‘You disappeared under our radar for a couple of days,’ said John Stagione, in his harsh, congested voice, splitting a pistachio nut with his thumbnail.
‘Rick was taking care of me – Rick and two friends of his.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘You don’t have to worry. They were ex-Secret Service.’
‘Ex-Secret Service or not, you should have let me vet them first. Even old friends can be turned. Retired Secret Service officers, finding it hard to live on their pensions – everyone has their price.’
‘As dedicated as I am, John, and as much as I love you all, I do occasionally need some time to myself.’
‘Thing is, Adeola,’ said Alvin Metzler, ‘we have an eye-watering amount of capital invested in your current missions. Our investors aren’t going to be very happy if someone knocks you off and screws up a mission as potentially profitable as the Ethiopian deal. I mean – as you’re aware – peace is a business like any other.’
He paused, and then he added, ‘Not only that, we’d be extremely distressed on a personal level to lose you.’
‘Oh, thanks. But I have no intention of making myself a target, Alvin, believe me. I’m a conciliator, not a martyr.’
‘Of course. But we’ve decided to intensify your personal security. John has arranged for six close-protection bodyguards to keep a twenty-four-hour watch on you, in six-hour shifts.’
‘For how long?’
‘Until we find out who’s been trying to paint you out of the picture,’ said John Stagione.
‘Or at least until your current missions are complete,’ Alvin Metzler added.
‘Well, I appreciate your concern,’ Adeola told him. ‘But I’m not too sure that I’m going to be able to live like that.’
‘I’m sorry, Adeola, this is non-negotiable. The trust have discussed it and we simply can’t risk anything going wrong, not at this juncture.’
Adeola said, ‘All right, if that’s the way it has to be. Does Rick know any of this protection team?’
‘Ah,’ said John Stagione. ‘That’s where I’ve had to make some changes. I’m moving Rick to intelligence duties.’
‘You mean you’re demoting him?’
‘I’m moving him back into the office, that’s all.’
‘But come on, John, I don’t trust anybody else, not like I trust Rick. I want him to take care of me.’
John Stagione scratched the back of his neck. ‘From what I hear, Adeola, he’s being taking care of you over and above his job description.’
‘That’s no business of yours.’
‘Oh, it is, I’m afraid. Any personal relationship between a DOVE negotiator and a member of her protection staff is a security risk. It can lay both of you open to all kinds of untoward pressures.’
Alvin Metzler said, ‘We’re going to give Rick a couple of months’ downtime, Adeola. He’s been under a whole lot of strain lately, especially after losing so many of his team in Dubai, and in Ireland. Remember that he’s still officially under investigation by the Garda Síochana.’
‘I want him to stay with me. I insist.’
‘I’m sorry, Adeola. It’s a decision made by the whole trust and it has to be final.’
Downstairs, in the largest of the Century Plaza’s convention rooms, delegates from twenty-three different countries were mingling at an informal buffet. Most of them wore dark business suits: others were dressed in flamboyant national costumes, saris from India and kente cloths from Ghana; Arabian haiks and jellabas.
It had been somebody’s idea to give the buffet a Cajun theme. Underneath the sparkling chandeliers, the long tables were crowded with shrimp and blackened catfish and corn-fried oysters, as well as spiced chicken and jambalaya and filé gumbo. In the far corner, a quartet in floppy blue shirts were playing zydeco music with fiddles and accordion.
Adeola knew many of the delegates already, especially the Middle Eastern diplomats. With Ted keeping close beside her, she talked to the junior foreign minister from Algeria, the development minister from Qatar, the trade secretary from Egypt. In the far corner of the room, though, she saw a good-looking man of maybe forty-two or forty-three, with dark, combed-back hair, rimless glasses and a suntan, and although she thought she recognized him, she couldn’t immediately think of his name.
She excused herself from the Egyptian trade secretary and negotiated her way across the room. The man was standing by himself, nursing a glass of white wine. He looked not unlike a young Louis Jourdan, almost too smooth and too handsome to be attractive. He was wearing a well-cut navy blue coat and a pale blue silk necktie with some kind of gold insignia on it.
Adeola went up to him and said, directly, ‘We’ve met, haven’t we?’
