At last I reach over and press a finger into the phone cradle, cutting the line.
Patrick falls silent. He lifts his eyes and looks at me.
“I’ve just seen Rachel,” I tell him.
“Unless Rachel has some pull with the swing votes in sub-Saharan Africa, I can’t say you have my attention.”
“Last night I saw Yuri Lemtov.”
Patrick returns his gaze to the phones. He starts dialing again, and again I cut the line. He keeps his eyes down.
“The second the vote’s over,” I tell him, “whichever way it goes, Rachel’s released. I don’t want to be hearing how you need me to keep some little secret. Or to do some little chore for you. You’ve had the leeway you wanted, you’ve got Asahaki back here, you’ve had your chance. So now when the vote’s over, she’s out.”
“That’s your idea of justice?”
I wave this aside. From Patrick O’Conner I need no lessons in jurisprudence, no lectures on the sanctity of the law.
“She’s a suspect in a homicide,” he tells me. “A real suspect.”
“Is that why you can’t look me in the eye?”
He lifts his chin. He looks me in the eye. Which from a veteran politician like Patrick, of course, means absolutely nothing. But when I screw up my face and turn aside, it seems to crank his handle.
“Let’s recap here.” Belligerent now, he comes around the desk. “One. You were assigned to investigate Hatanaka’s death. Within twelve hours Ambassador Asahaki was on his way back to Tokyo and several years’ painstaking diplomatic effort was disappearing into a big black hole. Two. You go rampaging around the perm five like a bloody bull in a china shop, upsetting everyone so much that even the bloody SG’s asking questions.”
“Who’s complained?”
“Who hasn’t?” he says. “Yesterday the U.S. and China. This morning the Russians. Maybe I should just call Lady Nicola and Froissart, save time.” He touches his forehead. “Christ. When I saw that fucking body, I knew there’d be problems. I just didn’t figure the major one would be you.”
This really is too much. I point to the phones. I remind Patrick that which way the vote goes is no real concern of the Secretariat’s. “Which makes it none of mine. Or yours.”
“Oh, spare me. You know, I swear, sometimes you act like you just stepped off the fucking Mayflower.” He turns and hits the intercom, instructing his secretary to get back the line he has just lost. “And three,” he says, facing me again, returning to the list of black marks against my name, “you neglected to take seriously the possibility that your own daughter was involved in this.”
I turn my head. I am not going to listen to any more of his self-justifying crap.
“Please yourself,” Patrick says. “But I’m telling you, she’s got some serious questions to answer. And what have you done to help exactly? You’ve instructed her to clam up, not to say a bloody word. This morning I stuck my head in the door to make sure she’s okay. I ask her if she’s comfortable. ‘Ask Dad,’ she says. Dad, for fucksake. You.” I give a thin smile. Score one for Rachel. But Patrick is not amused. “So are you going to tell me what’s going on with your kid? Or am I just meant to guess?”
“Guess.”
“Son of a bitch,” he says quietly.
Taught by a master, I think, but I save the thought.
Retreating behind his desk, Patrick retakes his chair. He pushes back, rocking in a quick staccato motion as he studies me. “Tell me something,” he says, “have you even asked her?”
“I’m not getting into that.”
“Jesus.” He stops rocking. He leans forward, placing his elbows on the desk. “You haven’t, have you? Your own daughter. She’s a suspect and you haven’t even asked her what in the name of Christ she was doing in the basement Monday night.”
“She went down to pick up her coat.”
“Is that right.”
We eyeball each other across the desk. Then the intercom buzzes. Patrick’s secretary, Leila. She informs him that she has the ambassador from Liberia back on line three.
Liberia. A country that has spent the past six months lobbying Patrick to get its name removed from this year’s list of nations that conduct their internal affairs with habitual disregard to the UN Convention on Human Rights. For the past six months Patrick has been using me to fend off their ridiculous plea: A stand, so Patrick told me as recently as last week, had to be taken against these guys.
But now Patrick needs votes for the Japanese. He lowers his eyes.
