by Jon Evans
“You I only feel sorry for,” Shadbold says. “It was your beliefs that led you astray. You were used, from the beginning, by all sides. I have a truth to reveal. Your precious foundation? Those noble battlers for the poor sick children of Kishkinda? We know who they are now. A front for Zulu Fields. They pretended to be activists and hired your friends to fight dirty for them so the share price would fall, make their takeover easier, make Terre willing to sell their shares cheap. Once they owned the mine they would have turned on you, exposed you, discredited your whole movement as a freak fringe of violent extremists. You thought you were a noble warrior for good. My poor child. From the beginning, nothing more than a pawn in a fight between kings, myself and Zulu Fields. I won. I always win.”
“You’re lying,” Danielle says, aghast. “That’s not true. It isn’t true.”
“No word a lie. Look into Zulu Fields’ computers, Mr. Kell. There’s proof abundant.”
Keiran stands stunned. The foundation a front for a takeover attempt. It makes sense. It explains everything. And makes everything meaningless. Angus and Estelle died for nothing.
“I learned a long time ago that human nature is reliable as sunrise,” Shadbold says, his voice weaker now. “If you offer a rational human being both reward and punishment, both carrot and stick, he will almost without exception do what you want. I know both of you now. I know you will see things my way. Simple human nature. What do you have to gain, by speaking out? Nothing. What do you, and the rest of your benighted species, have to lose? So much. If you breathe a single word you declare war on me. I think you know now that there is no surviving that war.”
Keiran doesn’t say anything.
“Henri,” Shadbold whispers. “Take them away. I’m tired.”
* * *
Laurent doesn’t come with them. He doesn’t even say goodbye. Once Danielle and Keiran are strapped back into the helicopter’s safety harnesses, her lover, her betrayer, the man who changed the course of her life, who led her into a doomed struggle for justice that has made her a criminal, vaults down onto the yacht and climbs down from the helipad without even looking at her. Danielle stares at his dwindling form, the long shadows he casts from the ship’s deck lights, as the helicopter lifts away into the starlit sky above the Mediterranean. She doesn’t feel anything at all. There isn’t anything left. She feels empty.
The helicopter returns them to the airfield in France. The pilot gestures to the airplane that brought them there, where the same man who accompanied them from London awaits.
“We don’t have passports,” Keiran says, as the airplane taxis to the end of the runway. “I don’t have any ID at all. Or money.”
“You will need no identification.” The man’s voice is deep and booming, his accent foreign, African.
Danielle manages to doze off during the flight back. It isn’t hard. She is so drained by fear and loss that remaining awake simply requires too much energy. She sleeps through the landing. When Keiran shakes her awake, she is dazed and clumsy, and has to lean on him as they descend. The limousine is waiting for them, a door open. They enter it without even considering the alternatives. Soon they emerge in front of Monument Station, in the City of London. It is night, and clumps of drunken overpaid bankers pass them, going home from their post-work pubs. Danielle is hit with a wave of molten fury when she sees them. She rages at their smug self-satisfaction, their lives of champagne and million-pound flats, their pretty blonde girlfriends whoring themselves out to live with money, because money, and the respect of people with more of it than you, is all that really matters. She wants to smash their faces until they bleed from nose and mouth and eyes, break their kneecaps with a hammer, squeeze their testicles until they cannot scream any longer. As quickly as it came, the fury is gone, leaving her weak-kneed.
“Are you all right?” Keiran asks, worried.
Danielle nods. She thinks of the twisted, raging faces she had seen at the demonstration in Paris, especially among the black bloc. She understands their endless well of anger a little better now. The rage at people who have a life of peace and wealth and comfort and love, and do not deserve it, while you have been fighting all your life for what you believe is right, and you have none of those things, and you have been betrayed by everything you believe in, all the goodness you once thought filled the world.
“You can stay with me tonight.”
