“It’s me, Herr Pelz. Petra Eichen.”
But Old Pelz was looking in horror at the gun on her hip. “The fuck it is!” Hefting a shotgun, he yelled, “Nazi sympathizers!” and fired.
Thirty-Four
SORAYA ENTERED The Glass Slipper behind Kiki and ahead of Deron. Kiki had called ahead, and no sooner were they all inside than the owner, Drew Davis, came waddling over like Scrooge McDuck. He was a grizzled old man with white hair that stood on end as if it were shocked to see he was still alive. He had an animated face with mischievous eyes, a nose like a wad of chewed-up gum, and a broad smile honed to perfection on TV ops and stumping for local politicos, as well as his good works throughout the poorer neighborhoods of the district. But he possessed a warmth that was genuine. He had a way of looking at you when you spoke with him that made you feel he was listening to you alone.
He embraced Kiki while she kissed him on both cheeks and called him “Papa.” Later, after the introductions, when they were seated at a prime table that Drew Davis had reserved for them, after the champagne and goodies had been served, Kiki explained her relationship with him.
“When I was a little girl, our tribe was swept by a drought so severe that many of the elderly and newborn grew sick and died. After a time, a small group of white people arrived to help us. They told us they were from an organization that would send us money each month, after they’d set up their program in our village. They had brought water, but of course there wasn’t enough.
“After they left, thinking of broken promises, we fell into despair, but true to their word water came, then the rains came until we didn’t need their water anymore, but they never left. Their money went for medicines and schooling. Every month I, along with all the other children, got letters from our sponsor-the person sending the money.
“When I was old enough, I started writing back to Drew and we struck up a correspondence. Years later, when I wanted to go on to higher learning, he arranged for me to travel to Cape Town to go to school, then he sponsored me for real, bringing me to the States for college and university. He never asked for anything in return, except that I do well in school. He’s like my second father.”
They drank champagne and watched the pole dancing-which, much to Soraya’s surprise, seemed more artful, less crass than she had imagined. But there were more surgically enhanced body parts in that one room than she’d ever seen. For the life of her she couldn’t figure out why a woman would want breasts that looked and acted like balloons.
She continued to drink her champagne, all too aware that she was taking tiny, overly dainty sips. She’d like nothing better than to take Kiki’s advice, forget about her problems for a couple of hours, kick back, get drunk, let herself go. The only trouble was, she knew it would never happen. She was too controlled, too closed in. What I ought to do, she thought morosely as she watched a redhead with gravity-defying breasts and hips that seemed unattached to the rest of her, is get smashed, pull off my top, and do some pole dancing myself. Then she laughed at the absurdity of the notion. She’d never been that kind of person, even when it might have been age-appropriate. She had always been the good girl-cool, calculating to the point of overanalysis. She glanced over at Kiki, whose magnificent face was lit up not only by the colored strobe lights but also by a fiercely experienced joy. Wasn’t the good girl’s life drained of color, of flavor? Soraya asked herself.
This thought depressed her even more, but it was just the prelude, because a moment later she looked up to see Rob Batt. What the what? she thought. He’d seen her, all right, and was making a beeline right at her.
Soraya excused herself, rose, and walked in the other direction, toward the ladies’ room. Somehow Batt managed to snake his way to a position in front of her. She turned on her heel, threaded her way around the tables. Batt, running up the waiters’ aisle from the kitchen, caught up with her.
“Soraya, I need to talk to you.”
She shook him off, kept going, out the front door. In the parking lot she heard him running after her. A light sleet was falling, but the wind had failed entirely, the precipitation coming straight down, melting on her shoulders and bare head.
She didn’t know why she’d come out here; Kiki had driven them from Deron’s house, so she had no car to get into. Maybe she’d been disgusted by the sight of a man she’d liked and trusted, a man who’d betrayed that trust, who’d defected to the dark side, as she privately called LaValle’s NSA because she could no longer bear to utter the words National Security Agency without feeling sick to her stomach. The NSA had come to stand for everything that had gone wrong in America over the last number of years-the power grabs, the sense felt by some inside the Beltway that they were entitled to do anything and everything, laws of democracy be damned. It all boiled down to contempt, she thought. These people were so sure they were right, they felt nothing but contempt and perhaps even pity for those who tried to oppose them.
“Soraya, wait! Hold on!”
Batt had caught up with her.
“Get out of here,” she said, continuing to walk away.
“But I’ve got to talk to you.”
“The hell you do. We have nothing to talk about.”
“It’s a matter of national security.”
Soraya, shaking her head in disbelief, laughed bitterly and kept on walking.
“Listen, you’re my only hope. You’re the only one open enough to listen to me.”
Rolling her eyes, she turned to face him. “You’ve got some fucking nerve, Rob. Go back and lick your new master’s boots.”
“LaValle sold me out, Soraya, you know that.” His eyes were pleading. “Listen, I made a terrible mistake. I thought what I was doing would save CI.”
Soraya was so incredulous she almost laughed in his face. “What? You don’t expect me to believe that.”
“I’m a product of the Old Man. I had no faith in Hart. I-”
“Don’t use the Old Man routine with me. If you really were his product you’d never have sold us out. You’d have hung in there, become part of the solution, rather than making the problem worse.”
“You didn’t hear Secretary Halliday, the guy’s like a goddamn force of nature. I got sucked into his orbit. I made a mistake, okay? I admit it.”
“There’s no excuse for your loss of faith.”
Batt held up his hands, palms-outward. “You’re absolutely right, but, for God’s sake, look at me now. I’m being thoroughly punished, aren’t I?”
“I don’t know, Rob, you tell me.”
“I have no job, no prospect of getting one, either. My friends won’t answer my calls, and when I run into them on the street or a restaurant, they act like you did, they turn away. My wife’s moved out and taken the kids with her.” He ran his hand through his wet hair. “Hell, I’ve been living out of my car since it happened. I’m a mess, Soraya. What could be a worse punishment?”
Was it a flaw in her character that her heart went out to him? Soraya wondered. But she showed no trace of sympathy, simply stood, silent, waiting for him to continue.
“Listen to me,” he pleaded. “Listen-”
“I don’t want to listen.”
As she began to turn away again, he shoved a digital camera into her hand. “At least take a look at these photos.”
Soraya was about to hand it back, then she figured she had nothing to lose. Batt’s camera was on, and she pressed the REVIEW button. What she saw was a series of surveillance photos of General Kendall.
“What the hell?” she said.
“That’s what I’ve been doing since I got canned,” Batt said. “I’ve been trying to find a way to bring down LaValle. I figured right away that he might be too tough a nut to crack quickly, but Kendall, well, he’s another story.”