“Liberia,” I say.
Patrick’s hand pauses on the phone. He lifts his eyes and his look now is piercing. “If you don’t have the stomach for it, Sam, now might be a good time for you to leave.”
A brusque invitation to absent myself from his office during negotiations. And at a deeper level, we both know, the suggestion that I am not quite up to my job. That I should maybe consider a premature conclusion to my UN career.
26
“CRAZY,”SAYS DIETER, THEN ADDS FOR GOOD MEASURE, “stupid, crazy.”
When I begin to recite the list again, an itemized reckoning of Patrick’s poor judgment, negligence, and downright hostility to the truth in this whole affair, Dieter raises his hand. “About Asahaki, I also am not satisfied,” he concurs.
“But it’s not just Asahaki, that’s my point. Patrick kept that evidence under wraps until it was too late, you know that. But he’s done more than that, hasn’t he?”
Dieter’s hand returns to the railing, an aluminum tube that stretches the length of the low wall by the walkway that cantilevers over the FDR Drive. The New York traffic thunders past below us. “You are accusing O’Conner of lying.”
“Yes.”
“That is not all that you are accusing him of.”
“Look, I’m not accusing him.”
At this splitting of hairs, Dieter raises a brow.
“Okay, so maybe I am. But I’ve got reasons, haven’t I, Dieter? Come on. I mean, how straight has he been with you and Pascal?” I wave a hand toward Pascal, who is hovering a few paces along the railing behind his boss. Since bringing Dieter down to meet me, Pascal hasn’t said a word. But he is obviously relieved to have channeled my request higher up the line. “Or with Security?” I add. “Or with anybody?”
Dieter turns and wanders down the paved walkway, his hand sliding along the aluminum rail. When I step up beside him, his hand disappears into his coat pocket. Pascal falls in a few paces behind.
“A thief?” Dieter says. “The Undersecretary-General for Legal Affairs?”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
He walks on in silence. My theory, riddled with holes as it is, has not convinced him. But in my own mind I am absolutely convinced now that Patrick, in some way, is tied up with this. I really should have listened to Mike earlier. We have been screwed around from the start, and after my encounter with Lemtov and his bodyguard last night, and my brief visit to the thirty-fifth floor this morning, I am no longer inclined to give Patrick any further benefit of the doubt.
Now Dieter asks me if I have accused Patrick to his face.
“No.”
“Good,” he says, relieved.
“Listen, no one’s accusing Patrick of murder.”
Dieter snorts. I touch his arm and we stop. We are by the rose garden now; the rose stems are thorny and bare. Faded nameplates have been spiked beside each plant: names like Peace and Hope and Brotherhood.
“One question, all right?”
He inclines his head warily.
“Do you trust him?”
There is a long pause. “I did,” he says finally.
“And now you don’t?”
Dieter puts up a hand. “What are you asking me for, Sam?”
I look away a moment. At the far side of the rose garden the moms and pops from Peoria are strolling around the North Lawn; a party of Japanese tourists is having a group photo taken near a statue. What am I asking for? My dau
ghter’s freedom, I think. The world.
“I want you to open Patrick up,” I say, turning back. “His personal finances. And take a look at any financial authorizations he’s made this last year. Any connection he has with Asahaki, Lemtov, or Po Lin.” Dieter, to my dismay, is already shaking his head in refusal. “What’s the matter, are you afraid of what you might find?”
When Dieter shoots me a dark look, I rein myself in. “I’m not talking anything official. Just give Pascal the okay to poke around. At least make some preliminary inquiries.”
“I went to see Patrick this morning,” says Dieter. “He was not there.”
“He’s there now.” I cannot keep the bitterness out of my voice. “Maybe he can fit you in somewhere between his calls to Liberia and the damn Congo.”
“Your daughter was there. In Room Seven.”
I look at him. I know at once where this is going.
“She is detained?” he says.
“That’s just dirty politics, Dieter. A cheap ploy.”
“Detained by Patrick, yes?”
