Sad, Paul thought, but he couldn’t say so.
Just west of the museums and across the Aare lay the massive headquarters of the international government, bordered on the east by Damaziquai, on the west by Marzilistrasse, and on the south by Monbijoubrucke. A three-block-long structure of fifteen stories, it sat gleaming in the artificial light of the Swiss evening. Cars streamed from the parking lots and poured across the bridges.
“End of the workweek,” the driver said. “Except for you and the big boss, of course.”
Jae had forgotten to eat. It was coming up on 1 p.m. in Chicago, and the kids wouldn’t be home from school for three hours. She pulled leftovers from the refrigerator and sat at the kitchen table near the window, where the sun glared off the blanket of snow in the yard. She picked at cold chicken, which was no more appetizing than it looked.
And she phoned her father, reaching him at NPO headquarters in Washington. “I’m so sorry to bother you, Dad,” she began.
“Nonsense, Jae! Always a pleasure. Tell you what. I’m proud of our boy, probably meeting right now with Dengler. That’s somethin’, hey? Never would have figured. Even I haven’t met the chancellor.”
“I miss Paul already, Dad.”
“Well, that’s good, isn’t it? You two have had your, you know . . . so things are better?”
“Too good to be losing him to his job just now.”
“Oh, Jae! This is more than a business trip. It would be selfish of us to deprive him of this opportunity, and to deprive the world of his expertise.”
“He’s really that unique, Dad? No one else could do this?”
“No one I know. Paul and I tangle at times too—you know that. But he’s got it, Jae. He’s got the goods. He’s intuitive, sharp, quick. Wise. We need him right where he is.”
“But for how long?”
“Well, let me answer that by tellin’ you what I’d do with an expert consultant. I’d use him up. This won’t be one meeting where the chancellor gives him his blessing and introduces him to NPO International. For one thing, Paul probably knows those people better’n Dengler does. No, I see ol’ Baldwin sending Paul to Paris, Rome, maybe even London, hooking him up with authorities there. The top priority is going to be getting a bead on this Magnor fella. We’ve got to know whether he’s for real, what his agenda is, find out where he hides, and root him out. Nobody better for that than Paul.”
It was worse than Jae thought. “How long, Dad?”
“’Fore he comes home? I won’t lie to you. Could be weeks.”
She sighed. “Could it be longer?”
“Could be.”
“I’ve got to tell you,” she said, “this is going to drive me crazy.”
“You’ll talk to him every day.”
“Of course, but you know I’m no housekeeper or homemaker. I need things to do so I don’t go bats. I mean, I loved it when the kids were home, but now they’re gone all day, and—”
Jae could tell from even her father’s breathing that he was fast wearying of her whining, and he had never been comfortable talking about things he found inconsequential. What she really wanted was a little sympathy, but it was obvious Ranold was waiting for his opportunity to jump in and fix things. He always had solutions. No commiseration. Just answers. He didn’t disappoint.
“You want to do something in numbers again, like you did at the Board of Trade?”
“Well, sure, if I was really going to look for something, I’d want to use my training, yes. But I’m just venting, Dad. I—”
“I could use a numbers person here in D.C., Jae. It’s not a long-term deal, and I can let you go when Paul gets back. How about that?”
“Oh, Dad, no. Now that sounds like charity, and anyway—”
“Charity! You know me better than that!”
“Well, no, I appreciate it. But I can’t yank the kids out of school and—”
“’Course you can! Your mom would love to help with them. And they never get to see their uncle. Not that Berlitz would be any kind of influence on ’em. But that new wife of his—what’s her name?”
“Aryana.”
“Yeah, she seems nice enough.”
How would you know? “Well, Dad, thanks. I can’t really think about doing something like that, especially when I’m just into the first day of this. But I appreciate your hearing me and thinking of me.”
“I’ll e-mail you the particulars. You know we pay well, even for temporary full time. Put yourself away a little nest egg.”
