Diplomatic Immunity

by Grant Sutherland

  We look at each other. Finally he leans back on the banister and blows out a breath. “What a fucking day,” he mutters, putting a hand to his forehead. Then, seeming to reach some decision, he drops his hand. “Listen, she’s not under my authority anymore, all right? You’ll have to make your inquiries to the Headquarters Committee. It’s out of my hands.”

  The Headquarters Committee. Of which the Tunku is chairman. For a second I am too shocked to speak. “You’ve given Rachel to the Headquarters Committee?”

  “If you’d done as I’d told you—”

  “Whether Rachel’s released or not, that’s up to the goddamn Tunku?”

  “Okay,” says Patrick, “here’s what I can do.”

  When he actually begins to tell me, I just stare at him. Studying for my doctorate, I was obliged to read the memoirs of several secretaries of state, reading that cured me forever of the misconception that someone somewhere knows what makes the world of international affairs go around. Academic models of reality always supplanted the fluid and intractable world. Schemes for peace in the Middle East featured frequently. At the close of these books I was often left with the disturbing thought that the foreign policy of the most powerful nation on earth was, at times, being conducted with a willful blindness that bordered on the insane.

  This disturbing thought, that there is a touch of willful blindness in the higher reaches of the political game, this thought comes to me powerfully now as I stand here in the stairwell, listening to Patrick O’Conner. He assured the SG that the Japanese were a shoo-in for the Council seat: He was wrong. He detained Rachel in order to put a leash on me, calculating that Asahaki would then see the Japanese safely through to a permanent seat on the Council: wrong again. Yet another woeful miscalculation has forced him to hand Rachel to the Headquarters Committee, and now I can hardly believe I am hearing him explain the intricacies of his next plot. It seems he has no sense that he is standing next to a man who would cheerfully sling him from the top of the building.

  “Patrick,” I finally break in. “I don’t want your help, okay? If you hadn’t detained her, this wouldn’t have happened.”

  “There were reasonable grounds,” he declares flatly. He even seems surprised by my rebuff. Then, apparently deciding that my mind will not be changed, he continues up the stairs. “If you don’t like it, take it up with the Headquarters Committee.”

  “I might just take it up with Lemtov.”

  Patrick stops. Slowly faces me again.

  “Lemtov’s behind it, isn’t he?” I say. No reaction from Patrick. “He’s pulling the Tunku’s strings. He’s getting the Headquarters Committee to do his dirty work. That’s why Rachel’s still detained, because that’s how Lemtov wants it.”

  Patrick frowns. “Why?”

  “The same reason you wanted her detained. To put a leash on me.”

  At that, Patrick turns his head and swears.

  “Where is she?” I ask again.

  He repeats his improbable assertion that he does not know, his glance drifting up the stairwell. “But if you’ve got some real reason for accusing Lemtov, I’ll come down to your office when I’ve finished upstairs and hear it.”

  In other words, he wants to discover what I know about Lemtov.

  I climb a few steps and stand beside him. “You tell me where Rachel is. Because if you don’t, I’ll be calling Oversight. And I’ll tell Dieter and Pascal that they might find something interesting if they make some inquiries about a certain conference in Basel three years back.”

  This hits the mark. He makes a sound.

  “That’s right,” I say. “You and Lemtov.”

  Patrick studies me. Trying to assess what? How much I know? Whether or not my threat is real? At last he turns, lifts his gaze upward and climbs. My stomach sinks. The possibility that I am totally mistaken becomes real. Patrick does not care if I tell Dieter. The connection I am making between Patrick and Lemtov is illusory; Patrick is quite content for me to publicize his joint attendance with Lemtov at that money laundering conference in Basel. Above me Patrick climbs one flight of stairs. Then two. Then his footsteps pause on a concrete landing somewhere overhead. He knows that I have not moved. We both wait, listening to the silence.

  “Try the basement,” he says finally, then he climbs again, his footsteps slow now and heavy. “Basement Room B Twenty-nine.”

  The basement room is bleak. White walls, two fluorescents, and cream linoleum on the floor. Rachel is lying on her bunk, facing the wall.

