It had never occurred to me that Quincy might be a Jew. Knowing that, I was even happier that he had escaped from the coven of racist shitheads with his life. I put my hand on his forearm. ‘Okay, my friend, that’s enough. I’m going to go now.’
‘No, Matt, I-’
‘Shh,’ I said, stepping back. ‘I’ll see you in a day or two.’
I heard his voice again as I reached the door. He was calling my name. A nurse brushed past, shooting me a furious look. I felt bad that I’d disturbed him, but at least I knew what kind of scumbag Rudi Crane was. How much good that would do me, I couldn’t tell. Then I thought of the Indian and Pakistani troops in the Hades complex. Had the color of their skins led to them being treated as cannon fodder? That wouldn’t have surprised me at all.
The Bureau plane landed at La Guardia at ten the next morning. The Director sat opposite me during the flight and tried to get me talking about Rothmann. I brushed him off without being rude and looked through the early editions of the newspapers. They all carried stories about the climate change conference to be hosted by the UN at its headquarters. The world’s main players would be there, but most attention was being paid to the Russians and Chinese, both of whom had indicated that they were finally prepared to make cuts in their emissions. This chimed with the U.S.’s new approach to the issue. Although the President wasn’t attending the first sessions, he would be at the Secretary-General’s dinner in the evening, while the secretary of state and several other cabinet members would represent the U.S. during the day. Writers were supposed to have big egos, but I still wasn’t sure why the Director had asked me along. Maybe he thought my presence alongside him would arouse media interest in advance of the evening press conference.
We were driven to a hotel on East 42nd Street, only a short walk from the UN complex. Rain was pouring down and Simonsen handed me an umbrella. I was glad it didn’t bear the letters FBI in bright yellow-I still had mixed feelings about the Bureau, given that my family died on its watch. We met in the lobby shortly afterward and I was handed a laminated UN tag with my photo and name and a bar code underneath.
‘Right, are you ready to talk the talk?’ the Director asked.
His use of the slang expression surprised me. He was wearing a suit that must have cost several thousand dollars, as well as a putrid yellow tie. I had again declined the suit I’d been given and stuck to smart but casual, no tie. I had nothing to prove, at least not on the sartorial front.
Security at the glass tower on the East River was tight and even the Director’s group had to pass through several scanners. Although there were armed personnel outside the building, there was no sign of weapons inside. That was reassuring, though I was sure the security detail was carrying concealed handguns. At least there wouldn’t be a rerun of the Washington Cathedral massacre, where members of the armed forces conditioned by the Rothmanns had fired automatic rifles into the crowd. Then again, why would anyone want to disrupt a climate change conference? Even the automobile lobby had begun to accept there was a problem. If a private security firm like Hercules Solutions could play the eco card, surely there was hope for the world.
Which reminded me. Where was the Reverend Rudi Crane? I wanted to have a look at him. I glanced round and was surprised by the person who had appeared behind me.
Crane led his group of executives toward the elevators in the UN building’s entrance hall. The security checks had been adequate, although he would have advised even more care if H.S. had handled the work. You could never tell what kind of demented terrorist might sneak into a gathering like this-the place was full of former communists: Muslims, Africans with a grudge against the civilized world, even misguided Europeans who thought the U.S. was the devil. They were benighted sinners, all of them.
Crane told himself to keep his breathing steady. He had struggled to do that sometimes in the field, resulting in costly reprisals against militias in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan. His personal rule was that the body count always had to favor H.S. or its subsidiaries, even if the numbers of enemy dead were inflated by noncombatant women and children. Some people called them collateral damage, but he preferred the company jargon, ‘fertilizer.’ Those people weren’t human beings, they were animals, put on earth for the benefit of their betters.
Entering the large conference hall, he took a deep breath. Even here, there was a hint of the high smell you got in underdeveloped countries, that mixture of sweat, excrement and death. It filled his nostrils and almost made him puke. Good Lord, give me strength, he prayed silently. It wasn’t the first time he had made that request today. The news from Texas had been bad. At least his supervisor there had managed to convince the FBI that he had been kidnapped by the ‘foreigners’ who ran the camp-who were now supposedly on the run. As instructed, he had mentioned March Violet Partners-much joy might they have of that carefully constructed ghost. The fact that Thomson/Rothmann/ the Master was dead, as were the assassins, was positive. No trails led back to him, as long as Xavier Marias held his well-paid tongue.
Cameras clicked ahead of him and people crowded around men in dark suits. One group had almond eyes and off-white skin-the Chinese: communist hypocrites who were doing their best to destroy American power. The others were mainly fair-haired, with high cheekbones and greedy eyes-the Russians: no longer communists, but liars and thieves whose former soldiers-turned-mercenaries were H.S.’s biggest competitors. How could anyone entrust degenerates like those with personal, corporate or national security?
If there was any justice, the Lord would smite them all with his glorious thunder, but Rudi Crane knew praying for that would be sinful. Maybe he would be lucky-it would hardly be the first time; maybe some individual or group with a justified grievance would take action.
He looked around the international crowd in expensive suits and curious national costumes, but didn’t see any likely candidates. Then he caught sight of a familiar figure. The Director of the FBI was striding purposefully toward the Russian delegation. But who was that man behind him, wearing inappropriately informal clothes? Surely he had seen images of those features very recently.
The nurses were still angry with Quincy Jerome’s visitor. The patient had been upset all evening, pressing the call button frequently and repeating the name ‘Matt’ over and over. He had become delirious and had been given medication. When he woke in the morning, he started the litany again.
What could it be that he wanted to tell the Englishman so much?
Thirty-Six
Gordy Lister had been in a bar north of Malvern, Arkansas, when he saw the TV news. So the useless idiots who called the shots were gathering in the Big Apple to save the planet-kinda like hiring Jesse James to crack down on bank robbery or General Custer to improve relations with the Indians, screw that Native American bullshit. He drained his Bud and ordered another, thinking of the time not too long ago when he’d been a bigshot newspaper man and had drunk ultradry martinis every night. Thanks to his loony tunes ex-boss, that had all gone up in smoke. He’d been lucky to slip away from the scene in Texas. He’d dumped the sedan on the outskirts of Texarkana, shaved his head, bought a suit and tie, and rented a car using one of the credit cards and fake driver’s licenses he always carried. There would be more changes in his appearance and transport in the days to come.
He watched as the wide-eyed anchorwoman with her neatly sculpted hair and her glinting marble teeth turned to the economy. That was another thing he’d been screwed on-after the self-proclaimed Master had gone AWOL, all Gordy’s accounts had been blocked and he’d been reduced to stealing from the donations of the deluded faithful. Fortunately, the transfers he had made to the bank in Tahiti hadn’t been nailed, but they weren’t much use to him here. Fuck Jack Thomson. Fuck Heinz Rothmann. Fuck the Master. Shooting him was the best thing he’d ever done.