Diplomatic Immunity

by Grant Sutherland

  At last, finally, they close. The shouts die as the elevator rises. Slumping against the wall beside me, Rachel tilts back her head and closes her eyes.

  “You okay?” I ask.

  She nods, but she looks pale and terribly drawn.

  “At three,” I tell her, “we go straight out. We’ll try to get across to the Secretariat building. Not so many guards over there. And whatever you do, stay near. Stick with me.” Her eyes remain closed. “Rache?”

  When she opens her eyes, I see that she is fighting back tears. I squeeze her arm, then the elevator stops, the doors slide open, and I take her hand and set off running across the polished cream linoleum straight down the passage toward the Secretariat building, south.

  “You got no one in front of them,” Mike tells the guards as if he is wildly pissed off.

  No one in front of us. We charge straight on, not looking left or right, the side corridors flashing by, our shoes slapping on the linoleum.

  “Where are the guards?” says Rachel, breathless, as we push through the corridor doors. In front of us the long, wide passage to the Secretariat building is empty. Probably over at the General Assembly Hall, I think. Or the Council Chamber. I urge her desperately on. “Keep going,” I say. “Run.”

  Seconds later we burst through the open doorway into the Secretariat building, I grab Rachel’s arm and stop her dead. People. Secretariat bureaucrats, guys with briefcases, women carrying folders, half a dozen or more strolling toward us, heading over to minister to the needs of the delegates in the Hall. Sliding a hand beneath Rachel’s arm, I walk her left toward the stairs. The Secretariat staffers pass by us without a second glance.

  “You got anyone on the stairs?” Mike asks the surveillance guards. Then he swears. “Floor fucking ten maybe? What good’s that?”

  Rachel and I exchange a look. Moving as one, we take to the stairs. Five floors up I am sucking air, blowing like a winded horse. Behind me Rachel has her hands on her hips, canting forward, still climbing. And then a long way above us, several flights up, we hear a door open. Two guards enter the stairwell, arguing over whether they’re meant to be heading up or down.

  Edging along the wall, we get ourselves onto the next landing, then quickly and quietly step out of the stairwell.

  “Okay,” says Mike, “they’re on eight.”

  The eighth floor is just like most floors of the Secretariat, a long central corridor and countless ranks of veneered doors to either side. Plenty of places to be cornered but nowhere to hide. I touch the two-way on my belt. I want to ask Mike what’s happening with Lemtov, but I can’t do that without alerting the surveillance guards as to how Mike is helping us. I turn right, take a step, then swing to the left. With Rachel panting beside me, waiting for me to call our next move, it comes to me with a stark and numbing clarity. In a few minutes we will be caught. This is not going to work.

  “Dad?” says Rachel, sensing my sudden loss of direction. Her face is pale, her eyes shine. Her shoulders rise and fall with each breath. I am her only hope of getting out of this; she is relying on me absolutely to tell her what to do next.

  But all I can do is lift a hand helplessly. And then like the voice of an angel Mike barks over the two-way, “Twenty-nine through thirty-two? I don’t fucking believe it. You shut down three floors’ worth of security cams for maintenance, you tell me that only now?”

  My heart beats hard into my ribs. Hope. Mike goes on chewing out the surveillance guards, making sure that I’ve got the message. And I have. Between twenty-nine and thirty-two the guards are blind. Grabbing Rachel’s hand, I run, a wild dash for the elevator, praying that our luck holds, that we can get all the way up to twenty-nine.

  Hitting the elevator button with the heel of my hand, I step back and watch the numbers climb. Five. Six. Seven. Finally eight lights up; there is a ping as the doors begin to open, and I shove Rachel in ahead of me. And then I see the guard. A young guy, he stands in the elevator, his finger poised over the buttons. My gut clenches.

  He glances from Rachel to me. And then he smiles pleasantly. “Floor?” he says.

  Rachel shoots me a look. I glance down at the guard’s belt. He isn’t carrying a two-way, he has not heard.

  “Twelve,” I say, stepping in.

  He hits the button, the doors close, and we ascend in silence. The kid tries to make eye contact with Rachel, but she keeps her gaze firmly on the numbers over the door. Long seconds pass. When the doors finally open at twelve, Rachel hurries out. The kid looks faintly disappointed.