  “Rache?”

  No answer, not even a flicker of movement. I exchange a glance with Weyland, who stands beside me. His look is a mixture of apology and concern.

  “They wanted Rachel moved,” he says, and I nod quickly, telling Weyland that I don’t blame him for this, that I’m grateful he’s here. He seems reassured. He lifts his chin toward the bunk, then withdraws into the hall, leaving me alone with Rachel.

  When I go and sit on the edge of her bunk, she does not stir. I lay a hand on her shoulder and there is still no response. I bow my head and I think, Not again, please God, not this. Not more.

  It wasn’t until months after Sarah died that I became aware of Rachel’s illness. In retrospect, the signs were all there: her habitual absence at mealtimes, a certain listlessness, a growing touchiness about any remark directed at her personal appearance. But she was a kid who had just lost her mother. Her mood swings and all the rest of it did not seem that remarkable to me; for months I was really not much better myself. But as the months passed and I slowly resurfaced from the wave of grief that had engulfed us, I began to see that Rachel had not resurfaced with me. I gave it time. A few months. But by then the drop in her weight was too obvious to miss or ignore; food, what she ate, these were suddenly issues between us. Even as I got out of bed and went to set the table for breakfast, I found myself becoming tense, mentally preparing myself for the inevitable argument that would follow.

  Then a morning came when she did not emerge from her room. I lingered around the kitchen awhile, shouted down the hall a few times, then finally went and knocked on her door and implored her to come out and eat. She did not answer. When I went in, she was lying on her bed, facing the wall. There was a muffled noise; it took me a moment to realize that she was crying into her pillow. My heart knotted painfully in my chest. I went and sat on her bed, put my hand on her shoulder, and felt for the first time what I had only seen until then, how fragile and wasted she had become. After a minute she lifted her legs and hunched over into the fetal position. When I squeezed her shoulder she curled up tight like a ball and I knew at that moment that if I did not get help for my daughter, I might lose her.

  I got that help, I did not lose her. Yet here we are, in the UN basement, all this time later, reliving that awful scene. What help is there this time? Who will save her now?

  Leaning over her, I stroke Rachel’s hair gently. My words when they come are a whisper.

  “Whatever it takes now, Rache. Whatever it takes, I’m going to get you out.”

  31

  “PARK UP HERE,”MIKE INSTRUCTS THE CABDRIVER, AND we slow.

  There is no NYPD box. I notice that every time I come here. Nearly all the important UN missions have one of the things planted on the sidewalk outside. Blue booths just big enough to allow a one-hundred-and-ninety-pound cop to slouch over a bench desk while he flips through the Post. Officially the boxes are there to ensure good relations between the city of New York and the foreign delegations. Unofficially the New York authorities find most everything connected with the UN a pain in the ass. They keep an eye on the missions to make sure that distant international conflicts don’t spill out onto the fair streets of the city. One call from the police box and the squad cars can descend rapidly and in numbers.

  But at the Russian mission there is no need for a police box because the NYPD 16th Precinct is headquartered right across the street. When our cab pulls up by the row of squad cars, we see some uniformed cops goofin
g off, drinking coffee at the top of the precinct steps. One of them recognizes Mike. He calls Mike’s name and says something I miss. Smiling, Mike tosses an insult up the steps. The cops jeer at him good-naturedly.

  But Mike’s smile disappears as we cross the street to the Russian mission. He tells me again that he believes this expedition is not such a great idea.

  “Well, I’m all out of great ideas.”

  “It ain’t even a good idea. You forgotten last night already?”

  The big punch. I shake my head.

  “That was just a warning,” Mike says. “You suppose Lemtov’s gonna be happy to see you? You’re just gonna chat like old buddies?”

  “Let’s see what he’s got to say about Basel.”

  There is an awning leading from the sidewalk to the front door of the mission, and a discreet plaque to the left of the door. There are flagpoles too, but no one has bothered to raise any flags. The gray building rises some fifteen floors; it looks like an aging office building or a crummy hotel.

