Borderless Deceit

by Adrian de Hoog

  It’s still day outside when Nikko, snapping the briefcase shut, comes back. “What’s been happening outside?” he asks pleasantly, as if he never ceased being his companionable self.

  “We’ve been following the Nile, I believe. It flows through some amazing landscapes.”

  The Nile, Egypt, the Egyptian, the progression to Morsi is natural and she asks about him. “He tickled your curiosity,” Nikko observes as Rachel’s questions keep coming.

  She admits he did. “I can’t imagine him running a fleet of rustedout container ships. Such complicated feelings towards the world. Why doesn’t he just recognise he’s a hermit and be done with doing business? It wouldn’t surprise me if he wrote poetry on the side.”

  Nikko shrugs. “I think he delegates a lot. Probably has great managers.” He reaches over and puts his hand on Rachel’s, stroking it with a thumb. “Thanks for coming. So much happened. It seems it’s a month since we left. Every minute was perfect. Visit me in Berlin.”

  Rachel takes a moment. “I’d be free for it,” she says, “if you are.”

  “I’m often free.”

  “Should we agree on a few things?”

  Nikko spreads his hands as with a business deal, as an indication that he’s willing to examine the conditions. “We could.”

  “One, if I can’t come when you’re free, don’t ask why.”

  “That’s fair.”

  “Two, talk to me about your wife and kids as if I was your friend.”

  “No problem with that.” He waits, taking in Rachel’s stare. “Is that it? That’s the contract?”

  “Some fine print.”

  “Naturally.”

  “No presents. No mementoes. No flowers for St. Valentine’s. None of that kind of thing.”

  The banker thinks. “That restricts the things that give pleasure.”

  “To the essentials.”

  “To the essentials. Yes. Well, let’s shake on it then.”

  14 CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “I refuse to believe it, Jaime. You don’t know Rachel Dunn. Rachel is smart. She’s got stature. Getting messed up with Carson…it would be beneath her.”

  “Irv, you didn’t listen. I didn’t say they mess around. Only that there’s stuff on her in Carson’s files.”

  The Czar of Service Operations, huddled with Jaime in the dim light of her lab, had his back to the line of computers. The screens were doing their dancing, colours exploding and imploding, and were rendering him in silhouette. But before him Jaime’s animated face reflected all the changing hues. She could have been on stage, irrepressible, unbound, a diva caressed by the spotlights.

  “Rachel’s got judgement,” Heywood’s dark visage continued its dour protest. “Excellent judgement. You may not know, but she’s our best high flyer. Compared to her, Carson’s a smear, a film of slime, and that’s pushing his charm quotient to the limit. She’d stay well clear of him.”

  So defensive, Jaime thought. Okay, so he hates Carson and admires that woman. But can’t he rise above it? Why blind yourself to facts?

  “I don’t know who’s got charm and who doesn’t,” she countered. “It doesn’t come through in the files. Speaking of slime though, my feeling is Carson’s seen it all. He’s got tabs on more scumbags than you’d want to know about. And he’s cleaned up most of them. How that dude copes with all he’s wise to is beyond me.” She waved a stack of print-outs at the Czar’s silhouetted hulk. “And Irv – like it or not – in his work this Rachel Dunn lady figures. Maybe you’re right. Maybe she doesn’t belong in that crowd. But yes or no I’ll find out. There’s a banker and some other fat cat who sails a yacht up and down the Mediterranean. Did you call her a high flyer? What’s a high flyer anyway? Someone who smokes better stuff than the rest of us?”

  Heywood sighed. “Jaime, really. You don’t know what a high flyer is?” He threw a distrusting look back over his shoulder at the screens and their colourful frolicking, then shifted his great weight forward. A conspiratorial pose. The Czar loved these moments of sharing secrets. “High flyers, Jaime,” he whispered, “absorb divine elixirs when they’re young – from the air they breathe and the water they drink. It gives them instant access to truths which the rest of humanity gets at only through hard work. And they possess unlearned knowledge. Their miraculous brains gush it out, instantly, constantly, copiously. Not only that, when high flyers get older like me, they’re infallible at spotting talent. That’s part of it, grooming our successors to run the world.” The proud Czar nodded. After a moment of reflection, broken with a snort, he added: “I’ve smoothed a few paths upwards in my day, Jaime, but of all my protégées, Rachel is unique. She always reminded me of me when I was her age. So I made sure she’d be our youngest ambassador ever.” Heywood swivelled on the chair whereby the faint light falling upon his front revealed that a naive and saintly happiness had settled on his fleshy face.