Paul was ushered into the great marble-floored lobby of the government building, where from the looks he got from security personnel it was clear he was expected. As someone took his coat and hat, which he would retrieve later outside Chancellor Dengler’s office, he was told, “Your luggage will be delivered to your hotel, where it will be unpacked, your clothes pressed and hung, and your room readied for your arrival after dinner. You will stay near the old train station at the Trump Einstein.”
Talk about an oxymoron.
“Ah, sir,” Paul said, “could you instruct whoever’s going to do that that the clothes in the plastic, uh, garbage bag are not to be washed, pressed, or hung?”
“Certainly, sir.”
They were his stash of disguises, and some needed to be as wrinkled and dirty as they came.
A five-minute procedure in a hermetically sealed booth gave building guards bioreadings on Paul that were matched with the NPO database. His iris scan, fingerprints, DNA, even facial-construction data were coded onto an identification chip that was painlessly embedded under the fingernail of his left pinkie.
“Merely expose that finger to the scanner at any secure site on these premises,” he was told, “and you will be admitted.”
A minute later a man and a woman in severe but natty uniforms whisked him via jetvator to the north end of the top floor, where he was transferred to the care of similarly clad aides. Eventually he was delivered to Baldwin Dengler’s personal executive assistant, then to his chief of staff, and finally to Dengler himself.
Subordinate staff were excused when the chancellor met Paul in an alcove between his office and that of his assistant. Hers alone was opulent enough to have convinced Paul it was Dengler’s. The chancellor was as tall as Paul, sixty-five years old, slim, trim, tanned, with thinning gray-and-white hair. He extended a hand, and when Paul shook it, Dengler clasped his other hand around Paul’s too. Exceptionally long fingers, Paul thought.
His voice was mellower than Paul had remembered from broadcasts, when the leader often spoke forcefully. Dengler breezed through the formalities of how glad he was to meet Paul, how grateful he was for the assistance, how much he’d heard about him, how sorry he was for the short notice, and how he hoped the flight was uneventful. Paul found his English as impeccable as his light gray suit, with only a trace of a Schwyzerdutsch (Swiss-German) accent. The man had a spring in his step and his eyes were alive. His workout routine was legendary, and it was borne out in his bearing.
Dengler led Paul into an office that covered the entire northeast end of the floor. The bank of windows behind the massive mahogany desk looked out upon the city over a bend in the Aare. With the snow coming harder now and lit by the streetlights, the scene was surreal, as if from an expensive Wintermas card.
“Beautiful,” Paul said.
“Thank you,” Chancellor Dengler said, as if he himself had created the masterpiece and was used to being acknowledged for it. “Please.” He pointed to a deep, soft, leather chair at one end of a small table, facing an identical chair on the other side. When Paul had sat, Dengler sat facing him across the table. “Are you hungry, Dr. Stepola?”
It would have been easy for Paul to say no. He could get something at the hotel later, and he had had a light snack just after takeoff. But the truth was he was famished, and he had learned that men of real power appreciate honesty. “Actually I am,” he said, imagining the two of them being whisked to one of Bern’s fabulous restaurants.
&nb
sp; “I have arranged for a most unusual repast,” Dengler said, fingering a button beneath the lip of the table.
The door swept open and a quartet of young people, two boys and two girls in formal-service attire, hurried in behind a rolling cart. They nodded politely to Paul and quickly set the table, beginning with a lace cloth. Bone china and silver completed the layout, and one of the young men draped linen napkins over each of the men’s laps. “Apple cider?” a young woman whispered, and Paul was certain he had not heard correctly.
“I’m sorry?” he said.
“Apple cider, sir?”
Paul stole a glance at Dengler, who looked on with amusement. He was nodding. “Please, Doctor. I have taken the liberty of exposing you to some of our delicacies.”
“By all means,” Paul said, and the girl poured a wineglass half full of the pungent, dark liquid. Onto each of their china plates was placed a lunch-size paper bag, but they were anything but brown sacks. The paper was thick and glossy and yellow and tied at the top with a braided string.