  Beneath the awning Mike touches my arm. “Don’t threaten him,” he warns me for the third time in ten minutes. “Not till we know what’s going on with him and Patrick. Basel and money laundering. All that.”

  Inside, the light is dim, the veneer paneling of the low-ceilinged lobby is dark, the carpet a dirty faded green. At the reception window of bulletproof glass we go through the usual theater-of-the-absurd, spelling our names through an intercom that does not actually work. Eventually the receptionist guy wanders off to report our presence to Lemtov.

  “Looks like one of those whatsits,” Mike remarks, strolling into the adjoining room to the lobby. “You know. Crematorium or something.” Hands in his pockets, Mike inspects the posters on the wall: poorly printed shots of Russian palaces surrounded by forest. “Did I say about your car?” he asks me. The incident up in Harlem. He tells me he has called some friends in the department but the paperwork is already too far along. “It’s gotta go down the line. Official. Don’t count on getting the car back for a week.”

  “Jennifer?”

  “I tried,” Mike apologizes. “But that paperwork’s gone too. USUN were notified within an hour. Be on Jennifer’s desk tomorrow.”

  I make a face. An incident involving two Secretariat staffers up in Harlem, one of them me. Jennifer is going to flip.

  Now Mike sidles over to a rack of pigeonholes in the corner. “Patrick still pissed with how the vote went?”

  “Wildly.”

  “It occur to you this isn’t the greatest time to be sticking your hand in the cage?”

  “What occurs to me is that Rachel should be out of there.”

  Mike glances at me, then casually reaches into the pigeonhole marked L, pulls out a handful of envelopes, and flips through them. He could be checking his own mail. When he finds nothing of interest, he shoves them all back.

  “Windrush?” an accented voice behind us calls out, and we turn.

  The receptionist is standing in the main lobby; he has clearly witnessed Mike’s uninvited perusal of the mail. When I identify myself, the guy nods at me. “You come.” Then he flicks the back of his hand at Mike. “You leave.”

  Mike moves toward a chair.

  “You leave now,” says the guy forcefully, and he eyeballs Mike from ten paces.

  Mike faces me. “Any trouble,” he instructs me quietly, “call me on my cell phone. I’ll be across the street.” Then he drops his hands into his pockets and wanders out past the receptionist without a backward glance.

  The funereal atmosphere of the lobby carries to the corridors out back, a warren of passageways hung with faded scenes of palaces and dachas, the Russian dream of the good life before they discovered Miami. We twist and turn till I am totally disoriented, then I am eventually ushered into a white-tiled changing room.

  “Towels,” says the receptionist, pointing to a stack of them on a low wooden bench. He indicates the glazed door opposite. The door is fogged, dripping condensation. “Mr. Lemtov is steaming. You go there.”

  I look from the towels to the door behind which Mr. Lemtov is steaming. Oh, for crying out loud.

  “Would you mind asking Mr. Lemtov to come out?”

  The guy waves a hand at the sauna room, then saunters back out to the hall. Alone now, I give the situation a few moments’ thought. Either this is one of those moronic power games, the kind of thing Patrick might dream up, or I have really arrived at an inopportune moment and Lemtov just cannot be bothered dressing to receive me. Either way, I do not much like it. But in the end I cross to the glazed door and push it open and a cloud of steam rolls out. There are two tiers of wooden-slatted benches around the walls, a pile of river stones in the middle of the floor. Next to these, a barrel and a long-handled scoop. On the bench to the right, alone in the small sauna, sits Lemtov. We consider each other a few seconds: me in my suit, Lemtov with his legs splayed in front of him, his loins wrapped in a towel.

  “When you’re finished,” I say.

  “Here is private.”

  “It’s also very hot. And very uncomfortable.”

  Lemtov gets to his feet. He reaches up to the control panel and turns down the thermostat. Then he looks at me again. He is not coming out. So finally I reverse into the changing room, peeling off my jacket and my tie, cursing beneath my breath. I remove my shirt. It occurs to me then that there might be another reason he wants to speak to me in there. On a naked torso there is no place to conceal a wire. I am bending to take off my shoes, when the hall door opens and I look up. The Pavlovian twinge in my gut is instant. Him. Sledgehammer. The bodyguard, ex-Spetnatz, from down at Brighton Beach. Now I rise slowly, my cell phone still inside my jacket on the bench. But even if Mike got past the lobby, there is no way he would find his way back here. If this guy wants to hit me now, I am dead meat. So I do the only thing I can do. I stand and wait. After a moment the bodyguard simply nods to me, then he sits down by the towels and folds his arms.

