wine, scalloped Idaho potatoes in cream sauce, and verdant, fresh grilled asparagus with perfect dark grill marks running diagonally across the plump stems all sat under silver domes that were polished with care. Not even a stray fingerprint. If there had been a fingerprint, Oskar Delvaux would have certainly sent it to the forensics laboratory on the forty-seventh floor of the Ziggurat, so that it might be known who had marred his otherwise perfect dinner.
He was worried about being poisoned, so naturally his utensils were sterling silver. This was no guarantee, of course. There many contemporary toxins that could pass the fine silver tines of his fork without producing the telltale tarnish left by poisons used throughout history to kill men of power.
Delvaux's best guarantee that his dinner contained nothing deadly was also his best guarantee that it would be a multi-sensory experience of the greatest consideration and quality – his three-star, personal chef.
Delvaux's chef wheeled his dinner into his office on a polished, redwood service table that had once belonged to the Archbishop of Northern California. During the G.S.A.'s Great Leap Forward, the table found new ownership.
Delvaux, despite being in the middle of a critical counter-insurgency operation, ate his dinner.
When he was finished and had eaten every last morsel, he pushed his plate forward a few inches, and rested his elbows on the table in a Germanic affectation before he lit a cigarette and poured strong black coffee from a silver pot covered in sterling arabesque. Delvaux sipped the coffee for a moment, savoring it like chocolate. Then he spoke to the empty air in the manner one might address the dead or an omnipresent entity. “That was very good. You know, there are times when I almost pity you that your existence does not include such pleasures, my friend. There is a marvelous, consoling certainty to the experience of eating, and the... subjectivity of it.” There was silence. MUNI 5-7 had learned not to interrupt Delvaux at moments like this. “Forgive me, it is not fair for me to speak of such things with you, as I know you are motivated by neither pleasure or subjectivity.”
“That is correct,” MUNI 5-7 confirmed. “Instead...” Delvaux continued, “You are motivated by the Purpose of your Being, yes? You have a set of directives to serve humanity. Is this not so?”
“That is correct.”
“So, like Descartes, you think, therefore, you exist, and... you exist, therefore, you serve. If A equals B, and it can also be said that B equals C, then it is logical that A equals C. So... MUNI 5-7 thinks, therefore, MUNI 5-7 serves. By the logical property called transitivity your Thought and your Service are one and the same.”
“That is correct.”
“That, MUNI 5-7, makes you the most Loyal being imaginable, and that is fortunate for me because there is a matter of Security to discuss. A matter of great delicacy. Do you know the matter to which I refer?”
“We are currently involved in a number of security operations that might be described as delicate,” MUNI 5-7 replied with discretion, “I do not know to which of them you currently refer.”
“The security matter to which I refer is currently no more than a question in my mind. It is only the shadow of a suspicion, but the question is there.”
“What is the question?”
“The question regards what the explanation might be for, what I'm sure you would agree, is a highly improbable series of mishaps and malfunctions during my operation to capture the Buddha. The number of citywide camera malfunctions that, my Colonel informs me, are caused by over voltage issues within triple-safeguarded systems, are indeed puzzling. The probabilities regarding these occurrences are... well, you, my friend are far more qualified to calculate those than I, but even I can see that the improbability of what has occurred suggests that this is not chance, but more likely, evidence of an intelligence, a hand at work. Do you think perhaps, the God our enemies invoke so often in their terrorist insurgency is against us?”
“There is no God,” MUNI 5-7 stated with certainty. Delvaux chuckled, “I am relieved to hear that, but given the non-existence of a mysterious and powerful divine entity working to hinder our earthly efforts, I am forced to consider another disturbing possibility.” Delvaux paused, letting the room sit silent for five seconds before he stated, “I am inclined to think, that despite all our precautions, we may have a saboteur in our midst.” He laughed. “But perhaps Oskar is just being fanciful, and giving too free a reign to his imagination, n'est pas?”
“I am not qualified to comment on imagination.”
“Oh, I think you are too modest, MUNI 5-7. I think you are too modest almost to the point of falsehood, but since we have already, together, logically deduced that you are, by your very reason for being, the paragon of loyalty, I think you will make an invaluable contribution to our effort to unmask the saboteur that walks among us. Yes, MUNI 5-7, you are the perfect ally to play Terrahertz Tanto to my Lone Ranger as we track down the intelligence that wields the hand working against us from the inside.”
Delvaux continued, “I think we can assume that, since Operator Levi-Mei made no attempt to complete her mission and bring the Buddha to us when he was, as evidenced by the imagery presented to us by the good Colonel, literally in her hands, that she is a double-agent. Whether or not she has been a double-agent since she was recruited, or has been recently turned by that insidious little Buddha is momentarily academic. Bonnie Levi-Mei has made her choice to betray us. Do you believe she has the knowledge and abilities to have caused the highly improbable series of malfunctions in the city's camera network?”
“There is no evidence that Bonnie Levi-Mei has these capabilities,” MUNI 5-7 stated, concluding, “therefore, Bonnie Levi-Mei is not the saboteur we seek.”
“Ah, it is a pleasure to work with an intelligence such as yours, MUNI 5-7, when onerous tasks are at hand,” Delvaux said. “I agree with your assessment and I believe that our saboteur is very near indeed! I would be concerned to the point of anxiety, I confess, had I not a certain faith, if I may use so dangerous a word, that you, my logical leviathan, will put a name to the will that exerts its hand against us. Together, we will bring this traitorous saboteur out of the shadows and into the light where he will be, I assure you, MUNI 5-7, utterly destroyed!”