‘A gesture of mutual futility, more like,’ said Fariah, in a thick, vitriolic croak. ‘Only tired men seek to make peace with each other.’
Professor Halflight gave her an indulgent pat on the shoulder. ‘Well, yes. It will be the usual farce. Handshakes, exchanging of pens, overfed men in badly-fitting suits talking about a dazzling new dawn for democracy. But it will have one unusual feature.’
‘What is this?’ asked Abdel Al-Hadi, cautiously.
‘The President is arriving in Los Angeles the day after tomorrow, for the Pan-Pacific Economic Conference. And I have been reliably informed that he will be making a surprise appearance.’
‘A surprise appearance?’ asked Abdel Al-Hadi ‘Then how do you know about it?’
‘Because Nakasu has some very good friends in law enforcement, Mr Al-Hadi. And wherever the President goes, the law enforcement agencies have to know about it in advance.’
‘What are you saying? You are saying that you are going to assassinate this foreign secretary from Ethiopia, and also this man from DOVE, and the President, too?’
Captain Madoowbe shook his head. ‘His Excellency Ato Ketona Aklilu will survive the attack, because of the quick-thinking and courage of his head of security, Captain Madoowbe. Unfortunately Mr Alvin Metzler and the President will both be killed.’
‘But the security – if the President is there—’
‘Of course. Security will be very tight indeed. But you can rest assured that Nakasu can get you close enough to do what you have to do.’
‘You want me to do this?’
‘You wanted to join Nakasu, Mr Al-Hadi. You wanted to show the world that the Armed Front for the Freedom of Palestine is a force to be reckoned with.’
‘Of course. But to assassinate the President!’
Fariah said, ‘The President, unlike his predecessor, is a peacemaker. If you kill him, Mr Al-Hadi, then the struggle for Palestine can go on, and one day the fiercest and the strongest and the most determined will come out on top, as they rightly should.’
‘But look at me! I am Palestinian! Always it takes me many hours, just to pass through airport security! How can I get close to the President?’
‘Oh, I think you’ll manage it,’ said Fariah. She started to cough, and they all waited patiently until she had finished. She spat noisily behind her mask, and Professor Halflight reached underneath her celluloid chin with a Kleenex and wiped her mouth.
‘Her lungs,’ he explained. Abdel Al-Hadi nodded, trying to look sympathetic, but Captain Madoowbe had an expression on his face of utter disgust.
Fariah fumbled inside her brown shawl with her three-fingered hand. Professor Halflight hovered, as if he wanted to help her, but she tutted at him to stop interfering. Eventually, she produced from the folds of her shawl a shining silver medallion, highly polished, with cuneiform characters on it.
She held it up, and as it spun around, the light was reflected in Abdel Al-Hadi’s eyes, like a heliograph message. Flash, flash, flash. For a moment, he was mesmerized.
‘This is mine?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ said Professor Halflight. ‘And it has a very distinguished history. It was last carried by Paul Gorguloff, a Russian émigré who shot the President of France, Paul Doumer, in 1932, at a bookfair in Paris.’
‘Gorguloff was sentenced to death and beheaded,’ put in Fariah. ‘But before he went to the guillotine, the medallion was taken from his neck by Marc Bailly, the executioner, who was also associated with Nakasu, and eventually it was returned to the United States.’
Professor Halflight took the medallion from Fariah and handed it to Abdel Al-Hadi. ‘Like every other medallion, Gorguloff’s name was polished off, so that it was ready to be re-engraved with the name of the next assassin who would wear it.’
‘Feel it,’ croaked Fariah. ‘Feel how smooth and worn it is. It is over two thousand years old, and it has hung around the necks of dozens of assassins. Think of what it must have absorbed, from those men. The righteous madness! The exhilaration of killing another human being! The fear of being caught, and executed!’
Abdel Al-Hadi said, ‘It has great power, this medallion. Great history.’
‘And you, too, can be part of that history,’ said Professor Halflight. ‘Turn it over, look on the back. We’ve had your name engraved on it.’
‘You are so sure of me that you have already done this?’
‘Oh, we’re sure of you.’
Abdel Al-Hadi turned the medallion over. On the reverse were the letters F L Y N N.
