‘Who for?’ I asked.
‘For you. Adem Fedai ask me.’
Okay, now the guy had my full attention. Masters’, too.
‘You been waiting long?’ Masters enquired.
‘Just one hours only.’
‘Why us?’ I asked.
‘You give me card, I give to him. He scare.’
‘He’s scared?’ Masters interpreted.
‘Yes. He trust America.’
‘Now I have heard everything,’ I said.
‘Vin!’ Masters was annoyed. ‘Go on, Ocirik. What’s the message?’
The big man took a cell phone from his pocket, dialled what I took to be his message bank, then put it on speaker. ‘You listen,’ he said. He puffed on his cigar then blew more smoke than an old Turkish Fiat.
A small, frightened voice began squeaking from the palm of Ocirik’s immense hand. ‘My name is Adem Fedai,’ it said. ‘I worked for Colonel Portman. I know you are looking for me. You must know I did not kill him. I have something you want. I took it from the colonel’s safe. I will meet you. You come to Ephesus – I will meet you at the top gate tomorrow, half an hour from closing. Before you come, you must look at the town of Kumayt in Iraq.’
The number that Fedai had called from to leave the message was an unlisted one. We couldn’t find him, but he could find us – tomorrow, sunset, at the top gate of a place called Ephesus.
We thanked Ocirik and raced inside the building or, at least, I raced. Masters took it slow, watching her shoes as she walked. As we stood in the elevator, I said, ‘Ku-may-et, my Lord, Ku-may-et . . .’
‘Perhaps Colonel Woodward was listening harder than he thought after all,’ Masters said.
She looked pale. ‘You okay?’ I asked.
‘I’m fine.’
‘You don’t look it.’
‘I’m fine.’
I shrugged. Normally, the deeply sensitive guy that I am would have been more concerned. ‘This is the break we’ve been hoping for,’ I told her.
‘Yeah, sounds like it could be,’ came the reply, a little low on energy. But then, nothing cools a conversation quicker than an elevator journey.
‘I went back over Portman’s place today.’
‘Why?’
‘No reason. Just went over to have another look around. Something interesting turned up.’
‘What?’
‘The postman.’ I reached into my jacket, pulled out the letter and handed it to her.
‘And here I was thinking you might have grabbed the opportunity to pay a house call on the good doctor.’
‘Nope, way too busy for that,’ I replied.
‘Sultan Mehmet, eh?’ She checked the return address. ‘So, Portman sent a letter he knew would get returned?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Why’d he do that? What did he have to say to himself?’
‘He wrote down the combination to his floor safe, which he then sent on a round trip that’d take several weeks. I think the guy knew his goose was cooked and he wanted this to turn up should any investigation into his death be under way. This combination wouldn’t open the wall safe, and that would indicate the existence of a second safe if we hadn’t already found it.’ The elevator came to a stop with a jolt and let us out.
‘Only, Fedai got to it before us and removed the contents,’ said Masters. ‘Still doesn’t take us anywhere new, though, does it?’
No, it didn’t, but it provided a window into Portman’s state of mind leading up to his murder.
We walked into the office, the one with the painting of Mehmet stepping all over people on his way to the top. The place felt empty, on account of it was. The clock on the wall indicated eight o’clock, the darkness outside narrowing it further to eight in the evening. For us, however, the day was just starting. We both had catching up to do. I went to my desk.
‘I’m just going to take a moment,’ said Masters. She removed her jacket and ball cap, lay herself out full length on the sofa and stretched. She was wearing a lowish-cut red fitted T-shirt. If I looked I could see the tops of her breasts straining against her white lace bra. Okay, so I looked.
I tore myself away from the show and on to the package sitting on my desk. Further investigation revealed it to be a printer cartridge. The IT guy must have brought it up. I wondered if maybe there was some union rule against him installing it.
I opened the drawer of the unit, extracted the old cartridge, unpacked the new one and inserted it. After hitting the on button, I reached over to the Dell and pressed command-print. From memory, I had quite a few documents backed up in the queue.
