by Renee Topper
This is why her last conversation with Jalil is playing over and over in her mind. The questions will haunt her if she doesn’t find the answers.
Being a bit of a research expert and sleuth, she found a company Mr. Teigen had been nominated to sit on the board of, Drake Enterprises. The IHRI had been tied up in litigation with this company for years, but the evidence of criminal activity was lost in a fire and the case was closed. This was one of very few losses to the firm. Not so ironically, Drake Enterprises is one of the top importers of goods from Tanzania. And the board is to have a meeting to elect Mr. Teigen to join them.
She’s learned over the years to trust her instincts. She doesn’t always, but when she does it pays off. Following her gut, she made her way to Drake Enterprises’ headquarters for this board meeting. And while it’s a closed meeting, here she is on the morning of, positioned in a café across the street from the entrance -- a good perch, in from the gray chill.
Mr. Rolf Teigen approaches the entrance to the building, in a suit, checks his watch, then walks in to the café. As he stands in line to order, Fiona approaches him. She knows it is him, from the photos she’d found online. Albeit, he looks much crisper and gentrified in the flesh and not in the bush, she can’t mistake that strong jaw line and tall stature, a stature that seems to grow taller toward the ceiling as her petite Irish frame meets his.
“Mr. Teigen.” Her voice and brogue soft and low are at first lost in the morning hustle. She repeats, louder, almost too loud over-compensating “Mr. Teigen.” Rolf moves a little startled by his name coming at him in such a way. Upon seeing her, he doesn’t seem to know her.
“Yes.”
“Mr. Teigen. I want to thank you.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t...”
“My name is Fiona Dunnovan…”
Rolf’s eyes widen at her name.
“You recently recommended me for a position at the IHRI.”
How did she ever find me! He wonders. He steps back out of line and rubs the base of his neck with his hand.
She steps with him. “It’s strange being recommended for a position you didn’t even know about, by someone you don’t know. So I sought you out.”
“Oh, Fiona, yes. A friend gave me your name and I thought...Well I’m glad it worked out.” He dismisses her, stepping away from her and back into the line. He orders a double espresso.
“Which friend?” Fiona persists. “And how did you know I took the position?”
“That was some weeks ago. I’m sorry. It’s a busy morning. Nice to meet you.” He pays, downs his drink and steps outside. He crosses through the slow traffic to the building across the street.
As he places his hand on the gothic door handle to the corporate offices, she is right on his heels. “Did you know my brother?”
He is frozen by her words, his back to her.
“Kennen Dunnovan. Did you know him? He was in Tanzania the same time as you...”
He turns to face her. “I’m sorry, I have to go. Good day, Ms. Dunnovan.” There is despair in his eyes. “You should go too.”
“Veilcom, Herr Teigenn.” the security guard reaches out from the depths and holds the door for him.
“Gutten tag.” Rolf disappears into the bowels of this monstrosity of a building.
Fiona moves to follow him, but the guard shuts her out. She is left at the gates, staring up into the shiny intricate eyes etched in gold, metal all the way from Tanzania. That’s what that trial was about -- the local water supply was poisoned from all the mining -- it was a push for justice, a fight for the thirsty, still thirsty.
She steps back but stands tall, sizing up the ridiculous height of this monolithic black building. The gotham-style architecture, the deliberate flared nostrils carved into the cladding, she sees that she is now face-to-face with the dragon. If Herr Teigen had his way, she would go. But she’s staying. He knows more about what happened to Kennen and the American Albino Aliya, and she is determined to find out what, especially now.
The morning sun moves quickly, stranding her in the cold shadow. But she remains, unmoved, like the Irish women on Peace Bridge in Belfast, who stood in silent vigil for the mothers and children at Tuam. Her feet take deeper root in the pavement, despite the cold and the tormenting heavy gusts that blow on her each time the door opens. Were someone to light a match, she’d surely be roasted in the fiery breath. Thankfully, she wore her sensible shoes, but she’d have stayed regardless. She can feel Kennen all around her, in her blood. Teigen knows more and she isn’t going to move until she gets it out of him.
