I looked up. “What?”
“Well, I was starting to think you weren’t what Irv was saying. He started calling you The Resident Toad. ‘If that’s what he is,’ I said to him, ‘a princess should kiss him.’ Truth is, Carson, your piece about the El Salamlek Palace, you know, where she’s waiting for the yacht – it gave you away. It showed you’re not that slimy.” Jaime shrugged. Something in her manner made her seem less young.
After a while I said quietly, “So he knows the death certificate is fake and he’s got his pretext for being holier-than-thou. Is Berlin next?” I gestured at the laptop. “What did Heywood do with that?”
Jaime took her time. She stroked her rings slowly, first on one hand, then the other. “He’s so proud over Berlin,” she said. “I was the source for all his stuff on Krause, Abou-Ghazi, the Foundation, etcetera. But your Berlin trip he discovered on his own. What he doesn’t know is that you went there for a sweet-talk with Miss Dunn. If he did, he’d go bananas. His princess off for a romp with the resident toad? Suppose she kissed the beast, put her lips on all that slime.” Jaime clucked her tongue in censure.
“You should hear him when he reads stuff with her in it. He starts bellowing. Baloney! Nixes it all. Wanna know what he said to me about you and your friend Miss Dunn? ‘Never forget, Jaime, Carson is warped. He thinks hatred, towards her, towards himself. In his mind’s black depths hatred swirls around and he swaps the objects of his hatred. When you see Rachel’s name appearing, he’s actually describing himself. All that cavorting around with a banker – it isn’t her, it’s Carson doing that. It’s his way of living out his fantasies. Psycho, Jaime, a basket case, that’s what he is, and Berlin proves it.’”
Jaime shrugged. “Guess Irv’s no different than anybody else. He likes his fairy tales just so.”
Black depths? Swirling hatred? Acting out fantasies? Where did Heywood get this stuff? What he’d written wasn’t worthy of reaction and I shook my head with disgust. “Read me the last bit then,” I said finally, nodding at the laptop.
“Ready for it? You sure? Promise you won’t drop off your twig again?”
“Let’s get it over with.”
And Jaime narrated still more of the fable, her voice rising and falling and quickening and slowing, as if this was a pageant.
Mr. Pryce’s abuse of his position goes beyond inappropriate utilisation of the pipeline. He used it to settle old scores. Routinely he imagines he has been wronged and then seeks revenge. For that he needs power. His reach for it connects the dots over many years.
The origins of this power-vengeance syndrome may have been a meeting, well-documented, where he exhibited a disdainful, blocking attitude. The chair proposed it would be best if Mr. Pryce ceased participating. The meeting unanimously endorsed this and Mr. Pryce left.
Although it appeared insignificant at the time, one of the attendees was a trainee, Ms. Rachel Dunn, who showed much early promise and has gone on to pursue a brilliant career. She is currently doing an outstanding job as ambassador in Romania. Mr. Pryce, embarrassed by the meeting’s rebuke and because it was issued in front of Miss Dunn – a striking young woman – would have experienced an especially keen humiliation. A great deal of evidence has come to light which shows he has harboured a grudge against her since.
Files now exist which indicate that for many years Mr. Pryce maintained a close relationship with a German banker and an Egyptian international trader…
I’ll skip the intricacies,” Jaime said. “But he concludes that you and Krause were buddies and exchanged information, meaning you got stuff no one else could get at. Your Berlin trip proves it. It seems you opportunistically sent the insider dope from Krause directly to the PM’s foreign policy advisor. That was to ingratiate yourself. By cementing your position at the highest levels, you could next proceed to destroy Miss Dunn’s ambassadorship. And because she is his protégé, a lapse in her performance would bring his judgment into question. In short, you were out to destroy Mr. Heywood through Miss Dunn. Doesn’t that makes perfect sense?”
“More like a perfect farce. Who’d believe it?”
