“That’s a joke, I take it.”
“Absolutely. A hoot, same as this whole operation. I have more demands. Break points, actually.”
“And what would they be, Tommy, these demands?”
“Number one—want to write this down or do you think you can remember ’em?”
“I’ll remember, thank you.”
“An official letter. Addressed to Frau Annabel Richter, copy for me. Signed and sealed by the competent German authority, thanking her for her cooperation and assuring her that no legal or other actions will be taken against her. That’s for starters, all right? The nitty-gritty to follow.” And catching Lantern’s expression of near-incredulity: “I’m not fucking around, Lantern. I’m deadly serious. Nothing on God’s earth is going to get me through Abdullah’s front door tomorrow if I don’t have total satisfaction. Number two: an advance sight of Issa Karpov’s brand-new German passport, valid as soon as he signs over his loot. I want it in my hand to show to Annabel, ahead of hostilities, as proof incontrovertible that whoever is pulling her strings is going to stick to his promises and not welsh. Got the message or would you like subtitles?”
“That’s plain impossible. You’re asking me to go to the Germans and get his passport out of them and lend it to you? You’re in cloud-cuckoo-land, man!”
“Bollocks. Arrant, fully attested ordure, if you’ll forgive my crudeness. You’re in the magic wand business. Wave it, be it never so small. And I’ll tell you something else.”
“What?”
“Re that passport.”
“What, re that passport?”
“Passports are a dime a dozen in your business, I understand. They can be faked, canceled, withdrawn and impregnated with nasty messages to the authorities of other countries. Correct?”
“So?”
“I have a lien on you. Kindly remember that. It will not expire with the issue of Issa’s passport. If I ever hear that you’ve done the dirty on him, I shall blow the whistle on you. Very loud and very long and very clear. Lantern of the British embassy, Berlin. The spook who rats on his promises. And by the time you catch me, it will be too bloody late. I’m going home now. Call me when you’ve got an answer, I’m open all hours.”
“What about your wife?”
What about her indeed? He lay in bed watching the ceiling sway, and waiting for it to right itself. Note from Mitzi: Summit conference with Bernhard.
Good luck to her. Everyone should have a summit.
It was midnight when Lantern called.
“Can you talk?”
“I’m alone, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Lantern had waved his magic wand.
Brue signaled right and looked in his driving mirror. The slip road was approaching and they were still behind him: two men in a BMW who had been following him ever since he left his house. Someone to watch over you, Lantern had said, with a smirk.
The town was a cluster of red brick dumped onto misted fields. A red church, a red railway station, a fire station. A row of semi-bungalows down one side of the main street. On the other side, a petrol station and a steel-and-concrete school. There was a football field, but nobody was playing.
Parking in the high street was forbidden, so he found a side street and walked back. Lantern’s minders had vanished. Probably having a coffee in the petrol station, pretending to be other people.
Two stocky Arab-looking men in baggy brown suits stood watching his approach. The elder was swinging his prayer beads, the younger smoking a foul-looking yellow cigarette. The elder shuffled a pace towards him, holding out his arms. Fifty meters up the road, two uniformed policemen stepped out of the shadow of a hedge to take a look.
“You permit, sir?”
Brue permitted. Shoulders, lapels, armpits, side pockets, back, hips, crotch, calves, ankles, all his zones, erogenous and otherwise. And on the insistence of the second man who had stamped out his cigarette, the contents of his breast pockets. It’s an ordinary fountain pen, Lantern had said. It looks like a pen, writes like a pen, listens like a pen. If they take it apart, it’s still an ordinary fountain pen.
They didn’t take it apart.
A burst of sunshine made the place beautiful. In the overgrown front garden a heavily covered woman in black roosted in a deck chair cuddling a baby. Georgie, seven months from now. The front door stood open. A small boy in a skullcap and white robe peered round it from halfway up. Maybe she’ll have a boy.
“You are most welcome, Mr. Brue, sir,” he declaimed in English, and grinned from ear to ear.