Paul wondered if he was expected to open his bag, but when Dengler remained with his hands in his lap, Paul did the same. Servers simultaneously opened the men’s bags and set on each plate a gleaming green apple, a triangle of Swiss cheese the size of a piece of pie, a two-inch-square block of chocolate, and what appeared to be a large wrapped sandwich.
“Shall I open yours, sir?” the young woman asked.
Paul looked to Dengler, who said, “No, please. We will open our own, thank you. That is all. You are dismissed, and thank you very much.”
The young people bowed and scurried away.
“Do you smell that, Doctor?” Dengler said.
“Sir?”
“Can you smell your sandwich?”
“I can. If I were in America, I would guess it was summer sausage.”
“Trust your senses, young man!” Dengler said with a huge smile. “Were it the middle of the day, we would have taken this feast into the mountains, climbed to an intermediate level, sat on rocks in the most heavenly scenery on earth, and enjoyed it in the open air.”
“Sounds fantastic.”
“Please enjoy.”
Paul unwrapped his sandwich and found the thin-sliced summer sausage piled an inch and a half high between two ridiculously thick slices of fresh, soft white bread with moist, chewy crust. He also noticed a thin layer of brown mustard and a generous dollop of mayonnaise.
“Follow each bite with a slice of the apple,” Dengler suggested, “and the occasional piece of cheese. Save the chocolate for dessert.”
Maybe it was the heady company, maybe nerves. Maybe it was the exotic combination of foods he wouldn’t have predicted in a million years. But Paul found the meal the best he had ever tasted. Everything was perfect. Chancellor Dengler beamed throughout and proved an enthusiastic eater. “The meat is more indigenous to my country,” he said, “but everything else is a specialty of my adopted home here.”
“This is a magnificent city,” Paul said.
“First time?”
Paul nodded.
“I wish I could say you would have time to get to know it. But I plan on keeping you busy.”
“That’s what I prefer.”
“That is what I have heard.”
Dengler signaled the waitstaff to come and clear the table, and then he and Paul moved to a couple of chairs and a smaller table in a corner of the office. He asked his assistant to bring in the latest information from Intelligence. When she handed Dengler the folder, she also passed him a single folded sheet, which he read quickly, his face clouding. He held the sheet before his assistant and pointed to a name. “Get him on the phone for me immediately.”
They sat and Dengler pressed a disc from his folder into a tiny slot in the table. A large, flat screen appeared on the wall, but before anything showed, the chancellor said, “I may have to break momentarily, should she succeed in placing that call.”
“I’m at your disposal, sir.”
“Let me ask you, Doctor, has anyone on my staff been inappropriate to you in any way since your arrival?”
The question took Paul wholly by surprise. “Not really, no.”
“That was a bit equivocal.”
Paul racked his brain. “Everyone has been most helpful and engaging,” he said, suddenly remembering the borderline surliness of his driver.
Dengler sat and studied the paper. “‘Sarcasm in using Dr. Stepola’s title. Defensive. Argumentative. Disrespectful.’ Does that refresh your memory?”
“I was not offended, sir.”
“One aide tells his superior that another was other than deferential to you. Let me put it to you this way: normally, such issues do not reach me, of course. That I was meeting personally with you caused this manager to believe I would want to be made aware of this.”
“Really, it was nothing. I certainly wouldn’t want a man to get into trouble over something I have already put behind—”
“Begging your pardon, Doctor, but I am going to come at this from one other direction, if you will indulge me. Were you in my position and had been informed of such conduct by one of your people toward an honored guest, would you ignore it, based on the graciousness of the victim?”
“My personality is such that I did not feel particularly victimized, Mr. Chancellor. I suppose my self-esteem is healthy enough to weather that type of—”
“Pardon my persistence, sir, but I asked you to put yourself in my shoes, not back in yours.”
“Point taken.” Was Paul being tested? Again, men at Baldwin Dengler’s level had little patience for the obtuse. “Yes, I would have wanted to be made aware of it, and I would have made clear it would not be tolerated.”
“That is my feeling precisely. Thank you.”