“He might not care. So what if it doesn’t hold water in the end. One step at a time, that’s what he’s figuring. First get des Étoiles to decide he should play safe. Argue prudence. Get him to lock you out, put you on forced leave. Not that difficult. There’s the fact that you created St. Radu. Isn’t that enough by itself? You know step two. The investigators scramble. Guesses turn into the gospel truth. Hokum gives common sense a licking. They’ll scavenge through your existence and scrape up the crumbs. Imagine their joy when they find you really have been doing funny stuff. They’ll go ape over the allegation that you’re in cahoots with a corrupt Berlin banker, that you went to see him. Then picture them salivating over your poems about Miss Dunn. Think you won’t be in the dock? So my advice, Carson, is to get away. Irv’s gonna work on his opus for another couple of days. There’s time to leave town. Think of an excuse…you know, illness in the family…then scoot.”
I began assessing what might happen. Would des Étoiles play safe? I concluded he would. Jaime was right. The inquisition would get into gear and Heywood would lean on it. There has always been an unquenchable thirst at the senior levels to receive the conclusions they want.
I took some time to line up my options. Too much time. Jaime with her own experience of in-the-nick-of-time escapes was suddenly impatient. “Don’t get me wrong, Carson,” she interrupted. “You look peachy-cute when you’re daydreaming, but don’t hem and haw all night. Ya gotta decide.”
I continued thinking. Suppose I went to Heywood to explain why I hid the origins of the plague. He would enjoy my kneeling down in his confessional. But would he decide to forget the whole thing? Unlikely. So not that. Then there was the option of fighting back. I could start doing what he accused me of – build an edifice of disinformation to undermine his case quite thoroughly. But could that be done with a guarantee that Rachel would be kept out of it? I wasn’t sure.
As I was considering the consequences of this and that, I was scarcely aware that Jaime, sweetly smiling, had decided to deliver a jolt. Her voice seemed to be coming from far away. “Take a cue from the princess…” she was casually saying. A moment passed before I looked up, unsure of what she meant. She began jabbing over a shoulder with a thumb at my laptop. “No one has seen her for days. Miss Dunn has bolted. If she can, why can’t you?”
Did I hear right? Some further seconds ticked away. Jaime was back at my computer casually clicking the mouse. “Rachel is gone?” I said sceptically, but Jaime ignored me. She began humming. My disbelief changed to alarm. “What’s going on?” But Jaime merely leaned farther over the keyboard, typing and clicking, doing it with concentration, as if wanting to reprogram half the world. I jumped up to peer past her at the screen.
“Sorry,” she said quietly, “I thought you knew.”
“Let me look.”
Jaime stayed put, blocking access. “Miss Dunn has bolted,” she repeated. “Take my word for it.”
“Get away.” I gave the computer chair a shove, Jaime riding it into a corner. “Who says she’s gone?” Urgently I entered codes to activate information sources.
Jaime on the chair in the corner pulled her legs up. “You’ll draw a blank,” she predicted. She adjusted her position so that she was now cross-legged on the chair. “Looking where you always look is a waste of time. There’s nothing there.”
All the same I had to see. The search function attacked data banks. Minutes passed; nil results. “How do you know she’s gone?” I demanded, angry at the fruitlessness. I began punching at keys so hard it seemed that by obliterating them I might yet get to events in the past I absolutely wanted to see. A screening of global e-mail traffic for the last seven days was already running. I was ready to spend hours wading through the trivia and triteness, the parochialness and pettiness of the great chattering masses that constitutes the thick electronic blanket covering the w
orld. “How do you know?” I repeated.
“I checked into Irv,” Jaime said breezily. She was back in her transcendental pose, wrists resting on knees and thumbs and index fingers together to form circles. She might as well have murmured: If you pursue futility, I’ll just meditate. But her voice was factual. “This morning I looked into what he was up to and saw he’d just sent a message to Bucharest asking the princess if she’d ever heard of Benedictus Athenasiu. Five minutes later an answer came back.” Jaime uncurled out of the chair, came over and lifted my hand off the mouse. She clicked several times. “There,” she said. “Now you’re getting somewhere. Tell me, are you up front with me when you say all this is news to you?”
I stiffened. The repy from Bucharest was from Rachel’s deputy.
