Double, Double, Oil and Trouble

by Emma Lathen

  “We’re making good progress,” Thatcher replied, interpreting correctly. “I thought the convertibility clause might hold us up longer than it did.”

  “It helps that British Petroleum wants to get cracking on Noss Head,” said Charlie, forking his Russian egg with resignation. “Livermore’s pushing things right along. Otherwise we’d still be bogged down over the tax prepayment.”

  They were talking a foreign language so far as Cramer was concerned. He shook his head, indicating different notions of progress.

  “Livermore talks too much,” he said baldly.

  Nothing intimidated Charlie Trinkam, including strong silent men of the West. “That’s his job. What do you think we’re all sitting around that table for— to look into each other’s big blue eyes? Which reminds me, did you get those specs from Houston?”

  “Right here. Volpe says ...”

  In a rough-and-ready fashion, Charlie handled Hugo Cramer very well, and Thatcher left him to it. Cramer’s attitude toward negotiation was not uncommon, especially among engineers pitchforked to the bargaining table. Nevertheless, he had landed Macklin the Noss Head contract. Thatcher wondered how. Almost immediately, he got some pointers.

  “Cramer! I have not seen you since the award. Let me offer you my congratulations.”

  Two men had halted by their table. The plump young-old man accompanying Paul Volpe was correctly dressed and correctly smiling. Even before Cramer hoisted himself to his feet, Thatcher knew that Klaus Engelhart was German.

  “. . . Norddeutsche Werke from Hamburg,” Cramer said, yielding not an inch to pronunciation. “They were in the final round of bidding against Macklin.”

  “But we lost.” Engelhart was determined to be pleasant. “How could we know that you are even more formidable than Davidson Wylie?”

  “Sure,” said Cramer, refusing the gambit. “You all know Volpe here already. Klaus, this is John Thatcher from . . .”

  Upon assimilating the Sloan Guaranty Trust, Engelhart showed no disposition to depart.

  “We don’t want to interrupt you,” said Volpe uneasily.

  “Although we are more comfortable here than in my office,” said Engelhart.

  Paul Volpe thought this needed amplification. “We’re blocking out the first subcontract proposals,” he said, with a wary glance at Cramer.

  “Even such a subsidiary role will help moderate NDW’s . . . disappointment.”

  The artful pause was not lost on Thatcher. Was surprise a more apposite word than disappointment?

  Hugo Cramer bristled. “Look, get it through your skull that Macklin, not Dave Wylie, was bidding for Noss Head. And Macklin’s going to build it, too!”

  He was truculent enough to make Engelhart stiffen. John Thatcher was moved to intervene:

  “Macklin isn’t going to build anything unless we get back to Imperial Dominion,” he said, ostentatiously checking his watch.

  As usual, this worked like a charm. Engelhart swallowed whatever he was going to say, took punctilious leave of everybody, then followed Volpe out.

  “Relax! We’ve still got an hour,” Charlie advised, as Cramer bunched his napkin. “What’s the matter with Engelhart, Hugo? Does he talk too much, too?”

  Thatcher’s stratagem made Cramer grin. “I’ve got to remember that,” he said appreciatively. But there was no grin when he turned to Charlie. “Engelhart? He’s the bastard who—Oh, to hell with him! Let’s get back to these metal estimates. Arthur Shute has rounded up some rolled steel bids—I don’t know how hard they are—”

  This was not a good enough answer for Charlie Trinkam.

  The end of the afternoon session at Imperial Dominion did not signal release for John Thatcher. He was booked for the evening by the American ambassador, no less. The ambassador would be no trouble. Harvard, where he had preceded Thatcher by a year, and the municipal bond market, where he had spent his prime, could always keep him happy. The threat of high thinking about détente, NATO, and nuclear proliferation came from Mrs. Forbes. It was her Brahmin sense of vocation, and her lack of imagination, that had landed poor old Endicott in Grosvenor Square. A livelier woman would have taken all those trust funds and bought West Virginia.

  “Well, have a good time,” said Charlie, as they parted at the elevator. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

  Thatcher’s practice of never intruding into the personal affairs of his associates went double for Trinkam. So he did not ask how Charlie was spending the evening. Charlie told him anyway.