It amazes her how some people respond to death, especially a murder. Heavens, if it’s not like the twelve steps of grieving, borrowed from the twelve steps addicts take to recovery and vice versa. Her Da never made it above step 3; then his cycle would start again and come to finish him young in the end. Here’s this man, who perhaps only briefly met her sweet brother. Kennen’s an impressionable lad, but people bring their own longings to mourning. It wasn’t hard to figure out Kennen’s timetable right before his death and put two and two together to know he was at Mr. Teigen’s party. In the café, she was feeling him out, not showing him her hand, wanting him to offer up what he knew. But he didn’t. Perhaps it’s cause he’s one of the last to see him alive, perhaps it’s a last straw on his own hay stack -- no doubt he has a lot with on his plate with all the refugee work she understands he does -- perhaps this, perhaps that. Perhaps perhaps perhaps… But how could she ever know? She shifts, getting off the “What if...?” wheel.
The security guard calls up to Teigen in the executive conference room on the top floor to let him know the woman is still here, waiting for him. The suits are on a tea break from their affairs, Teigen strolls through the executive board members and gazes out the window. From the broad expanse of the city landscape reaching for the heavens, he looks down the cavernous glossy black granite, metal and glass that stretches down the outside of the structure. He’s too high and at too steep an angle to see the sidewalk below. He touches his forehead to the glass to try to see further. He manages a glimpse of her blurred reflection on the cafe window across the street, if that is even her. Maybe his imagination is imposing on his mind again. But surely she’s down there. The guard just told him.
A hand, full of ivory and precious stone rings rests on his shoulder and flaps like a flag in a hard wind. Rolf looks up to see his own withered reflection in the glass before him and that of Herr Günther’s too.
#
They had a deal. Teigen recalls the moment he made the bet with Günther. His hand was good. Good enough for him to raise the stakes at the table. He wagered for “Permission for Burundies to stay in Tanzania indefinitely and not be extradited back to Burundi.”
Günther liked the sport and Rolf’s pomp. “Haha. You’re serious? These people mean a great deal to you, but not to me. If I win, you must get me the American zeru-zeru from your party.”
“What do you mean, get her for you?”
“I mean entirely.”
“But she’s a person.”
“I find it interesting that you would wager the lives of 140,000 people, but give pause at gambling on the life of one?”
Günther was making him choose between her, the innocent daughter of the man who saved his life on more than one occasion and the lives of the refugees. He took the bet.
He thought he had an ace in his hand. He saw it wrong. Damn whiskey. He’d bet on an imaginary hand. He lost. Worse, Günther threatened him. “If you don’t deliver on your end of this bet, I will not only ensure the extradition of the Burundians, but I will hasten it and I will also guarantee you that the rebel forces will be awaiting their return across the border and will kill all of them. It’s your choice. The blood of many, or the blood of one.”
Günther had the ace. Teigen lost. Something in Günther’s eyes informed him that he’d taken too big a gamble and that he’d done so with a soulless man. A man he couldn’t cross. This devil owned him n
ow.
#
That’s why Rolf is up for this position at Drake. The voting to instate him to the executive board is a mere formality in Günther’s game. Another guaranteed vote for whatever he’d want to push through on his agenda. Rolf had tried almost everything he could think of over the past few weeks to change Günther’s demands. He’s here for another shot, he’ll beg him for the lives of all of the refugees and for Aliya, if it’s not too late for her, he doesn’t know her whereabouts or fate. He’ll beg for mercy. He’s gotten pretty good at begging for things. Günther, on the other hand, is perhaps even better accustomed to having people grovel before him. Somehow it feeds him. But he never bends. If that doesn’t work, he’ll try to force Günther’s hand by threatening him with exposure, going public with everything Herr Günther knows about the immoral, and often, illegal acts he’s committed.