Dear Mr. Heywood,
A very timely message you sent. Benedictus Athenasiu is well-known here. He caused a major fuss a year or so ago. His immigration application wasn’t successful and he gave the embassy receptionist a difficult time. I had to go out for a talk with him. I said there was absolutely nothing I could do, though he insisted I could. He didn’t believe Immigration is a force unto itself. I remember he cursed and muttered some threats. Then he left. I’ll happily look into what he’s been doing. I note you need it urgently.
The reason I’m replying instead of the ambassador is that she isn’t here. A few days ago, five actually, she called me at home in the evening. She said she needed rest. Bucharest is very stressful for all of us, so it’s understandable she wanted to get away for a few days. We don’t exactly know where she is, but we respect her privacy. She regularly reminds us that it is important for her. The staff at the residence told me she left the next day for the bus station in a taxi with a small bag. She didn’t want to use the official vehicle. She’s always considerate of the driver. I’m sure she isn’t far. I’m guessing Vienna. She often travels there. I’m pretty sure she’ll be back tonight or tomorrow. She’ll reply to your nice note then.
Yours truly,
Danny Lafontaine.
Vienna? The place Rachel was happiest. But why by bus? A desire for privacy? Or were there stronger reasons for remaining unobserved? Had she gone into hiding, travelling in a way so there would be no trail for others to pick up? If so, why? And hide from what? The questions bounced around inside my head. I had difficulty ordering my thoughts and was distracted further still by Jaime’s happy, carefree, isn’t-this-aton-of-fun look.
18 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Hours later there was a clarity of sorts. By then, in an oddly fateful parallelism, I too was on a bus using a ticket keeping me anonymous. For days I traversed the continent from north to south in a nearly hypnotic state, hour upon hour of watching states and towns go by. Half-sitting, mostly slouching, barely sleeping, I had time to think back to the disconnected events which began with Lafontaine’s e-mail and ended with me on the bus. How I had hurried from conversation to conversation, everyone asking me to promise them something. All I could do was acquiesce. Mechanically, in my outwardly calm yet inwardly churning state, I nodded. I nodded all the time, agreeing to this and to that. Never before had I promised so much.
When Jaime departed towards dawn a few fragile strands of trust were binding us. But we differed on Rachel. Jaime was sure she had flown the coop, whereas I was certain, if she had indeed abandoned Bucharest, it wasn’t lightly done. I feared something sinister was in play. Well, all I’m saying is…if it’s okay for her to duck out, why can’t you?
We revisited Heywood, Jaime pressing home that he was hell-bent on destroying me. She played with the idea of creating a diversion, going so far as to claim that Rachel’s disappearance was a godsend. It could be built up into something, you know, keep Irv heading into dead ends. This made me speculate that if weeks were to go by with Heywood’s mind on other matters, I could just as easily stay put. But no, Jaime was resolute. If you’re around, if Irv fixes his peepers on you, you know his attention span, he’d start drooling over your case again. And so my first yes was for Jaime. I promised to go away…for a while.
This bridge crossed, she became chatty. As far as she was concerned the path ahead was broad and easy and well-travelled. Make it look routine. If it gives you the shivers to say that someone in the family’s kicked the bucket, tell ’em you’re taking a holiday. Maybe you’ll like being away, Carson. Maybe you’ll never come back. Doing something different, you know, it always works out in the end. She seemed to be speaking from experience.
Next she let me in on her plans. Once Heywood’s attention had been redirected, she planned to tidy up Zadokite Port, take the sting out of it, turn it back into what she had intended it to be: a game. Once Zadokite Port was history, Jaime would leave too. Visit my brother in Silicon Valley. See what’s new.
In this way, the night spent on the floor of my cell caused an old order to break up. Once Jaime was certain the clock could not be turned back she decided it was safe to leave. At the door she reached for me. Gotta hug ya. Her bracelets tinkled as her arms came up. In the embrace – she on her toes, me bending over – Jaime felt small and compact. Strange, the disconnect between her size and her eclipsing presence. See ya. Stay cool. And don’t forget what I said about our hide-out, okay? Ambling down the corridor was an ever more mysterious girl-woman. There wasn’t a single glance back.