She shakes her head violently. “No. No. I’m getting out of this fucking country. I’m getting my passport and going straight to the airport.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going home. What did you think?”
“I mean about Shadbold,” Keiran says.
“I’m not going to do anything.”
“You think he’s right?” Keiran pauses. “Mengele. You know who he was?”
“I’m not a fucking idiot.”
“Sorry. You’d be surprised how many people don’t. His experiments. Nothing of any actual scientific value came from them, but what if they had? Would it be right to use that knowledge? I suppose this isn’t the same thing. It’s the mine that causes cancer. Shadbold just tests drugs on the ones who get it. It’s unethical, exploitative, but they’re probably not much worse off than if he didn’t. If he does find the cure for some cancer, will it have been worth it?”
“Who cares?” Danielle asks. “I don’t. Not any more. I tried caring and it didn’t work. Fuck caring. I’m going home.”
“You’re an inspiration to us all.”
“And fuck you too.”
“I suppose I earned that,” he says. “I’m sorry.”
“What are you going to do?”
Keiran shrugs. “Same as you. Nothing. He’s right. It’s awful, but something good might come out of it, and I’m not willing to risk myself. And he’s too big for us to fight even if I wanted to. I’m going to go home and pretend that none of this ever happened.”
“Good.”
“You really think so?”
“I don’t give a shit.”
“If you ever need anything,” Keiran says. “Anything at all. Danielle, I’m so sorry. If I can ever do anything for you, just call. I mean it. I hope you know that. I’ll ring you in a couple days, make sure you got home okay.”
“Don’t bother,” Danielle says, and turns and advances into the London night, hot despairing tears in her eyes, moving quickly, fuelled by self-loathing, into the flow of ten thousand anonymous pedestrians on the south bank of the Thames.
She returns to the flat she shared with Laurent, collects her passport, and packs as quickly as she can, necessities only, holding each breath as long as she can, as if the very air might pollute her. A black cab takes her to Heathrow. She pays fourteen hundred pounds for a last-minute one-way ticket to JFK. Cheap at the price. Right now Danielle would sell her soul, if necessary, to get out of England and back to America as fast as possible. Not that she thinks anyone would be willing to buy.
Part 5
America, three months later
Chapter 27
Danielle has rarely been so relieved to return to her apartment. Her feet hurt, her little black cocktail dress has been decorated with half a spilled Cosmopolitan, and the taxi that brought her home smelled of vomit. She totters into her building’s foyer and waits for the elevator. Her apartment is only two flights up, but high heels, exhaustion and alcohol make those thirty-two steps seem like the Empire State Building. Once home, she leans against the wall to remove her shoes, and nearly knocks over the ornate wooden coatrack that once belonged to her grandparents. Collapsing onto her bed is a physical relief. She knows she must undress, shower, and drink as much water as she can stand before allowing herself to pass out, but right now it is so good to close her eyes and just lie here. Even if she is all alone.
Her phone rings. She ignores it, lets it warble five times and switch to voice mail. But it rings again, five more times, and again, and again. She tries to tune it out. Even getting up and walking
across the room to unplug the phone seems like an unbearable effort. But the sound bores into her brain like a barbed drill bit, and eventually she forces herself to her feet, steps to the glass table, and on impulse, angry now, who dares call her at three AM, she answers.
“Who is this?” she demands.
At first there is no reply. She is about to hang up, thinking it a prank caller, when a woman’s voice answers, accented and tentative: “Hello? Is this Danielle Leaf, please?”
“Yes, what do you want? Do you know what time it is?”
“I am so sorry to call you at this hour. But it is necessary.”
“Necessary for what?” The woman’s accent is Indian. A telemarketer? If it is, Danielle vows, she will call the Better Business Bureau come morning.
The woman says, “My name is Jayalitha. I was a friend of Angus McFadden. I believe, if you are the Danielle Leaf I seek to contact, you will recognize that name?”
