The Orpheus Deception

by David Stone

  “They are. Sad to say. Happens every day.”

  She nodded.

  “As I thought. So it will be made quite clear to your government that all the correct procedures were observed and every possible care taken to protect Mr. Fyke’s rights and person? That no blame will ever be attached to any member or official of the Singaporean government?”

  “None at all, Minister. Nor should it be. If Mr. Fyke wants to lie to authorized officials of your government during an investigation into a maritime tragedy and then get himself entangled in cafeteria knockabouts, the responsibility lies solely with him.”

  “He is—the phrase?—the author of his own misfortune, then?”

  “Nothing less.”

  “We have your word?”

  “You have my word.”

  “Sergeant Ong informs me that you were under the impression that some sort of . . . insect that listens? What do you secret agents call it?”

  “A bug?”

  The Minister bared her teeth and shook her head ruefully.

  “Yes. A bug, was the word. Sergeant Ong said that your associate, Miss Pownall—she is well, I trust?”

  “Quite well, thank you.”

  “She is not with you?”

  “No. She had business at the Embassy.”

  “Really? Was it successfully concluded?”

  “No. Turned out not to be an Embassy matter.”

  “No?”

  “No. All a misunderstanding. You were saying? The bug?”

  “Sergeant Ong reports that she suspected that a bug of some sort had been placed in her rooms. Does she still believe such a silly thing?”

  “Not at all. Turned out to be an iPod. Left behind by a previous tenant.”

  “An eye-Pod?”

  “It’s a kind of music player. Tiny, no bigger than a cigarette lighter.”

  “But surely not a listening device?”

  “God no, ma’am. We’re terribly sorry for the fuss. Please assure Sergeant Ong that we deeply regret the mistake. And I am ashamed to admit that there was a small scuffle between myself and one of his people when he dropped by to pick me up. I overreacted just a tad, and I apologize for any inconvenience I may have caused to his young colleague.”

  Even Minister Dak found the inconvenience line a little hard to swallow, since getting your right arm snapped nearly in two was, even by her own, liberal standards, rather more than an inconvenience. The young officer was still in surgery, a complicated and prolonged effort that might restore to him some limited use of his right arm. But she let the word pass with little more than a wry smile.

  “I’m delighted to find you such a reasonable man, Mr. Dalton. Now that the matter of Mr. Fyke has been settled, may we move on to another, and not entirely separate, matter?”

  “Of course.”

  Here it comes.

  “The Home Minister has some concerns.”

  “About?”

  “About what you might wish to call equity.”

  “Equity? As in financial?”

  “No. As in perceptions. It is customary, in matters of interagency cooperation, that a kindness be repaid by a kindness. I’m sure you understand Minister Chong’s position? As a matter of national dignity? Of courtesy between sovereign states?”

  “I believe I do.”

  “So, may I assure Minister Chong—and, through him, our beloved Minister Mentor—that you have given the matter of equity—a term of art in this context, I admit—given the idea of reciprocity some prior consideration? After all, you came to Singapore hoping to secure the cooperation of the Home Ministry. I am sure that, for a man of your tact and experience, the idea of having something in hand with which to repay such a kindness would not have been overlooked. Merely as a courtesy?”

  Dalton let the silence run until it became Chinese again.

  “Yes,” he said finally, “we did give the matter some thought.”

  “Wonderful,” said Minister Dak. “Capital. I knew we could rely on the word of an English gentleman. Now, would you like to see our guest?”

  Dalton could not keep the surprise off his face. Minister Dak seemed happy to observe it.

  “Yes. He is here. Now. We have placed the entire facility at your service. One moment.”

  She moved her hand, pressed a hidden button. She rose, and Dalton followed her. The doors opened, and Mr. Kwan reappeared in the twilight. “Yes, Minister Dak.”

  “Mr. Kwan. I wonder if you’d be so kind as to take Mr. Dalton here up to the pool house.”

  “With pleasure, Minister,” said Kwan, looking at Dalton.

  “I’ll say good morning to you now, Mr. Dalton. I trust your people will be in touch later today to discuss the . . . the courtesy?”