  As the doors close behind us, Rachel hunches over and makes a strangled noise in her throat.

  “Stairs,” I say, turning her in that direction, explaining the plan as we go. The elevators run in three banks, floors one through thirteen, thirteen through twenty-six, and twenty-six through thirty-nine. By getting off on the twelfth floor, we might misdirect the surveillance guards into thinking we’re not trying to get much higher. By taking another elevator at fifteen, they might not immediately assume that we’re heading straight for twenty-six, and they won’t necessarily place guards there ready for our arrival.

  Rachel says “Ah-ha,” but she hasn’t listened to a word.

  We race up the stairs past thirteen waiting for some warning from Mike over the two-way. No warning comes. Then, emerging onto the fifteenth floor, we pause. The silence from the two-way now is eerie. Rachel crosses to the elevator and hits the button.

  “Wherever we go, they’ll find us, Dad.”

  “We’re buying time. That’s all we can do.”

  She makes a face. Despair.

  The elevator arrives, the door opens, and two middle-aged men in suits are standing there. Faces I vaguely recognize, deadwood from Protocol.

  “If they don’t get in the goddamn elevator—” Mike says, and my hand snatches at the volume control, turning it down. The guys in the elevator look at the two-way, then up at me curiously.

  I think, What? If we don’t get in the goddamn elevator, what? We’re caught? We’re not caught? What?

  “Going up?” says one of the Protocol guys.

  Steeling myself, I bow my head and usher Rachel into the elevator in front of me. We watch the doors slowly close. Then a cry comes from somewhere on the floor.

  “Hold it! Hold the elevator!” The urgency is unmistakable; it has to be a guard.

  But when one of the Protocol guys reaches for the buttons, I brush his hand aside and hold my thumb firmly down on Close Door. Twenty-six is already lit; these guys are going to the same place.

  “Charlie,” I say, tossing my head toward the cries out on the floor. “Thirty pounds overweight. He can take the stairs.”

  The doors close, we start to rise, and the two men exchange a glance. Neither one is smiling.

  Rachel has her back to the wall, her arms folded, and her chin sunk on her chest. Perspiration beads on her forehead and trickles down her cheeks to her neck. She is breathing hard, like me. When the guy nearest Rachel bends to look at her more closely, she raises a hand to her face. His glance slides across to me, and I lift my eyes to the numbers over the door: twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three. At last he turns back to Rachel.

  “Something wrong?” he asks her.

  She turns her head, eyes fixed on the floor. She could not look more frightened, more in need of help, if she tried.

  Twenty-four, twenty-five.

  The two guys exchange another glance, clearly thinking about that shout down on fifteen.

  “You in a hurry somewhere?” the same guy asks Rachel.

  “A meeting,” I interject. “Last-minute rush.”

  They consider me doubtfully.

  Twenty-six. The bell pings.

  “Who with?” the guy says.

  As the doors slide open, I cast around for a name. “Jim,” I say finally.

  “Yeah?” He cocks his head. “Which one?”

  Rachel steps out past me. I nod stiffly to the two men, then get out and steer Rachel away quic
kly. Leaning toward her, I whisper, “Soon as we’re through this door, run. Straight up to twenty-nine. Don’t look back.”

  Behind us now we can hear the two Protocol guys debating what to do as they step out of the elevator. We’re almost at the stairs when they call out that we’re heading the wrong way for the offices. We keep right on walking.

  “Miss!” one of them calls after Rachel.

  I shoulder open the stairwell door and tell her, “Run.”

  I take the stairs two at a time; at first Rachel tries to keep up, but she simply cannot do it. After two flights she stops, slumping against the banister. On the flight above I stop and urge her on. Then she lifts her head, I see her face, and my heart leaps into my throat. She has gone white. Her eyes seem sunken and the skin is stretched tight over her cheekbones. Physical exertion and fear have sapped her strength totally. She drops her head and sobs.

  Leaping down the steps, I wrap an arm around her waist. She rises and puts her arm over my shoulder, then leans in to me. She keeps saying sorry.

