This is bluster on Rundle’s part. He’s nervous, no getting away from it, but after what happened with J.J., he’s not about to put it on display. Besides, Don Ribcoff is the hired help here, he’s security, and the details of what goes on, of what this is about, are – and must remain – strictly confidential.
Soon the convoy is slowing down and they’re turning left in through some gates to a walled enclosure. They follow a heavily tree-lined driveway for about two hundred yards and come out onto a clearing. Then they stop alongside the main entrance to what Rundle takes to be Kimbela’s famously unfinished ‘villa’. It’s the sort of thing a prosperous tea merchant might have built for himself in one of the new suburbs of mid-Victorian London.
Here, of course, it looks absurd.
On the opposite side of the clearing is the row of concrete shacks J.J. talked about.
Rundle glances around. The place appears to be deserted. But within seconds this changes. Jeeps pull up on either side of the convoy, brakes screeching, soldiers piling off, and suddenly they’re surrounded.
Rundle stiffens.
Ribcoff rolls his eyes. ‘This is Kimbela’s praetorian guard. I can’t believe we actually train these idiots.’
‘Really? And who supplies them with those pressed fatigues and crisp felt berets?’
‘Who do you think?’
‘Yeah?’
Ribcoff laughs. ‘Sure.’
Rundle makes a show of laughing along. Then he reaches for the door and opens it. He steps out of this climate-controlled SUV and into a wall of heat.
Ribcoff does the same, followed by Lutz and his team in the other two vehicles.
Everyone stands around for a moment, soldiers, private contractors, but it’s barely enough time for any kind of tension or animosity to build. Not that it should, Rundle thinks, given that they’re all basically on the same payroll.
‘Clark, my old friend.’
The voice is deep and resonant. Rundle turns around and sees Kimbela emerging from behind one of the jeeps. He too is in pressed fatigues and a crisp beret.
And mirrored sunglasses.
Regulation issue.
Rundle gets the impression that they’ve all dressed up for this, for the occasion. He doesn’t think they did it for J.J. And there don’t seem to be any drug-crazed children around either.
Should he be flattered?
‘Colonel,’ he says and extends a hand.
Kimbela steps forward and they shake. The colonel is forty-two now, but he still looks like a slightly excitable, overweight teenager.
With attitude.
Which is exactly what he would have been twenty-five years ago when his old man was running an extortion and racketeering network for Mobutu.
‘It’s good to see you, Clark. Tell me, how is your brother?’ As he says this, Kimbela makes a move towards the house and indicates for Rundle to follow him. Rundle does so, followed in turn by Lutz and several of the Gideon contractors. ‘J.J. is well,’ he says. ‘He’s recovering. It wasn’t an easy trip for him.’ Then, feeling he should amend this, adds, ‘It wasn’t an easy time… for anyone.’
‘No, no it wasn’t.’ Solemn here. ‘But anyway, look. I saw him on, what is it called, Face the Nation? Online? He was good. Very good. The brace is an interesting touch, I think. No?’ He turns, looks at Rundle and bursts out laughing. Then, ‘American politics, if I may say so, is quite boring. Fiscal reform? Please.’ He laughs again, even louder this time.
Rundle tries to join in – he wants to be polite, but at the same time feels it shouldn’t be all one way. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘at least we have systems that work, we get things done, you know?’
Kimbela either doesn’t hear this or chooses to ignore it.
They are standing now in a large reception room. The furniture, as J.J. said, is fake Louis Quinze, upholstered chairs, a couple of chaises longues and a credenza arranged in no particular order.
It’s like a forgotten corner of some discount home furnishing outlet in a New Jersey shopping mall.
‘So, Clark,’ the colonel says, turning to Rundle, ‘would you like some tea?’
Conway gets in the car, reverses quickly on the gravel and turns. He shoots along the driveway, narrowly avoiding a stalled motorbike at the gates. He turns left and takes off.
He has no idea where he’s going, but it doesn’t matter. He needs time to think. Now that he’s come clean with Ruth, and that the Times and Business Post are clearly on the case, he can start devising a realistic rescue package for the company. And what he mustn’t forget is that it can be done. Compared to how things might have turned out, it won’t be that hard either. Dealing with the media intrusion is going to be tough, but easily preferable to dealing with the cops. And downsizing Conway Holdings? Creative restructuring? Brutal cutbacks? All a hundred times more preferable – how could they not be? – to prison time.
Somehow he has to bring Ruth on board and get her to see things his way.
After driving aimlessly for a while, Conway decides where he’s going. From here he can get to Tara Meadows in fifteen minutes. It’s quiet there, and isolated. He won’t have to talk to anyone. He’ll give Ruth a couple of hours to cool off and then he’ll phone her.
By that time he’ll have worked it out, everything, even a rescue package for their marriage. First off, Corinne will have to go. Not that any of it is her fault, but she’s a distraction. They can get some hatchet-faced old biddy to replace her. As he drives, Conway sees that the real issue on the domestic front is that he has hidden things from Ruth. Not just the true nature of the First Continental deal, and what happened at Drumcoolie Castle, all of that, which is understandable, but lots of other stuff as well, ordinary stuff, banal stuff.
And unnecessarily.
Being secretive has become a habit.
Ruth deserves better.
He must do better.
Glancing in his rearview mirror a moment later, as he comes off the roundabout, Conway notices something.
There’s a motorbike. It’s been there for a while. He wonders if it’s the same one that was stalled at the gates of his house.
As he was pulling out.
Seemed to be stalled.
Shit.
It’s a journalist, has to be.
Approaching the entrance to Tara Meadows now, Conway is undecided. He turns in anyway. At least it will flush this bastard out. He’ll hardly just follow him in.
But he does, brazenly.
Right behind him, no hesitation.
Conway proceeds along Tara Boulevard, towards the Concourse. Then he swerves suddenly, pulls in at the kerb and opens the door. He gets out. He stands there on the road, door still open behind him, and glares at the approaching motorcyclist.
The motorcyclist slows down, and stops. He gets off the bike and immediately starts undoing the clasps on his helmet.
Conway readies himself. He’s in no mood for this, but there’s no point in being overly aggressive either. It won’t be his last encounter with one of these guys. As he watches the helmet coming off, he wonders what the angle is going to be, financial or tabloid – figures and statistics or fat-cat confidential?
The guy is quite young. Conway stares at him for a few seconds, but doesn’t recognise him. And he’s fairly sure he would. Because he knows most of the hacks in this town. Over the years, he’s been inter-
Oh Jesus.
It hits him.
Of course. It’s so obvious.
Then Conway’s whole world dissolves, everything, his plans, his assumptions… even his delusions…
But what did he expect? What did he think he was paying for all these years?
No more Phil Sweeney, no more buffer zone.