He didn’t even look at her. ‘No, we haven’t. I’d have remembered.’
She held out her hand with all the jangly bangles on her wrist. ‘Adeola Davis. I’m sure I’ve seen you before.’
He turned to her. His eyes were unusually black. He clasped her hand between both of his, and slowly shook it. ‘Adeola Davis, from DOVE? Yes . . . I read about you in Newsweek. Globe-trotting freelance peace negotiator extraordinaire.’
‘That’s one description.’
‘It’s an honour to meet you, Adeola Davis. Without you, the world would be a much more miserable place than it is already. Can I get you a glass of wine? Or a mint julep? I think they’re even serving a blue mamou.’
‘I’m fine with Evian, thanks. So why do I think I know you?’
‘I’ve been featured in a few magazines, I guess.’ His voice was deep and measured, with a hint of a Southern accent, which Adeola couldn’t quite place. Louisiana, possibly. ‘Hubert Tocsin. I was the winner of last year’s Round-Bermuda Yacht Race. And the year before that.’
‘Don’t tell me that’s your only credential for being here.’
‘Of course not. But I like to boast about it, all the same.’
‘So what are you doing here? I saw you across the room and I thought you looked kind of lost.’
Hubert Tocsin looked around at the peace delegates, and gave an odd, self-deprecating smile. ‘As a matter of fact, I’m the devil in the company of angels. I’m the owner of Tocsin Weapons and Rocketry Systems, of Escondido, and the current president of the Association of American Arms Manufacturers.’
‘Now I know you,’ said Adeola. ‘You made that speech, didn’t you, at the United Nations, about arms being necessary for world peace?’
‘That’s the one. I’m flattered you remember.’
‘I wouldn’t be flattered, if I were you. I disagreed with every word you said. And I mean vehemently, with a capital V.’
Hubert Tocsin laughed. ‘I wouldn’t have expected you to feel any other way. But I guess the difference between you and me is that you’re an idealist and I’m a realist.’
‘Mr Tocsin, I’ve been to Angola, and I’ve been to Beirut, and I’ve been to Somalia, and I’ve witnessed your reality first hand. Believe me, it isn’t pretty.’
‘Well, don’t let’s fall out over our different world view, not in the first five minutes of meeting each other. I know what you’re telling me, Ms Davis, and I fully understand your distress. But as far as I’m concerned, a well-armed world is the lesser of two evils. Look at the Hutus. They didn’t need smart bombs to slaughter each other. All they needed was prejudice and hatred and machetes, and you can’t ban prejudice and hatred. Or machetes, for that matter.’
A waiter came past with a tray of fried shrimp, and Hubert Tocsin took one. ‘I have a special weakness for fried shrimp,’ he smiled. ‘I ought to take you to Mulate’s, in New Orleans. They also serve a crawfish étouffée to die for, and a great blackened alligator, if you have a taste for blackened alligator.’
‘The weapons maker invites the peace negotiator out for dinner?’ asked Adeola.
‘Why not? I could spend the evening making swords and you could spend the evening beating them into ploughshares.’
Adeola looked a
t him acutely. ‘So what exactly are you doing here?’
‘I’m here because I was invited. I’m here because peace is just as much my concern as yours, even though we both believe in different ways of achieving it.’
‘You got that right.’
Hubert Tocsin put down his wine glass and took hold of her hand again. ‘I really respect what you do, Ms Davis. I just want you to know that.’
‘I wish the feeling were mutual, Mr Tocsin, but it isn’t.’
Hubert Tocsin shrugged. ‘That makes me a little sad, I have to admit.’
‘I saw a fifteen-month-old boy lying in the dirt in Beirut, with both legs blown off at the knees. That made me sad.’
Hubert Tocsin kept on smiling, and kept on holding her hand, but Adeola saw something in his face that made her feel suddenly chilled, as if the sun had disappeared behind a cloud.
She rejoined Ted, who was standing at the end of the buffet table with his mouth full of spicy Cajun sausage. ‘Everything OK?’ he asked her. ‘You look kind of pissed.’
‘No . . . I’m fine. I met somebody I didn’t expect to meet, that’s all.’
‘That guy in the sport coat? Who he?’
