Canola grinned. “I gotta say: you looked real scared when we cuffed you.”
A voice in the hallway said, “Did someone say lunch?” Sockdolager entered and spied the food. “Don’t mind if I do,” he said. He stuffed half a sandwich into his mouth and spun around a chair to sit backward, grinning through crumbs at Pfefferkorn. “What’s new, puddytat?”
“Everything,” Pfefferkorn said.
The “detectives” chuckled.
Pfefferkorn set down his sandwich and went to study the map. Together, the two Zlabias made a shape akin to a misshapen root vegetable. That both fit onto a single sheet of paper while yet maintaining enough fineness of resolution to label the individual streets spoke to how tiny the countries were—neighborhoods, really. Why was it that violence always burned hottest in cramped, obscure places? The dividing line, Gyeznyuiy Boulevard, cut clean up the middle of the map, ending at the top of the page in a plaza labeled, on one side, Square of the Location of the Conclusion of the Parade of the Commemoration of the Remembrance of the Exalted Memory of the Greatness of the Sacrifices of the Magnificent Martyrs of the Glorious Revolution of the Zlabian People of the Twenty-sixth of May, and on the other side, Adam Smith Square. Along the bottom edge of the map bulged a blank space marked Dzhikhlishkh Nuclear Exclusion Zone.
“It’ll all be on the exam.”
Pfefferkorn turned. The speaker was a young man with ash-brown hair neatly parted along the right side. He wore a bland suit and an understated necktie held in place by an American flag pin.
“For the purposes of this operation,” he said, “you can call me whatever you’d like, Dad.”
63.
“We downloaded this from the de Vallées’ home security system,” Paul said.
Pfefferkorn watched the computer screen. It showed closed-circuit footage of the ballroom. Carlotta and Jesús María de Lunchbox were dancing the tango. The video had no sound. It made them look like they were having very well-coordinated seizures. A minute or so into the video, they pulled apart with identical expressions of terror. Eight masked men rushed into the frame. Four of them grabbed Carlotta. Pfefferkorn was proud to see her fight like a champion. She could have been an actress in a silent movie, exhibiting “The heroine struggles courageously.” The men carried her off screen. Meanwhile the other four men were busy with Jesús María. Three of them restrained him while the fourth took out a boning knife.
Paul pressed pause. “I think you know what happens next,” he said.
Pfefferkorn was shaken. “Where is she,” he asked.
In answer to this question Paul closed the file and clicked on another. A new window filled the computer screen. The video was the source for the still photograph Blueblood had shown him. Carlotta was sitting in front of the same blank, scarred concrete wall. The same gun was to her head. She was holding the newspaper. She sounded scared but in control of herself. She repeated the date. She said that she was fine and being treated well. She said that she had been taken captive by the Revolutionary Movement of the Twenty-sixth of May. She said that in order to secure her safe return, the U.S. government would need to hand over the workbench. She said a few more things Pfefferkorn couldn’t make heads or tails of, either. Then she said something that stood his hair on end.
“The delivery must be made by American novelist Arthur Pfefferkorn. He must come alone. If anyone else comes, or if he fails to deliver the workbench, I will be—”
The image froze. Paul closed the window.
“Let’s not worry about that part,” he said.
If Pfefferkorn was shaken before, he was really quite badly shaken now. He was like a martini inside a rock tumbler being held by a detoxing epileptic standing on stilts atop a trampoline inside the San Andreas Fault. He stared at the blank blue screen, the afterimage of Carlotta’s face dancing before him.
“Tell me everything you know,” Paul said.
64.
Pfefferkorn told him everything he knew, starting with the theft of the manuscript. When he came to the part about the note from Lucian Savory, Paul said, “He’s a double agent.”
“You say that like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.”
“Don’t feel bad,” Paul said. “We only just found out about it ourselves.”
He clicked another file. Up came a photo of two men greeting each other.
“This was taken three weeks ago at Khlapushniyuiyk Airport, East Zlabia. I’m sure you recognize Savory.”
The sight of that bulbous forehead caused Pfefferkorn’s blood pressure to rise.
“Three guesses who he’s shaking hands with.”
The second man was hugely tall and broad as a bear. An entire carton of Marlboros jutted from one pocket of his tentlike sportcoat. In the background was a contingent of expressionless men armed with machine guns as well as a squad of improbably buxom women wearing the uniforms of the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders.
“I have no idea,” Pfefferkorn said.
“East Zlabian Lord High President Kliment Thithyich,” Paul said.
“The guy I shot?”
“You didn’t shoot him.”
“I didn’t?”
Paul shook his head.
“Thank God,” Pfefferkorn said.
“If I were you, I wouldn’t start congratulating myself just yet. You did kill Dragomir Zhulk.”
“Oh.”
Paul minimized the photo of Savory and Thithyich. “A lot of what Savory told you was true. The books were coded. Bill did work for us. And you were his intended replacement. But the part about Blood Eyes causing Kliment Thithyich to get shot was bullshit.”
“Then who shot him?”
“He did.”
“He shot himself? Why?”
“To create a pretext for invading West Zlabia,” Paul said. “He’s already filthy rich—casinos, mostly, plus some telecom and media—but control of the West Zlabian gas field would bump him up to the big leagues. He’s tried rallying international support for an invasion through more respectable channels. You might’ve noticed his campaign to promote awareness about West Zlabian human rights violations? It didn’t catch on. The opposite, in fact: Thithyich actually lost a few neutral-to-favorable percentage points, probably because, as our own polls indicate, ninety-six percent of people haven’t heard of either Zlabia, and eighty-one percent of those that have can’t tell them apart. You can imagine how antsy Thithyich must be getting if he’s willing to fake an assassination attempt. It hurts, getting shot in the ass.”
“Then why didn’t he invade?”
“Because he’s a chicken. Remember, before the Wall came down, we propped up guys like him as a bulwark against the Soviets. They have the most grotesque sense of entitlement. He was counting on our support as part of any offensive. We’ve since made it clear that we have no intention of getting involved in another war for the sake of lining his pockets.”
“So there was no code in Blood Eyes?”
“There was, but it was a dummy—a call-and-response code. We wanted to test whether your name brand would have sufficient penetrance to be useful for future operations. And did it ever. Perfect score.”
“But I mangled it,” Pfefferkorn said.
“Mangled—”
“The flag. ‘In one fluid motion.’”
“That wasn’t the flag.”
“It wasn’t?”
“No.”
“Then what was?”
“‘Sank to his knees, gasping for breath.’”
It depressed Pfefferkorn to realize that he had let such a wretched cliché slip through the cracks. “How did you know I would take the manuscript in the first place?” he asked.