As he entered a narrow street from the main square, he nearly jumped from his skin as a big man accelerated past him and pulled open a wide wooden door. “Happy New Year, comrade!” he roared. “Pliss to welcome in!” It took Arthur a moment to place him: his bald, gap-toothed follower. There was nowhere to flee — his friend in the black toque was hurrying toward him from across the street.
“Pliss to enter, kanadez,” the bald man urged, holding the door. “Djon Bajramovic waits.”
It came to Arthur, with a gasp of relief, that these weren’t stalkers but bodyguards whom Djon had quietly placed in his service. Tough guys but cheap, work for tips. He gave them each a hundred dollars in leks, and winced with pain at the ferocity of their handshakes.
On the second floor, a doorway opened to a smoke-filled lounge in which a group was in loud debate around a table. A few others were reading or playing cards. Various Albanian heroes glared from the wall, along with Karl Marx, Che Guevara, and an Italian bequeather of a familiar place name, Giuseppe Garibaldi.
Curious looks were satisfied when Djon rose from a chess game and announced his guest, not by name but as “a comrade, good socialist from Canada.” He abandoned his opponent, a young woman, and drew Arthur to a counter where they filled mugs with tea from an urn. Arthur contributed some of his last remaining leks into a collection jar.
“Come, my friend, a quiet corner.” They settled on upholstered chairs near a desk computer and a magazine rack. Djon gestured to the group at the table. “Local party executive, our trusted brains … no, brain trust.”
Arthur was uncomfortable in this coven of radicals. As a stranger in this country, he didn’t want to be caught up in their political feuds and machinations.
“So. Is best I know everything, then bring resources to bear.”
Arthur held nothing back, told him of the rendition, the bombing, the loose talk at CSIS headquarters, his suspicions about an oil giant’s clandestine role, the information gleaned from Bejko and Chocoli, his failed expedition to Tirana, the stonewalling.
“Is junk food, what they feed you,” Djon said. “Abzal Erzhan in isolation, Cellblock A, Prison 303.” He raised a hand, as if to quell any doubts. “Is confirmed, we have ears everywhere.”
His chess partner caught Arthur’s eye and smiled: bespectacled, dark, an expression both serious and confident. She returned her attention to the board, plotting her next move. The brain trust was still in debate, but more muted — occasionally one or the other glanced at Arthur with encouraging smiles.
“And do you see any way to win his release?”
“Of course.”
“Can it be so easy?”
“As I say, I have connection, night captain at 303. He too is former party member, but officially repent. Also corrupt but in good way. Already, I have plan. Tomorrow, I close up shop, we go to Korça in friend’s car. You cross border to Macedonia, stay low in beautiful town of Ohrid, leave everything to Djon Bajramovic.”
This all seemed too quick, too pat. He gave Djon a long, intense scrutiny, the bottle-thick glasses, the confident curl of moustache. During their several encounters, this student of world politics had engaged him pleasantly enough but all too insistently.
“I think, Djon, that you already knew who I was when we first met.”
Djon sipped his tea, slowly lowered his mug, and spoke softly. “My turn to reveal truth.” He reached over for the computer mouse, went online, and searched for “Arthur Beauchamp Canadian lawyer.” From one of the dozens of hits, Arthur found himself looking at a network video of his press conference with Iqbal Zandoo. I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts.
Djon clicked forward, to the end, the tomato juice episode. “I always laugh.”
“You suspected I might come here.”
“So did central government — informers tell us this. So I set up shop near hotel you reserve, make friend of you, yes? Then wait for you come with tail between legs after runaround in Tirana.”
“How could you possibly know I’d return here?”
“Because waiting in bank is fifty thousand smackers, less what you pay in bribes. Not much I don’t know, many contacts from former secret police, the Sigurini, many friends still in service. Enough said.”
Arthur picked up a sense of a shadowy past, and didn’t care to pursue it. One vital element of Djon’s stratagem remained unclear. “Dare I ask how much this will cost?”
That was greeted with a pained look, as if the subject were one that gentlemen did not raise. “First and also foremost, this I do for my country. Could scandal topple crooks in power? Maybe yes, worth a try.”