From the porch, Brue stepped straight into a living room. At his feet three small girls in white were building a Lego farmyard while a silent television showed golden domes and minarets. At the foot of a staircase stood a bearded youth in long striped shirt and chinos.
“Mr. Brue, sir, I am Ismail, private secretary to Dr. Abdullah. You are most welcome,” he said, and laid his right hand against his heart before extending it for Brue to shake.
If five percent of Dr. Abdullah was bad, as Lantern had insisted, then it was five percent of very little. He was tiny, twinkly, fatherly, bald and benign, with bright eyes and thick eyebrows and a dance to his tread. Springing round his desk, he whisked Brue’s hand into both of his and kept it there. He wore a black suit and a white shirt with a closed collar, and sneakers with no laces.
“You are the great Mr. Brue,” he piped, speaking English very fast and very well. “Your name is not unknown to us, sir. Your bank had Arab connections once, not good ones, but connections. Perhaps you have forgotten. That’s one of the great problems of our modern world, you know. Forgetting. The victim never forgets. Ask an Irishman what the English did to him in 1920 and he’ll tell you the day of the month and the time and the name of every man they killed. Ask an Iranian what the English did to him in 1953 and he’ll tell you. His child will tell you. His grandchild will tell you. And when he has one, his great-grandchild will tell you too. But ask an Englishman—” He flung up his hands in mock ignorance. “If he ever knew, he has forgotten. ‘Move on!’ you tell us. ‘Move on! Forget what we’ve done to you. Tomorrow’s another day!’ But it isn’t, Mr. Brue.” He still had Brue’s hand. “Tomorrow was created yesterday, you see. That is the point I was making to you. And by the day before yesterday, too. To ignore history is to ignore the wolf at the door. Please. Take a seat. You had a safe journey, I hope?”
“Fine, just fine, thank you.”
“It was not fine, it was raining. Now we briefly have sunshine. In life we must face the realities. You met my son Ismail, my secretary? This is Fatima, my daughter. Next October, God willing, Fatima will begin her studies at the London School of Economics and Ismail will in due course follow in his father’s steps to Cairo and I shall be a lonelier fellow but a proud one. You have children, sir?”
“One daughter.”
“Then you too are blessed.”
“But not as blessed as you are, by the look of it!” said Brue heartily.
Like her brother, Fatima was taller than her father by a head. She was broad-faced and beautiful. Her brown hijab fell over her shoulders like a cape.
“Hi,” she said and, dipping her eyes, placed her right hand to her heart in salutation.
“The Americans are worse than you British but they have an excuse,” Dr. Abdullah ran on in the same jolly style, guiding Brue towards the one luxuriantly stuffed visitors’ armchair, but without releasing his wrist. “Their excuse is ignorance. They don’t know what they’re doing wrong. But you English know very well. You have known it a long time. And you do it all the same. You don’t mind a joke, I suppose? Humor will be my undoing, I’m told. But don’t mistake me for a philosopher, I beg you. Philosophy is for you, not for me. I am a religious authority, yes. But philosophy is for the secular and the godless. Our part of the world is in a bad state, don’t tell me. Whose fault is that? I wonder. One thousand years ago, we had more hospitals per capita in Córdoba than the Spanish do today. Our
doctors performed operations that still defeat your modern doctors. What went wrong? we ask ourselves. Foreign involvement? Russian imperialism? Or secularism? But we Muslims too were to blame. Some of us had lost faith in our faith. We weren’t true Muslims anymore. That was where we hit the buffers. Fatima, we need tea, please. I was one year at Cambridge. Caius College. I expect you know that too. With the Internet and TV there are no secrets anymore. Information is not knowledge, mind you. Information is dead meat. Only God can turn information into knowledge. And cake, Fatima, Mr. Brue has driven from Hamburg in the rain. You are too hot, too cold, sir? Be frank with us. We are hospitable people here, trying our best to fulfil God’s commands. We wish you to be comfortable. If you are bringing us money, we wish you to be very comfortable! The more comfortable, the better, we say! This way, please, sir. Allow us to conduct you to our consulting room! You are a kind man. You have a good visage, as we say.”