  “A couple of more floors, Rache. We’ll get there.”

  She nods, then looks up. Easing her away from the banister, bearing much of the weight of her slight frame now, I start to climb. She lifts her legs, struggling, climbing beside me. Another flight, then the door back down on twenty-six opens. A few ineffectual cries of “Hey!” and “What are you doing?” drift up the stairwell. The Protocol deadwood; thank God they make no effort to follow. They yell something about reporting me to the guards and then they withdraw.

  Rachel and I are both perspiring freely now, both breathless. My heart palpitates strangely as we stagger onto the twenty-ninth-floor landing. Rachel disengages herself, leans back against the wall, hands on hips, and tries to catch her breath. Clinging to the banister for support, I follow her gaze up to the security camera fixed high on the wall above us. Then I turn up the volume on the two-way.

  “Dad—”

  “Shh.”

  A few seconds more, then Mike speaks. “They’re up there. We’ve lost them.”

  When I look at Rachel she presses her lips together, her mouth trembles.

  “Okay,” I say, finally pushing away from the banister, hauling myself upright, moving toward the door.

  Be strong, I think. She needs you to be strong.

  And I almost manage to keep my voice steady as I tell her, “Now let’s get you hidden.”

  39

  OUT ON TWENTY-NINE THE MACHINERY OF LEGAL Affairs ticks over. Most people are locked away in their offices, dealing with paperwork; others roam the corridors, files in hand, looking concerned. When Rachel and I walk briskly down the central hall to my office, the only one who even notices us is the cleaning lady, Celine, a tiny old Jamaican lady who has worked here since before the Flood. “Ouda the way,” Celine demands, pushing a trolleyload of rags and buckets between us, her skinny arms extended, her head down. A strong antiseptic odor wafts over us as we hurry on by.

  A minute later and we are in my office. Rachel closes the door. “I can’t stay here,” she says. “God. This is the first place they’ll look.”

  “You’re not staying.” My hand dives into the desk drawer.

  “How do we find out if Lemtov’s gone?”

  “Mike’ll let us know.”

  “He hasn’t said anything.”

  Keeping my head down, I go on searching for the key to Toshio’s locked office.

  “Dad, this isn’t working.”

  “Hang in there.”

  “You said it was all—”

  “Rache!” I lift my head. “I’m not a goddamn marine, okay. But I’m doing my best here.” We look at each other. She wraps her arms around herself, turning away. “You’re doing great,” I tell her, lowering my head, searching in the drawer again. “Just hang in there. A few more minutes.”

  My hand finally alights on the key. Crossing to the door, I open it and check both ways along the hall. Celine is gone; the hall is empty. But as I am about to step out, I glimpse movement, a door opening along the hall, and I pull my head back sharply. Then, holding my door open just a crack, I peer out. It is Toshio’s door that has opened. And now someone comes out of his office, a file beneath his arm.

  “Dad?”

  Turning to her, I press a finger to my lips. Rachel screws up her face.

  I look out again and I can see who it is now. Pascal Nyeri. He must have come up to check on some paperwork on the Special Committee investigation. He relocks Toshio’s door, then walks away down the hall toward the elevators. A cold bead of perspiration trickles down my spine. A minute earlier and we would have walked right into him. When Pascal disappears from sight, I beckon Rachel to join me by the door. The hall is empty now.

  “Last move,” I whisper, then I lead her out and across the hall to Toshio’s office. A formal notice is pinned to the door beneath Toshio’s nameplate. LOCKED BY ORDER. NO ENTRY WITHOUT UN SECURITY AUTHORIZATION. The notice is signed by Eckhardt.

  As I unlock the door there is a ping from the elevator down the hall, then the voices of guards as they emerge onto twenty-nine. Dragging Rachel into Toshio’s office, I quickly close and relock the door. I put a finger to my lips again, and we stand facing each other, waiting. My heart rate is off the scale, I can hear the blood beating in my ears. It must be only a minute, but it seems like an age before we hear the guards coming along the hallway, opening and closing doors.

  We stand absolutely still. Rachel has gone a sickly shade of white.

