by Henry Porter
She was right, but Samson said that for his own peace of mind he had to know she was the same person who had terrorised dissidents in the Stasi jail.
‘Okay,’ she said, passing the samples to one of the young men who hovered but never said anything. ‘What else?’
‘We need to go through what you researched for Denis, what your brief was and how you delivered the information to him . . .’
Until I have confirmation from Denis Hisami or Jim T., I can’t discuss the details of our work.’
‘I’m running it all now,’said Samson.
‘I haven’t heard that. Literally, the only people in the world that I would accept instructions from are Denis or Jim. They’re the guys who pay me and I’m adamant about maintaining client confidentiality.’
‘If I get Anastasia on the phone . . .’
‘Nope. Doesn’t work. She was never involved in the investigation and she’s not my client.’
‘She has power of attorney.’
‘Then she has to show me those papers. I’m sorry, Samson, but I’m not going to bend the rules.’
‘Okay, I’ll get Jim to sort it out.’ He turned to the matter of the famous businessman. ‘Ulrike mentioned that Bobby told her about a famous businessman who had been set up with a young woman who was under-age. This was thought to have taken place at Clouds Ranch. I have an idea who it might be. Martin Reid.’
‘You want confirmation, or are you telling me?’
‘So it was him. Have you seen the film they used to blackmail him?’
‘Yes, it’s with Denis. We don’t possess copies.’
‘Because you undertook to deliver all your research on thumb drives and keep no evidence whatsoever.’
‘That’s correct, but Denis’s research team had got most of the evidence. We did some supporting work.’
‘But you saw it.’
She nodded. ‘It ain’t pretty and, taken as a whole, he’s one of the least important names. He’s a billionaire, and he has the resources to defend himself. Why’re you interested?’
‘He was one of the traitors at TangKi. He knew about Anastasia’s kidnap and he had the gall to sit next to her at a GreenState fundraiser a couple of years later and gain her sympathy by talking about the deaths of his son and wife. He was getting close to the Hisamis for a reason. Now Daus is using Reid to find out whether Denis is going to recover, and, also, how much Anastasia knows. So, he’s a way in and we can use him. But we need to have the film in our back pocket and he has to know that we would use it.’
‘You be careful. He’s a brutal motherfucker.’ She looked up at the two young employees who were still in the room and jerked her head imperceptibly towards the door. They left. ‘So how are you going to play it? I don’t have the whole picture, so it’s hard for me to see a strategy.’
Samson poured some coffee. It was going to be a long night. ‘We need to get Daus in the room.’
‘Which room?’
Samson grinned. ‘I can’t tell you – client confidentiality.’ He paused. ‘It works both ways, Zillah. I was employed by Denis, too.’
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘But here’s a word of warning. People in the government want this to just go away.’
‘I gathered.’
‘They don’t want the mess.’
‘That includes sheltering Daus’s assets in the office of the Director of National Intelligence and on the National Security Council?’
Any hint of warmth in her eyes now evaporated. ‘I have to work in this town. I am not going to piss off the entire intelligence community unless my life depends on it. In fact, my life and my company depend on not pissing everyone off at the same time. You follow?’
‘No, I don’t. You’re on our side. Your client is lying in hospital in a coma and his lawyer and Robert Harland are dead. This is to say nothing about the deaths across Europe of the men John Gaspar hired. These people are spies, and they’re acting like gangsters. They’re fucking your country over. A lot of young people, earning far less than you, have risked their lives to penetrate and investigate Mila Daus’s organisation. They obtained the information that you checked that’s now on Denis’s computer, which we can’t currently access because Denis can’t speak. But those young people went undercover without training or back-up. They took the risk, while the conventional agencies that are meant to protect society sat on their hands.’
‘Then get it from those brave young people.’
‘We have a lot of it, but you know that one half doesn’t work without the other. We need substantiation, the proof you were paid millions of dollars to find.’
She knitted her fingers and rested her chin on them. ‘Just get Jim to talk to me, but in the meantime, you, Anastasia and the Syrian boy need to find someplace safe. I may have an idea about that.’
‘I didn’t tell you he was here.’
‘You didn’t, but if I know, you can bet others do. We’ll work on that hideout.’ She got up. ‘I’ll be in touch when I have results from the DNA test. Should be sometime tomorrow.’
She offered him a ride but he said he would use the room to make some calls, if that was okay. She left. He wasn’t happy with the encounter and he was sure Zillah wasn’t either.
Only then did he remember what the Bird had told him that morning – Macy Harp was terminally ill and had only months to live. He phoned him. Imogen answered and put him on. ‘How are you doing?’ asked Samson.
‘Cuth told you? Good. I knew I could rely on his indiscretion. Saves me having to go through it all with you.’
‘I’m so sorry. I had no idea . . .’
‘That’s because I didn’t tell you. It was a race between me and Bobby but, sadly, he won.’
‘How long have you known?’
‘’Bout six weeks. Look, I’m sorry for not filling you in about Zoe being Bobby’s daughter. Felt bad about it. I hope you understand.’
‘Not an issue, now. Though it was. Is there anything to be done?’
