by Bunn, Davis
“Excellent.” He stowed away the folder and set the photo on top, then shut his case. “Mind telling me what precisely alerted you?”
Elena said slowly, “There was something dangerous in her manner.”
“Threatened you, did she.”
“In a way. I’m sorry, I can’t be more specific than that.”
He looked first at Harwood, then at Antonio. Clearly the security chief found what he was looking for, because he said, “Not to worry, Doctor. I have more than enough to go on here.”
Elena rose and followed him to the front door. Her gaze was captured by every point upon the walls still stained with the fingerprint dust. Nigel Harries must have understood, for he said, “My job is to make certain you are able to once again feel safe and happy in your lovely home. And I am very good at my job.”
Elena asked, “How much will all this cost?”
Antonio called from the other room, “I suggest you leave that for a moment, please.”
Elena started to argue, but the presence of unexpected guests and the pressure of the day ahead left her mute. When she entered the living room, the ambassador met her with the same steely glare as he had outside. His features looked ready for Mount Rushmore, stern and powerful and slightly forbidding. As though he had been genetically formed to carry the weight of political office. He said, “I want to know what impact the loss of that book is going to have on your ability to function.”
His wife sighed but did not speak.
Elena settled on the sofa next to Antonio. “None whatsoever.”
He blinked, clearly having expected a different response. “Explain.”
“To begin with, there are other books.”
Sandra Harwood said, “I’m sorry. I had the impression this was a unique and historic text.”
“It is.” Elena explained about the other duplicates.
When she finished, Lawrence Harwood said, “So you have four others.”
“Three duplicates plus the original.”
Antonio asked, “Should you be telling us this?”
“I have no idea. The person who entrusted me with the books said that any rules governing this process have been forgotten. If there were any to begin with.”
“Let’s get back to the matter at hand.” Lawrence Harwood imposed himself once more. “What is important here is that this connection has not been lost.”
“I’m sorry, but you don’t understand. Having another copy does not guarantee that I will have anything else to offer.”
The ambassador said, “Nothing in this world is guaranteed.”
Antonio glanced at his watch. “Forgive me. But the time.”
Harwood said, “Dr. Burroughs, we want to know if you will agree to join with us in a semiofficial capacity.”
“Her name,” Sandra Harwood corrected, “is Elena.”
The ambassador went on, “Antonio and I have agreed to chair the financial oversight committees. We face serious opposition. We want you in our corner.”
She replied, “It is not me you need.”
“We are aware of that.” The ambassador’s voice was one notch away from a bark. “But you have proven yourself to be a vital conduit.”
“It was Antonio’s idea to include you,” Sandra said.
“And Elena has already said she will help,” Antonio said, rising to his feet. “It’s almost time for our meeting. I will explain what we have in mind on the way back into town.”
Antonio’s explanation continued through the return journey. Elena tried hard to pay attention. But everything seemed to carry a subtle sense of disconnect. She was seated next to a handsome Italian with tragic features. She traveled in the rear seat of a new Mercedes, driven by a man who did not speak. She watched their car skirt the ring road and enter the heavy morning traffic. She had done this twice a day for years. Yet nothing looked the same. A new reality was becoming overlaid upon her comfortable existence. Things were spinning out of her control. She tried to pray, but the words would not take form.
Just ahead of them, the ambassador’s limo entered the city center and drummed across the cobblestones. The region behind the Sheldonian, the medieval rotunda where the university held its official gatherings, was largely off-limits to cars. But the guards standing duty before the Bodleian forecourt were expecting them, for they swung open the large iron gates and waved them into the ancient courtyard. The few tourists braving the early-morning rain gawked a moment, then walked on.
Oxford’s chancellor kept his offices in a sixties-era blockhouse off Wellington Square. But today the chancellor hosted them in chambers resembling a royal audience hall. The chancellor himself was a rotund individual with a studied demeanor and a frown to match the ambassador’s. He used it to great effect as Antonio began explaining what they intended. Elena listened as he described their joint commissions, the need for a point at which they might meet and coordinate and speak outside the boundaries of their work. How they wanted to establish an independent center. How they wanted Elena appointed as its director.
She had never met the chancellor before. But the gentleman had clearly been prepped, for he respectfully pointed out that Elena was a psychologist, with no experience in finance or banking. Lawrence Harwood gave a tight nod and an even tighter look her way. At which point his wife reached over and took his hand.
Antonio explained, “Our goal at the center is not to monitor the financial aspects. We will all have teams in place. Highly trained, very skilled. Lawyers and financial analysts and politicians. What we will not have is a moral compass.”
The chancellor’s previous position had been the chief of staff in the prime minister’s cabinet. He steepled his hands and nodded ponderously. Elena watched the mental cogs grind and knew what the chancellor was thinking. Having the fulcrum between the oversight committees located here could prove an enormous boon to the university.