A ding sounded and a box appeared on the computer screen informing me that now the printer was suffering from a paper jam. I was on the verge of making the damn thing suffer a hell of a lot worse. I breathed the deep sigh reserved for recalcitrant computer gear, got up, opened the slot, removed the new cassette and checked the rollers. Nothing. A little diagram on the unit’s control panel flashed, telling me to keep looking. So I got down on my knees, opened another slot and peered into the plastic bowels. Ah, there it was – a sheet of paper concertinaed and compressed below one of the rollers. I pulled it out, ripping the paper in half. I then dropped it in the trash, scanning it as my fingers let it go. Something told me to retrieve it. I obeyed, smoothed out the folds, and read it properly.
Goddamn . . .
I picked up the phone and called IT. Everyone had gone home – 8:05 pm. A recorded message provided an emergency after-hours cell number to call. This was an emergency. I dialled the number.
‘Hello, Special Agent Cooper here . . . Yeah, I know it’s late.’
The voice on the line was young, male and pissed.
‘Yeah, well, maybe next time don’t leave a number. Do you know anything about a printer brought up to my office? . . . You do? Who had it before me? . . . Uh-huh . . . uh-huh. Okay, thanks.’ My spine tingled like it had been sprinkled with sherbet.
I walked over to Masters. She was frowning and her eyes were closed. I dropped the sheet of paper onto her stomach.
‘What’s this?’ she asked.
‘Read it.’
She sat up and read it aloud. ‘You know the score better than anyone. We’ll hold you to your promise that the mess down there won’t sour our chances on future contracts. All the best, B. What’s this?’
‘Part of an email.’
‘I can see that, but –’
‘I just dug it out of my printer. IT services brought it up from Portman’s office.’
‘This was Portman’s printer?’ Masters blinked. ‘So who’s B? Burnbaum?’
I shook my head. ‘From what I’ve seen, and I’ve read hundreds of Burnbaum’s emails to Portman, he always signs off “Ward” when it’s informal and “Ambassador Burnbaum” when it’s not. Also, it doesn’t seem to be the kind of email you’d send to someone who works in the room down the hall. So, I have no idea who this is from. There is something, though.’
‘What?’
‘Like I said, I’ve been through Portman’s emails. And funnily enough, I don’t recall seeing this one.’
‘Which means Portman’s email has been edited,’ she said.
‘I’d have said, “fucked with”. There’s also the issue of Portman’s conveniently corrupted diary. From the guy’s service record – in fact, from everything we know about him – he’s an over-achiever, a workaholic. The biggest slice of work on his plate takes up one or two days of his working week, according to Artie Farquar at TEI. Allow around one day a week for official duties, plus maybe half a day for admin, and I can see Portman sitting around for fifty per cent of the week twiddling his thumbs.’
‘Only he’s not a thumbs-twiddling kind of guy,’ Masters added.
‘He doesn’t seem to be a party animal, doesn’t have a girlfriend . . . What’s he doing to keep himself occupied?’
Masters nodded.
‘Let’s speculate here and join a few dots . . . What if “the mess down
there” was something at Kumayt keeping Portman busy? What if it’s an infrastructure project, something to do with water or a hospital – like Block recalled Portman had told him.’
‘Go on.’
‘And let’s also speculate,’ I said, ‘that something about this project was sitting in Portman’s secret floor safe. I know it’s a bit of a leap, but I’m thinking Portman probably duplicated this unknown information and put copies in both safes.’
‘So that if one set got stolen, there was always a copy in the floor safe.’
‘Exactly. And the killers fell for it. They murdered him, blew the door off his wall safe, and were happy enough with what they found to stop looking and swim back to the Onur, from whence they came.’
‘Fits the facts,’ Masters agreed. She took a walk around the room, digesting the theory. ‘It certainly explains why Portman would mail that combination back to himself.’
‘Only, Portman didn’t take Fedai’s actions into account. He arrived early for work, perhaps earlier than usual, found his boss all over the top floor and saw the wall safe blown. And because maybe Portman trusted him, he knew about the hidden floor safe and had a combination to it. Maybe Portman confided in him. So he opened it, took whatever he found inside, and split.’