Was Arthur finally dealing with an Albanian altruist, a rare angel not on the take? “You ask for no compensation?”
A shrug, a sly look. “I make offer, Mr. Beauchamp. If I fail, I want only thanks for trying.” He looked at the ceiling, as if calculating. “But if I deliver Abzal Erzhan safely to your hotel in Ohrid … a million dollars.”
There came an image of Roy Bullingham, red faced, collapsing with a coronary.
“Half for party, half for me and Dordana, danger pay.”
“Dordana?”
Djon indicated his chess partner. “Party organizer, even better than me speaking English. Second-best chess player in entire province. You are looking at best. Also Dordana is fourth cousin of friendly night captain.”
Arthur watched her inch a pawn forward. He felt out of his depth here. Was he expected to haggle? That might seem insulting, given the risky gamble Djon seemed ready to take. Finally, regretting he couldn’t promise such a sum, he said Canadian authorities might offer an ex gratia payment for his aid in repatriating a citizen wrongly imprisoned.
”But Mr. Erzhan will earn many millions, yes? From the book he will write.”
After much discussion about the travails of the book industry, it was agreed that should Ottawa not cough up the whole million, the balance would come from Erzhan’s suit for damages. That left many loopholes, but Djon seemed satisfied.
“Now we must talk unavoidable expenses.” Dordana’s fourth cousin had expressed a need for a reliable car. His mortgage was in arrears. Silence of other, lesser participants must be bought. Out-of-pocket costs, something for emergencies. Rather suspiciously, the total came close to the $43,000 still sitting in the bank.
Arthur was distinctly uncomfortable with the notion of Djon wandering off with his entire poke. Was he to be trusted? Or was he the most skilled confidence trickster he’d ever met? He was certainly no idiot, and seemed to have a credible strategy. Faced with no viable alternative, Arthur threw caution to the wind, and the deal was secured with a clinking of mugs.
“Now Djon must return to game. Come, meet.” He drew Arthur toward the chess table, introduced Comrade Dordana.
“A pleasure, Mr. Beauchamp. Here is the hotel where you will stay in Ohrid.” She ripped a page from a pad. “Three days, no more, and Mr. Erzhan will come to you. Do not worry.”
As Arthur shrugged into his coat, he paused at the door to watch Djon and Dordana settle at the table among their comrades. Nods, smiles, handshaking, revolutionary salutes.
29
Dear Journal,
January 5, I think. Some hurried notes, too pooped to write much. Still scared but more hopeful. Making better progress after a couple of our guys unburied the truck from where it was hidden in piled snow, plus supporters lent us other vehicles, one a big farm truck with fifty men and women packed in the back.
One encounter with a Bhashyistan army outpost, but they scattered like scared mice when we pulled in. Now we have three extra jeeps. Numbers swelling daily, men and women leaving their farms and villages to join our march to the Russian border.
Stayed in a snow cave last night. Maxine, Ivy, and I now waiting out the night in a yurt, our comrades camped outside. Not too cold in here but spare, the only decoration a framed photo of Abzal Erzhan (he’s everywhere) who I found out had lost his parents to executioners. So sad. Little
Hasran, only fifteen, says he is like a king to him, to all of Bhashyistan.
Aisulu has ordered lights out. Bedtime. I keep thinking that tomorrow I’ll awake in my own bed, and this will all have been a nightmare.
As of noon on Friday, January 6, the eve of Orthodox Christmas in the Republic of Macedonia, Arthur had not heard from Dordana and Djon. Three days, they had promised — and if anything went awry they were to phone him here, in his assigned hotel on Lake Ohrid. But not a whisper. Five days had passed since that promise.
An ugly scenario haunted him — Arthur Ramsgate Beauchamp, Q.C., who had dealt with some of the most brilliant minds of criminality, had been sucked in by an Albanian grandmaster. If I fail, I want only thanks for trying. Arthur had eaten it up like a hungry dog. And now Djon and Dordana were off on a romp with $43,000 of his law firm’s money.
How would he find the strength to face Bully? The jeers of Crumwell and Thiessen? His portrayal in the press as an innocent abroad?