“Herr Tiegen. You are not going to jump I hope.” Günther is at the trunk of that jeweled hand. His relaxed stoic demeanor might have him back at Rolf’s cocktail party some weeks back. His German -- worldly accent disarms people, because he has an unexpected lisp, but only when he speaks English. When he speaks his native tongue, he might as well be Hitler addressing the Reichstag delegates in 1941, having declared war on the U.S. “Life is weighing heavy on you these days. No wonder, with so many lives riding on you. You should take better care.”
Rolf looked flushed after meeting Fiona earlier, now all the blood has flooded down to his feet and he puts his hand on the window to steady himself. If only he could, if only the molecules of the windowpane would part enough for him to slip through, it could all be over.
“Have some more tea.” Rolf has the waiter exchange his empty cup of tea for a fresh one.
Rolf speaks, much more softly than he’d intended, than he’d rehearsed in his head, but his voice is with his blood toward the floor. “You must stop all of this.” his voice cracks with the pale sweat swelling from his skin.
“Vas es das? What is this? Why would I stop anything I am doing? Oh, you’re not well.” He talks down to him, coddling him like a child.
“You must let the Burundians stay alive in Tanzania and tell me where she is.”
“You really are ill.”
“I’ll expose you...I’ll go to the media...”
Günther lets out a loud ironic chuckle. If Santa were Satan it might be something like how he’d present. His hand flaps more on Rolf’s back -- a winged dragon. “Delightful.” Then, more intimately, “You are spinning out of control. You can’t do anything to me. Now...” His tone jovial, “...it is unfortunate, this last attempt you’ve made. Threats, even if not serious, are not something I am patient with, no matter how pathetic they may be. I knew you weren’t going to play according to the rules. Which was fun at first, to see how you would play. But now you bore me. What’s more, you have become a liability. Now you must suffer the ultimate consequence. You will be terminated along with all whom you wish for me to save. The game is over. You lost.”
“What game?” This is not a game.” Rolf is desperate.
“I’ll explain to the board about your sudden terminal illness and convey your regrets for having to decline the position. It’s awful, some cholera-esque rare tropical illness you contracted while working with the refugees, maybe something sexually transmitted, so they don’t think they’ll contract it… but definitely something deadly.”
Rolf tries to lift his fist to punch Günther in the face, but his hand won’t lift. He looks at his teacup. That’s why all the blood left his head...poison. Rolf tries to speak, but looks like he’s having a stroke instead and his mouth won’t annunciate. His legs start to turn to jelly. Günther’s bodyguard, Claude, takes him to the executive elevator. Once inside, he presses the basement level parking garage button. Rolf watches, wanting to press lobby or any other floor, the alarm for help, but he can’t now, he is more than ever before at Günther’s mercy and there isn’t any.
41
Close Call
August 3 (later)
Unknown caller, she ignores it. They call back. She dismisses it again. Third time, she takes the call -- it could be Mr. Teigen after all, ready to reveal some truth to her, confess something beyond the pain so undeniably present in his eyes, “Hello.”
“Fiona.”
Not the voice she expected, but she recognizes it. Before she can reply...
“...Don’t say anything. Listen, you’re not safe where you are.”
“How...?”
He cuts her off. “They’ve taken Rolf. They’re coming for you. There’s an old black car parked behind you across the street.” She turns to look but his words stop her. “Don’t look at it. Just walk to your left in the opposite direction.” The voice adamantly prompts her, “Go now!” His tone scares her as bad as the nuns in first school used to, scares her enough to move her. “I’ll stay on the phone with you.”
Bewildering, this is the first time she felt fear since Tanzania and even that was clouded by the thick veil of grief. She hears the car engine start behind her. The driver makes an illegal K-turn to follow her. She looks over her shoulder trying to stay calm and look inconspicuous, but she’s trembling, clumsy. The pavement feels hard on her soles and her joints are stiff from the hours of vigilance at the feet of the dragon. She missteps as the car approaches, drops her phone and the screen shatters. As she stops to pick up her lifeline, a man swiftly stomps it, demolishing what’s left of it. He grabs her from behind and restores the momentum of walking forward. “Leave it, Fiona. There’s no time.” Jalil has her arm. She feels safer, but not safe enough. One man gets out of the front passenger seat and pursues them on foot. The car stays with them. Jalil steers Fiona into a train station and all the lunch hour mayhem that goes with it.
