“Definitely not noble. Not now. I’m just an old man watching the parade from the porch of his retirement home.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers and closed his eyes for a second. Then he stared at her.
“Why do you want to connect with him, Kate?”
“Have you found out where he is?” Kate asked.
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“First I need to ask you something.”
“What?”
“What are your intentions?”
She laughed. “My intentions?”
“Yes. Forgive me if I feel protective toward him, but he was always the most fragile of us.”
“How would I know? I’ve never met him.”
“Don’t be disingenuous, Katie. Are your demands going to be emotional?”
“No.”
“No?”
“I need his help, Philip.”
He cocked his head. “Help with what?”
“I want my daughter to grow up safely. To have a normal life. I want this over. I want to be invited back to the table.”
“That’s a big ask.”
“Yes, it is.”
“So you want a happy ending?”
“Yes. And if there’s anyone who can script it, it’s Harry Hook.”
TWELVE
Hook, holed up in his wooden shack, a chorus of cicadas heralding the coming night, had been drinking without cease since the previous afternoon—drinking away the memories that the mess at the hospital had stirred up, drinking to try and drown the guilt that he carried like rocks in his pockets—and had reached a kind of plateau of inebriation where he seemed unable to become any drunker.
“How about another Scotch, sport?” Hook said to himself, wagging the bottle of Cutty Sark in the thick air.
“Don’t mind if I do,” he replied and as the bartender freshened his drink to the strains of “I Will Always Love You” he was no longer Harry Hook, he was Marvin Murray—always a sucker for the alliterative nom de guerre—and it was over a decade ago, in the living room of the American consul’s house on a tiny Asian island, back when he was in his handsome mid-forties, tanned and smiling, and the drink in his hand was not the symptom of a problem or, god forbid, a disease, it was a social lubricant, a prop, all part of his cover as every needy foreigner’s favorite sort of Yank: rich, philanthropic and just a tad misty-eyed and naïve.
This little shindig didn’t run to a band, just as this island caliphate, a flyspeck on the ass of Indonesia, didn’t run to an ambassador, meriting only the newly appointed consul—who looked as if he were still in his teens—working under Jakarta’s umbrella.
The American evening, the brainchild of the consul’s wife (a pretty little strawberry blonde who held Hook’s eyes for just a beat too long as her husband trundled her around the dance floor to the strains of Whitney Houston pumping from the stereo) was attended by the small expatriate community: the usual lizardy older parties who needed the sun to keep their blood from congealing, here for the free booze in this dry land; a few sensibly shod do-gooders of a vaguely Christian stripe who were given short shrift in this Islamic enclave; and the ubiquitous “businessmen” who sniffed around these climes dispensing bribes in exchange for oil, cell phone and resort concessions.
Hook felt a hand on his sleeve and it was the consul’s wife.
“Mrs. Partridge,” he said, “what a lively gathering.”
“Call me Sally, please,” she said. “Oh, it’s a frightful bore.” She plumped her lower lip in a toddlersque moue that made Hook want to bite her until she bled. “We were in Paris, you know, before this? And then Donald . . .” She wagged a freckled hand. “Well, let’s not go into that.”
Hook made a mental note to find out exactly what Donald Partridge had done to earn this hardship post.
Then Sally was in his arms, and he swung her out onto the floor, her tight little aerobicized belly pleasantly abrading his cock as Whitney warbled on: “Eyeeeeeeee-yiiiiiiiiiiii willa always lurve yeeeeeeewwwwww.”
The shots that killed the two Marines at the gate seemed to be heard only by Hook, his ears, perhaps, attuned to a darker frequency.
Instinctively he stepped away from Sally Partridge and her succulent lower lip, and moved toward the door just as eight men armed with AK-47s burst in, swinging the barrels like hoses, getting the guests to stand with their hands up.
Somebody yanked the power cord, silencing Whitney. The leader of the group (who were all from Jihadist central casting) stepped forward, unwound his keffiyeh and said, “Everybody please stay calm,” in mellifluous Oxbridge tones.
Hook knew him.
Knew Arsen Bujang, the charismatic British-educated leader of a little band of rebels who opposed the filthy-rich royal family that had leeched the blood of the poor islanders for centuries.
In fact, it had been Hook (or Murray’s) mission to befriend him, to seduce him with promises of American patronage via his entirely fictitious Global Peace Foundation—Hook at his showrunner best, creating websites and videos and setting up telephone lines that were answered by women with musical voices who spoke fulsomely about the Foundation and the worthiness of Marvin Murray’s deeds.
And he had, in his estimation, done this perfectly. Had turned Bujang into a believer, and had recommended to Washington that they back the rebels in their efforts to overthrow the royal family and thereby gain a foothold in this increasingly fundamentalist part of the world.
Hook stepped forward, showing his clammy palms when the gun barrels locked on him. “Tuan Bujang,” he said, “what is this?”
“It’s what the media will soon call a hostage situation, Mr. Murray.” Bujang smiled through his beard. “Please, let’s not turn it into a hostage crisis.”
The consul appeared, his voice shaking. “You’re on the sovereign soil of the United States of America. I must demand that you withdraw immediately.”