  “If you say so,” an irritated Jaime replied. “All I can add to that lady’s high-altitude existence is that she’s mobile in other ways too. Someone paved her way to the boudoir of that Egyptian king’s concubine and she rolled right in.”

  “I thought you said that palace hideaway is a hotel now.”

  “Sure, but do overnight prices ever change?”

  “Jaime! I won’t have this innuendo. It’s that scorpion Carson we can’t trust, him giving us that bum steer on the plague. Do you really believe he would hesitate before pinning responsibility for the whole disaster on someone innocent like Rachel? That piece of schmaltzy prose you found, you know, the boat on the horizon thing, I believe it’s all made up.”

  “Irv, you’re such a geezer. Your brain’s a cart stuck in the mud. Catch a listen. I told you, Carson tried to hide the plague’s origin to prevent this Miss Dunn from being implicated. The plague got started in Romania, okay? She’s your ambassador there, remember? It happened on her watch, right? Carson wanted to delink her from the plague. Totally. He turned somersaults to recreate history. Why a cover up? There’s something between them. I feel it.”

  “My child,” Heywood sighed. “Yes, you’re a high flyer too. You also have miraculous access to truths. You’re blessed with marvellous insight…in your field. But in my field we know how to read the deeper motivations of the hell-hounds of the world. What I’m saying is that Carson deflected attention from our embassy in Bucharest to Radu Corioanu with that silly fake death certificate because he knew someone would find out he’d done that. He knew that would force the question being asked – why the deceit, why would he go to such lengths to hide the real culprit? That’s your question and it’s predictable. Mainstream reaction to news that the plague’s originator lived in Romania will also be predictable. Naturally there will be a suspicion that the embassy was somehow implicated, that the ambassador was asleep on the job. But my conclusion is subtler. I believe he was creating a ruse. He’s manipulating us. He wants us to do what you’re doing. He wants mainstream to suspect that my finest young ambassador is incautious, even involved perhaps in odd dalliances. Why? Because he wants to destroy her. And the reason he wants to destroy her, I suspect, is that he knows it would destroy part of me. The file you found about Rachel staying in what used to be the boudoir of that king’s mistress – I’m certain it’s fabricated because it hardens suspicions so naturally. Therefore I’m not buying it.”

  Jaime shook her head. She’d be no more incredulous if the Czar, muttering abracadabra, had started dispensing occult vapours from his fingertips. “You’re off your rocket, Irv. Carson didn’t hide his stuff thinking it would be found. He hid his stuff convinced it wouldn’t be. I sweated days and nights untangling what he hid in the world’s great books. All the spooks in the universe tasked to figure that out would have tripped over each other for years. So stop cooking up paranoid suspicions and give me some credit. Don’t you see where you’re at? This pseudo-intellectual trotting around – all it does is spice up your own ego.”

  Spice up my ego?

 
; The Czar lifted a hand off the steering wheel and wiped a tear away. The garage door of the Service complex was rumbling up and the guard outside caught the movement. He bent forward and motioned for the car window to be lowered. An embarrassed Heywood thought: May the ergonomic chair I bought you last month for your pampered posterior disintegrate this night into a bed of spikes.

  “Going home early, Mr. Heywood?” the guard asked. “Everything all right?”

  “Fine,” the Czar grumbled. “Celebration in the family tonight. Looking forward to it.”

  “Thought so. I get that way. Sentimental as hell every time there’s something with the kids.”