  The guards seem not to have been told exactly who it is that they’re chasing. As they get closer we can hear them asking everyone they meet if a man and a young woman have come running this way. Nobody has.

  Outside Toshio’s door, our refuge, they stop. “Hatanaka,” one says, evidently reading the nameplate.

  “The dead guy?”

  “I guess.”

  One of them tries the door handle. Rachel flinches. Then there’s a loud bump, one of them putting his shoulder to the door, and she closes her eyes.

  “Leave it,” says one of them, moving away. “If we can’t get in, they can’t get in.”

  Released, the door handle flips up. The voices fade as the guards carry on their search along the hall.

  “Give me your sweater,” I whisper.

  Rachel opens her eyes. Shedding my jacket, I hold out a hand. “Take off your sweater, come on.”

  Frowning, she takes off the baseball cap and pulls off her sweater. “They’ll come back,” she says.

  “Not for a while they won’t. They’ve got three floors to search.”

  Pulling on her baggy gray sweater, I tug the two-way off my belt and go and sit behind Toshio’s desk. Mike, I know, is not going to appreciate this. But I do it anyway. I press the transmit button on the two-way and speak. One word.

  “Mike?”

  Down in the Surveillance Room, Mike will instinctively want to curse me. I hope he’ll be able to make his way to somewhere private, where he is free to talk. I set the two-way on the desk and turn down the volume.

  “I want to find out what’s happening with Lemtov,” I explain to Rachel quietly. “After that, I’m going to run decoy.”

  I ask for the cap. She hands it over. Then she looks at the cap and the sweater. “You don’t even look like me,” she says hopelessly.

  Adjusting the band, I pull the cap down firmly on my head. “Be thankful,” I say.

  She grimaces. Then, folding her arms, she goes and sits in a corner chair and draws her legs up beneath her.

  Something about that simple movement, how she looks, makes me think quite distinctly, This will destroy her. If I can’t get her out of this somehow, if I can’t stop the handover, Dr. Covey’s worst-case clinical assessment, my own worst fears, will be realized. Emotionally she just isn’t equipped to withstand any more of this. And to be charged with murder? To face month after bruising month of a trial? They will not need the death penalty. I have an awful vision of prosecuting attorney Randal
White appearing at Rachel’s bedside in the Special Needs ward at Bellevue, asking persistent lawyerly questions as Rachel relentlessly starves herself into the grave.

  “You can’t say it, can you?” Rachel tells me now.

  When she faces me, I lift a shoulder: Can’t say what?

  “Aren’t you even gonna ask me, Dad? Even now?”

  Her eyes are clouded, her arms folded tight. I know, of course, what she means. But instead of asking the question I have carefully avoided the past two days, I bow my head over Toshio’s desk and with a flick of a hand I wave the whole thing aside. I stare at the two-way, waiting for Mike’s reply.

  “It’s the library, isn’t it,” she says. “All that stuff I requested down in the library.”

  “This isn’t the time, Rache.”

  “You know why I requested it? All that stuff on Mom’s camp, where she was murdered?”

  I raise a hand. I tell her very firmly that I don’t want to hear this.

  “I requested it because you did.”

  My hand slowly falls. “I never told you I’d been through that.”

  “I was looking up something else,” Rachel says. “I got talking to the librarian and she just mentioned you’d been down there a lot a few years ago. I guess she mentioned the camp.” Rachel lifts a shoulder, makes a face. “I was curious.”

  I make a sound. Understanding of what has happened gathers slowly. “You requested to see everything I’d requested?”

  She nods. “I never even read it. There was like volumes of it. What do they think, I sat there for two weeks or something? Do they think I’m crazy?”

  “You never read it?”

  “I just glanced at it.” She shrugs.

  Rachel never read it. She has no idea any questions were ever raised within the Secretariat about Toshio’s conduct of the hostage rescue mission.

  “When you went downstairs Tuesday night,” I say.

  She looks straight at me. “To get my coat.”

  To get her coat. She went downstairs to get her coat. And at the Dag Hammarskjöld Library she simply requested the old files I’d requested. Because she was curious. Is there anything, anything at all in this whole affair, that I have gotten even partly right?