Game of Greed

by Charlotte Larsen

  She’s quiet for a while, absorbing what he has just said, one question forming in her mind. “Why should I do that? Why would I even consider that?”

  “There are actually two reasons,” de Lingua says, a gentle smile cruising his lips. “Firstly, I promise to lay off your precious monks.”

  She can’t control herself this time; a tiny tremor ripples through her body.

  Maybe he sees it, maybe not. He continues as if nothing had happened. “Secondly, somebody needs to take care of you in a way that allows you to stay out of fieldwork and yet put your good head to use. The job I’m offering would be much more tactical, a much more behind-the-scenes kind of act. Much less dangerous. You are still a young woman, but in terms of active fieldwork, you are getting on. And I know for a fact that Francis’s organization cannot accommodate another member who is not active.” He pauses. “Ah, yes, there is one other reason well, it isn’t so much a reason as an insurance you do know me rather well. Know my strengths, no?”

  There is a long silence. “Let me think about it,” she finally says.

  He stares at her. “How long do you need?”

  “Ten minutes to smoke a cigarette.” She fishes a pack of cigarettes out of her little silk purse. She needs to clear her head. But then, just as she’s about to pass the bar on her way out, a waiter comes in, carrying what she takes to be their two chowders. This is the first lucky break she has had in her dealings with de Lingua. Her mind reassesses the situation rapidly, and before she consciously knows what she’s doing, she has the small pipette concealed in her left hand, with which she points toward an obscure oil painting at the back of the bar. With a smile, she asks, “Is that really a Paulí?” The waiter predictably turns his head toward the painting, and in the brief moment it takes him to locate the painting, assess her question, search his brain for an answer, and return his attention to her, she has squirted a generous amount of saxitoxin into both of the bowls of chowder.

  “I am not sure,” he shakes his head with embarrassment.

  “Never mind,” she says brightly, throwing him a brilliant smile over her shoulder as she leaves the restaurant.

  Walking down the pavement, she appears to be a woman in no hurry, strolling in confidence, savoring a cigarette. But her insides are in turmoil: This is crazy! She has just upped the stakes enormously. There are only two likely outcomes of what she’s just done. Either de Lingua dies within the next few minutes because the temptation to taste the chowder is too great. Or de Lingua doesn’t die, and her life has never been more in danger.

  Chapter 26

  He yells at her, his face white. “What you did was stupid! Incredible, unfathomable, downright bloody stupid, Jo!” She has never before seen him lose his composure like this. She’s stunned into silence. Waiting for him to continue, knowing that any attempt at defense is futile as long as he’s this upset, she just stands there. Passively. Accepting her place and his prerogative to scream at her.

  Francis looks at her for a long, long time. Then he shakes his head and moves away as if he can’t stand her proximity any longer. She feels ashamed. And scared. More scared than she did at de Lingua’s compound.

  She walks up to him and puts a hand on his shoulder. “Talk to me please, Francis. Please!”

  He shakes her hand off and turns away from her. He stands with his back to her, his face reflected in the windowpane, dark against the winter sky. Minutes pass excruciatingly slowly before he turns around, his face still contorted in a grimace she’s never witnessed before. Finally, looking at her now, his eyes are dead. It’s as if his soul has suddenly left them, his energy spent. She recoils under this glance. A glance that holds something beyond disapproval. Disappointment? Contempt? Jo feels the way she did on the rare occasions on which her father was upset with her. She feels helpless. And very alone.

  His words come out through clenched teeth. Talking seems to be an effort for him. Painful, even. “What you did was stupid and unnecessary. You’ve put yourself at enormous risk for no reason. And the rest of the team, too. We would have gotten to him anyway. This is not how we do things, Jo! We don’t use violence. Not if we can help it. By killing him, you made yourself exactly like them. You have lost your moral high ground. Forever.”

  He walks toward her and stands close. She can smell him now. The all-too-familiar smell of his cologne, of the dry-cleaned clothes, the starch on his shirt, his sweat.

  “I thought you knew what I stand for. I thought you knew me! We’ve always been better than the crooks we went after. That’s exactly what made us special. You have ruined that. You have defiled our purity. You have lowered us to their level!”

  She dares a response. “Francis, be reasonable. I may have lowered myself, but not you. Not the organization.” Her hands are in the air, appealing to him, trying to reach that part of him that cares for her, even loves her in some way. But she seems unable to reach him. He’s gone; he has left her.

  He looks at her, tired now. “No, you don’t think you have, do you? You honestly think that what you did would only be blamed on you, that you could take full responsibility?” He walks over to one of the armchairs, slumps down, and waves her away without looking at her. “Give me a minute alone, please.”

  She leaves the room, closing the door gently behind her. In her bedroom, she sits down on the bed. Her body is in shock. She’d never anticipated this response. Had she thought he would be angry? Yes, certainly. But this? This is completely and utterly unexpected. And it is frightening her. For all her bravado about freedom, about not depending on anybody, she is finally forced to admit to herself that she does indeed depend on him. She needs him, even. The thought that he would reject her for doing what she believes was the right thing to do makes her not only question her motives for killing de Lingua but sends icicles through her stomach. A sense of death envelops her, and she feels sick.