He’d had qualms earlier, certainly at the beginning of the week, as he emptied his account. But those had settled when Djon and Dordana picked him up at nightfall as planned, in her Fiat compact. He’d even slept, a bumpy back-seat slumber as they drove up the winding road to Korça and beyond, his compatriots jabbering gaily away in Albanian.
At dawn, he was dropped off at the Macedonian border, on the shores of Lake Ohrid. He was quizzed by a distrustful immigration official unused to lone Canadian tourists showing up on foot in winter. Arthur’s explanation — he was fulfilling a lifelong dream to see the beauties of the region — felt lame, but he got through.
Macedonia was a small landlocked country of two million, with a large Albanian minority, maybe less corrupt than its neighbour and slightly better off — as symbolized by its working ATMs. And there was beauty here, with its mild Mediterranean climate, the beaches and Byzantine churches and cobbled, hilly streets and red-tiled roofs.
His apartment in a lakeside hotel in the old town was clean and spacious, with a balcony overlooking the deep blue lake. Beyond, distantly, the snowy mountains of Albania. Somewhere over there were Djon and Dordana, enjoying their lucrative joke now that Arthur was out of their hair, out of their country.
He had spent the first few days in Ohrid touring by foot and taxi: its thousand-year-old churches, its castle, museum, Roman ruins, the palatial, peacock-patrolled grounds of the ninth-century Sveti Naum Monastery. But for the last two days it had rained, and he’d rarely ventured out, preferring to pace and fret or surf his TV’s hundred satellite channels.
On his arrival, he’d called Margaret to say he was back on the trail. She was mainstreeting somewhere, crowd noises, horns beeping. The line was bad. A few words of cheer and affection were followed, confusingly, by, “Oh, thank you, they’re lovely. Smell these, Arthur.” Her little joke — someone had given her flowers.
He’d made no mention of DiPalma, and would have hedged had she asked about his health or whereabouts; there was no point upsetting her in the midst of a hectic campaign. He had promised to call her later, but buried under the rubble of growing depression he hadn’t found the strength.
Arthur kept up with Canada and the world on his twenty-inch screen. Aside from the third son’s resurrection, there’d not been a peep from Bhashyistan — all TV and radio services had been knocked off the air, and the national Internet server was down. The BBC was trying to confirm reports of widening unrest, protests, arrests, martial law.
That network also reported an unusual event outside the Bhashyistan embassy in London. Demonstrators, along with a couple of news crews, had witnessed two limousines pull up, a platoon of businessmen hastening in with their briefcases, avoiding shouted questions. It hadn’t taken long to identify them as lawyers and board members of Anglo-Atlantic Energy.
Now, as Arthur quit his pacing and turned up the sound, a BBC expert was speculating as to what seemed obvious to Arthur: Anglo was about to get its hands on the oil reserves of a country in desperate financial need. A furor was expected. The interloping oil giant was already being widely condemned. The Russian president, Arkady Bulov, had brusquely announced the recall of his ambassador in Igorgrad for consultations.
Though grimly pleased that he could now settle on Anglo-Atlantic as the architect of a scheme of assassination and false incrimination, only one man, Abzal Erzhan, could identify its hirelings who had bundled him into that sedan. High-flying gangsters who’d come from careers as anti-terrorist agents: Arthur liked the irony of that theory. Experts at rendition, at assembling roadside bombs. Still unexplained was why they’d not dropped their kidnappee into the Atlantic Ocean.
The day was waning, the phone waiting, demanding an act of penance. Finally, he gritted his teeth and called the Catholic hospice in Tirana. They took the phone out to the courtyard, where DiPalma, bundled up against the cold, admitted he was working through his third pack of cigarettes that day.
When Arthur confessed to having been played the chump, DiPalma said, “You should never have trusted me.” That seemed sardonic; there was a brittle quality to his voice, edgy, likely brought on by a drug they were feeding him. “Zykoril, it’s a boutique mood elevator only licensed in a few backward countries like Albania. Gets you up faster and higher than top-shelf flake from the Alto Chapare.” Bolivia, Arthur guessed. Maybe he ought not to have been surprised that DiPalma had such familiarity with quality cocaine.
