Bloodland: A Novel

by Alan Glynn

  His eyes are a deep blue, but a deep something else as well.

  They stare at each other for a moment, traffic rumbling past, cars, yellow cabs, vans.

  SUVs.

  Then the guy extends his hand, ‘Tom Szymanski.’

  They shake.

  ‘So, Tom,’ Jimmy says, ‘what do you say we go somewhere and sit down, get a cup of coffee, yeah?’

  * * *

  The car pulls into a space across the street from the coffee shop. It has tinted windows, but isn’t anything conspicuous, isn’t a limo or an SUV – there are enough of those around the place already.

  In a booth along the side window of the coffee shop sit Jimmy Gilroy and Tom Szymanski.

  Rundle can see them clearly from here.

  They’re facing each other over cups of coffee, talking.

  About fucking what, though? Because the thing is, how did they hook up?

  Rundle has that horrible sensation of being in the middle of a dream you are aware of having but can’t direct in any way or put a stop to.

  Next to him, Ribcoff sits with an open laptop, a Bluetooth headset and two separate phones on the go. Switching between devices, he taps keys, whispers instructions, waits, listens. There’s no point interrupting him. He’s doing his job.

  Rundle has his own laptop open in front of him and is keeping an eye on developments more generally. J.J.’s speech went really well and is already being blogged about and dissected on various political websites. Only one blogger he’s come across so far has mentioned what happened outside the hotel, and that was a throwaway comment about no event in New York ever being complete without its requisite crazy person.

  All the live feeds came from inside the hotel.

  However, there must have been at least one camera crew outside that caught the incident – even though it only lasted a couple of seconds, even though they’d have been taken by surprise, even though they’d initially have been facing the wrong way.

  The other straw he’s desperately clutching at is the fact that what Tom Szymanski said didn’t make much sense.

  Because who’s ever heard of Buenke? If he’d said Congo, now that would have been different. Rundle feels his stomach lurch at the very thought of it. But Szymanski didn’t say Congo. And it’s unlikely anyone will have picked up on what he did say.

  Which means that nothing really bad has happened.

  Not yet, at any rate.

  ‘Don,’ Rundle says, glancing across the street now, a slight crack in his voice. ‘What’s next?’

  ‘We’re sending an asset in,’ Ribcoff replies, without looking up from the laptop. ‘He’ll be wired every which way to Sunday, so we’ll be able to see the subjects at close range and hear what they’re saying.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘And out in Jersey they’re working on background stuff, see what we can dig up. Just in case.’

  Just in case what? They have to wage some kind of a PR offensive afterwards? When the dust settles?

  That’ll be too late.

  Jesus.

  With the resources they have at their disposal, you’d think they could …

  Rundle’s heart is thumping. ‘Look, Don, we know what they’re saying, or will be saying sooner or later, so…’

  Ribcoff looks up. ‘What?’

  ‘This is an extreme situation. It requires an extreme solution.’

  ‘You think I don’t know that, Clark? But it’s also a live situation … it’s unpredictable, highly volatile, it’s unfolding in real time, and in an exposed, public location.’ He pauses. ‘I mean, midtown Manhattan? On a busy weekday morning? This isn’t fucking Baghdad here. Our options are very limited.’

  * * *

  The first twenty minutes are awkward, a period of adjustment. A lot of it is linguistic. Tom Szymanski is obviously smart, but he’s not familiar with Jimmy’s accent or with certain expressions he might use. And while Jimmy himself, like every other person on the planet, is exposed to the lingo here on a daily basis – he finds there’s something disconcertingly raw about the way Tom Szymanski speaks.

  So, at first, they stumble over each other’s words.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  But then it settles down.

  They stop at the first coffee shop they come to and take a booth by the window siding onto Fifty-fifth Street. The place isn’t that busy, there are only a few people dotted around, sitting at tables or at the counter.

  The other four booths along by the window, two ahead of them, two behind, are empty.

  The waitress is a grumpy-looking Latina woman in her forties.

  Behind the counter two young guys work quietly, chopping and slicing – prepping, Jimmy imagines, for the lunchtime crowd later.

  Coffees arrive, both black.