  She doesn’t know how long she has been sitting when there is a soft rap on the door, and he comes in.

  “Jo?” She turns to him, her face wet with tears. He still looks foreign to her, like a man she’s never met before. A stranger. But at least she can recognize his voice again. Her fear fades. The sickness fades.

  Softly, he says, “I know why you did it. I know what you hoped to achieve. And I do understand you. But what you don’t realize is that you have left your humanity behind you. Goddamn it, Jo. We’ve even trained our fighter-monks to do anything but kill. It was always what we did. We use other means. We don’t stoop to violence unless it’s for self-protection.”

  She risks a question. “Would it have been different if I had killed him in self-defense, then?”

  “Of course! What you did was an assassination. An execution. You’ve turned yourself into a perpetrator. And once you cross that line, there is no going back, Jo. It’s a slippery slope. The next one is easier, and before you know it, murder becomes a natural option.”

  “I’ve killed one man but prevented a number of deaths. How is that not a good thing?”

  “Because there are no moral absolutes. None! It’s all glimpses of light and black holes and long stretches of gray in between. And it’s what we do not our intentions that makes us what we are. I know Buddhism has taught you otherwise, but you are your actions, Jo. And you have just killed a man. Even if it was for all the right reasons.”

  He takes her hand. “And the thing is, my darling, you’ll have to disappear. Really disappear. There is no way Schwartz is going to let you get away with this. He lost one son, and he considers de Lingua to be another son. He will take his death hard. And he will come after you. Tomorrow or next year. But he will come.” His words enter her mind as waves of shock, electrocuting whatever convictions she has about this world.

  He is going to reject her! It is the first time she’s done something he disapproves of, and he throws her out, like so much dead weight. She realizes her emotions are talking, and with the tiny bit of her rational mind she can access right now, she knows she needs to
disappear. That her disappearance is a need, not a manifestation of his punishment. But her feelings win that battle. She is lost. He has lost her.

  He stares at her but cannot read her expression. She just sits there on the bed next to him, her hand limp and lifeless in his. Her body and her face devoid of any signs he can interpret. She has retreated into that innermost self he so intensely wants to possess.

  He takes her face in his hands, turning her toward him. “I gave you the best of me. The only good thing I have to give, actually. What else can I offer you?”

  “Nothing, Francis. I am sorry.” Her voice is small.

  “You know, Jo. For us, it’s not about our own needs. We are the barren of this world, the ones who may love easily or not so easily, but who do not love well.” He is getting warm now, eager almost. “There is not a singer, a writer, a performer, a true businessman who really, really puts himself out there, who is not a tormented soul. There is not a painting worth looking at that’s not born of painful love. The blessed few are those who realize that their art, their work, whatever you want to call it, is the love of their life. That even though they are twisted and mutilated and torn to pieces night after night, there is no alternative for them and all they can do is pray that their work is worth something to somebody. Even if it is just to one single person, then their life has been justified.”

  She knows that he is no longer speaking to her, but to himself. That he fancied himself to have arrived at that insight long ago. Realized that what love he has may only be found in the good he gives to people. She knows, too, that he is in the process of distancing himself from her, of separating the special tie between them that had been their lifeline for so long. Maybe it wasn’t love as such, but a close proximity, something unique. Now she has ruined it. And she may never get the chance to repair the damage. He may not let her.

  The accident was unavoidable. It was a dark, rainy night in New York. Most people were staying indoors, leaving the streets almost deserted. The driver had no way of seeing the female jogger who was wearing a dark tracksuit and no reflectors. She had crossed the road next to a row of trees, rotten leaves making the street slippery. The car skidded when the driver tried to brake. The police were sympathetic to the distraught driver as he recounted the series of events. An elderly couple, out walking their pug, had witnessed how the driver really had done all that was humanly possible to avoid the collision. The woman was taken to Manhattan Hospital but died during the night from internal bleeding.

  The accident made the news in the morning. A few days later, a small ad in The New York Times announced the death of Josefine Maria Vermeer, stating that the body had been flown back to Copenhagen, where a private funeral would be held for the close family.

  Chapter 27

  The car takes her down the mountain, around dizzyingly narrow bends. Peasants and goats, children and dogs all jump for their lives as the dingy little car honks its way forward at what seems to be breakneck speed, but which is likely just above fifty kilometers per hour.

  She has never been here before, hasn’t seen any photos, and has no idea what to expect. Which may be part of Francis’s punishment. She doesn’t care, really. As long as she will have peace and quiet long enough to figure out how she can get back into the world without being a hunted woman.

  A big, bearded man is waiting for her on the jetty in the Greek bay. With a few gruff words to the driver, he takes her bags and throws them into a small boat. She follows without his help. So, this is how it’s going to be, she thinks. All macho and each-to-his-own attitudes. She had forgotten how boring these kinds of people could be. A few minutes later, however, she’s entranced by the magic of speeding through waters, dark and glistening in the light of a very full moon. The air is like warm velvet; the water resembles oil, dark and solid. Stars are littered densely across a dark sky, and there is nothing more beautiful in the world than this moment.