‘Treatment? Good heavens, no. We’re past that stage. Nothing to do apart from seeing old friends and having a good few summer months on the racecourse, for which reason I am flying to the States. It’s the Preakness Stakes next Saturday – the second leg of the Triple Crown – and that is held at Pimlico outside the fair city of Baltimore, a few furlongs from where you are.’
‘What are you up to, Macy?’
‘Apart from watching Bronzino Star, the three-year-old colt that just won the Kentucky Derby, I have a proposition for you. Did the Bird tell you about that, too?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, let’s talk about it while I’m there. I think you’ll like what I have to say. You know I don’t have any heirs apart from my utterly hopeless nephew, Gregory, and you really are the nearest thing I have to a son.’
This put Samson on alert. ‘That’s very kind of you, but I’m going to ask again – what are you up to?’
‘Nothing, Samson.’
‘There is one thing you can do for me, and that’s talk to Zillah Dee. She says she can’t help me until she has either Denis or Tulliver’s sign-off. Frankly, I think she’s been warned off. She needs to get with the programme, as they say here.’
‘Right, I’ll do that now and I’ll call you when I get in tomorrow evening.’
The line went dead. As usual, Macy had hung up without warning.
Samson walked round the room with a coffee in one hand and his phone in the other. Two calls to Anastasia’s number went straight to voicemail. He waited for a further half-hour then considered walking over to the hospital. There was only one thing to do that evening and that was put Hisami’s calculator and computer in Naji’s hands. He checked in with the Bird – everything was all right – and left the room to walk back to his own hotel.
At ten thirty Anastasia called and told him that Tulli
ver had been beaten unconscious in a side street in Tribeca and was still out of it. He was likely to recover but would be in hospital for at least ten days. He wasn’t carrying the item he had gone to New York to collect, however: that had just been delivered safely to its owner.
‘I need to take delivery. Should I come to you?’
‘It doesn’t feel right to leave now. Denis is responding to Angel – that’s the man who looks after the apartment in New York. Let’s do it in a couple of hours.’
‘Okay. Two things. First, do you have any proof of power of attorney? And, second, I want you to consider how we best handle Martin Reid. You know him better than any of us. Do we threaten him with what we know or do we seek to persuade him?’
‘I’ll think about that. Denis and I both have digital copies of the Enduring POAs for each other.’
‘Send it to Zillah Dee. I’ll need to take delivery of those items this evening.’
They agreed to speak in an hour or two.
Anastasia was used to the hush that descended on the corridors of the hospital in the evening, but the lone police officer was nowhere to be seen and she became convinced that Denis was in danger. They had killed one man in hospital who had been under police guard and she had stupidly told Reid that the doctors were pleased about Denis’s recovery from a minor operation, implying that he was conscious and very much on the mend. That news would have reached Daus. She called Special Agent Reiner to see if he could arrange for more officers, but didn’t raise him. She went to the nurses’ station but found no one in authority. Then she called Dr Carrew’s cellphone and told him she needed Denis moved immediately for his safety. Carrew became pompous about the hospital’s ability to keep her husband safe. After all, hadn’t they done just that when she went to Europe, leaving her husband to face a medical emergency by himself?
‘I’m not really asking you, Dr Carrew. I’m telling you that this must happen. I have good reason to believe that my husband is in grave danger, and we need to move him now. His right-hand man, Jim Tulliver, was beaten senseless in New York last night and is now also in a coma.’
‘But there are police officers watching the floor.’
‘I’m in the corridor and I can see no security whatsoever. I believe we need to move him right now. I am thinking only of my husband’s safety. Please hear me on this.’
She ended the call and went back into the room. Denis was still looking fixedly at Angel, who was chattering about his wife’s failure to notice she was pregnant with their third child. She peered at him and smiled. ‘Are you coming back to us, Hash? I do hope so.’
Angel said, ‘I know he is. I see it in his eyes.’
‘Angel, you give us hope.’ She went to the other side of the bed and sat down. ‘Hash, I need to move you. You probably can’t remember why you’re here, but the danger isn’t over and I want to make you safe until I get more security here.’ Angel looked alarmed and sat down.
They were there for another two hours before nurses and an overseer came to move the bed and all the equipment. While they waited she sent the POA to Zillah Dee and said that she needed at least two security guards at the hospital by morning to watch over Denis. The move was completed by eleven. Angel pulled up a chair and rested his head on a cushion to watch Hisami.
‘Are you going to be all right there?’ she asked him.
‘Maybe he will say something to me.’
‘I pray he does.’
She went to the nurses’ station and asked the duty supervisor not to update the change of room in the records until the morning. Without looking up from her screen, the woman said it would be impossible to ignore hospital procedures. Anastasia let her bag drop to the ground and told her about the millions of dollars Denis had given in memory of his sister to the health group of which this very hospital was a member. If the hospital wanted to continue to benefit, the supervisor would do this one thing for her husband – it was all she was asking. The nurse eventually agreed. Anastasia thanked her and walked away, not feeling particularly proud of herself. She phoned Zillah Dee and left a message reminding her about security. The POA was already in her inbox.