‘And then a few days after the murder, we’re looking over Fedai’s home and we get jumped by a bunch of thugs who are after him,’ said Masters. ‘They have to be our hit squad, our team of assassins.’ She was leaning forward, looking at her feet – excited, but avoiding eye contact.
‘What’s up?’ I asked. ‘Out with it.’
She wrung her hands together. ‘We’ve got problems.’
‘Ones I’m not aware of?’
‘Kumayt. I already know a lot about it.’
Twenty-seven
There was a stillness in the office like it was holding its breath. ‘You want to fill me in?’ I said, finally, if only to get the room’s diaphragm working again. At least the reason for Masters’ sullen demeanour was now out in the open. A knock on the doorframe distracted me.
‘Ah, the sleuths are in . . .’ It was Ambassador Burnbaum, back from Ankara. He was beaming, dressed in an immaculate tailored Italian suit, white cotton shirt, red silk tie, a Stars and Stripes pin in one lapel.
An entourage of male aftershave and body scents rushed forward from him, hooked their fingers into my nose and clamped onto my epiglottis. The guy had gone for a swim in Calvin Klein. I figured he was on his way out to some function, ambassadors being, generally speaking, happy to roll up to the opening of a clamshell.
‘The New York City Ballet Company is in town. I’m off to the preview,’ he announced. ‘Just let me know if you want tickets, okay?’
‘Thank you, Mr Ambassador. I might take you up on that,’ I said, though I doubted it – men in tights only doing it for me when one of them is Mel Brooks. ‘In the meantime, do you have a moment, sir? We’d like to bring you up to speed on the investigation, and maybe ask you a few more questions.’
Burnbaum checked his Breitling for permission. ‘Well, yes, I suppose, as long as you keep it brief.’
‘Do our best, sir,’ I said as he took a seat on the couch and crossed his legs.
Masters got up, walked to my desk and leaned against it.
‘To start with, Mr Ambassador,’ I began, ‘we don’t think Colonel Portman was the victim of a serial killer. We believe he was assassinated by a hit squad, possibly one with military or special forces training.’
Burnbaum’s mouth dropped open. He eventually got control of it. ‘But what about the other killings . . . ?’
‘We believe they were a false trail, designed to lead us away from the real reason that Colonel Portman was murdered.’
‘Do you have any evidence to support this theory?’ Burnbaum asked, his face a conglomerate of disbelief, tragedy and concern.
‘No, nothing hard,’ I said, but maybe that would change tomorrow at Ephesus. I took the crinkled email from ‘B’ off my desk and passed it to him.
‘What’s this?’
‘We believe Colonel Portman was involved in some way in an infrastructure project at a place called Kumayt, down in southern Iraq. Would you know anything about that?’
Burnbaum shook his head slowly, frowning, thinking hard on the question. ‘No, no. I don’t . . . Where did you say? Iraq’s not exactly my turf.’
‘You don’t know who this B could be, sir?’
‘Well, it’s certainly not from me, if that’s what you’re thinking. Frankly, I have no idea. Where did you get it?’ He handed back the ragged sheet of paper.
I filled him in on its discovery.
‘That was a stroke of luck,’ he said.
I nodded. ‘Ambassador, I’ve spent a fair bit of time going through Portman’s correspondence and I can’t find the rest of it. Or, in fact, any email that refers to events or projects he might have been involved in.’
‘So what are you suggesting, Special Agent? That Portman’s email folders have been tampered with?’
‘Is that possible?’ I asked, putting it back on him.
‘I wouldn’t have thought so.’ The Ambassador stood. ‘I don’t have to tell you both that your allegations are grave.’
He was right – he didn’t have to tell us that.
‘Do you yet have any suspects for these murders?’ he asked.
‘We’re looking at a few people.’
‘Are they part of my mission?’
‘No,’ I said, telling him what he wanted to hear.
‘That’s something at least.’ He shook his head, dismayed.
‘That’s all we’ve got for the moment, sir,’ I said. ‘We’ve been hoping to catch you and bring you up to speed.’
