It was a good pitch, if he did think so himself, but for all their exquisite civility and perfect manners, the opposition hadn’t bought it. They explained that while they quite understood the dilemma in which Signor Nguyen found himself, they too, alas, were under pressure from sources located at various levels of the provincial, regional and even national government, sources whose continuing goodwill was a prerequisite for the successful outcome of many aspects of the city council’s daily work. They must therefore reluctantly inform him that the expiration date of the permits in question would apply, unless and until a demonstrable commitment to the film project, backed by a suitable retraction from its prestigious celebrity director, was forthcoming. Thank you so much for coming, signore, a pleasure to have met you, buona sera, arrivederla and don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.
Martin hated feeling powerless, incompetent and outclassed, and hated still more others seeing him that way, but after a couple of hours hunkered down in his room he forced himself downstairs, both to avoid cabin fever and to prove that he still had it in the nuts. The open-plan bar and restaurant area was a classy venue, if you liked glittering mirror tiles, modernistic chandeliers made of concentric rings of clear plastic, lime-green walls, curved-back leatherette chairs in a deeper shade of the same colour, and tasteful classics like Elvira Madigan and the Barber weepie for strings subliminally audible throughout. His father’s old pal President Van Thieu would have felt right at home, although he would have had the waiting staff shot after a lengthy and intensive Q amp;A with Nguyen senior.
When Martin finally got his drink, it was at least a good pour, and after negotiations with the bartender, he was brought a silver champagne bucket filled with slivers of slush to ice it down. Jake would be up by now. He wondered whether to call in with a progress report, but the only progress to date had been backwards. Still, the idea reminded him that he’d turned his mobile phone off when he retreated to his room. When he flipped it on again, there was a message from the Aeroscan guy asking him to call back. Martin sighed and took a long swig of his slurpee. Another slew of feeble excuses and hollow promises, he thought. But, as so many times that day, he was wrong.
‘Keep it brief, Larson,’ he rapped. ‘I’m on hold in a three-way conference call.’
‘Gee, I’m sorry, Mr Nguyen. I just thought I should let you know that we’ve found it.’
‘Found what?’
‘The data indicate a circular, non-ferrous structure approximately nine and a half metres in diameter buried a metre or so below the river rock up in the Busento valley about five kilometres south of the city. I guess it could have been a fish pool or a reservoir or something, but it’s unquestionably man-made and very solidly constructed.’
Martin finished the rest of his drink in one.
‘Get over here,’ he told Larson. ‘I want large-scale maps of the area and a full report.’
Back in his room, he called home over an encrypted Skype internet connection. It was twenty after noon where Jake was, which turned out to be his personal gym.
‘Zup?’ Jake said, gasping like a landed fish.
Martin let him sweat his heart rate down a few beats without an answer. He was no longer powerless and humiliated, and in no hurry to spread the excellent word.
‘That exec jet you have on hold?’ he said finally. ‘What’s the lead time on that baby?’
‘Couple of hours? More, maybe. It’s like in Fresno.’
‘Get it warmed up, Jake.’
There was a pleased laugh the other end.
‘How come?’
‘The Aeroscan rep is swinging by momentarily to report in depth, but from what he just said on the phone it looks like we just struck gold. Literally.’
‘Awesome!’
‘How soon can you be here?’
‘The leasing outfit said ten, eleven hours? What time do you have there?’
‘Nine twenty-three.’
‘In the morning?’
‘In the evening.’
‘Really?’
‘Don’t worry about that. Just get here as soon as you can. Call me from the plane when you’re an hour out and I’ll come meet you. It’ll be good whatever because we can’t move until after dark. Meanwhile I’ll chase up our Iraqi expendables and get busy renting the machinery we’ll need.’
A sudden thought struck him.
‘Hey, Jake? You have got a passport, haven’t you?’
‘A password?’
‘No, a passport. You know, a little blue booklet issued by the Feds with your name and picture inside? You’ll need one when you arrive.’
‘Bullshit. You just show them your driver’s licence. I’ve been all over. Canada, Mexico — ’
‘That’s just the attic and the basement, Jake. This is a different house. Believe me, you need a passport to get in.’
‘Okay, I’ll buy one online and have it overnighted.’
‘The process doesn’t work like that. It takes weeks.’
‘Fuck, that’s so totally twentieth century.’
‘Yeah, but listen. Remember a couple years back you visited with Paul on that Caribbean island he owns a chunk of?’
‘So?’
‘So you had a passport then which will still be valid. And another thing. The candlestick you mentioned? I’m guessing that you’ll want to export it. Could you give me a little more detail about the payload so I can start figuring out the logistics? Weight, dimensions, packaging requirements…’
‘Not off the top of my head. It’s like the Jewish national logo, only the real thing is solid gold. Let me get showered off and I’ll shoot you an email attachment. Hey, this is great news, Martin! Maybe you deserve a bonus.’
‘Maybe I do.’
Martin Nguyen sat back, a smile growing on his thin lips. It was not a pleasant smile, although Martin was in fact pleased. He Googled around a bit, then got on to eBay and typed ‘temple menorah’ in the Search box.
Nicola Mantega cracked shortly after four o’clock in the morning. It wasn’t so much what the interrogators had done to him physically as their crushingly contemptuous, mean-spirited attitude. By then the original gorillas had been relieved by a fresh pair, who would in due course be relieved by another, and so on, on and on, world without end. But what really hurt was the chief of police calling him silly.
Mantega had always prided himself on being furbissimo, a maestro of cunning schemes and shady short-cuts to riches. To be called silly was far worse than the slaps in the face and kicks to the ankle administered by Zen’s underlings when their verbal skills failed them. He, Nicola Mantega, silly? He’d show these bastards who was silly, and in the process extricate himself from this nightmare. Summoning up what remained of his dignity, he informed his tormentors that he was prepared to talk, but only to their superior. They appeared dubious, maybe even disappointed, but various phone calls were made and forty minutes later Aurelio Zen appeared in the basement interrogation room. He looked even more exhausted and dispirited than Mantega, which gave the latter hope.
‘I want to make a deal,’ he announced in a decisive tone which suggested that the terms would be his, and slapped his right palm down hard on the battered desk which, with the stool on which he was perched, constituted the only furnishings in the small, stuffy room. Zen lit a cigarette, rubbed his eyes, coughed several times, then set the cigarette down on the back of Mantega’s hand. When the latter’s cries subsided and he had been forcibly reseated on the stool, Zen looked at him blearily.