She took the elevator to the car park and headed for the ramp that led out to the street. As she exited she heard an engine start. She looked back. A Suburban parked in a bay at one end had its lights on but wasn’t moving. She dialled Samson and quickened her pace.
‘I have both items with me,’ she said.
‘Okay, share your location with me. I’m not far away from you . . .’
‘There’s someone in the garage. They’re watching me, I’m sure.’
‘Get out of there and find cover. There’s a park near the hospital. Go there.’
She ran in the direction of the park, where, from the rooftop of the hospital, Tulliver had spotted a hawk hunting for vermin. It wasn’t large, but it was at least dark. Once there, she opened up the app and, shielding the light from her phone as much as she could, wrestled with the procedure for sharing her location. She waited, looking out from the bushes. Several times a car – almost certainly the Suburban – passed the park in both directions, moving without hurry or, it seemed, much purpose. She felt the old terror of her kidnap return – the shallow breaths and the fizzing panic in her head. The car passed for a third time and she strained to see two men searching the night. She called Samson. ‘They’re definitely looking for me. Where are you?’
‘I can see the car. I’m in the park. Be with you in a sec.’
There was a loud crash, and then another. Something had hit the car. It braked, swerved a little then tore off.
Samson ran up to her and she couldn’t do other than fall into his arms. ‘You okay?’ he said.
‘Jumpy. What the hell hit that car?’
‘I have a good cricket arm.’
She let go of him and stood back. ‘What’s that mean?’
‘I can throw a ball accurately. I aimed a couple of rocks at the passenger’s side.’
She gave him the bag. ‘I don’t know how we can do this by Monday. I mean, it’s all so damned complicated.’ She stopped. ‘I was thinking about Marty Reid.’
‘Ulrike told me that there’s film of him with an under-age girl. And Zillah confirmed it but not in detail. She was seventeen, and that counts in the State he was in at the time, and also in the one where his private plane picked her up. He trafficked a minor across a state line for the purposes of illegal sex. That’s something we have on him.’
‘Okay, so leaving aside the gross behaviour and criminality, the one thing I know about Reid is that threatening him will get us nowhere. He’s been winning against the odds his whole life.’ She stopped. ‘But he’s a patriotic American citizen and I don’t think he wants to be in this position, which is, essentially, betraying his country to a foreign power.’
‘Does he know he’s betraying his country?’
‘That’s a good question,’ she said. ‘Maybe he just thinks she’s a right-wing nut like him. What if we don’t use the film but, instead, appeal to his love of country?’ She shivered and clutched her arms tight.
‘Love of country,’ mused Samson. ‘Not sure that’s going to work. How’s Denis?’
She gave him a look of anguish. ‘He’s responding to Angel, but no one understands what’s wrong.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘About the other night . . . I feel so . . .’
‘It didn’t happen. You dreamed it. Look. I need to get these to Naji. I’ll walk you back.’
At that, her phone pinged with a message from Zillah Dee accepting the proof of Power of Attorney. She would have bodyguards in the hospital by morning.
Chapter 34
Blink
The next day there were efforts by Samson’s team across three different locations to unlock or reassemble the dossier that Denis Hisami and Bobby Harland had put toget
her. They already had a lot – the entire presentation in Tallinn, for one thing – but Samson read everything with a rigorous eye for proof, and little made the grade. Zillah went through as much as she and her staff could remember, matching it with the discoveries of Pearl Grey, Pitch Black, Aurora Red and Saffron Yellow, the teams specialising in the activities of Jonathan Mobius, Erik Kukorin, Chester Abelman and Elliot Jeffreys.
Across two hotel rooms, Naji constructed wigwams from clip coat hangers and a sheet. Even though he had no intention of using the Web on the laptop, he had read somewhere that hotel rooms were sometimes fitted with minute surveillance cameras. He pointed out to the entirely sceptical Bird that Edward Snowden had hidden under sheets when on the run in Hong Kong. The Bird ordered breakfast in both hotels and sat sprawled, looking at the ceiling with the gun that had taken him precisely one hour to buy on the street in Columbia Heights. Naji was beginning to have doubts about the Bird but decided to make allowances because he had been Harland’s good friend. Before Samson had come with the computer and the calculator, the Bird had talked of their times together, his and Harland’s. The Bird was definitely the oddest person Naji had spent time with, but clearly he had admired Harland as much as Naji had, and once the computer arrived he was too busy to worry about him, or consider, eyeing his footwear with the professional eye gained as a boy selling dead men’s shoes in Syria, whether his enormous trainers had been specially made.
At the hospital, Anastasia spent most of the day with Denis. Angel said he would stay as long as it was necessary, and they took it in turns to sleep in the tiny room, which Anastasia had kept on. But Denis never slept. His eyes were moving more now, although it still took an awfully long time for him to respond by shifting his gaze to the speaker. For that reason, in the new room, she and Angel decided to talk from only the chair on his left. There was both understanding and incomprehension in those eyes, yet, in truth, never much hope. Angel was astonishingly good at keeping his interest, much better than Anastasia. She again told Denis they needed the code for the calculator but didn’t press him – what was the point when he couldn’t answer?