  Heywood headed for the Minto Bridges, onto and off Green Island, then Maple Island, and rumbled over the metal grating under the fresh-white, geometric spans. How he loved the daily ceremony of crossing the river on these pretty bridges. A sudden inflow of Gulf air from the south had layered the river banks – it seemed overnight – with a deep vernal succulence, and farther along, the tidy front gardens of New Edinburgh were suddenly awash with sheets of tulips in yellow, red and orange. Actually, the whole city had been invaded by tulips, untold thousands, maybe millions of tulips, all proudly in bloom, each flower wishing ecstatic beholders a well-deserved and happy spring. So much beauty, Heywood thought. Enough to mellow a grown man. But can I ever truly be content again? Spice up my ego? I have one, sure. It’s always been robust. That’s healthy. But it’s widely known I’m never happier than when I’m playing second-fiddle. Can’t Jaime recognise that what I want most is what the people I care for want?

  From the bridges his route was along Union Street to the end with a right turn into Mackay. Heywood liked driving down Mackay at this time of year – like being in a garden – and he took his time. The overhanging branches formed a solid cover which calmed. Maybe, he speculated, that’s why people like to walk in parks, to feel the trees’ canopy as a ceiling, to experience spiritual protection, to enjoy a respite from the cruelties that abound. Maybe, he suddenly realised, that was the reason Hannah spent so much time under the boughs of the towering maple rooted in the backyard of their neighbours. Rita and Gerry loved their great tree and so did Hannah, the way it spilled over the fence, providing umbrage. She was probably there right now, this balmy afternoon, regaining her strength. She had beaten the cancer, the doctor had said. Soon she’d be her bubbly self again. Irving couldn’t wait. Hannah when she bubbled was his sustaining artesian well.

  Driving down Mackay, with every tree bud and spring bulb radiating optimism, he, Irving Heywood, success story in life, went limp with gratitude over the great regenerating forces of nature.

  Except for the tussle with Jaime. The poisonous things children say to their elders. Why the need to show that their teeth are viperous? He’d instantly forgiven her for the outburst, naturally. Still, why hadn’t she been more restrained? Didn’t she understand he only wished her well?

  My child, don’t misunderstand. Your decryption was brilliant. You’re pure genius, you really are. I’m merely putting up straw men, you understand. I attack theories to ensure only the sound ones survive. That’s my job. That’s what I’m paid for.

  Yet even as he was explaining this, Jaime, eyebrows cocked in disbelief, had been shaking her head. Eventually she seemed appeased. Then they rationally examined Jaime’s sparse information about Rachel, the Berlin banker, and the other shadowy figure.

  All the same, despite their reestablished working harmony, Jaime’s words could not be unspoken and Heywood could not deny, not to himself, nor to anyone else who might care to know, that her twisted accusation – that his deployment of prudent, professional doubt was nothing more than nourishment for his ego – had devastated him. It hurt. Equally hurtful was her suspicion that Rachel was linked to Carson.

  A double hurt.

  He knew a thing or two about double hurts. He’d experienced them often. No one raises four sons without absorbing injustices and being submitted to double, triple, even quadruple hurts. The most loved make the most painful accusations.

  Pop, listen, you need a logic primer and you need it bad, I mean, real bad.

  Or, You know, old man, this vision of yours about my future, for me it reaches to the sidewalk and no further.

  Or, Come on, Dada! If there was a Noble Prize for double standards, you’d take it, no contest.

  No hurt is greater than when inflicted by one’s children. Thank God, Hannah had the knack for helping him get through.

  “Let’s think this one through, Jaime,” he’d growled once she had stopped shaking her sceptical head. “If that memo you found with Rachel’s name on it – you know, the think piece about the hotel in Alexandria which links her to some Berlin banker – was written by Carson to himself, then he must have obtained that data the same way he acquires all his stuff. And the sources he has, you’ll have too. I’ll make sure of that. To understand all this we need more data on that Berlin banker. When will you know?”