‘I appreciate the heads-up, Special Agents. You’re both doing great work here. Now, if you don’t mind?’
‘Just one thing, Mr Ambassador – would you know if Harvey Stringer’s in the building?’ I asked.
‘I think Harvey’s still in the States.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Well, keep up the good work,’ he said, giving us a few more words of motivation. They weren’t necessary, nailing up the bad guys being the fun part of the job. He gave us both a nod and departed.
And after he was gone, I was back where I started: circling Masters for an opening. ‘You want to play twenty questions?’ I asked.
Masters returned to the couch and sat heavily.
I tried some small talk to loosen her up a little. ‘What did you make of Burnbaum?’
She shrugged. ‘I think he’s about ready for retirement.’
‘I know what you mean,’ I said, sitting beside her. ‘So, here we are . . . a little spot called Kumayt.’
‘Maybe you’ll understand how difficult this is for me once I’ve told you.’
‘Just tell me what you know before I go get a crowbar and jimmy it out of you,’ I replied. Nothing but silence for another few seconds. I sighed and looked around the room. ‘Something tells me this is going to be a long night.’
Masters turned to glare at me. Her anger magnified the palette of her eyes and they flashed like opals. ‘Richard asked me to help compile his case for the DoD,’ she began, ‘which meant I got to see a lot of sensitive material – facts, figures, depositions. The arguments and counterarguments about aerosolised DU oxide and its effects on the human body aren’t neatly balanced. For every scientist or expert who’s anti DU, there are half-a-dozen who are pro.’
I nodded. That wasn’t so surprising.
‘But if you dig around, what you find is pretty ominous. When Richard came over this afternoon, he spent most of the time in the bath . . .’
I chose that moment to tactically retie a shoelace.
‘And I know I shouldn’t have, but while he was out of the room, I went through his notes.’
‘Is that why you’re upset? You feeling guilty?’
‘That’s exactly what I’m feeling. I’m upset because I’m betraying a
trust.’
I wasn’t going to argue with her.
‘I wrote down some stuff,’ said Masters, opening her notebook and reading. ‘Twenty-eight per cent of Gulf War veterans have suffered chronic health problems loosely called “Gulf War Syndrome”. That’s more than five times the rate of Nam vets.’
‘What?’
‘Yeah, I know.’ She referred back to her notebook. ‘How about this: over seven thousand soldiers were reported as having been wounded in Gulf War I. But over half-a-million vets have received disability compensation. That makes the number of vets disabled since that war finished seventy times the number wounded in the conflict itself.’
‘Shit . . . all because of DU?’
‘That’s what this class action’s all about – the people sitting on the other side of the courtroom from Richard believe it’s a big part of the reason why they’re sick, and that it’s being covered up. And then there’s Capstone. The full title was The Capstone Depleted Uranium Aerosols Study & Human Health Risk Assessment. The report cost six million dollars and was prepared for Washington by a company called Battelle. Battelle is a major nuclear contractor to the US government, by the way.’
‘Call me cynical, but a company like that is hardly going to bite the hand that feeds it.’
‘It’s unlikely,’ Masters agreed. ‘From what I can make out, one of the main arguments against the claims that DU is harmful is that there are no results from tests done into the long-term effects of exposure. Could be that the people with the money to spend on that kind of research . . . well, they don’t want it done.’
‘You sound like you’ve changed teams.’
‘Plenty of questions have been asked about the validity of the report’s findings and yet so far there haven’t been a lot of answers. It makes you think.’
It did. It made me think about the way Tyler had slowly wasted away and the fight he’d put up – and the anger I felt about this was rising into my temples.
‘So anyway,’ she continued, ‘back in 1979, this same company that now proclaims depleted uranium is harmless found that more than thirty per cent of those aerosolised DU particles remained airborne until inhaled or rained out. And Battelle can’t claim ignorance about how easily and effectively aerosolised DU can penetrate the human body, because it has a subsidiary that develops aerosol devices to deliver medications through the lungs. When they get into your body, these small particles emit alpha radiation that penetrates the cells around them, wreaking damage all the way down to the DNA level.’
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