  Jimmy takes the lead in offering up information. He’s a political journalist who has written for a national newspaper and is currently working on a freelance book project. A significant area of his research concerns the involvement of BRX in a mining concession in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

  Tom Szymanski nods along at this, taking occasional sips from his coffee.

  ‘So when we were outside the hotel back there,’ Jimmy says, ‘and I heard you refer to Buenke, naturally I was curious.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Well, it’s not exactly common knowledge that BRX is in there. They won’t talk about it, and certainly not to someone like me. So yeah. Of course.’ Jimmy pauses, trying to pace this, but aware, too, that time is short. ‘And you seemed to be implying that Senator Rundle himself has been to Buenke? Is that correct?’

  ‘I wasn’t implying it. I said it.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘That lying cocksucker was there, let me tell you.’

  ‘How do you know?’ This sounds very abrupt. Jimmy braces himself.

  ‘How do I know? Coz I was there, too. I saw him.’

  ‘Really?’

  Szymanski looks around, nods. ‘Yeah, for the last couple of years I’ve been working as a contractor for Gideon Global. Half of that time I’ve spent in Congo, shunting people back and forth between the airstrip and the mine. Or guarding the mine. Or escorting shipments of whatever shit it is they’re digging up out there from the mine to the airstrip.’

  ‘Wow.’

  Wow? Jimmy needs to step it up here, to focus, and get some of this down. He reaches for his pocket. ‘Do you mind if I take notes?’

  Szymanski shakes his head.

  Jimmy pulls out his notebook and pen, flips to an empty page. ‘Go on.’

  ‘It’s a shithole of a place, believe me.’ Then he sighs, impatient at something, or exasperated. ‘Actually, that’s not true. It’s a beautiful fucking country, and I mean breathtaking, man, like nothing you’ve ever seen. And I’d hazard a guess that the people are pretty cool, too, but I never really got near any of them. I did see some of the shit they have to put up with, though, and that was enough for me. Basically BRX calls the shots, but the local heavy is a guy called –’

  ‘Arnold Kimbela.’

  ‘Yeah. Fucking dirtbag.’ He rolls his eyes. ‘Anyway, that’s who the senator was down there seeing. The colonel. At his so-called compound.’

  Jimmy stares at the page in his notebook. ‘When exactly … are we talking about?’

  Szymanski laughs at this. ‘Two weeks ago, more or less.’ He holds up his hand. ‘This? The injured hand? It didn’t happen in fucking Paris. That was all made up. It happened in Congo. We were on our way back to the airstrip.’

  As Jimmy continues staring at the page in his notebook, his brain tries to process the information he’s just heard, but its significance is almost too huge to take in at once – implications, ramifications, spin off it like pieces of shrapnel.

  ‘Quite a serious claim you’re making there,’ he says eventually.

  Szymanski nods. ‘For sure. And that’s not all there is.’

  No, of course not.

 
Jimmy is beginning to wonder now if this isn’t another of those conversations he’s been having recently that subsequently evaporates – unrecorded, uncorroborated, unconfirmed.

  ‘So,’ he says, a little wearily, ‘tell me more.’

  ‘I will. But first I want to know something from you. Tell me about this helicopter crash you were talking about and what it has to do with the mine at Buenke.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Jimmy says, and launches into it. It’s like a party piece now, each time modified to suit whoever he’s talking to. In this version he holds back on certain specifics, Gianni Bonacci’s name, any mention of thanaxite, some other stuff.

  As he’s talking someone enters the coffee shop, a business-looking guy in a suit, with a newspaper under his arm. He nods at the waitress and takes a seat in a booth by the side window, two down from the one where Jimmy and Szymanski are sitting.

  Jimmy can see him over Szymanski’s shoulder.

  The guy orders coffee and starts reading his paper.

  Jimmy and Szymanski exchange looks, each thinking the same thing, but then Jimmy continues, huddling in a bit, lowering his voice, speeding it up.

  He wants to hear what Tom Szymanski has to say.

  He wants to get that far, at least.