  It is an enchanted and yet foreboding place. Gently sloping mountains surround the narrow bay. Goats dance precariously close to death in their own rhythm. There is a constant tingling of bells and lapping of waves. The bay’s water is a blend of salt and fresh water from the mountains. Close to the shore, it is freezing cold, the water forming tiny cells that cut her shins like broken glass when she steps in. But thirty meters into the sea, the ice-cold fresh water is absorbed by warm, salty seawater. She loves the way the water mingles, ice cold and pleasantly warm.

  When the winds howl, the sea takes on a far more sinister face, making its presence felt much more insistently. I am here, the sea roars at her during the stormy nights; I am here to protect you, but don’t mess with me.

  The mountains are bare, naked, barren, and hostile to the uninitiated, mirroring her infertility. The shame of it. The sadness of it. And yet, when the sun breaks on the dry cliffs and the scrubby trees, there is a different kind of fecundity. A brutal, unemotional fertility. A necessity older than time. A dogged insistence on life in a wild and dispassionate world. This is not nature aiming to please. It is harsh and uninhabitable, and few people can recognize the beauty of it.

  Dotted along the foot of the mountains, hugging the bay, are a number of small cottages, each with two separate rooms and bathrooms and a shared sitting room with a tiny tea kitchen. The cottages always seem to be freshly painted, although she’s never seen anybody doing the actual painting. White walls, blue railings. The white is blinding in the sun. The blue is the color of Greece. During her first sleepless nights, she imagines the gods and goddesses of the past coming around and silently painting the cottages to maintain the illusion of purity and human grandeur.

  In this rugged landscape, in the beautifully kept little cottages that are too pretty and innocent to house their current inhabitants, Jo quickly regains her mental strength. After a couple of days, she’s ready to go back to work. But she has promised Francis she will stay. Or rather, he has ordered her to stay until he calls for her. She thinks he’s overreacting in terms of her safety, but she’s lost that battle and just prays it will be sooner rather than later. There is nothing to do but make good use of the time by seeing just how far she can take her body and mind.

  There are eleven of them at the moment, nine men, and just one other woman, who clearly is a sports fanatic and butch enough to pose as a man. The team of instructors includes nerdy little computer geeks, frightfully massive men who are muscular yet move as ballerinas, and a very serious-looking academic or two. The team of instructors seems to change over the course of her stay, but it is never clear to her exactly how many there are, or what specialties are present on the island. The ambiguity is fully intended, she gathers, as is the fact that none of the staff ever looks her or any of the other guests in the eye. They move around silently, eyes cast to the ground. They don’t see, don’t hear, and don’t tell. She has no doubt as to the thoroughness of the vetting and training of the staff. And she pities any cook or maid who takes it upon himself or herself to disclose the cottages’ secrets.

  As far as she can tell, there are as many as six nationalities present, not counting the staff. But whether the guests and instructors belong to private or governmental agencies is impossible to know. Their physical and mental capabilities vary, but none of them, including herself and the other woman, would fail at an Ironman triathlon or at breaking into a heavily secured house and installing a backdoor on any computer, no matter what brand or level of complexity. She suspects that Francis has chosen this place because he supports its basic philosophy, which is that violence is the means of the weak and is only to be used when there is no other way to get out of a situation alive. There is a very strong emphasis on using the mind rather than the body. Despite this, she has no illusions as to whether killers wander freely among them. Including herself.

  Jo keeps to herself. She interacts only when training requires it, never engaging in the banter at the communal meals. And after the first few days, people tend to accept that she is an outsider. She earns some respect
for her bando expertise but otherwise is left pretty much to herself. The other woman tries to approach her a few times, subtly invoking sisterly solidarity. Jo turns her down flat.

  Several times a day, she throws up from exhaustion. Every day is the same routine, which is what she likes about being here.

  Roll call is at six in the morning when the day is kicked off with a five-mile run in the mountains, followed by weight training. However, Jo starts even earlier, getting up at half-past four, meditating for an hour, and then taking a gaspingly cold swim in the bay before she joins the rest of the team.

  After breakfast, there are two classes of political and economic science, which seem to divide the group in two: those who hate it, and those who don’t. She gets bored but appreciates the usefulness of refreshing her knowledge of the current economic and political state of the world. To that purpose, a number of academics are flown in. They’re never called anything but “professor,” a custom that prevents fraternization. But she’s a frequent newsreader and usually recalls their names from this news station or that newspaper, where they elaborate on their fields of expertise. How they manage to keep this location secret with so many visiting teachers, she’ll never understand. But she knows that they do manage somehow, whether by threats, by appealing to the guests’ vanity as part of a covert operation, or simply by paying them off.

  Before lunch, participants are expected to practice their chosen martial art form in her case, bando. There are two other guests who have mastered the ancient discipline, both men. She outclasses them on technique, although, of course, they have superior physical strength. She has always found bando to be optimal for the Western woman, the technique requiring a perfect balance between suppleness and strength. But she has recently allowed her strength to slip and pays a heavy price for that now not only in terms of repeatedly losing to the two men but in having to build up her strength day by day, which requires intense and painful workouts.