Antonio continued with his description of a center to which they might retreat. Speak in safety. Beyond the public eye. Unknown to the outside world.
“Yet critical to your work,” the chancellor intoned. “A joint task force that serves as your own oversight committee.”
“Precisely.”
“Very well. The university is most definitely honored to be the focal point for such a worthy cause.”
With the chancellor’s backing, things moved at a pace that Elena could only call blistering. By the time she left for her morning’s first appointment, the transformation was under way. The ambassador and the chancellor remained together in the audience chamber, while Antonio fielded calls and e-mails in the hallway. Elena was not the least bit sorry to leave the administrative whirlwind behind.
But the same sensation of her world being swept from her control followed her back to the office. Fiona greeted her with the news: “The chancellor just phoned. Not his secretary. The man himself. I thought it was a prank at first. You could have knocked me over with a feather.”
Elena nodded. “Any messages?”
“You already know about this, do you?”
“I’ve just come from there.”
“Ah, Elena. Excellent. Might I have a word?” The director lumbered down the stairs. “I have just spoken with the chancellor. About you.”
Elena nodded.
“It appears you are to be seconded to a new institute. One that will be housed next door. You are aware of all this?”
After the break-in, New College decided they should keep their sensitive manuscripts inside the college itself, where there was constant security. Elena replied, “The building is empty. They are letting us use it.”
“Us.”
“Yes.”
“I’m still not clear about who precisely this ‘us’ is meant to be.”
“It’s a new institute.”
“Pertaining to our work?”
“Not exactly.” Elena was acutely aware of Fiona’s interest. “It’s related to the financial industry.”
“Ah. Your patien
t. With the bodyguards. And the trip to Rome.”
“Yes.”
“Really, Elena, don’t you think you might have informed me about this before I received a call from the chancellor himself?”
“I only heard about it this morning.”
Fiona demanded, “You’re leaving us?”
Elena kept her eyes on the director. “This institute work will be part-time, at least in the beginning. I’d like to continue to see as many patients as I can.”
“You can route them through me,” Fiona announced.
The director frowned. “Fiona, really. I would appreciate being the one to make any such decisions—”
“There’s no decision to make. Her patients still come here. I send them next door. End of story.” Fiona smiled sweetly. “Unless, of course, you prefer for me to shift my office fifty feet?”
24
We need to determine why we are here.”
Elena sat in an almost empty room and stared at the three people seated around her. The four folding chairs were the room’s only furniture. Her voice echoed back at her. She wanted nothing more than to go home and take a long, hot bath, curl up on the sofa, and watch the rain wash away the threat of change.
“I know what we look like to the outside world,” Elena went on. “An institute designed to give an ethical perspective to the new financial oversight committees. But right now, this is just words.”
Lawrence Harwood demanded, “Shouldn’t we have already moved beyond the business of definitions?”
His wife said, “Lawrence.”
“I’m not allowed to ask a question?”
“Elena is simply doing what we all asked her to do.”
“Look at how we’re sitting here in a circle. It looks to me like we’re being fashioned into some kind of encounter group.”
Elena said, “If you don’t feel comfortable, we should change things now.”
Lawrence glared about the room. When no one else spoke, he crossed his arms and shook his head.
Elena pressed, “You are questioning our structure. If that’s the case, what would you prefer?”
“Don’t turn this on me. I’m not your patient.”
“But you’ve raised a valid question. What is to be the point of our gathering together?” Elena addressed them all. “Lawrence is correct. This is not meant to be an encounter group. I have adopted this pose because I am comfortable with it. If it does not work for you, we need to change things. Now. Before we become entrenched in habits that are not productive.”
Antonio said, “We are here because of you.”
“I’m sorry. But you’re wrong.”
Sandra Harwood nodded slowly. “We are here because of God.”
Lawrence said, “You’re the contact point.”
“I was,” Elena agreed. “But what happens next time?”
The room dominated the building’s second floor and swallowed the four of them. The walls were painted a dingy cream, one shade off yellow, and the ceiling was about eighteen feet high. Once, this had been the formal parlor of a grand city home, probably belonging to a senior don. Now the stained grayish-brown carpet was crimped into three long ribs under the front windows. The walls were dotted with screw holes. One of the ceiling’s strip lights buzzed quietly.
Elena went on, “I feel uncomfortable giving my view, because that is all it is. My words are merely the opinion of a woman who has no place in your world. When I related what I thought was a message from God, it was very different.”
Sandra Harwood‘ said, “I want to hear your opinion.”
Antonio said, “We all do.”
“All right. I think we should ready ourselves for the next time that God speaks. All of us.”
The three of them remained silent. Watchful.
“You’ve said you want a haven that is isolated from the pressures you will face. All right, fine. But now that we’re here, what is our purpose? I suggest that you came expecting me to tell you what to do. But what if God has a different purpose in mind?”
Lawrence opened his mouth, glanced at the others, and subsided.