Practical preparations for my departure had to wait for business hours to begin, and my unrest and uncertainty began feeding off each other. Where was Rachel? It crowded out thoughts of Heywood’s intentions. I spent time searching for clues. A scan on Morsi Abou-Ghazi revealed he was on his yacht; it had passed through the Suez Canal a week before; presently he was cruising up and down the Red Sea; his helicopter hadn’t been active; nor were there indications that passengers had come on board. Morsi, I concluded, was quietly passing the days making phone calls, sending faxes, receiving e-mail, managing his weapon deals and, for all I knew, writing Arabic poetry. The intercepts of his messaging were normal, all couched in that sinister rambling spirituality which I was sure took everyone in. Nothing indicated Rachel had gone to him again. Was Danny Lafontaine right? Was she really in Vienna for a simple, quiet recharging of batteries, perhaps in a gasthof so traditional that credit cards were still shunned?
One person might know.
At 8 a.m., thrusting a paper cup of coffee forward, striding with outward purposefulness, I made my way to another tower and took the elevator five floors up. A left turn, one right, then right again, and once more left. Halfway along the passage a door stood open and beyond it Anne-Marie was just settling in at her desk. At my knock on the wall, with a start, she ceased unscrewing the top of a thermo mug.
“Carson!”
I lifted my paper cup in greeting.
“Come in. Sit down.” She gestured at a chair, reached for the door and shoved it closed. Her eyes questioned me. Unsure of how or where to start I watched Anne-Marie finish opening the mug and lifting it to take a sip. My cup remained unopened in my hands. She intuited something. “Not a social call?”
What could I say? What reason could I give for coming here? What right did I have to inquire after Rachel? Anne-Marie’s divination saved me from having to answer. She frowned and said: “Don’t tell me you know.”
“If I do, I don’t know much.”
“You mean, about Rachel?”
“Has she gone?”
“What makes you ask?”
I provided a low-key explanation: the e-mail from the embassy, Lafontaine emphasizing Rachel’s absence was routine, yet not knowing where she went, even though it was already five days. I even managed a shrug. “It’s not my business, of course, but.”
Anne-Marie cut in. “It is your business. She’s your friend. I’m glad you came.”
“Is she in trouble?”
Anne-Marie dug an envelope from her briefcase and held it towards me. “This was in the mailbox last night when I got home. It kept me up half the night thinking. Take a look.” The stamp was Roma
nian. I removed a postcard. The picture was a painting of a Madonna and Child in the Byzantine style. “Read it,” Anne-Marie ordered. I turned the card.
Dearest Anne-Marie,
I haven’t been myself the last weeks. Too much has changed too fast. I can’t see how the future can be anything like the past.
I need time to sort it out. I’m leaving Bucharest. I don’t want to draw attention. In a week or so, I hope to be…you can guess where. I’ll write longer then.
Please do me a favour. I can’t manage the formalities of giving up my post. Can you contact Irving Heywood? Explain that for private reasons I could be away a long time. Ask him if he would kindly look after the paperwork. I’ll be in touch with him eventually to explain.
Off in minutes.
Love to the family.
Rachel.
I turned the card for a longer look at the picture. The Madonna was reticent and pious, the infant teasingly alert, too precociously wise. I thought of Rachel’s other postcards. She always chose them to convey humour. What message was this one delivering? I reread it, but her words were as obscure as what she might have intended to say through the painting. More cause for my unease to grow. “It’s not like her. It’s way off.”
Anne-Marie took her time, gazing at me steadily. “That’s true… She sounds…”
She sounds…? Anne-Marie didn’t complete her thought.
“How does she sound?” I asked. What more did Anne-Marie know? But Anne-Marie wouldn’t say. Instead, she voiced questions of her own, many questions, too many questions, and threw them all at me.
The future can’t be anything like the past. What does that say about her state of mind?
Too much has changed too fast. Does it mean she’s lost control?
I haven’t been myself. Is this an excuse for something she’s done, or about to do, a kind of whitewashing of awful things?
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