by J M Leitch
Erika was half way to the door when she spun round, making her chin length white blonde hair flare. ‘The CCTV cameras. Who monitors them? We don’t want security panicking if they see Carlos being helped out of his office and down the corridor. Can you help with that, sir?’
‘I already told security to keep it quiet.’ Smart woman he was thinking as she sped off.
‘Now,’ Greg said to the doctor, ‘let’s see if he can walk,’ and he lumbered over to where Carlos was sitting. ‘Carlos, Carlos…’ Greg shook his elbow. ‘Carlos,’ he called louder. ‘Wake up. You collapsed. We’re taking you to hospital. Can you stand?’
Carlos turned his head and looked at Greg, who thought he saw a flicker of recognition but then it disappeared. ‘Come on, son, try and stand up.’
He moved behind the sofa and after several attempts at pushing Carlos while the doctor hauled on one arm and the security guard on the other, they inched him forward on the couch. In spite of his pitching this way and that they finally got him on his feet and half dragged, half carried him out of the office and along the corridor while Corrinne kept her finger on the call button for the lift. By the time they reached the basement Erika was already waiting in her Ford Focus with the engine running and the security guard in the passenger seat. They manoeuvred Carlos into the back where he sat sandwiched between Corrinne and the doctor, oblivious to what was going on.
It was a tight squeeze but Greg slammed the door shut and Erika drove off leaving him to exit the building in a separate car accompanied by his personal plain clothes security man.
***
As soon as he’d completed Carlos’s admission procedures, the UN doctor left. Meanwhile Greg telephoned the chief registrar, who was off duty at the time, to impress on him the importance of keeping Carlos’s presence at the hospital secret. He then joined Corrinne and Erika who were sitting in the empty waiting room, sipping coffee they’d got from a vending machine.
‘Have you any idea what caused this?’ Greg asked Corrinne, pulling up a chair to the small table around which the women were hunched.
She pushed a plastic cup towards him. ‘Mr Secretary-General, sir,’ she said looking up. ‘I did something I shouldn’t have. I accepted a holovideo call from someone who wanted to talk to Carlos.’
‘Corrinne! What were you thinking?’
She sat twisting and untwisting the button at her coat collar.
The previous afternoon, while Erika’s boys were at a birthday party and just after Corrinne had finished her first holovideo call with Carlos, the two women had grabbed a cup of tea at the coffee shop in UNO City. They’d had a real heart-to-heart, with Corrinne becoming even more worried about Carlos when Erika explained how he’d fallen out with Drew. Corrinne then explained that Greg had arranged for Carlos to come to Vienna on his way to Spain.
‘The Secretary-General’s fond of him, isn’t he?’ Erika said. ‘You know, I’d like to see Carlos too. Give him those magazines. I know he’ll want to take them with him.’
Corrinne sucked in a breath. ‘There’s enough time to get approval for you to come up to the office and drop them off. But you won’t be able to see Carlos. Anyhow, he’s got a lot to wrap up and he’ll only be here for a few hours. And none of us knows how ill he really is,’ she said, popping a forkful of chocolate cake in her mouth.
‘How was he when you spoke to him just now?’
‘He looked tired. And dishevelled. Very unlike him. We had a normal enough conversation considering, although he seems very anxious.’
‘Poor Carlos. I know! I’ll put a letter in with the magazines. And perhaps I can get Joe to call him – that might cheer him up.’
Corrinne shook her head. ‘He won’t be able to talk to Carlos. The boss told me we have to keep him under “close scrutiny”,’ she enunciated the last two words deliberately and raised her eyebrows, ‘while he’s here. Other than the boss and me, he won’t be allowed contact with anyone. Not even an old friend like Joseph.’
‘What if the Secretary-General didn’t know?’
‘Erika! I’d be drummed out of the Brownies.’
‘You could stay in the room so you’d know what was said and if they spoke about anything they shouldn’t, you could shut it down. Come on Corrinne, Carlos needs a friend right now.’