  “Which proves that visiting firemen can be more sinned against than sinning,” Thatcher observed.

  “You can say that again,” groaned Trinkam. Against every inclination, he was spending an evening with the boys, trapped by the kindly intentions of Colin MacFarquar of British Petroleum.

  “Now, I won’t take no for an answer,” MacFarquar had trumpeted with overpowering hospitality. “We can’t have you come to London and miss our bright spots, can we?”

  Few and far between were the bright spots Charlie had ever missed. But he had recognized and honored the friendly impulse.

  Thus, that evening he found himself in a small, perfect Edwardian room, eating the most expensive oysters he had yet encountered. Gilt-framed mirrors reflected beautiful women, elegant men, obsequious waiters. Leon’s was a bygone world of privilege and pleasure, carefully restored for the chosen few.

  “They do one very well here,” said MacFarquar, with the arrival of Dover sole. His enjoyment was unimpaired by the fact that theirs was the only table of men in the crowded room.

  “They certainly do,” said Charlie, although he had always felt that a bower of songbirds is no place for onlookers.

  The third member of their party felt no such constraint. “I’ve been hearing about this place for years, Colin, and it’s even better than they say,” said Simon Livermore, leaning back to let the waiter replenish his wine. “But perhaps Charlie here is regretting his air conditioning.”

  “Not with food like this,” said Trinkam gallantly. If everybody else could maintain standards, so could he. Furthermore, he appreciated the effort being made, including the use of first names. Colin and Simon had been on familiar terms since Oxford. But Charlie came easily only to MacFarquar, who was a sturdy extrovert; Livermore found it more difficult.

  “... with Angela up in Scotland,” MacFarquar was explaining, as temporary bachelors always do.

  Charlie had no absent family to justify his presence in Leon’s, and the other temporary bachelor, Livermore, had let his attention wander to the staircase entrance.

  “She’s a looker, all right,” said Charlie, following his eyes to the striking redhead who was sweeping in.

  “It was her escort I happened to notice,” said Livermore blandly.

  For a moment, Trinkam suspected the famed understated humor. Then he, too, identified the escort. It was Klaus Engelhart, last seen at the Hilton.

  The unreticent MacFarquar leaned forward with a robust whisper: “And the lady doesn’t seem to be worrying overmuch about her husband, does she?”

  “Is he after them with a gun?” Charlie asked, looking at Engelhart with new respect.

  Livermore pursed his lips. “The lady is Mrs. Davidson Wylie,” he said.

  “Oh-h?” said Charlie, taking a second look.

  “Exactly,” said Livermore. Then, with the same precision he had shown at the conference table, he added: “I understand that she and Wylie had already agreed to divorce—before the kidnapping, that is.”

  “She may not have to go to the trouble,” said Colin MacFarquar with gusto. Ignoring a quick frown from Livermore, he went on, “She looks like a merry widow to me. Is Engelhart next in line, Simon?”

  “There’s been some talk,” said Livermore, unbending. “Although I myself wondered—well! Enough of that. Look here, Colin, this has been a fine meal, but I should get back and look over some papers.”

  MacFarquar was incensed. “Crying off now? Why the evening’s yo
ung. The trouble with you, Simon, is that you spent too many years in the country. Early to bed, early to rise!”

  “Surrey is scarcely the country,” said Livermore, tolerantly.

  “No, listen,” said MacFarquar. “I have an idea. Let’s push on to Crockford’s!”

  The magic name of a London gaming house did not produce applause.

  Livermore’s smile grew strained. “I’m afraid that’s a little too rich for my blood. Many thanks, Colin, but I think I’d best be going along. You two go on without me. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Before Colin could expostulate further, Livermore had departed. Charlie noted that he paused to pay his respects to Klaus Engelhart—or Francesca Wylie.

  “Good old Simon,” said MacFarquar, with one wine too many under his belt. “If you think he’s dull now, you should have seen him before the divorce.”

  Charlie regretted having to explain that he, too, was skipping Crockford’s. The Sloan Guaranty Trust allowed considerable latitude to its employees. It did not extend to roulette wheels.