They duck into a passageway leading to the tracks of a train that’s boarding. Once up and inside, Jalil opens the door on the opposite side and leads her down onto the tracks between two trains. The thug follows them as they weave onto another car drawing the attention of a conductor, Fiona pleads with him in German, “Help us. This man is following us.”
Jalil is impressed, “I didn’t know you spoke German.”
She retorts, “I didn’t know you were in Germany.”
They resume their brisk walk as the conductor intercepts the thug.
The train is about to move out…She steps up and looks back for Jalil to follow. But he isn’t boarding, “I can’t…Rolf.” She gets off the train and follows him back out to the street. Something about the car caught his eye before. It is no surprise this head of Drake Enterprises would have the same car as Herr Himmler in WWII. But looking at it again, Jalil confirms that the taillight is jutting out, as if pushed from the inside. He pauses; Fiona tries to tug him along to keep moving.
Claude gets out of the driver seat and engages the station security guard who has detained his partner, all while still looking out for Fiona and the man who whisked her away.
Jalil tells Fiona “Walk through the alley and wait for me at the other side of the block.” She doesn’t get what he’s up to and is slow to turn as she watches his next steps. He’s closer to the Maybach, using passers-by as cover. They are only two yards from the front of the car. Jalil sees that the keys are in the ignition. He quickly gets in and starts the engine.
The men scramble as he peels down the street and speeds straight for a few blocks until they can’t see him any more. He can’t find any GPS or anything Lojack-like that they could use to track him. He’s grateful that Drake appreciates things in their authentic state in this instance.
He circles back on another street and picks up Fiona who is ducking behind the window display in the store at the corner where Jalil said to meet him. At first when she saw the car, she hides, thinking it’s the thugs from Drake. But when Jalil waves, she comes out. “He’s crazy.” She thinks out loud. “I’m crazy.” She adds, pushing her blistered feet back onto the cold street then into this Nazi car. Soon as she’s in, Jalil dr
ives before she even finishes closing the door. “Easy!” she scolds as the g-forces push her back in to the seat and close the door the rest of the way. He’s not speaking yet, is fully focused on the action at hand. First, getting them and this attention-getter off the street.
Two miles of meandering on various streets and alleyways, Jalil pulls into a parking garage and parks up on the third level.
“What now?”
Jalil gets out of the car and pops the trunk. Fiona watches him through the side mirror, but her vision is limited and he’s back there a while. He’s talking to someone. She sees that Jalil is holding a hand. She gets out of the car slow at first, not wanting to see who is in the trunk, but in her gut she already knows.
Jalil feels a faint pulse. “Come on, man.” he coaxes Rolf, nearly comatose, almost as colorless as an albino.
Fiona grabs a bottle of water from the car and pours some on Rolf’s face. Jalil takes it and tries to pour some in his mouth, but it spills out and runs down his face.
“He looked fine hours ago. What did they do to him?”
“Poison.”
Rolf stirs, his eyes roll until he’s able to control the muscles enough to see a blurry Jalil and Fiona looking down at him. He hones in on Jalil who is gripping his hand, but he doesn’t know this, he’s lost all muscle control save for his eyes it took all else he had to kick that tail light out.
Flailing and jerking as his muscles grow stiff, Rolf gasps for air. His lungs petrify as he exhales his last barely audible word, “Sorry.” His eyes freeze, his whole body stills, except for the last beads of perspiration that roll down his face. He’s gone.
Some teenagers come out of the elevator toward the front of the car. They gawk at the car and approach. One of the boys takes his cell phone and starts taking pictures. Still cloaked by the trunk, Fiona takes Jalil’s arm. He sees them approaching and closes the trunk, turning quickly so their faces aren’t directed to the lenses of their phones or the security cameras and the two walk away from the kids quickly. They exit through the other end of the garage.