Five percent bad how? Brue was thinking angrily in his nervousness. Lantern, when he asked him the question, had refused to elaborate: Just take my word for it, Tommy. Five percent is all you need to know. So tell me who isn’t five percent bad? Brue demanded of himself as, with all the family in attendance, they trooped down a narrow corridor. Brue Frères, with its dodgy investments, dodgy clients and Lipizzaners? Plus a bit of insider dealing when we can get away with it? I’d give us more like fifteen. As to our gallant president and managing director, me, what are we looking at there? Divorced a good wife, one leftover child I’m learning to love when it’s too late, screwed the field, married a tart and now she’s throwing me out: I’d give me more like fifty percent bad than five.
“So what does he do with the other ninety-five of himself?” he had asked Lantern.
Good works was the evasive answer.
What do I do with mine? Bugger all. Tot us both up, look at the bottom line, and you begin to wonder which of us is five percent more bad than the other.
“And so, sir, kindly begin. At your leisure but in English, please. For the children it is most important they learn English at every opportunity. This way, please, sir. Thank you.”
They had moved to a humble scholar’s den overlooking the back garden. Where there were no books, there was calligraphy. Dr. Abdullah sat at a plain wood desk, leaning forward over his folded hands. Fatima must have had the tea prepared, for she arrived with it instantly, together with a plate of sugar biscuits. Scurrying after her came the small boy who had opened the front door to him, accompanied by the bravest of his three small sisters. Climbing the stairs behind Ismail, Brue had felt a single bead of sweat trickle down his right side like a very cold insect. But now they were settled he was calm and professional. He had entered his element. He had Lantern’s brief well rehearsed in his head, and a job to do. And always out there in front of him somewhere, Annabel.
“Dr. Abdullah. Forgive me,” he began, striking a note of authority.
“But, sir, what have I to forgive?”
“My client, as I mentioned to you on the phone, insists on a high degree of confidentiality. His situation is, to say the least, delicate. I feel we should conduct our business alone. I’m sorry.”
“But you don’t even propose to tell me his name, Mr. Brue! How can I put your esteemed client at risk if I don’t know who he is?”
He murmured a few words in Arabic. Fatima rose and without a glance at Brue left the room, followed by the small children and finally Ismail. Waiting till the door had closed behind them, Brue drew an unsealed envelope from his pocket and placed it on Dr. Abdullah’s desk.
“You have come all this way to write to me?” Dr. Abdullah asked humorously; then, seeing Brue’s earnest expression, pulled on a pair of scratched reading spectacles, opened the envelope, unfolded the sheet of paper and studied the column of figures typed on it. Then he took off the spectacles, passed his hand across his face and put them on again.
“Is this a joke, Mr. Brue?”
“A rather expensive one, wouldn’t you say?”
“Expensive for you?”
“For me personally, no. For my bank, yes. No bank enjoys saying good-bye to sums that size.”
Unpersuaded, Dr. Abdullah took another look at the figures. “I am not accustomed to saying hullo to them either, Mr. Brue. What am I to do? Say thank you? Say no thank you? Say yes? You are a banker, sir. I am a humble beggar for God. Are my prayers being answered or are you making a fool of me?”
“However, there are conditions,” Brue warned severely, choosing to ignore the question.
“I am very glad to hear it. The more conditions the better. Do you have any idea how much money all my charities put together collect in this hemisphere in one year?”
“None at all.”
“I thought bankers knew everything. One-third of this sum at the very most. More like one-quarter. Allah is all-merciful.”
Abdullah was still staring at the sheet of paper on his desk, his hands placed proprietorially either side of it. In a long banking life Brue had been privileged to witness men and women of all conditions awakening to the scale of their newfound wealth. Never had he seen a more radiant picture of innocent rapture than the good doctor now.
“You have no concept of what such a sum would mean to my people,” he said, and to Brue’s embarrassment his eyes filled with tears, causing him to close them and lower his head. But when he lifted his head again, his voice was sharp and to the point.