“But, Mr. Chancellor, I would feel terrible if I got a man in trouble for something that barely registered with me.”
“Oh, please, Doctor. Surely you do not believe that you are in any way responsible for the consequences of this man’s actions.”
“Well, I have the feeling that my corroboration—”
“Merely clarifies. You should not allow this matter to trouble you further.”
“In truth, it barely troubled me at all.”
“That says more about you than about the offender; would you not agree?”
Against his better judgment, Paul merely shrugged. He feared he was not impressing his host.
Dengler held up a hand, stood, and said, “Excuse me.” He moved about ten feet from Paul and with his back to him took a call, apparently on an embedded device. “Not at all,” he was saying. “I very much appreciate your bringing this to my attention. The eyewitness was in the car and heard all this himself? . . . And you have no doubt as to the veracity of the information? . . . The driver is to be terminated immediately—no recourse, no appeal, no grace period, no severance. Yes. That is correct. And thank you very much again for dealing with this forthrightly. I appreciate your service to me and to the international community.”
Paul felt awful and couldn’t hide it. When Dengler rejoined him at the table, Paul was staring at the floor. “Dr. Stepola, allow me to conclude this distasteful bit of business by offering my sincerest apology.”
Paul thought about protesting more or at least again expressing his own regret, but he did not want to offend. Many much bigger issues were at stake. His suspicious mind wondered if the whole thing had been a setup to impress upon him the decisiveness of the chancellor and the finality of his decisions. In truth, Paul was impressed, though he doubted he would have taken such extreme measures. Maybe that’s why I’m not king of the world.
When Baldwin Dengler pointed a laser at the wall to trigger the holographic projector, Paul slipped a pen and a tiny leather-bound notepad from his pocket.
“This is all we know about the name Styr Magnor,” the chancellor said. “And you will find it is precious little.”
“If, in fact, the man is even using his real name,” Pau
l said.
“Precisely.”
By early evening when Brie and Connor were about to get ready for bed, Jae had pushed from her mind her father’s ridiculous idea. She couldn’t deny it had worked on her mind during the lonely last hour before the kids arrived home. Would the days only get longer, knowing Paul would not be pulling in after work as he had for weeks? The more Jae obsessed about it, the worse it got. She had to do something. Maybe there was work in the Chicago area. Maybe even at the bank in Park Ridge where she kept her private account and her safety-deposit box.
Jae was grateful the kids got along. They already missed their dad and said so, but something Brie raised put Jae on a whole different thought track. “Does this mean we won’t see Mr. Straight either until Daddy gets home?”
“Not necessarily,” Jae said before thinking. “You want to see him?”
“Yes!” she said, and Connor echoed her. “We like him! He likes us.”
It was true. The man who had been so good and so strong for Paul when he needed a friend—when not even Jae could give him what he needed—had always been wonderful with the kids. They loved his basso profundo, his big expressive eyes, his silly magic tricks. He called them by name, lifted and swung them in circles, sometimes pretended to chase them.
In fact, there had been times when Jae wished Straight would pay her half as much attention. It was as if she intimidated him, though she couldn’t imagine why. Yes, she had at times been difficult with Paul—with reason, she believed—in front of Straight. But he should have been able to see that she had her points and that she was under tremendous stress. She hadn’t known whether her husband would ever see again, let alone work and be able to provide for his family. And while he may have had a right to be self-possessed at a time like that, Paul had been downright surly and selfish. She would not have respected herself had she not countered that, act by act and verbal jab by jab.
Straight had not seemed to lose respect for Paul during that time, so why had it seemed to Jae that perhaps she had fallen some in his view? He was always courteous and chivalrous, but she sensed distance as well. He was wise; there was no question of that. And a servant. In Jae’s book, anyone who turned his own tragedy and handicap into something positive was worthy of a pedestal. The man seemed a master at encouraging patients, and he had worked wonders with Paul. If the kids wanted to see him, she wanted them to. Maybe that would give her a chance to connect with him on a more even plane too.
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