Chapter 20 The Council #2
The room went quiet. The quiet that happens when someone who is expected to be silent speaks. The quiet of a chessboard when a pawn moves to a square it shouldn't be able to reach.
Céline handed her the folder. The gesture smooth. Effortless. The gesture of a woman who had been waiting for exactly this moment and had possibly engineered it.
Maeve read. Ten seconds. Twenty. Thirty. The table watching her eyes move across the page. The pen I'd given her, black ink, appearing in her hand from somewhere. She circled something on page twenty-seven. Then page twenty-eight. Then back to twenty-seven.
"Il y a un problème," she said. There's a problem.
Mikhail's tea cup paused halfway to his mouth.
"L'article douze, section trois, sous-alinéa B," Maeve said.
Article twelve, section three, sub-clause B.
"La clause de force majeure a été restructurée pour inclure les 'perturbations réglementaires' comme événement déclencheur.
Mais la définition de 'perturbation réglementaire' à l'annexe C est si large qu'elle couvre tout changement législatif dans n'importe quelle juridiction de transit.
" The force majeure clause has been restructured to include 'regulatory disruptions' as a triggering event.
But the definition of 'regulatory disruption' in Appendix C is so broad it covers any legislative change in any transit jurisdiction.
She looked up from the document. At Céline. The eye contact held at exactly the right pressure. Five seconds. The window for equals.
"Ce qui signifie que si une seule loi change dans un seul pays de transit, votre client peut invoquer la force majeure, suspendre les livraisons, conserver les paiements déjà effectués, et rompre le contrat sans pénalité.
" Which means that if a single law changes in a single transit country, your client can invoke force majeure, suspend deliveries, keep payments already made, and terminate the contract without penalty.
She set the pen down. "Ce n'est pas une clause de responsabilité.
C'est une trappe." That's not a liability clause. That's a trapdoor.
Silence.
The kind that has weight. The kind you can feel pressing against your eardrums. The kind that happens when a room full of powerful men realizes that the woman they were told was a pretty accessory has just saved them from signing a contract that would have handed a French arms broker an exit clause worth millions.
Céline looked at Maeve. The assessment from the gala. The assessment from the office. Replaced now by something else. Something that lived in the slight lift of Céline's chin, the barely perceptible nod, the acknowledgment of one dangerous woman recognizing another.
"Elle a raison," Céline said. Quiet. She's right. A pause. Then: "Mon avocat sera... dé?u que quelqu'un l'ait remarqué." My lawyer will be... disappointed that someone caught it.
"Votre avocat comptait sur le fait que personne ne lirait l'annexe C," Maeve said. Your lawyer was counting on no one reading Appendix C.
"Oui." Céline's mouth twitched. The smirk becoming something rarer. Something that looked, on a woman who buried husbands, almost like admiration. "Il avait tort." He was wrong.
"Proposez une définition plus étroite de 'perturbation réglementaire,'" Maeve said.
Propose a narrower definition of 'regulatory disruption.
' "Limitez-la aux sanctions directes et aux embargos commerciaux.
Excluez les changements législatifs de routine.
?a protège les deux parties sans donner à l'une une sortie gratuite.
" Limit it to direct sanctions and trade embargoes.
Exclude routine legislative changes. It protects both parties without giving either a free exit.
Céline studied her for three seconds. Then picked up a pen. Made a note in the margin of page twenty-seven.
"Acceptable," Céline said.
The room exhaled.
I didn't smile. My face didn't move. The mask I'd worn for thirty years, the Viktor Kotov mask, the one that showed nothing because showing something was a weakness that got kings killed. The mask held. Perfect. Impenetrable.
But under the table, my hand on her thigh tightened.
My fingers pressing into the McQueen fabric.
Into the warmth beneath. The grip that said everything my face wouldn't. The grip that said you just saved the Bratva millions in a language Mikhail tried to use against you.
The grip that said you just renegotiated a French arms contract in real time at a table full of men who thought you were decoration.
The grip that said I am so fucking proud of you that my chest is cracking and if I smile right now the whole room will see what I've been trying to hide since the day you walked into my building in a cardigan held together with a safety pin.
She felt it. Her hand moved under the table. Found mine. Squeezed once. Quick. A response in the silent language we spoke beneath surfaces. Then her hand returned to the table. Visible. Relaxed.