‘No, Erika, I can’t.’
‘But now he’s fallen out with Drew, it would do him so much good knowing there’s someone else out there who cares.’
‘He has his family in Madrid.’
‘Ha!’ Erika said, ‘elderly parents and a sister who’s run off her feet looking after two little boys under three. You remember what that was like. Come on Corrinne, Carlos has no one. Talking to Joseph may be the one thing that will help.’
Corrinne took a deep breath and pursed her lips, ‘Erika. I just can’t.’
Greg stared at Corrinne, waiting for her to answer.
She was still fiddling with the button on her coat. ‘I… I thought it would help him. Especially now he’s fallen out with his only close friend, Drew Roberts.’
‘Who was it?’
‘Joseph Fisher. An old friend from Goddard.’
Greg shook his head. ‘How could you do this? You know the position we’re in with the Americans. I told you categorically that Carlos was allowed contact with no one other than you and me. This man might contact the press. Then the whole thing’ll be blown even more out of proportion than it already is.’
‘Sir,’ Erika interrupted. ‘I’ve known Joseph Fisher for fifteen years. He won’t talk to the press. I guarantee you his complete discretion. He does business with the American military. He’s been security cleared by them for years. If they can trust him, so can you.’ Greg started to open his mouth, but Erika continued, ‘and please don’t be angry with Corrinne. It’s my fault. I pressured her to accept Joe’s call. We were just thinking about what was best for Carlos. That’s all.’
Greg shut his mouth and both women sat staring at the table.
‘I’ll need this man’s number,’ he said, breaking the silence. ‘I’ll ring him when I get back to the office.’
Corrinne’s chin had all but disappeared, flattened as it was against the collar of her coat as if she was trying to make herself invisible.
Greg cleared his throat. ‘Now, pull yourself together Corrinne, and tell me exactly what was said.’
She dug her hands deeper into her pockets. ‘Immediately after you left Carlos’s office, Erika arrived,’ she began in a small voice. ‘I told you she had some vintage music magazines for Carlos. But even they didn’t cheer him up,’ she looked round at Erika for reinforcement. ‘I told you, right?’
‘Yes,’ Erika said, ‘you see Carlos fell out with his old friend Drew in DC and he knows Drew and I are close. I don’t think he wants anything more to do with me either.’
‘He acted like he couldn’t have cared less about them. He just sat on the couch staring out of the window. I brought him coffee – then my iTab buzzed.’ Corrinne looked diminutive sitting opposite Greg’s huge bulk. ‘It was Joseph wanting to instigate a holovideo call.’ She looked up at Greg and started twiddling the button again. ‘Carlos looked so disturbed, so vacant… I… well… my heart went out to him.’ Her eyes misted up, ‘I only wanted to help him, sir. So I logged in at his terminal and accepted the call…’ her voice petered out.
‘Could the conversation have something to do with his collapse?’ Greg asked.
Corrinne shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I was there all the time except at the very end, but we were wrong. Carlos wasn’t happy to hear from that man. In fact, Carlos was trying to get him off the line when I left.’
‘And you have no idea how long he was unconscious?’
‘None.’
‘How about the CCTV records?’
‘He collapsed out of camera range.’
‘Hm,’ Greg sighed. ‘I’d better get back to the office and call this man Joseph. I want you to stay here Corrinne and let me
know immediately you have news from the doctor. Full security will soon be in place and they’ll be here around the clock. And someone will need to have a word with you, Erika,’ he shifted his gaze in her direction. ‘You’ve become privy to some things you shouldn’t have today. You’ll have to sign some confidentiality documents.’ Erika nodded.
Greg put the cup down on the table. ‘We’ll talk later, Corrinne,’ he said hoisting himself off the flimsy metal-framed chair. Then, turning to Erika again he added, ‘Thank you for your help earlier. Especially for driving Carlos here. It was very kind of you.’
She smiled a small smile as he shambled out of the waiting room.
***
‘We did it.’
‘Did what?’