  “They will, ma’am. I’ll call as soon as it’s morning in Virginia.”

  She smiled then, a more open smile than he’d seen before.

  “I take it something specific has been prepared?”

  Dalton gave her the sardonic carnivore’s rictus he mistakenly believed was a boyishly charming smile.

  “Yes. We have something we think you’ll appreciate.”

  “Will it help us with the Chinese?”

  An amazing guess? Or something else?

  Dalton decided it didn’t really matter.

  “Do you need help with the Chinese, ma’am?”

  She laughed then, an open, relaxed, and generally honest laugh.

  “Yes, Mr. Dalton. We do. Everybody in the world needs help with the fucking Chinese.”

  Kwan was holding the door and waiting patiently. Dalton reached out, shook the Minister’s skeletal hand. She was a tough, dangerous old pro, and he decided he was glad to know her. She watched him as he walked to the door and called out to him as he was about to leave.

  “Do not blame us all, Mr. Dalton.”

  “Blame you, ma’am? For what?”

  “For what you are about to see. It was not done in the name of Singapore. It was not done in the name of the Minister Mentor. It was Chong’s work. Chong is a pig. Be careful of Chong, Mr. Dalton. You remember the little matter of the cigarette holder with the opium traces? A gift from Sergeant Ong Bo?”

  “I remember it vividly, ma’am.”

  “It was Ong’s idea, an old police trick, but Chong allowed it. He seems determined to find a way to put you in Changi Prison, Mr. Dalton. I do not know why. But I advise you to be very careful of Chong Kew Sak.”

  “I will, ma’am. Good-bye.”

  “Good-bye, young man.”

  Kwan led him back into the shaded, shuttered darkness of the empty clubhouse. They went down another long, dimly lit corridor lined with intricately veined teak and hardwoods, stopping at an elevator marked POOL DECK. They rode up in the gleaming brass-and-mirror car to the very top floor. Kwan led them down another corridor until they reached a large security door marked ROOFTOP POOL. Kwan stopped here, with his hand on the bar. A thin shaft of bright sunlight ran the width of the base of the door. Kwan looked at Dalton, seemed about to speak, when Dalton’s cell phone rang. Kwan bowed and withdrew to a polite distance. Dalton looked at the caller ID. It was Brancati.

  “Micah, where are you?”

  “I’m in Singapore. Is it Cora?”

  “Her condition has improved slightly. The doctors are encouraged. But she is still in a coma. Have you finished your business there?”

  “Just about.”

  “Good. I have some news, about the girl on the Lido beach.”

  “Yes?”

  “Her name was Saskia Todorovich. She was registered as a student at the Institute in Trieste. But she is a citizen of Montenegro. Her home is Kotor. Which, as you remember, is also the home of Branco Gospic.”

  “I remember.”

  “I told you we were going to investigate all the private boats that were in the lagoon that day. One of them was a long white Riva, white over blue. Do you remember such a boat?”

  “Yes. It was cruising back and forth by the Isola di San
Michele when Cora and I were on the balcony of the Arsenal. You sent a cutter to check it out. Some sort of fashion shooter owned it?”

  “Yes. The boat is called the Subito—”

  “Of course.”

  Brancati laughed.

  “Yes, of course. The Subito is registered to Kirik Lujac. Known as Kiki. He is a professional photographer. Very well known. Very rich. His background is also Montenegrin. His father is a minor member of the Montenegrin royal family. The Subito was located by our people two days after we found the body of the girl. It was moored in Bari, locked up and empty. We could not get permission from a judge to search the boat, but we found out that Kiki Lujac had taken a private jet out of Italy the day before. The jet is owned by a company called Minoan Airlines. Galan has traced the ownership back to a firm that has connections to Branco Gospic.”

  “Let me guess. Lujac flew to Singapore.”

  “Yes. But there is no record of a Kiki Lujac being registered at any hotel in Singapore.”

  “He has another identity.”

  “Yes. We do not know what it is. But we have a picture of him. I think you should see it.”

  “Can you e-mail it to me, to this phone?”

  “I can’t. But one of my men will know how.”

  “You think this Lujac guy killed Saskia Todorovich?”