“How are your ribs?”
“Prime and tender.”
“More important, your head?”
“Fucked.”
Arthur was astonished — he’d never heard this good Catholic utter a vulgarity.
When the rain began to slow, he took a pre-dinner stroll through the old town, gaily decorated for the Orthodox Christmas. There was music in the air, sprightly music that weakened his resolve to nurse his sour mood. Buskers, a violin-accordion duo, a trio with lute, bagpipes, and banjo, a quartet of shivering women in miniskirts setting up amplifier and microphones. Arthur had seen the posters: this resort town was about to host a holiday weekend music festival.
He paused at a travel agency, at a window in which were posted flight schedules from Ohrid with connections to the Americas. He was aching to return to Canada. But he could hardly leave DiPalma behind, in his condition, and it seemed unrealistic to flee the Balkans before alerting authorities in Ottawa — the RCMP, not CSIS, Ray had urged — to the evidence they’d obtained of Abzal’s kidnapping.
Arthur walked down to the strand, gazed out at the boats at anchor, a few yachts among smaller pleasure craft and fishing boats. Distantly, a few sailboats were bending to the wind. A dinghy was idly motoring into the little harbour, with two fishermen in black Greek caps slouched unhappily over their empty catch baskets.
He perched on a low stone wall, pulled out his pipe, watched a bus disgorge festival-goers. Others were pulling in by car. From a nearby café, soulful Balkan folk music. From another, folk-jazz fusion. A television van marked “TV A-1, Skopje” prowled toward the buskers, who hurried to meet it, attracted like birds to a feeder.
Arthur knocked the duff from his pipe, watched the two luckless fishers tie up their dinghy and stroll off in their rainslicks, heads bowed. He knew their pain, had often shared their sense of failure. He wondered if coho were running in Blunder Bay. That’s where he ought to be today, on the Blunderer, trolling, doing what he did best.
He made his way up the street to watch the TV A-1 cameras bearing down on the four young women in miniskirts, two of them on flute, one with a two-sided drum, their leader belting out a wailing melody. After a few moments, he felt his foot tapping. Other onlookers were laughing, whooping, clapping in cadence with the beat. It was hard to maintain his comfort blanket of despair.
From behind him, close to his ear: “Nice voice. Nice legs also.” He had a ludicrous delusional moment: Ray DiPalma, fully and mysteriously recovered, had just materialized from the ether. The face, beneath a black Greek fisher’s cap, bore no such r
esemblance, but was oddly familiar. As was that of his companion, who had also pulled in on that dinghy.
“Like road sign say, sorry for delay. But mission accomplish.” Djon Bajramovic wiped his thick glasses, set them on his face, grinning. His prize moustache was gone. A five-day stubble of beard. “Please now you meet famous revolutionary comrade.”
Abzal Erzhan’s hug took Arthur’s breath away.
30
“Your town has a great future, Mayor.” Charley Thiessen gathered it hadn’t had a great past: your basic Main Street, not even a mall. But now it had a shiny new ethanol plant, thanks to the federal green initiative program. “Yessir, boom times ahead.”
“Ay-yep,” said the mayor, a man of few words, almost none.
“There’s gold in them thar hills, eh, pardner? Liquid gold.” The snow-covered cornfields, he meant.
“Ay-yep.”
Charley had just cut the ribbon, the exclamation point to the day’s festivities, which included a tour of the plant and a peppy speech while freezing his ass on a makeshift outdoors stage. But they ate it up, the good humble folk of this Ontario town whose name he kept forgetting.
Later in the day, he was off down to Middlesex County to help the local M.P. open a federal office building. Tomorrow, a stopover in Ottawa for a cabinet briefing, then back to his own riding, where last week he’d whomped the local lacklustre Liberal in an all-candidates debate. He’d got the crowd roaring with a string of lawyer jokes — people love a guy who can make fun of his own profession.
Also coming home for the weekend was his eighteen-year-old Greenpeacer, who was threatening not to vote for him. He expected a lecture about biofuels, about crops being diverted to fuel overpowered cars, all of which was somehow connected to starving people in Africa and food riots and God knows what.
Snow Job Page 29