  “Well then,” said MacFarquar largely. “The midnight show at Brown’s . . .”

  “You remember Klaus Engelhart?” Charlie asked when he and Thatcher strolled into Imperial Dominion the following morning.

  “The young German who lost the Noss Head contract,” said Thatcher.

  “He may have lost a contract, only to gain a jewel,” said Charlie poetically.

  “The heat’s gone to your head,” Thatcher decided. Nevertheless, he listened with interest. Charlie’s stray sidelights were sometimes valuable and always entertaining.

  “Although I don’t see that Wylie’s marital difficulties are germane,” he said, once Charlie had concluded.

  “You know, the word is that Cramer suspects Engelhart of having pulled a fast one—spilling the beans about Noss Head so that Black Tuesday would hang on to Wylie,” Charlie amplified.

  “If he did, it hasn’t done him much good. Macklin still won the award.”

  “True enough, but suppose Engelhart wanted Davidson Wylie out of the way for different reasons entirely.”

  Thatcher considered this theory a moment, then rejected it. “Not if the Wylies were already separated,” he argued.

  The exchange was cut short by a haggard Colin MacFarquar. Eyeing Trinkam resentfully, he said: “Don’t see how you do it.”

  “Practice,” said Charlie enthusiastically, before settling down to sterling credits as if he, too, had spent a blameless evening at the American embassy.

  “We had begun our consideration of the escrow accounts,” Simon Livermore announced.

  Just then the door burst open. Paul Volpe, trailed by a distressed secretary, was red-faced and incoherent. Ignoring everybody else, he confronted Hugo Cramer, hunched stolidly over the end of the table.

  “Hugo!” he shouted. “It’s Istanbul!”

  “What?” Cramer bellowed.

  “They’ve located Dave Wylie! He’s safe! He’s safe, I tell you!”

  Cramer fell back in his chair. “Safe,” he repeated as if he could not believe it.

  As an incongruous embellishment, there was a round of hand-clapping from everybody else.

  Simon Livermore saw an occasion. “On behalf of my government—”

  “I thought I’d take the evening flight,” Paul Volpe rushed on. “Somebody should be with him, in case he needs help.”

  “Like hell you will,” said Hugo Cramer, grinning from ear to ear. “You stay here with this nitpicking! I’m going to Istanbul!”

  Chapter 7

  Foreign and Domestic Fields

  News that Davidson Wylie was alive and safe flashed around the world. By the time that Hugo Cramer stormed out to Heathrow, the wire services were feeding details to hundreds of subscribers. He was changing planes in Rome when Houston interrupted its regular TV programing for a special news alert. By the time that Cramer touched down at Istanbul and helicoptered to Ankara, Davidson Wylie had led the evening roundups from New York to Nairobi, then been displaced by a monorail disaster in Yokohama. Public attention marched on. Hugo Cramer was left to deal with the aftermath.

  He had only one question for the official who met him.

  “Is Dave in one piece?”

  “Well, he seems all right physically,” was the guarded reply, “but I feel I should warn you—”

  “Then Dave can tell me about the rest himself,” Cramer interrupted. “Let’s go.”

  Throughout the drive to the embassy and the march down endless corridors, Cramer brushed aside would-be informants like flies.

  A budding diplomat tried tact. “You may find a certain nervous irritability,” he suggested diffidently.

  The local CIA man saw an opportunity to air his expertise. “Kidnap victims feel threatened for some time after release,” he pontificated. “The only thing that helps is a really thorough debriefing. We could arrange . . .”

  A nurse who had borne the brunt could not help complaining. “If he would only cooperate . . .”

  But they were all speaking to air. Cramer’s juggernaut stride had outstripped them, and he was already halfway down the hall.

  He was not as oblivious as he appeared to be. Those hovering voices had conveyed a message. At the guest-room door he hesitated, not knowing what to expect.

  It was some comfort to find a recognizable Davidson Wylie. To be sure, there were changes. The sunlamp tan had faded to a dirty white pallor. Instead of the trim vigor maintained by regular workouts, there was an unnatural puffiness suggesting long hours of immobility. Wylie’s face was drawn, and his well-styled hair had grown into an uncontrolled bush. But far more alarming than this surface deterioration was Wylie’s high, cracked voice. He was fending off a crowd of attendants so wildly that he did not notice his latest visitor.