  I decide not to remove my shoes. Or my pants. I pick up a towel and enter the sauna.

  “Your man just arrived,” I tell Lemtov, sitting myself on the opposite bench.

  Lemtov splashes some water onto the hot rocks, a puff of steam hisses upward, then he leans back. His silver hair is plastered to his scalp. Half-naked you can see he has the build of an aging athlete, his body accumulating fat, contentedly going to seed. His skin is a uniform sunlamped tan.

  “I apologized,” he says mildly, referring to the hit I took down at Brighton Beach.

  “What you said was that it was an accident. That the guy made a mistake.”

  “Would you like for him to apologize?”

  I wave the offer aside. Not why I came here.

  “You believe me now,” he asks, “that they have executed Po Lin?”

  “I believe it. But I’m just not sure that’s important right now.”

  He warns me, inconsequentially, that my shoes will be ruined.

  “Mr. Lemtov, have you spoken to the Tunku about my daughter?”

  “Your countrymen were not pleased with you.”

  My drubbing in the side chamber. I wave this aside too. “The Tunku and my daughter,” I say.

  “O’Conner was working hard for the Japanese,” he says, ignoring my point a second time. “He is not happy with you also?”

  “I want to know what the Headquarters Committee’s doing with my daughter.”

  “I am not on the Headquarters Committee.”

  “The Tunku’s the chairman.”

  Lemtov inclines his head and waits. He is not going to make this easy.

  “And I hoped,” I say, struggling to keep my suppressed fury from breaking through, “I hoped that you might be in a position to talk to him.”

  “Talk?”

  “Reason with him.” I gesture vaguely. “Make him understand that it’s not in anyone’s interests to go on with this. Could you do that?”

  He considers. “Why?”

  “Why what?”


  “Why should I do that? Reason with him.”

  Wrung out and tense, dead on my feet through lack of sleep, I am in no mood for any kind of head game. I just want him to do what I want him to do. “Listen,” I say, and then I pause.

  Lemtov is very still now, his eyes focused on me intently. He is waiting, I suddenly realize, for an answer to his question: Why should he speak to the Tunku? Not a brush-off as I mistakenly thought, but a real question. The opening gambit to a trade.

  “Because I believe it would be in your own best interests,” I say, groping for the appropriately nebulous phrasing. In the back of my mind I recall Mike’s warning: Do not threaten this guy.

  “My best interests?”

  “We’re not going to stop till we nail Hatanaka’s murderer.”

  He lifts a shoulder: So?

  “Have you considered what that means?”

  “It means you will be working hard to clear your daughter.”

  I make a face and turn aside.

  “You have another—what? Suspect?” he says.

  I turn back to him slowly. And I nod.

  “But no evidence?”

  “It’s building.”

  Lemtov carefully ladles more water onto the stones. Another steam cloud hisses upward. The perspiration goes dribbling down my neck, and Lemtov pokes at the stones with his scoop.

  Jesus, I think. This man. “On the Special Committee fraud,” I say, looking straight at him, “we’ve got firm proof.”

  “Against Asahaki.”

  “He’s not the only one.”

  He studies me intently. I have him out there now, suddenly doubtful about exactly what I know. So now I push it further than I intended. “And I’m not talking just about the fraud,” I say.

  Lemtov does not move a muscle. I have definitely hit something here, but what? Toshio’s murder? Money laundering tied up with Patrick? Lemtov’s stillness after several moments grows unnerving, but I am too far along now to turn back.

  “My report’s going to the Secretary-General,” I tell him. “I couldn’t stop it now even if I wanted to. Too many departments are involved, too many people. So it’s going to happen, he’s going to see it, what we’ve found. The only question now is when.”