Bujang swiped him with the stock of his weapon and the man went down on one knee, bleeding from the nose.
“Mrs. Partridge, please tend to your husband,” Bujang said.
Sally Partridge was moving toward the consul when another three men appeared from within the house, dragging with them a local woman and two strawberry blonde children, a boy and a girl, both under five. The children ran to their mother and gripped her legs and the Muslim woman stood and wrung her hands and said something that earned her a back-handed slap from one of the gunmen. She folded in on herself and wept.
Bujang jerked his head at Hook. “Come with me.”
Hook followed him into the kitchen where Bujang leaned against the counter, his weapon dangling casually from his shoulder.
“Okay Harry Hook, you’re rumbled old son.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m Marvin Murray.”
“You think I’m a bloody fool?”
“No.”
“You’re CIA.” He saw Hook’s face. ‘Or one of its nameless bloody off-shoots. Let’s not split hairs. You’re in the very belly of the Imperialist beast.” He flashed an ironic smile.
“Maybe so, but I’ve recommended that the administration give you its backing.”
“Very white of you, Harry.”
“Isn’t that what you want?”
“A few crumbs from Mr. Bush in exchange for my soul? No, I think not.”
“Then what? What do you want?”
“I want the attention of a world that is blissfully ignorant of our little nation and its egregious ills.”
“Well, you’ll get it. But you’ll also get reamed by the platoon of Special Forces that’ll be heading this way soonest.”
“It’ll take a while for them to get their boots on the ground. Enough time for the global media to home in on our little bit of theater.”
“What about the local militia?”
“Those Keystone Cops? They’re trained to collect hush money for the regime and not much else. Anyway, they’ll kow-tow
to your lot.”
Hook knew he was right.
“And the hostages?”
“Oh, they’ll be fine. As soon as we’ve had our bit of time in the media sun we’ll free them.”
“You killed the Marines.”
“They were soldiers, Harry. An occupational hazard. But that ragtag bunch of civilians . . .” He flapped a long-fingered hand in a dismissive gesture.
“You’ll release them?”
“Pinky promise.” Bujang grinned. He had very good teeth.
“And what about you and your men?”
“Martyrdom awaits, Harry. A glorious death.”
Hook squinted at him. “Surely you don’t really believe that horseshit?”
“Don’t let my posh accent fool you, Harry. I’m as bloody fanatical as you’ll get.” He pushed away from the counter. “Come on, let’s go and mingle.”
The night passed with little incident. The rebels allowed food and water to be served and supervised bathroom breaks.
Hook was delegated as the voice to the outside world and he spoke first to the ambassador in Jakarta, who had been briefed on his mission and said, “Damned lucky to have a man like you on the inside, Harry.”
When pressed for the rebels’ demands, Hook had said they were still being formulated and all outside elements should stay in a holding pattern.
The media jetted in. The stringers from Jakarta, Singapore and Manila arrived first. Then the Aussies. And finally the big guns: the American contingent and a handful of Europeans. Satellite dishes mushroomed outside the house, and a low wasp’s buzz of assembled media drifted through the pre-dawn air, only to be swamped by the call of the muezzin.
At sunrise Hook spoke on the phone to the Special Forces colonel who had laid siege, ready to storm the gates.
“No action is required, Colonel,” Hook said. “I have Bujang’s word that all the hostages will be released.”
“And you believe him?”
“Yes.”
“Then you’re either a goddam fool or a goddam seer.”
Finally Bujang made his first, and only, demand.
An American TV reporter and camera crew were to be allowed in to record a statement.
How it was decided who would have the honor Hook never found out, but a brittle beauty with shellacked hair and the face of a starved greyhound, her toned body squeezed into fetching khaki pants and a flak jacket, came in with a cameraman who had the decency to look nervous.
The correspondent was all business, dismissing Hook and getting up close to Bujang.
Klieg lights were positioned and the camera loved Arsen Bujang, with his fine voice and his flashing teeth and his dark good looks.
He spoke eloquently about the suffering of his people. About the years of oppression. About the brutality of the corrupt regime. He demanded that the world take note and ended with the pledge that this was merely the first action of a coming struggle.
He asked all the hostages to group together to be filmed, the tallest at the rear, the children standing with their parents in front. The cameraman did his work then he and the woman correspondent were escorted out.
Hook said to Bujang, “So, that’s it?”
“Yes, it’s time.”
“Will you release them now?” he said, nodding at the hostages who still stood in formation.
Bujang said something to his men in the local language and two of them grabbed Hook and held him while the leader and the other men fired at the hostages, killing them all. They executed the two children, standing screaming over the torn bodies of their parents, last.
The smoke-filled room stank of propellant and blood and shit.
Hook, struggling, crying, puking, was restrained by the gunmen.
Bujang spoke again and Hook was pushed out into the yard where the helmeted, body-armored Special Forces soldiers were advancing weapons first, and they threw him to the ground and yelled at him and he didn’t care if they shot him but they didn’t, just bundled him into the street and established his identity and took him to the medics where he sat on a camp chair, still deafened from the noise in the room, and heard the muffled pops of the firefight that killed all the rebels and two Special Forces soldiers.