Danielle takes a moment to digest that. Then she retreats to the bed, sits on it, and says, “Yes. I knew Angus.”
“Oh, thank goodness. Thank goodness.”
“What are you – Wait. Are you, was I supposed to deliver your passport? To Kishkinda? Like, six months ago?”
“Yes.”
“You’re supposed to be dead,” Danielle says.
“Yes. I am sorry. That was necessary.”
Danielle hesitates. She doesn’t want anything to do with this. But she can’t just hang up. “Why are you calling me?”
“Please, Miss Leaf,” Jayalitha said. “I know no one else in this country. I have no money left. I am here without papers or visas. I fear there are men hunting me. Please can you help?”
“This country?” Danielle now notices the absence of a transoceanic call’s tiny but perceptible time-lag. “Men hunting you? Where are you?”
“I am in the city of Los Angeles.”
“What are you,” Danielle pauses, not sure what question, if any, she wants to ask. She tries to collected her frazzled thoughts, but they won’t stop unravelling.
“Please. My telephone card will soon empty. I beg you, Miss Leaf. You are my only hope.”
“Don’t go confusing me with Obi-Wan.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Shit,” Danielle says. “Call me collect.”
“I am sorry? Collect?”
“Reverse charges. We call it collect here. Call me collect in ten minutes and I’ll try to figure something out.”
Danielle takes advantage of the pause to have a quick shower, as cold as she can stand. She is drunk, but not too drunk to know that Trouble is rearing a monstrous and many-fanged head, and she needs to be as sober as possible.
* * *
“Where are you exactly?” Danielle asks, after accepting the charges.
“I am in Union Station, Los Angeles.”
“How did you get there without ID?”
“By ship. From China. It was a terribly long journey.”
“And you think there’s someone after you?”
“Yes. I called Angus earlier today, I did not yet know what,” Jayalitha’s voice falters, “what happened to him. Someone else answered. Someone with a terrible voice. And then tonight I was pursued by two men. Perhaps they were just dacoits. Criminals. But I saw them moving through the station, seeking someone. When they saw me they gave chase. I barely escaped. I fear they may return.”
“Huh.” Danielle isn’t sure she should believe any of this. “How did you get my number?”
“From your parents.”
“My parents?”
Jayalitha says, “I recalled your last name and that Angus described your parents as wealthy lawyers in the city of Boston. I used the Internet to find their telephone number. Miss Leaf, I am terribly sorry to bother you. It mortifies me to call you like this. But when I learned that Angus is dead… Please, Miss Leaf. I truly believe you are the only person in this world who might be willing to help me. Please. I beg you. Please help me.”
“Help you how?”
“Any way you can.”
“Well, uh, where are you staying? Maybe I can send you some money.”
“I am not staying anywhere,” Jayalitha says.
“You’re on the street? In Los Angeles? You can’t do that.”
“I have no choice.”
“You don’t have any money at all?”
“I am barefoot, Miss Leaf. My pockets are empty. I have no jewellery. I have nothing but the clothes on my back.”
“Shit.” Danielle tries to think if she knows anyone in Los Angeles. A few acquaintances, but no one she can call to pick up a strange homeless Indian woman in Union Station at night. “Look, I’m sorry, I don’t think there’s anything I can do for you tonight.”
“Tomorrow. The next day. Anything, Miss Leaf. I beg you.”
Danielle shakes her head. “Call me back in the morning, okay? I need, I’m sorry, but I’m falling over here, I need to sleep. When my head’s clear I’ll try to think things over. I can’t promise anything. But call me back and I’ll answer. Is that okay?”
“Thank you,” Jayalitha says passionately, as if Danielle just promised her a million dollars and a Special Forces honour guard. “Thank you, Miss Leaf.”
“Don’t thank me yet. I haven’t done anything for you.”
“You have given me hope, Miss Leaf. I thought I was lost.”
“Just call me in the morning,” Danielle says uncomfortably. “We’ll work something out.” But she can’t imagine what or how.