  For a moment Cramer was rooted to the spot, prey to waves of relief, anxiety, resentment, and concern. Then, without thinking, he blurted the first words that came to mind.

  “My God, Dave, what happened to you?”

  As a welcome, the question left something to be desired. Wylie instantly abandoned his contest with a doctor to turn a scowling face on Hugo Cramer.

  “I got kidnapped, remember? I’m the one who’s been out of touch. I don’t even know who snatched me, Hugo. And instead of telling me something, this bunch just asks a lot of questions. I can’t even find out what’s been going on with the Noss Head bid.”

  A doctor tried to stem the tide. “Now, this is no time to bother yourself with business, Mr. Wylie. What you should do is—”

  The heavy omniscience that is the curse of the medical profession grated on Cramer. Effortlessly drowning the continuing prescription, he boomed: “We got the contract last week, Dave. Everything went fine, and it was all thanks to you.” Then, as disapproving clucks emanated from every corner, he added a contemptuous rider. “What do you mean, this is no time for Dave to think about business? He busted a gut working on this contract for months, and it could have all gone down the drain because of those goddamned terrorists. If you’re so worked up about the situation, why don’t you do something to catch them instead of hounding Dave?”

  Dr. Wennergren drew himself up. “I am a physician, not a policeman. And it is my professional opinion that Mr. Wylie should not be exerting himself. He should go into a hospital for a checkup.”

  “For Lord’s sake!” Wylie exploded. “I’ve just been locked up by a gang of hoods for three weeks. Now you want to lock me up in a hospital. I’ll be damned if I agree to that.”

  The soothing voice became more syrupy than ever. “But you shouldn’t think of it that way. You’ll have the care you need and proper diet. We could even bring your wife over so that she could stay in the clinic with you.”

  Gripping the arms of the chair in which he had been huddled, Wylie tried to lever himself upright. “You bring Francesca here over my dead body. Dear God, I don’t want a lot of keepers. What I want is some sun and some fresh air and above all—�
� here Wylie glared at his tormentors “—above all, some decent privacy. Lord, Hugo, can’t you get rid of any of these people?”

  Back home at Macklin, Cramer was noted for the brusque efficiency with which he exercised authority.

  Now was the time, he decided, for a show of force. Gesturing toward the door with a beefy thumb, he uttered one strident command: “Out!”

  Then, attacking on both flanks, he turned his back on Wylie and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Leave him to me. You people are just exciting him.”

  They were not as reluctant as they pretended to be. Eight hours of Davidson Wylie’s hysteria had convinced them that they lacked the magic touch. If Wylie was willing to tolerate Hugo Cramer’s presence, that in itself was a small miracle. After token resistance, they filed through the doorway, to congregate on the other side and justify their capitulation.

  “Whew!” breathed the cultural attaché. “I suppose it’s not surprising that Wylie’s so edgy, but why does he act as if it’s all our fault?”

  It was clear as daylight to the psychologist in the group. “That’s a form of transference,” he lectured. “For weeks he’s been furious at his own helplessness, but he didn’t dare let loose in case it might be dangerous. We’re simply substitute targets for his anger.”

  “That would make sense if he were just mad,” argued the attaché. “But he’s strung up tight as a drum. Anybody would think he’s frightened of us.”

  “Not of you,” said Captain Harbak, whose attempts to question Davidson Wylie had been curiously frustrating. “These terrorist animals, they must have threatened him. Even though he is safe now, he cannot comprehend it.”

  The psychologist nodded sagely. “A defense mechanism. He wants so much to believe the danger is over that he has to protect against a letdown if he’s wrong.”

  “Wait a minute,” objected Dr. Wennergren. “He’s got more than a letdown to worry about if he’s wrong.”

  Before the psychologist could reply, the policeman intervened. “There can be no doubt that Mr. Wylie is safe,” Captain Harbak declared, drawing himself erect. “He is under the protection of the sovereign state of Turkey.”