  * * *

  ‘… so this TV actress, the fact that she was there too basically sucked all the oxygen out of the story and meant that the real target, the UN inspector, hardly got a mention. Whether this was intentional or not, I don’t know, but from their point of view, it couldn’t have worked out better.’

  Rundle is staring in disbelief at Ribcoff’s screen. The image is grainy and a little shaky, but it’s fine – the back of one guy’s head, and a partial view of the other guy’s face. The sound is what counts, though, and that’s very good. According to Ribcoff, it travels from inside the coffee shop to Gideon’s fusion centre in New Jersey – where it gets a quick ‘bath’, for interference – and then shoots back here to his laptop, and with only something like a five-second delay.

  Otherwise, he says, it might be too hard to make out.

  But it’s like Ribcoff is showing off, excited about how cool his equipment is – when all Rundle can think about is what they’re hearing.

  ‘… and you’re telling me this shit was to cover up their involvement in the mine?’

  ‘Apparently.’

  There is a pause, then a whistling sound followed by, ‘Fuck me.’

  ‘And remember, according to my source, this comes direct from the top. Sitting at that table was Clark Rundle himself. As well as Don Ribcoff, and some other guy, I can’t remember his name.’

  ‘Yeah, but man, those two motherfuckers? Jesus Christ.’

  Rundle and Ribcoff exchange a quick look, each registering the horror on the other’s face.

  Then Rundle’s phone rings. He fumbles for it.

  Shit.

  It’s Vaughan.

  ‘What’s going on, Clark? I expected to hear from you by now. Tell me this situation has been contained.’

  Rundle closes his eyes. Vaughan was there, too, outside the hotel, in the third limo, but Rundle wasn’t sure if what happened registered with him.

  He should have known that nothing escapes James Vaughan.

  ‘We’re working on it,’ Rundle says, realising how lame that sounds.

  ‘Oh, I hope so, son, because you know what? Your brother scored big time this morning. A lot of people are talking already. I mean, in respect of fundraising? There’s an avalanche of money there, just waiting to be released. So don’t fuck it up.’ He pauses. ‘But Clark?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘If you do?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘You’re on your own.’

  Click.

  Rundle opens his eyes.

  Putting his phone away, he sees that his hand is shaking.

  He turns to Ribcoff. ‘Don…’

  ‘OK, OK.’ Hand on ear, clacking keys, another window opening up on his screen. ‘This is the plan. We’ve got … we’ve got to separate them, or wait till they come out and go in different directions, then we can act –’

  ‘Act?’

  ‘Yeah, we can grab Szymanski, that won’t be a problem, and we can dispose of him pretty easily. He’s more or less off the grid anyway, as far as we can tell. No contact’s been made with anyone in Cleveland since he got back, that’s where he’s from, and he doesn’t seem to have any pressing commitments. So we can chalk him up to Congo, put him on our casualty list, MIA, whatever. Gilroy’s a little harder, though, with this link to Ellen Dorsey. But if the circumstances are right we could arrange something, an accident maybe. Afterwards we bleach him, phones, laptop, then Dorsey’s got nothing.’

  Rundle nods along. ‘Right, right.’ It all sounds so easy.

  ‘But first thing,’ Ribcoff says, hitting a key and pointing at the screen, ‘we’ve got to get them out of there, we’ve got to separate them, and we’ve got to do it fast.’

  Rundle has a stabbing pain in his stomach.

  Indigestion? Anxiety? Cancer?

  He looks at the screen again. Tom Szymanski is hunched forward. ‘So, Irish,’ he’s saying, ‘let me tell you about our next president, yeah, and how he really fucked up that hand of his.’

  * * *

  ‘… unpaid leave, effective immediately, which in a PMC like Gideon is code for, you know, go fuck yourself and don’t come back.’

  Jimmy’s mind is reeling.

  All along he’s been focused on the story of the helicopter crash – which is huge in itself, if only he could crack it – but suddenly he’s got this on his plate? It’s essentially the same story, of course, except that it’s an upgrade, and one with a much wider application. Instead of a UN inspector and a faked accident, it’s got a village massacre and a presidential candidate.

  But the people involved are the same, and the motivation is the same.