“Am I permitted to inquire where so much money originated—how it was obtained—how it came into your client’s hands?”
“Most of it has been lodged with my bank for a decade or two.”
“But the money did not begin with your bank.”
“Obviously not.”
“So where did it begin, Mr. Brue?”
“The money is an inheritance. In my client’s view it was dishonorably obtained. It has also been earning interest, which I understand is contrary to Islamic law. Before my client lays formal claim to it, he needs to be assured that he is acting in accordance with his faith.”
“You said there were conditions, Mr. Brue.”
“In asking you to distribute his wealth among your charitable institutions, my client wishes Chechnya to be given principal consideration.”
“Your client is Chechen, Mr. Brue?” As his tone of voice softened again, so his eyes hardened and fine wrinkles formed around them, as if against a desert sun.
“My client has a deep concern for the plight of the oppressed Chechen people,” Brue replied, again declining to answer the question. “His first priority would be to provide them with medicine and clinics.”
“We have many Muslim charities dedicated to this important work, Mr. Brue.” The dark little eyes still fixed on Brue’s.
“It is my client’s hope that one day he will himself become a doctor. In order to heal the wrongs done to Chechens.”
“God alone heals, Mr. Brue. Man only assists. How old is your client, if I may ask? Are we looking at a man of mature years? A man perhaps who has made his own fortune in a legitimate sphere?”
“Of whatever age and social standing he or she is, my client is determined to study medicine, and wishes to be the first beneficiary of his own generosity. Rather than make direct use of money that he regards as unclean, he asks that a Muslim charity finance a full course of medical training for him here in Europe. The cost would be negligible by comparison with the donation. But it would give him the assurance that he is acting ethically. On all of these matters, he would like to receive guidance from you personally. In Hamburg, at a time and place convenient to you both.”
Dr. Abdullah’s gaze returned to the sheet of paper before him, and then to Brue.
“May I appeal to your best instincts, Mr. Brue?”
“Of course.”
“You are an honorable man, it is plain to me. Kind and honorable. Never mind what else you are. A Christian, a Jew, I don’t care. Only that you are what you appear to be. You are a father like me. You are
also a man of the world.”
“I like to think so.”
“Then advise me, please, why I should trust you.”
“Why should you not?”
“Because there is a bad taste in my mouth regarding this magnificent proposition.”
You’re not leading anyone to the slaughter, Lantern had said. You’re giving him a chance to go straight and do the decent thing. So no need to get into the mea culpa stuff. A year from now he’ll be grateful to you.
“If there’s a bad taste, it’s not of my making, and it’s not of my client’s. Perhaps it’s to do with how the money was derived.”
“So you said.”
“My client is fully aware of the money’s unhappy origin. He has discussed it at length with his lawyer, and you’re the solution they came up with.”
“He has a lawyer?”
“Yes.”
“Here in Germany?”
The questioning had again taken a sharper turn, to which Brue was grateful to respond.
“Yes, indeed,” he said heartily.
“A good one?”
“I assume so. Since he chose her.”
“A woman, then. They are the best, I am told. Did your client take advice on choosing this woman lawyer?”
“I assume so.”
“Is she a Muslim?”
“You would have to ask her that yourself.”
“Is your client a trusting man like me, Mr. Brue?”
This is what you tell him and no more, Lantern had said. A flash of ankle, enough to lead him on, and stop it there.
“My client is a man of tragic experience, Dr. Abdullah. Many injustices have been perpetrated against him. He has endured. He has resisted. But they have left him scarred.”
“Therefore?”
“Therefore he has instructed my bank, through his lawyer, that the contaminated monies, as he regards them, will be transferred directly to the charities that you and he have agreed upon. In his presence and yours. From Brue Frères to the recipients. He wishes for no go-betweens. He is aware of your eminence, he has studied your writings and wishes for your guidance alone. But he needs to witness the transactions with his own eyes.”
A Most Wanted Man Page 27