‘He’s in hospital.’
‘Oh hell!’
‘Our friend just called to tell me.’
‘This is the best bloody news I’ve had in days.’
‘His boss has arranged twenty-four hour security.’
‘You’re sure he’ll be safe?’
‘From what our friend told me, it would take an army to get at him.’
CHAPTER 22
Just under an hour later Greg was back at the suite of offices on the fourteenth floor of E Building that he always used whenever he visited UNO City. The place was practically deserted. He leaned back in the chair as far as it would go, feet planted on the floor, swivelling himself from left to right, relief flooding through him with the knowledge that Carlos was hidden away at AKH.
On his return he’d explained to the American security people how Carlos had collapsed, requiring Greg to rush him away for urgent medical attention. They were furious. When UN security had done a sweep of Carlos and his office, they’d found the miniature transmitters the Americans had planted on him and in his briefcase. The UN security guard who helped Carlos out of the building relocated them in Carlos’s office and although suspicious, the Americans couldn’t question why Carlos had apparently stayed in one spot for so long.
Greg’s big shoulders heaved as he sucked in air to clear his mind. He needed to speak to this Joseph Fisher but he couldn’t risk calling via the UN switchboard. He knew Bob’s National Security Agency monitored all UN communications, especially his. So he fished out the mobile phone he used to make safe calls, put on his spectacles and dialled the number Corrinne had given him.
‘Joseph Fisher?’
‘Yes?’
‘This is Greg Howard, Secretary-General of the United Nations.’
‘Good evening,’ Joseph sounded surprised.
‘I understand you initiated a holovideo call with one of our employees, Dr Carlos Maiz, this afternoon? Is that so?’
‘That’s correct. Is there a problem?’
‘Yes, I regret to say there is. Dr Maiz’s administrative assistant accepted your call contrary to instructions. If this were to get out it would put both myself and the UN in an extremely embarrassing situation with the American government.’
‘Mr Secretary-General, can I speak freely on this line, if you understand my meaning?’
‘This is as secure a line as I can get, yes.’
‘I’ve known Carlos for years. We both worked at Goddard. A few days ago Dr Drew Roberts, another old NASA colleague, told me Carlos had been detained by the Americans and investigated by the NI. Of course, he couldn’t give me any details – he’d signed a secrecy agreement with you people as well as the Americans – but we all go back years and if he says Carlos is in trouble, I believe him.’
‘Go on.’
‘Drew told me he was worried about Carlos’s mental state and what’s more, so were the Americans. Put simply, he was afraid it would give them an excuse to hold onto him until the threat he posed, real or imagined, was neutralised, if ever. Let’s just say neither of us was prepared to let that happen.’
‘Hm.’
‘Sir, I head the MALAT Division of Israel Aerospace Industries. It’s part of IAI’s Military Aircraft Group. I work with militaries and ministries of defence all over the world. I’m involved in big, bad business. I know how sometimes an innocent man can get steamrollered if he’s in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’ve seen it happen and I don’t want it happening to my friend. If he truly is sick then he needs to be in a place where he’ll be looked after by people who genuinely care about him.’
‘And I agree with that sentiment.’
‘Drew told me he asked you to persuade the Americans to bring Carlos to Vienna. You’re a smart man. You must know what that was about. Once he reached UNO City, we wanted to get him out of their control.’
‘I see.’
‘I put a simple plan together requiring Carlos to fake a collapse so he could be taken to a hospital where he’d get the help he needed. If we were lucky, as I understand we were, the Americans wouldn’t even know he’d left the building.’
‘So that’s why you contacted Carlos?’
‘Exactly. Erika was to persuade Corrinne to accept my call to Carlos so I could brief him on the plan. Although she refused at first, she later changed her mind.’
Greg cleared his throat. ‘And you managed to get through to Carlos? You had better luck than me. When I spoke to him earlier he was in terrible shape.’
‘Corrinne warned Erika he was bad. I had to tread carefully not to spook him.’