Why Arsen Bujang had spared him he never knew.
Perhaps he’d understood that leaving Hook alive was a greater punishment than killing him.
Not only was he blamed for a bad judgment call that cost twenty-two people their lives, he was tainted with the suspicion of collusion. Philip Danvers had championed Hook, ensuring no formal charges were brought and the old man had, at first, refused to accept the resignation Hook had tendered via email after jetting across the Straits of Malacca to Bangkok.
But Hook, judging himself more harshly than any tribunal could, had begun his sentence of self-imposed exile, wearing an albatross of guilt that he would never shake.
In his jungle house, pouring another drink, Hook knocked the glass from the table and it shattered. He lacked the inclination and the coordination to fetch a replacement and drank straight from the bottle.
Drank long and drank hard in a quest for oblivion.
THIRTEEN
Close to midnight, Kate, fighting sleep, sat staring out the window of the speeding train at the German countryside flying by—an old church hidden in the shadows of bare trees; a row of sodium lights staining the snow orange; a lone, tiny car panting at a level crossing.
Suzie sat across the table from her, hands in the pockets of the bulky jacket, wearing the baseball cap pulled low so Kate couldn’t see her eyes and hoped she was asleep, but she looked up and said, “Where are we, Mommy?”
“I don’t know. Not exactly. Somewhere between Berlin and Hamburg.”
The girl flipped open the comic book she’d bought at Zoo Station, smudging a finger over the Manga characters, then fixed Kate with a look that was heartbreakingly like her father’s.
“That old man today, he called you Katie.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because that used to be my name.”
“Before you were Holly Brenner?”
“Yes.”
“What was my name, before?”
“Suzie. Susan. It’s always been the same.”
“No. My last name.”
“Can’t you remember?”
“No, you made me forget it.”
“Yes, I did. I’m sorry. It was Hourani. Susan Hourani.”
“Hourani?”
“Yes.”
“Was that Daddy’s name?”
“Yes.”
“But not yours?”
“No, I was Kate Swift.”
“But you were married?”
“Yes, but I kept my name.”
“Why?”
“I just did.”
“I like Suzie Hourani.”
“So do I.”
“Will I ever be her again?”
“Yes, I hope so.”
The child went back to the comic book and Kate closed her eyes for a moment and the rocking motion of the train lulled her dangerously close to sleep.
She stood. “Come.”
“Where?”
“I need coffee.”
Leaving their bags stowed in the overhead racks they walked down the carriage. They passed the toilets and the glass doors to the dining car sprang apart to allow them through.
Kate scanned the car. A uniformed attendant stood behind the counter checking his cell phone, a middle-aged couple sat at a table in hunched silence and a young blonde woman was seated alone, reading a paperback copy of The Looking Glass War.
Kate showed Suzie to a table and approached the counter, ordering an espresso and a Coke from the attendant.
She usually forbade Suzie sugary soda drinks, but they had a long night ahead—a flight from Hamburg to Copenhagen where they would get their plane to Bangkok—and she didn’t want the child wilting on her.
The doors opened and a man in his thirties wearing bl
ue jeans and a check shirt entered and slumped down at a table, staring out at the night.
Kate took the Coke can and the small paper cup of espresso to where Suzie sat. The man looked up at her for just a moment before his gaze shifted out the window again, but she knew, just as she’d known at the school yesterday, that it was on.
Kate sat and opened the can for Suzie before taking a hit of espresso even though she no longer needed it—a jolt of raw adrenalin had smashed away any sluggishness.
She stole a glance at the man.
He was sandy-haired and fair-skinned. They wouldn’t send a swarthy man, not even one who could be just another Turkish Gastarbeiter. This guy looked German, looked like he drank beer and yelled at the TV when Hamburger SV scored in the Bundesliga. He was probably a Slavic Muslim, a Chechen, or maybe Bosniak.
Who had sent him?
She didn’t know.
The face-to-face with Mrs. Danvers had brought its risks and Kate was still on hit lists that spanned the Middle East, despite her betrayal of the hated America.
The man who had come to kill her was just a grain of sand in the shifting landscape of fundamentalist Islam—Sunni, Shi’ite, Wahhabi, Palestinian, Zaidi, in her years in intelligence, recruited by Philip Danvers after 9/11, Kate had used them all. Lied to them all. Fucked some of them. Blackmailed some of them. Killed some of them.
Married one and watched him die.
And Lucien Benway, like some contemporary Lawrence of Arabia, had a roster of Muslims of every breed on his payroll.
Kate took another unwanted sip of her coffee and leaned in toward Suzie.
“I need to go to the bathroom.” She leaned in closer. “What’s the time?”
Suzie consulted her boyish wristwatch. “Eleven fifty-two.”
“If I’m not back in five minutes you go to that woman over there reading the book and you ask her to help you. You don’t speak to anybody else. You get her to take you to the police and you tell them who you are. Who you really are. Okay?”
Suzie was staring at her in fear. “Mommy . . .”
“Do you hear me?”
“Yes. I hear you.”
“It’s okay, I’ll be back.”
The Truth Itself Page 5