  “I suspect it. If he did, then he is working for Gospic. Which means Gospic knows you went to Singapore and had this man follow you. This means he still intends to kill you. You understand?”

  “Fair enough. I still intend to kill him.”

  “I will save you that trouble. I have already begun. We penetrated his encrypted phone lines in Kotor. We have seized all his assets in Italy. We are rolling up all his people in Venice. By the end of the week, I expect to have his bank accounts located and frozen. Galan has contacts in Zurich and the Isle of Man. Gospic has attempted to assassinate an Italian aristocrat. This assassination, I believe, was motivated by fanatical Muslim hatred of the West. Or, at least, I have decided to think so. I have filed the petition with our Intelligence office to have him listed as a terrorist, which means this is not a law enforcement matter but a matter of our nation’s security. So there are no rules. Carlo has sent the picture. Do you have it?”

  “Just a minute. I have to get on the Web. Hold on . . .”

  Silence at Brancati’s end. It was morning in Singapore, which meant it would be the middle of the previous night in Venice. And Alessio Brancati was in his office, hunting Branco Gospic. Vendetta was an Italian word. He downloaded an e-mail attachment marked brancati@mil-gov.ita. In a moment, he was looking at a lean, wolfish-looking young man, very tan, absurdly handsome in a hard-cut, slightly Hispanic way, with long, shiny black hair and pale blue-green eyes. He knew him. He had seen him yesterday afternoon, under the portico of the Intercontinental Hotel, in a well-cut navy blue suit; athletic, trim, with a direct, challenging gaze. Mandy had seen him, too, and had then looked over her sunglasses at Dalton and said, “Oh my.”

  “I’ve got it, Alessio. He’s here. I saw him yesterday, at the hotel.”

  “Then be careful.”

  “I will. Thank you. If anything changes with Cora, will you let me know? At once? Whenever?”

  “I will. Ciao, my friend.”

  Dalton closed the call but kept Kiki Lujac’s picture on the screen for long enough to burn it into his memory. Then he flipped the phone shut. Mr. Kwan rematerialized at his side and continued as if there had been no interruption.

  “It is day outside, Mr. Dalton. You may wish to shade your eyes.”

  Dalton nodded, and Kwan pressed the latch. The door opened onto a wide wooden deck surrounding a huge pool shaped like a lagoon, ringed with palms that swayed in a hot salt wind off the ocean. In the hazy blue distance lay the misted hills and white-sand shoreline of Malaysia and, to the right, the low green island of Pulau Ubin. The roof of the club was on a level with a few distant apartment towers but had a generally unbroken view across much of northeastern Singapore and the island park of Pulau Ubin. Far in the west, the rising sun was setting the towers and spires of downtown Singapore on fire. The light was brutal, hard white and piercing, after the darkness of the hotel interior. Yesterday there had been clouds, the harbingers of the monsoons, but today there was no shade anywhere. Dalton’s hangover came back in a sickening wave. Kwan led him across the teak pool decking toward the pool house, a kind of screened lanai fronting a low, rambling wooden structure thatched in dry palm fronds. The building was surrounded by bougainvillea and jasmine and climbing vines. A very pretty young Filipina woman, trim and nicely rounded in green scrubs but wearing those god-awful yellow Crocs, was waiting for them by the screen door that led into the pool house. She was smoking a cigarette and watching them with wary attention as they came up.

  “Mr. Kwan.”

  “Miss Lopez. May I introduce Mr. Micah Dalton.”

  She inhaled the cigarette, blew the smoke out, unsmiling.

  She did not offer her hand.

  “You’re Agency?”

  “Yes. Are you?”

  “I do freelance medical escort. For you and the Brits and the Aussies. The times are nasty. They keep me busy. Are you here to see Mr. Fyke?”

  “He is,” said Mr. Kwan.

  Miss Lopez gave Dalton a long once-over.

  “Are you a tough guy, Mr. Dalton?”

  “Do I have to be?”

  She smiled then, a revelation of strong white teeth wonderfully in contrast with her coffee-and-cream complexion. She drew on the cigarette again, exhaled the smoke, her face tightening up again after the warmth of that brief smile. Dalton decided to have a cigarette. She lit a turquoise one for him without comment. They stood together in silence for a time.