  “Ever been to Berlin, Irv?” Jaime had replied in her baiting way. “I’ve looked at a couple of sites. Berlin isn’t Ottawa, you know. It’s big. Lots of bankers there. And bankers being bankers, they all look the same. How do we pick Miss Dunn’s consort out of a crowd of faceless guys that all live like machines? As for the boat off Alexandria’s coast, there’s more than a few yachts sailing around in that part of the Mediterranean. I even hit a dead end tracing payments for her room in the El Salamlek Palace. They went for settlement to a numbered account at a Bermuda bank. No chance yet to connect it with a payee name. Don’t forget, Irv. Carson has that pipeline to the Yanks. He’s got access to the world’s biggest data banks. It’s an effort for me just to sneak near that kinda info. Getting the dope on Rachel’s friends will take time.”

  “Do it, Jaime,” the Czar had ordered. “You’re the only one who can. Break laws if need be. I’ll ensure cover. I’d invoke national security if necessary. If you think Carson’s pulling funny strings, it’s my right to know.”

  But the Czar, upon leaving Jaime’s lab, had to absorb one final gratuitous comment.

  You’re the boss, Irv. I’ll do the digging, no problem. All I ask, when facts are uncovered, get your brainbox to do some reasoning. Is that a deal?

  The remark deserved a rejoinder and at the door he turned to have the last word, but thought the better of it. She seemed content that moment. She had pushed her chair over to a monitor and was quietly humming, her right hand actioning the mouse. Jaime was renewing her quest, reviving her hunt for truth and knowledge. How could he interrupt the solemnity of it? All that remained was to skulk off, which he did, feeling generous, even honourable, though underneath there was the hurt.

  Along Mackay, a stop at Dufferin, then the left turn into Ivy Crescent. How many times had that turn signalled an end to the working day? Figure it out. Thirty-five years in the Service, fifteen spent in other countries – Nigeria, Sweden, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Cuba. Rich years. Four sons born in places where the mid-wives babbled out their excitement in languages he didn’t fathom. Twenty years at headquarters, twenty years of making this left turn each night. Remarkable, he thought, how the act of turning from Mackay into the Crescent forced transition. Ten hours a day his every brain cell was devoted to the Service, but when this simple turn was completed, all that switched off. Here his attention honed in on Hannah who was patiently awaiting him at home. How often had the turn been made? Three hundred times a year. Twenty years. Six thousand times. Six thousand skipped heartbeats, six thousand surges of joy. His thoughts fixing on Hannah unfailingly dispelled the Service’s barbarisms. Hannah produced a tranquility that was as predictable and unstoppable as the life-giving forces of spring all around.

  Except today.

  The Crescent’s concord seemed muted. Its fountain of harmony was sputtering. On account of his latest child. A surrogate child. He’d have done anything for her. He still would, despite the knife which had ripped into his soul. Easing into the driveway he reflected on the
sensation. How grotesquely unjust the remark was that he nurtured his ego. And the suspicions of Rachel…baseless! Such pure baloney. Jaime didn’t seem to like Rachel much. That was because they’d never met. If only he could introduce them. Jaime would love Rachel. Everybody did. What was happening instead? Jaime was busily creating a new file – on Rachel – with God-only-knows what invented contents. The Czar stiffened. He’d have to insist on full control. He made a mental note to ensure that happened. Rachel damaged by twisted cyberspace plots dreamt up by Carson – it would be too monstrously unjust. Still, Jaime could prove tricky. Sure, she excelled in her work, but she also lacked experience. She didn’t quite have the knack yet of separating the grain from the chaff, of perceiving the subtler truths. The way she had snapped at him, this manner of lashing out – it proved she was a neophyte. Yet he loved her as he loved his sons. Think back, he urged himself when he took the key out of the ignition, think back to his sons landing their unjust blows. Had he not responded gracefully? Had he not always practised absolute forgiveness?

  As expected, Hannah was in the garden under Rita and Gerry’s great maple. He duck-walked up. Her wan face beamed out a smile and he felt electrified. “Irving, darling. Home early. How delicious.”

  After more than thirty years of marriage, Hannah’s English accent still grabbed him in the groin. He bent forward to kiss her forehead. “Hi sweet. Thought you’d be outside. Getting back in touch with nature?”

  “Such a gorgeous day. I couldn’t stay in bed. I’m feeling ever so much better. Doubly so now, with you here.”