“This isn’t some stupid revenge thing. I’m not asking you to open Patrick up just to get back at him for Rachel. You think I’d do that?”
“She is your daughter.”
“This isn’t about Rachel.”
“Then it doesn’t matter if we wait. Perhaps next Monday we can see—”
“Monday?” My frustration erupts. “I’m not waiting till Monday while my daughter’s being held goddamn hostage.”
Dieter’s eyebrows rise.
“So she’s my daughter and I want her out of there,” I concede. “But that’s not why I’m asking you to flip Patrick over. I’m asking you because I honestly believe he’s involved in this damn thing somewhere. The fraud or Toshio’s murder, I don’t know where, but he’s in it. And I’m not going to find out where or how unless I get some help from you guys.” I wave a hand back to Pascal, who has his own hands braced on the railing, listening to our conversation.
Dieter glances over his shoulder. And seeing something other than Pascal, he grunts. “Your friend,” he says, facing me again.
I look over toward the building. And immediately see what Dieter has seen. Asahaki. Ambassador Asahaki. He has just emerged from the Secretariat building with Jeremiah Sekelele, the Nigerian ambassador, a senior figure in the Organization for African Unity and a major power broker in the UN General Assembly. His white robe billows as he walks with Asahaki across the walkway. Heads bowed, conferring, they stop and lean on the railing thirty yards from us while their respective entourages stay back near the building. A familiar scene. You see it every day in the Secretariat corridors and down on the floor of the Hall; by the committee rooms and out in the lobbies of any number of uptown hotels. Two men, representatives of their countries, locked in private conference, auctioning favors, cutting deals, lining up the numbers for any big vote. Normally I would not even notice. But today is different. Today I stare.
On my way down to meet Dieter I bumped into Tommy Yelland, ex-doyen of the regular UN journalists. A plum job at the CBC took him away last year, but nothing could keep him away from today’s vote. And in Tommy’s opinion the Japanese have blown it.
What I don’t get, said Tommy, buttonholing me in the elevator, is why Asahaki went back to Japan.
I shrugged. Politics. Who knows?
He probed a bit more. I remained unresponsive. Then finally he dropped the bewildered-old-man act and asked me directly. What do you think was going on between him and Hatanaka?
I was still shaking my head, walking away from the elevator, when it occurred to me that this meeting with Tommy Yelland was not simply fortuitous. I looked back over my shoulder. And sure enough, Tommy was riding back up in the elevator to find himself a more forthcoming senior Secretariat staffer to buttonhole.
With his extensive network of contacts in the Assembly, and an impartial eye to the outcome, I would guess that Tommy Yelland’s pre-vote verdict will not be easy to overturn. And the Japanese must know the numbers. So Bunzo Asahaki, though he does not show it now as I watch him conferring with Sekelele, must be worried. Extremely so.
“You know what he’s doing?” I jerk my thumb in Asahaki’s direction, addressing Dieter.
Dieter shrugs. Of course he knows.
“Asahaki’s back in the game only because of Patrick. Asahaki’s wandering around out here free as a bird, lining up the African vote, and my daughter, Rachel, she’s upstairs with a goddamn guard on her door. And I’m meant to wait till Monday?”
“Nothing will change.”
I turn from Dieter to Pascal in frustration. Though Pascal’s look is sympathetic, he does not seem surprised by my failure to carry the case. It is just as he warned me: Dieter will not touch Patrick.
“Is that your last word?”
“I can’t help you, Sam,” Dieter says.
I shove off the railing. And as I turn, there is a stir among Asahaki’s people; they have just noticed me. Fingers point. Then one of them hurries to report my presence to Asahaki, who immediately breaks off his conversation with Sekelele and looks over. Only a second or two. Just long enough to register that it is me, his supposed persecutor, and that I am making no move in his direction. Just long enough to ascertain that whatever promises Patrick has made to him remain good. Then Asahaki turns away and resumes his discussion with Sekelele, secure now in the knowledge that I will not be troubling him in the lead up to the vote. All inquiries in his direction have been temporarily suspended.