‘Let’s put it this way. You see all these people gathered here today? One way and another, Hubert Tocsin has probably killed a thousand times more people than this.’
Outside, in the hotel lobby, John Stagione was waiting for her, looking impatient and sweaty, with a stocky young Korean man in a black suit and a black shirt. He had shiny black hair parted in the centre and long scimitar-shaped sideburns.
‘Adeola, this is Hong Gildong. He’s going to be taking care of you for the next six hours.’
Hong Gildong bowed his head and shook her hand. ‘Pleased to make your acquaintance, Ms Davis,’ he said, in immaculate English. ‘Rest assured I will make my presence as unobtrusive as I possibly can. But if there is anything you require from me, all you have to do is say the word.’
‘Well, thank you,’ said Adeola, turning to Ted in amusement.
Ted said, ‘Guess you won’t be needing me to run close-protection any more. Obtrusive kind of a mook like me.’
‘You’ve been terrific, Ted, don’t worry about it. You and Steve both. I’ll see you later, anyhow, when Rick and Jonah get back.’
‘Where is Rick?’ asked John Stagione. ‘I’ve been calling him on his cell all morning but he’s not answering.’
‘Went to see a friend, that’s all,’ said Adeola. ‘I’ll have him call you.’
‘I have my SUV here,’ said Hong Gildong, gesturing towards the curb.
At that moment, with a faint ringing sound, one of the bronze pendants dropped from Adeola’s turban and rolled across the sidewalk. The fine silk thread necklace that was holding it had broken.
She picked it up, and unwound the necklace from her headdress. Another pendant must have dropped off without her noticing it, because she had only five left. They were only copies of the fifteenth-century originals from the reign of Oba Ewuare, but they were beautifully cast, and they had been given to Adeola by the Nigerian ambassador to symbolize her ‘speed, her grace, her beauty, and like the leopard itself, her remorselessness’.
‘Hold up a minute,’ she said, and went back across the lobby to the convention room. The reception was beginning to break up now, and the few delegates left were standing around in small knots, finishing their discussions and saying their goodbyes. But Hubert Tocsin was still there, in the same corner, and he was talking to a black man in a grey suit.
As she came nearer, Hubert Tocsin caught sight of her, and the black man turned around, too. It was Captain Madoowbe, from the Ethiopian security forces, with his ritually-scarified, pockmarked cheeks. He gave her a grin crowded with orange teeth.
‘Captain Madoowbe. What a pleasant surprise.’
‘Ms Davis, the pleasant surprise is all mine. I am here in the LA with His Excellency Ato Ketona Aklilu.’
‘I wasn’t aware that you and Mr Tocsin were acquainted.’
Hubert Tocsin laid a hand on Captain Madoowbe’s shoulder. ‘Oh, you’d be surprised what friends you can make, in the arms business. Once I had breakfast with Fidel Castro’s brother, Raul, and dinner with the Most Reverend Diarmuid Martin, the Primate of Ireland, both on the same day.’
‘I’ve dropped one of these pendants,’ said Adeola. ‘You can’t see it anywhere, can you? It’s a reproduction, but I’d hate to lose it.’
Hubert Tocsin and Captain Madoowbe looked around the carpet. Suddenly, Captain Madoowbe bent down and picked up the missing pendant from underneath one of the buffet tables. ‘Here, Ms Davis. I have always had a keen eye.’
‘Thank you, Captain,’ said Adeola.
There was another moment of high tension, although Adeola didn’t know what it was that was causing the stress between herself, Hubert Tocsin and Captain Madoowbe. It was almost like standing next to an electricity substation, the atmosphere so charged Adeola felt as if sparks might crackle between them.
Hubert Tocsin looked at her as though he were expecting her to say something else. She was deeply curious to know what he and Captain Madoowbe were talking about, but it was obvious that they were waiting for her to leave before they resumed their conversation. She walked out of the hotel and Hong Gildong opened the Landcruiser’s door for her.
‘You’ve found your leopard, Ms Davis?’
‘Oh, please, call me Adeola. And what’s your real name?’
Hong Gildong smiled. ‘You know Korean, then.’
‘I know that “Hong Gildong” is just an anonymous name, like “John Doe”.’
