CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
When I was done with my shower I took an elevator to the basement of the building where a cafeteria had been set up. I didn’t expect room-service standards but I was pleased by a little cardboard sign on the room phone — in English, French and German—that advised me that hot meals were served three times a day in the cafeteria and cold meals were available at any time. Checking the little clock by the bed stand, I saw that I had a half-hour before the last hot meal was served.
In the cafeteria there were what looked to be nearly a hundred people, plus a virtual Babel of voices and accents. There were civilians, doctors and nurses, and even some patients, either in wheelchairs or propelling themselves around by metal walkers or canes. Scattered throughout the crowd were the military uniforms of maybe a half-dozen different countries, and their only similarity was the UNFORUS arm patch and brassard on the left arm and the TLDs hanging off lapels. I stood in line and grabbed a plastic tray, still damp and warm from having just been washed. My stomach growled cheerfully at the prospect of hot food coming by for a visit.
I looked around the room. When I got back to looking at the line of people I was in it had moved forward and somebody up ahead was leaning back, looking at me.
Peter Brown.
I dropped my tray, ran forward, and tried my best to kill him.
Tried my best.
Another way to put that would be ‘utterly and abjectly failed’, but I sure did a little damage. I made some noise, and there were a ruckus and some shouts and then we were grappling on the floor. Peter managed to roll me over after I had hammered him with some weak punches, and eventually he had me pinned, screaming up at him. Then a couple of bruisers—fellow Brits, it sounded like—helped Peter pick me up and drag me out of the cafeteria where we went into a little office with a small desk and two chairs. After he’d slammed the door shut, Peter said, ‘Samuel, look, just shut your trap for a moment. All right? Talk some sense. I’ll give you five minutes to say anything you want, and after those five minutes you listen to me. Then you can take your best shot. Fair enough?’
‘You fucking bastard,’ I said, breathing hard.
Peter smiled, leaned back in a swivel chair. ‘Not very original, mate. Sorry. You’re going to have to do better than that.’
‘Where do you want me to begin, you traitorous shit? Sanjay’s dead because of you. And it’s your fucking fault that I nearly got killed too.’
That got his attention. He let the swivel chair snap back to its upright position and his ruddy face got even redder. I felt emboldened and went on. ‘Is that better, more original? Got your attention this time?’
Up on the wall behind Peter was a nutrition chart, with dancing slices of bread, grains and vegetables in some kind of food pyramid. It looked ridiculous but my attention was focused entirely on Peter who said, ‘Have you told anybody this yet?’
I wanted him to be scared of me for a change so I said, ‘Yeah, I have. And there are others to follow.’
‘Such as?’
‘Jean-Paul, to begin with, when I catch up with him. And then my friends back at the Toronto Star. Oh, that’ll be a good front-page story, once I resign my position with the UN and get my old job back. I’ll even send them a few nice photos of you working in the field. Working for the militias, though—right?’
‘Where’s your proof?’ Peter asked, his voice flat.
Again, I felt emboldened. I was expecting denials and put-downs and the usual abrasive response from Peter, who had picked on me from the very first day I had come to New York state. I was enjoying the discomfort I was putting him through.
‘Sure, all in good time,’ I said dismissively. ‘But let’s begin at the beginning, shall we? From the very start when we went out in the field we were going in circles, weren’t we? We had bad intelligence, our communications gear was being jammed, and we found evidence of war crimes only by literally stumbling over it. Am I right?’
Peter just nodded. I went on, speaking quickly. ‘Then we hooked up with the Aussie television crew. Remember one of their questions? All about saboteurs, working within the UN field groups to block their progress—anyone’s progress—in finding Site A. We all thought they were making it up.’
‘Proof, Samuel,’ he said. I felt a tiny thrill of victory at finally having this man call me by my right name. ‘You said you had proof.’
‘OK,’ I said. ‘Let’s try this. Four days ago, we went looking for that Aussie TV crew. You tried to give us bogus directions, tried to keep us away from them. Hiding evidence of your mates’ activities, were you, Peter? Then, a day after that, I was out in the woods, looking for you. You were out pissing against a tree—or so you said. But I saw something different, Peter. I saw you either losing your mind or talking to someone by radio, because I saw you talking into your wrist. Mentioning grace… oh, yeah, somebody’s name. Grace. Who was she? Your Stateside contact? And since you seem stable enough—even though you’re an arrogant traitor—I think you were relaying information to someone. Your paymaster, no doubt.’
‘Anything else?’ Peter asked in the same flat tone.
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘One last piece of evidence and then you can give me whatever bullshit you like. Two days after the ambush—and don’t you feel guilty about what happened to Sanjay?—I was captured by a militia unit, kept captive in a hidden camp a fair number of klicks away from here. I was being held inside a school bus, and just before I managed to escape I saw the militia leader get a visitor. You. All by your lonesome, all inside that camp, getting smiles and slaps on the back. Like you belonged. Like you were their friend. And I saw you just before I got out. So there you go. Time for your reply, you shit.’
Peter actually smiled at me. A very happy and cheerful grin. I said, ‘Thinking of killing me and then walking out of here? Sure. Try that, with a hundred or so witnesses outside that door. You go right ahead.’
Peter kept smiling. ‘Tell you what, I told you that I’d give you a good answer, once you were done. But I’d like to go one better, if that’s all right. Permit me to make a phone call?’
‘Sure,’ I said, now feeling not so confident.
‘Fine.’ He turned the chair and looked over the small desk, picked up the phone and dialed a four-digit number. ‘Hello, love. Peter here. I need to speak with Lawrence. Right away. Well, of course it’s urgent, or else I wouldn’t say “right away”. Correct?’ He looked over at me and made a big thing of shrugging. ‘Secretaries. God help us if they ever— Oh, hello, Lawrence. Sorry to disturb you but I have a bit of a situation. I was wondering if I could borrow you for just a few minutes.’ There was a pause, and Peter said, ‘Well, I know it’s short notice. But trust me, it was important enough for me to make this call, now, wasn’t it? Yes, I understand… Very well, I seem to be in the manager’s office of this dreadful cafeteria in the basement. Thank you, thank you very much.’
Peter hung up the phone and turned around again to face me. ‘There you go. All will be revealed very soon—if you can be patient, Samuel.’
I said nothing, just kept on staring at his confident face. We didn’t say anything for a couple of minutes. Through the door I could hear the sounds of feet moving on the tile floor, plates being set down on tables, and the rattle of silverware being used. Surprisingly enough, I didn’t feel hungry at all.