‘He played his part very convincingly. Right down to the low blood pressure and high pulse rate. How do you explain that?’
‘As you said yourself, he was in a shocking state. Perhaps his collapse was genuine.’
‘Well, we won’t know that until we get the consultant’s report. In the meantime, I must insist that you share none of this with anyone.’
‘You have my word.’
‘And although I can’t officially condone what you did, I’d like to say that on a personal note I appreciate it. I, for one, will sleep a lot more soundly tonight because of it.’
It had been dark for a while and Greg looked at his watch. It was half past eight and he still had no news from Corrinne. He was just wondering how much longer it would be before she got back to him when his mobile rang.
‘Sir? I’m sorry it took so long. Is it okay to talk?’
‘Fire away.’
‘The consultant saw Carlos hours ago but then an emergency came in and I had to wait to speak to him.’
‘And?’
‘He doesn’t think the bump on the head will result in any permanent damage, at least, not as far as they can tell at this stage.’
Greg sighed. ‘That’s a relief.’
‘They want to keep him overnight for observation. The doctor will contact you tomorrow, but if he’s well enough by the afternoon, they’ll transfer him to a psychiatric ward and schedule him for an assessment the next morning.’
‘Do they know what happened?’ Greg asked.
He heard Corrinne take a breath. ‘The standard toxicology screen showed there were amphetamines and benzodiazepine in his system.’
‘Benzodiazepine? What the hell’s that?’
‘The doctor said it was probably Rohypnol.’
‘Rohypnol? The date rape drug? But that’s outrageous. He was under your supervision all afternoon. I don’t understand.’
‘Apart from that holovideo call, you and I were the only people to have any contact with him. The doctor said the drugs would have taken between twenty and thirty minutes to kick in. Now, I found him at three-fifty, after he’d been alone in his office for forty-five minutes. So… he must have taken them himself. There’s no other explanation.’
‘But why? And how did he get hold of them?’
‘Some executives take amphetamines. Especially when they travel across time zones. And the Rohypnol? That can be prescribed for chronic insomnia. You know he’s had sleeping problems ever since Elena was murdered.’
‘But why take them together?’
‘Perhaps he was confused, or… well… perhaps he was desperate.’
‘Suicide? Sur
ely not.’
‘Sir, I don’t know. But you know the state he was in.’
‘Oh my!’
‘He wasn’t lucid enough to talk to the consultant tonight. A psychiatrist will assess him tomorrow.’
‘That’s why he seemed so drunk. Poor, poor man.’
‘The drugs would have caused him to lose his motor skills. Either they made him go unconscious or caused him to fall and knock himself out. I sat by his bed while I waited to talk to the doctor. At first he was very restless. They had to restrain him, because he kept trying to get up.’
‘Did they pump his stomach?’ Greg queried.
‘No sir. The doctor said that until they could speak to him they couldn’t be certain the collapse was solely due to poisoning. He also said stomach pumping can be dangerous when head injuries are involved – it can be very traumatic.’
Greg shook his head.
‘He kept muttering about a second holovideo call coming in. From a woman. But his speech was slurred and it was hard to make out the name. He seemed disturbed by it.’
‘Is it possible another call came in?’
‘When Erika called me out of his office earlier I left my tag on his desk to keep the session with Joseph open. Someone could have instigated another call after it finished and before the session timed out.’
‘Hm. Anything else?’
‘Just that they’re keeping him under close observation.’
‘And how is he now?’
‘Much quieter. They’ve taken off the restraints. He’s dozing.’
‘Thank goodness for that. Now there was something else I wanted to ask. Let me… oh yes… is the security in place?’
‘Yes sir.’
‘Good. Now it’s getting late. I want you to go home. And try not to worry. He’s in good hands. Right now you need to get some rest. You need a break. You’ve had no weekend to speak of, and you’ve been slogging away trying to get everything ready for the Session. You must take tomorrow off.’
‘I can’t do that sir. There’s far too much to do. I’ve got to…’