‘Hong Gildong will do. I am an anonymous sort of man.’
They pulled away from the front of the hotel. As they did so, Adeola’s cellphone rang and it was Rick.
Nineteen
Rick tapped on the bedroom door. Linda Pringle said, ‘Come in.’
Inside, the flowery green drapes were drawn to keep out the late-afternoon sun. Kathleen Pringle was lying in bed asleep, the back of her hand half-covering her face. Her daughter was sitting beside her in an armchair, her eyes swollen, but looking much more composed now.
‘She went off all right, then?’ asked Rick.
‘I think she’s too shocked to cry. I think I am, too.’
‘I’m so sorry for what happened. You should never have gotten involved in any of this.’
He looked around the bedroom. It was small and stuffy, with green speckly wallpaper and a framed print of Jesus above the bed.
‘You’ll be safe here, anyhow,’ he told her. ‘Phil and Grace, they’re good people. They’ll take care of you.’
‘What about Dad? What about those men?’
‘Steve will take care of them. That’s one of Steve’s specialties: making problems disappear.’
‘But that’s my dad. I don’t want him just to disappear.’
‘I know. And if I know Steve, he’ll have fixed something, so you can say goodbye properly, when this is all over. Listen – why don’t you come downstairs and have a drink? We can leave the door open in case your mom needs you.’
Tiredly, Linda stood up and leaned over to kiss her mother’s hand. Then she followed Rick downstairs to the living room. Steve wasn’t back yet, but Noah was sitting with Phil and Grace Bukowski.
Phil was in his mid-sixties, bald, with prominent false teeth, while Grace was much larger than he was, a big woman with dyed-brown curly hair that was much too abundant for her age, and badly-drawn eyebrows, and a long face like a placid horse.
As skinny as he was, Phil had once been in charge of the close-protection team that looked after President Jimmy Carter, and completely unknown to the media or the public, he had stopped a .22 bullet that had been fired at the president from long range on the golf course at Pine Hills, Georgia. He was tough, and he was wiry, and he was unfailingly loyal, which was why he had agreed to take care of Kathleen and Linda Pringle until it was safe for them to go home again.
Rick
sat down in one of the cream leatherette armchairs, and Grace brought him a cold bottle of Miller. On the table next to him there was a cluster of framed photographs of grandchildren, some of them with Phil’s imp-like looks, and others resembling horses.
‘Cute kids,’ said Rick.
‘Nine of them we got now,’ Phil told him. ‘And a tenth due in September.’
‘Jesus. The whole damn world’s going to be overrun with Bukowskis.’
‘Your mom OK now?’ Grace asked Linda.
‘She’s sleeping, thank God.’
Rick said, ‘Your dad . . . did he ever tell you the name of this friend of his, from the Secret Service Archive? The one he met at The Watergate?’
‘Sure,’ said Linda. ‘Wallace Rudge. Dad had known him for years. They used to go fishing together. Wallace was writing a book about the Secret Service.’
‘I know Wallace,’ said Phil. ‘Good, steady guy. You want his phone number?’
Wallace Rudge lived in Falls Church, only seven miles away. Rick called him but the line was busy. Ten minutes later he called again but the line was still busy. After forty-five minutes, he said to Noah, ‘Either this guy’s wife is on the phone, or there’s something wrong. Why don’t we drive over there?’
Noah swigged the last of his Miller and said, ‘Why not?’
It was almost 7.45 p.m. by the time they turned off the Dulles Toll toward Tyson’s Corner, and the sun was shining directly into their eyes, so that they had to lower their sun visors.
Wallace Rudge lived in a 1950s brown-brick apartment block on George C. Marshall Drive, mostly hidden from the road by oak trees. Rick parked in the visitors’ area at the back of the block, but before he went to the front doors, he walked over to the residents’ parking section. The space marked 5C was occupied by a faded red Honda Accord.
‘Well, somebody’s home, even if it isn’t him.’
They went up to the main entrance and Rick pressed the bell for apartment 5C. They waited, but there was no reply. Rick pressed the bell again. Still no response.
‘This isn’t right,’ said Rick. ‘His car’s still here, his phone’s off the hook.’
Chaos Theory Page 14