  “Just as long as you’re not a screamer,” she said. “I hate screamers.”

  “I HAVE HIM, sweetie,” said Lujac, watching as a tall, supple Chinese man who reminded him of an antelope led Dalton across to what had to be the pool house. “You were right.”

  Corporal Ahmed said nothing.

  He was sitting on the hot-pink vinyl sofa of a vacant apartment on the top floor of a white stucco, Florida-style vacation property called the Changi-Lah Hotel and Suites. The room had gotten the full Miami Vice treatment, painted in bilious lime and tedious teal, tricked out in faux palms and, as Lujac had called it when they came in, rickety-ratty-rattan, with faded posters of South Beach hotels all over the walls to remind the inmates of how much nicer the real thing was than this sleazebag, low-rent version, which was all they could afford because, if they were really players, they’d be in South Beach and not Changi Village. Lujac liked the sleazy grunge of the place, but he loved the view, five hundred yards straight across the dense forest canopy to the rooftop pool of the Hendon Hills Golf and Country Club. He watched through the tripod-mounted binoculars, as Dalton and the tall Chinese man stood talking to a young Filipina girl in hospital scrubs. Dalton looked tired, rumpled. Hungover.

  But, God, he was still gorgeous, thought Lujac. Maybe even more beautiful because he looked so damn weary. So exquisitely jaded. Dalton had something of the look of that leathery fellow who played guitar for the Rolling Stones. Dalton had something in his hand, a small turquoise tube. He took a lighter from the Filipina nurse and touched it to the tip of this turquoise thing. It was a cigarette!

  Lujac was delighted. A turquoise cigarette, with a gold filter. One of those Balkan Sobranie Cocktail thingies. If Dalton wasn’t gay, he damn well should have been. What a waste.

  “Ahmed, how did you find out about this place?”

  Corporal Ahmed, who was in Hell, mumbled something vague. Lujac put the glasses down and gave him a hard look.

  “Can’t hear you, Corporal Ahmed. Can’t hear you.”

  “They move him from Changi yesterday afternoon. Ong make the arrangement. The club was closed for reno, so we just take over the whole thing.”

  “Did they tell you who the patient was?”

>   “It the drunk guy who sank that oil tanker. The Mingo Dubai.”

  “What’s his name?”

  Corporal Ahmed looked sickly.

  “Are you sickly, Corporal Ahmed?”

  “I don’t feel so good.”

  He was still in the clothes he should have been wearing when Lujac kicked in the door of the room at the Fragrance Hotel. Traces of poor little Bobby Noordin’s blood spray had dried black and sticky on Corporal Ahmed’s hair, matting it down in tiny clumps and lumps. He needed a shave and a shower. He was supposed to be on duty at the Ministry at noon today. Lujac didn’t think he was going to make it.

  “Sweetie. I asked you what his name was?”

  “He English. Fitch. Brendan Fitch.”

  “Brendan Fitch?”

  Lujac turned around and got the glasses up in time to see Dalton and the Chinese antelope disappear into the darkness of the pool house.

  “Corporal Ahmed. What business does our guy have with some poor fucking sailor named Brendan Fitch?”

  “Ong says he not really a sailor. And Fitch not his real name.”

  “What’s his real name?”

  “Fyke. Raymond Fyke. He supposed to be kind of spy.”

  “How’d they find that out?”

  “They did things to him.”

  “Things? How delicious. What kind of things?”

  Corporal Ahmed got even more sickly. Maybe he was afraid he’d give this psycho killer nut bar some fresh ideas.

  “I asked you a question, honey bunny.”

  “Bad things.”

  “Goes without saying. What bad things?”

  Corporal Ahmed told him. Lujac winced.

  “Yow! That’ll leave a mark.”

  He watched the rooftop of the country club for a time. Corporal Ahmed sank lower and lower into the couch, his cheeks hollow and his eyes sunken. Lujac was looking at the pool but not seeing it. He was thinking about Branco Gospic, and what the late, lamented, and dearly departed Saskia had been able to tell him about Gospic’s plans. Between shrieks.