Dieter begins to speak, but I flick a hand over my shoulder. I do not have the time for his apology.
This is how it feels, I think, marching down the path through the rose garden, my eyes fixed on the ground. Patrick has delivered for the Japanese. And this is how it feels to be brought back to heel.
27
“WHERE DID YOU GET THAT STUFF ON PO LIN’S investments?”
Marie smiles at my question. She hits the button for the elevator, then pushes a loose strand of hair over her ear. She regards me with amused condescension.
“Do I have to beg?” I ask her.
“It would not help,” she tells me. “And you know it.”
Her eyes go to the numbers above the elevator door. It occurs to me how absurd I must have seemed to the journalists who attended, albeit briefly, my course on journalism and the Secretariat. Did I honestly believe that I could teach them something? That they might actually want to listen? It’s not just the reflexive skepticism they exhibit on every subject under the sun; it’s this attitude, exactly what I’m getting from Marie here—that questions are the things they ask and you answer, that any reversal of roles is tantamount to the overthrow of the laws of nature—that sets them irredeemably apart. The give-and-take of daily life is not for them a two-way street; some essential human quality seems to be missing.
So now I raise my voice quite deliberately. “Didn’t we have a deal?”
Marie blanches. She turns to make sure no one behind us has heard my question, but the only people there are two young female staffers clutching brown paper bags. They have not heard, and would not care if they had.
“We agreed, private,” Marie reminds me, her voice a whisper. “You agreed.”
“I didn’t agree to just take whatever you dished up without question, accept it, and shut my mouth. I didn’t agree to that.”
Her look smolders. When the elevator arrives, we get in; she jabs the button for four, then fixes her gaze above the door. The two young staffers pick up the vibe; they decide not to join us.
“Internal Oversight ran through the list of companies you gave me,” I tell her when the elevator doors close. “Interested?”
“Why did you do that?” she says, turning on me. “Why must you shout it, ‘We have a deal’?”
“Nobody shouted.”
“You did.”
“Nobody heard.”
“Dieu,” she murmurs, lifting her eyes. She takes a breath and thinks a moment
. Then her expression softens somewhat, her angry frown slowly disappears. To my surprise, her hand rises and comes to rest lightly on my arm. “Please,” she says. “I took a risk to tell you anything. And it is the truth, you did agree. Private.”
Her hair spills from beneath a blue headband. My eyes wander down her hair to her neck. Unlined. Paler than Jennifer’s. Her red varnished nails slide down my arm, then away.
“I have just missed my deadline,” she explains as we leave the elevator and head down the hall. “My editor in Paris, he wants to kill me. My colleagues are shouting in my ears, and I am pissed off with everything.” She smacks her hand into an open door as we pass. “Everything,” she repeats. “Not only you.”
Some guy sticks his bald head out of the Frankfurter Allgemeine office; while Marie pauses to confer with him, I look down the hall. Not all the UN-accredited journalists keep offices here, but today it appears to have become the unofficial assembly point for anyone with a reporter’s scratch pad, camera, or microphone. There is a real buzz of anticipation, journalists huddled together, speculating on the vote. I hear Asahaki’s name mentioned more than once; evidently his conversation with Sekelele has been observed closely from a window up here. A correspondent from the BBC is waving fifty bucks in the air, trying to place a wager on a Yes vote but finding no takers.
When Marie rejoins me, we shoulder our way through the thickening ruck outside the Keisan Shimbun office door. Then someone recognizes me. An Australian Broadcasting hack, Drew Armitage, a man who has been known to receive more than his fair share of leaks from Patrick. I do not like the guy. He instinctively shoves a mike at my face and asks about Toshio. Brushing the mike aside, I repeat the official line. That we’re still waiting for the postmortem results but in the meantime he should consult our earlier press release: death by natural causes.
“Natural causes,” he calls after my retreating back. “Does that include some UN guide? Name like Windrush?”
Diplomatic Immunity Page 25