  As a journalist, Jimmy recognises this for what it is – the opportunity of a lifetime. He also knows from experience how easy it would be to let it slip through his fingers.

  So he’s got to be careful.

  But maybe – glancing around now – maybe they’ve gone beyond careful.

  He looks back at Szymanski.

  ‘Then?’

  ‘Then they flew me to JFK.’ He shrugs. ‘After that I was on my own. If I hadn’t seen Rundle on TV peddling this bullshit about an accident in Paris, I don’t know, maybe I’d have gone home and forgotten the whole thing.’

  Jimmy exhales. ‘Yeah, but … here we are.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘So what next?’

  ‘What next?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Szymanski lowers his head and shakes it into his chest for a moment. Then he looks up again. ‘Jimmy, do you … do you have any idea what kind of shit we’re in right now, the two of us, sitting here?’

  ‘I’ve been putting off thinking about it.’

  Szymanski laughs. ‘Yeah, well, this is your chance, bro, because let me tell you … my fucking peripheral vision is clogging up on me. There’s a black SUV parked over there on the far side of Third. Don’t look. Then there’s this car just across the street here with the tinted windows. You see it? And.’ He throws his head backwards. ‘Even money, this prick sitting behind me,’ – Jimmy swallows – ‘who, chances are, has got a tiny camera concealed on him somewhere and a fucking mic that’s probably powerful enough to pick up your heartbeat. Though wait.’ He holds up a finger. ‘I think I can hear that myself.’

  Jimmy makes a face, nervous.

  Up to now being under surveillance has been almost academic. They were invisible. It was something he took on faith. But with Tom Szymanski talking like this, all of a sudden it seems very real.

  And dangerous.

  ‘We’re in a public place,’ he says. ‘What can they do?’

  ‘They can wait. We’re not going to stay here all day, are we?’

  ‘And when we leave?’
<
br />   ‘Whatever. Neither of us will get very far.’

  ‘That’s insane.’

  Szymanski leans forward. ‘Have you not been listening to this conversation? Have you not been listening to yourself?’

  Jimmy looks at him. ‘Haven’t you?’ He leans forward as well. ‘This is a two-way street.’

  ‘Not as far as they’re concerned.’ Szymanski yanks up the side of his jacket to the table and partially opens it. With his eyes, he indicates, down here, look.

  Jimmy looks. What he sees is the barrel of a handgun.

  ‘Jesus Christ.’

  ‘This is the only way I’m getting out of here.’

  Jimmy shakes his head. ‘Yeah, but not alive. If you take that out, you won’t stand a chance.’ He pauses, then whispers, ‘Look, there is another way.’

  ‘What other way?’ Impatient, unconvinced.

  Jimmy hesitates. He nods his head in the direction of the guy two places behind them and makes a face that says, nah, not if he’s listening in.

  It takes a moment for Szymanski to catch on, but when he does – and to Jimmy’s shock – he gets out of the booth, stands up and strides back to where the other guy is sitting. With his back to the rest of the coffee shop, careful to conceal what he’s doing – not that anyone is paying attention – Szymanski takes out his gun, holding it discreetly, and whispers to the guy, ‘Get the fuck out of here. Right now.’

  The guy doesn’t react for a second, then he gives an almost imperceptible nod.

  This surely indicates that he isn’t what Szymanski might call – or what Jimmy imagines Szymanski might call – a civilian.

  After a moment, the guy gets out of the booth, leaves a five-dollar bill on the table, picks up his newspaper and walks out of the coffee shop.

  Szymanski returns to his place, sits down, and raises his eyebrows.

  OK?

  OK.

  Jimmy breathes in. ‘Er … so, first thing, can you prove definitively that you were a Gideon contractor, and that you worked in Congo?’

  Szymanski takes a moment to answer. Maybe he’s deciding whether or not he’s offended by the question, or if he’s going to dignify it with a response. Jimmy doesn’t know. But eventually, Szymanski says, ‘Fuck, yeah. There’s a paper trail. Pay cheques from Gideon, the contract I signed, my fucking passport. Plus, I’ve got a ton of pictures on my phone.’ He shrugs, dismissing it. ‘Was I there? Yeah, of course I was there.’