* * *
The next morning’s hangover is not too bad. Headache, malaise, waves of nausea when she thinks of eating, all easily dulled by codeine-fortified Tylenol. Danielle has suffered far worse, and recently at that. She tries to work out how many times she has gotten drunk in the last month, but gives up before the calculation is complete. She knows the answer will be depressing.
Maybe she should get a job. But she hates jobs. She could volunteer somewhere. But she hates people. It would be easier if she didn’t have any money. Then she would have to get a job. She would have to struggle to get by. She would not go out almost every night with her false friends, the New York social circle she now inhabits; heartless men and women in their thirties with too much money and time on their hands, living an almost hysterically decadent existence of drink and drugs and clubs and parties and Hamptons weekends, as if the Red Death of age does not exist.
Danielle met them through a girl she knew in college. She was welcomed with open arms. This dissolute clan’s numbers are constantly diminishing, their members lost to exodus, coupledom, or parenthood, and people like Danielle – fresh blood, a new distraction, someone of the right age and inclination, willing to fill all their hours with empty pleasures – are always welcome. So long as they have money. And Danielle has plenty of money, without even going to her family. At least not directly. Citibank has loaned her four hundred thousand dollars, secured by her Manhattan apartment, which has nearly doubled in value since her parents bought it for her five years ago. The way things are going, she will spend it all in three years – but what does that matter? Three years is an eternity. And Danielle knows her parents will rescue her, if they have to, when that day of reckoning comes. She promised herself, once, when she went to India, that she would never depend on her parents again, but today that passionate oath seems ridiculous. Why should she care about self-reliance? Or, for that matter, anything else?
She sits in her apartment, reads the Times, and drinks two mimosas. The more she waits, the more Jayalitha does not call. Danielle wonders uneasily if something bad has happened to her. She decides she will find some way to send the Indian woman some money. Maybe a thousand dollars. But that will be all. It is more than she deserves, after the way she has dredged up bad memories of Laurent and those two months of madness. That was only a few months ago, but Danielle had managed to make it feel so distant, so long ago and far away, until last night’s phone call. Today those memories feel like
a wound whose scab peeled off before it even began to heal.
Eventually she decides to call Keiran. He might want to know that Jayalitha is still alive. Maybe Danielle can outsource her charity case to him. She has spoken only once to Keiran since their surreal abduction to Jack Shadbold’s superyacht, a week after her return to New York, when she called and asked him to keep track of any police investigation of the bombing. Back then she was terrified of being hunted down, arrested, extradited. That fear has since withered away. Now the thought of actually being investigated and punished for her part, or more accurately non-part, in Laurent’s actions seems ludicrous. Danielle knows she was completely irrelevant to Laurent. As she was to Angus and Estelle and their foundation. The same way she has been irrelevant to everything all her life. She has left no more trace on this world than a drifting butterfly. Pretty, briefly entertaining, but completely immaterial.
When she picks up the phone, the dial tone pulses rapidly, meaning she has voice mail. Danielle guiltily punches the code. Jayalitha must have called already, and Danielle slept through it without knowing. And indeed there are two messages of an automated voice asking if she will accept a collect call. She hangs up, hesitates, and calls Keiran.
“Danielle,” he answers warmly. Her outgoing caller ID is supposed to be disabled, but she supposes that doesn’t apply to hackers. “How are you?”
“Fine,” she says shortly. She doesn’t want this to become a personal conversation. “Guess who called me last night?”
“Rin Tin Tin?” Keiran is clearly in one of his whimsical moods.
“Jayalitha.”
“And who’s she when she’s at – Jayalitha? But she’s dead.”
“No. She isn’t. Laurent lied.” Danielle winces. “Go figure. She’s in LA. Arrived on a boat from China or something, illegally. She must have been really out of touch, she didn’t even know Angus was dead until she got there. She said I was the only one she could call.”