Elena went on, “I suggest that this become a place where we turn away from the world and toward God. I propose that we commit to meeting here and praying for one another. Our time together will be aimed at supporting and caring and holding each other accountable.”
Rain spackled the windows behind her. Somewhere beyond the building a car horn sounded. A bus rushed through the rain-swept street. Otherwise the room was silent.
“Part of our task here would also be to examine any issues that hold us back from being fully open to God’s will. Naturally, no one would be required to speak. But it may prove helpful if we hold to this encounter-style gathering, at least initially, because it is a form that has proven successful in the past.”
She gave that a long beat, then took their silence as the only assent she would receive. Elena knew that if she had not been so tired, she would have dreaded what came next—what she had been preparing for all day, ever since Antonio had described what they intended on the way to the chancellor’s office that morning.
Elena said, “I will go first.”
She had always been a private person. In the years since Jason’s death, the walls keeping the world out had only grown higher. Elena took a very hard breath and said, “I almost wish God had not used me.”
Lawrence Harwood huffed softly, like he had taken a punch to his heart. But he did not speak.
Elena said, “I feel so conflicted right now. I know this is the right step. But it does not make it any easier. I miss my life. I’m afraid of what comes next. When all this started, and I received my first impressions, I had no idea how far this was going to go. Now my entire world has shifted on its axis.”
“You feel threatened,” Antonio said softly. “As do I. Until you arrived in Rome …”
When he stopped, Elena found herself frightened by what he had left unsaid. As though she suddenly yearned for something she could not name, and which Antonio was about to turn away from. Even so, she urged softly, “Finish your thought, please.”
“No, no. It was wrong to think that way. This sense of being drawn away from my safe little existence did not begin with your arrival. It started with the dreams. It started even before then. Because in truth I have wanted for some time to step out of my comfort zone. And yet …”
“You’re afraid,” Elena said.
“That and more,” Antonio agreed, his voice a husky murmur. “I feel guilty because I want things back the way they were.”
Elena found the strength to reach her hand toward the side wall. “My former office is right over there. But the director of the counseling service doesn’t want me back. He is increasingly concerned that I may endanger other patients and staff. I’m afraid he may try to find a way to cut me out of the group. I know I should be open to whatever God wants. But I don’t. I feel …”
Cars swished through a wet world beyond the front windows. The silence held for a long moment, then Lawrence said, “You feel threatened.”
Elena wiped her face. “I tell my patients all the time that it is vital to be honest about your feelings. But nothing about this feels right.”
“Personally, I never did like the idea of encounter groups. Spending time sitting in circles like this, blathering on about feelings. I’ve never been one to talk about how I feel. I’m a doer. If I don’t like something, I want to get out there and change it.” Lawrence inspected his hands. “But I can’t change this. And the result is, I’ve never been so angry in my entire life.”
Sandra touched her husband’s shoulder. The soft, comforting gesture of a woman in love. “I think it’s very good of you to speak your mind. Very good and very brave.”
Lawrence kept his gaze focused on his hands. “I could have been the next vice president of the United States.”
“I know.” Sandra chanted the words. “I know.”
“I wanted that. So much.” He bunc
hed his fists. “Maybe my heart would have been strong enough.”
“You would have risked everything on that chance? You would have risked us? Our future together?”
“God has done all these great things. He gave you dreams. He told Elena what they meant. Why couldn’t he just heal my heart?”
“You know the answer to that,” Antonio said.
“You are called to important work,” Sandra said. “This cause of ours is vital. You’ve spent your entire life getting ready for this moment.”
Lawrence looked at his wife. “How can you be so sure of this?”
“Because I know you,” Sandra replied. “And I know God has chosen the best man for this job.”
Elena waited until she was certain they had finished, then said, “Why don’t we join together in prayer.”
25
FRIDAY
Antonio was in the hotel lobby when Elena emerged the next morning. His greeting seemed very subdued. She did not have a chance to ask if something was wrong. Antonio fielded three calls as they left the hotel and walked to her office. Two were in French, the other in German. Elena wanted to ask him about this gift for languages, but his grim expression held her back. As she unlocked the office doors, he said simply that he had to fly to Brussels.
Their second gathering started precisely at seven. A night of tossing and turning had granted Elena no better course to take, so she began again by asking what issues might be holding anyone back from a closer walk with God.
They were joined by a young woman from the ambassador’s staff. Angie Cassels was a political analyst who was following her boss. Angie expressed her fear over leaving the security of the Foreign Service for a committee position that might fizzle and burn when the next administration was sworn in. The ambassador scowled at this, which frightened the woman so much that she froze in midsentence. The prayers that followed seemed a feeble attempt to fill the empty air.
At Lawrence’s request, they agreed to meet at lunchtime Monday at the embassy. Antonio said he would try to return from Brussels in time to join them. The others departed swiftly, leaving Elena to face the rain-swept day.