Twenty-Nine
Leon was playing Samurai Warriors in Space on Adeola’s laptop when Rick knocked, loose-knuckled, on his open door.
‘I’m going out for some beer, dude. Do you want to come?’
‘Sure. Anything to get out of this place.’
‘Don’t be too long,’ Silja called from the kitchen. ‘I am making frikadeller this evening. And cabbage salad, with oranges.’
‘Twenty minutes, Silja, that’s all. Do you need anything?’
‘Maybe some cigarettes, that’s all.’
Rick and Leon climbed into the metallic red Grand Prix that Steve had rented for them. As they turned out of the parking space in front of the house, Rick said, ‘You called your uncle Saul about the funeral?’
Leon nodded. ‘It’s tomorrow afternoon, at the Mount Sinai Memorial Park.’
‘If you want to go, maybe we could ask Mitch to give you a false beard or something.’
Leon shook his head. ‘I don’t want to go to my father’s funeral in disguise. I’d rather wait, you know? I want to stand in front of his headstone the way I am now, and tell him that I’ve gotten my revenge on the bastards who murdered him.’
‘You’ll get your revenge, Leon, one way or another, believe me. And so will the rest of us.’
‘You really think so?’ said Leon. ‘It seems like there’s so many of them. They’re like those flying ants, you know, that come out of the cracks in the sidewalk. You squish about a hundred of them but there’s always more pouring out.’
‘I know. But if Noah has understood it right, Professor Halflight is like the king ant. He’s the one who chooses who these Nakasu guys assassinate – well, him and that crippled partner of his – and it seems like he’s the one who connects everybody with everybody else. If we can take him out—’
Leon looked at Rick and it wasn’t only his dark, silky moustache that made him look less like a boy. ‘I want to kill him, you know, Halflight. Personally, I want to kill him – me. I’ve been thinking about it a whole lot, and I know I could. Noah’s been teaching me how to use your gun.’
Rick looked back at him for so long and so intently that Leon began to worry that he was going to stray on to the wrong side of the boulevard.
‘I believe you,’ said Rick, at last. He steered the Grand Prix towards a brightly-lit 7–11 on the corner of Cypress Avenue, and parked.
Leon said, ‘I don’t want you to think – well, feeling so angry like this – I never felt like this before.’
Rick laid his hand on top of Leon’s, to reassure him. ‘Listen, Leon, none of us have.’
Silja was blending her salad dressing when Adeola came into the kitchen, dressed in a black kimono-style bathrobe with a red dragon embroidered on the back.
‘Where did you find that?’ asked Silja.
‘In the closet, next to the red satin pyjamas and the turquoise jogging suit.’
‘You have to admit that Noah’s friend has such good taste.’
‘Talking of taste, what’s that you’re making?’
Silja offered her a spoonful. ‘Orange and rosemary vinaigrette, for the salad.’
‘It’s wonderful. Is that paprika in it?’
‘And cayenne. And Dijon mustard. And garlic. And of course orange juice.’
Adeola looked up at the clock. ‘Nine thirty. Don’t you think that Noah should be back by now?’
‘He didn’t know how long it was going to take. I’m
trying not to worry about it, but I’m so frightened for him. Supposing they realize that he’s not an Arab terrorist after all? They’ll kill him, the same way they killed all those other people.’
Adeola put her arm around Silja’s shoulders. ‘I was in Damascus once, in the American Embassy, and a car bomb went off, right up against the embassy wall. The attaché I was talking to said we should go down to the shelter, but do you know something? I was so terrified that I couldn’t move. I just sat there, and in the end they almost had to carry me out of that conference room.
‘But this is why we are trying to stop these people. We can’t live our lives, being afraid all the time. What kind of a life is it, if we are always afraid?’
Silja tore off a paper towel and dabbed at her eyes. ‘You’re right, of course. But with all of this – Noah and me, we are very close now. It used to be only professional, but now it is something much more. If anything happened to him—’
Adeola smiled at her. ‘I know.’
She was turning towards the fridge when the kitchen door was kicked open, with a bang.
‘My God! What—?’
A bulky, bald-headed black man in a light grey suit barged his way into the kitchen, holding up a machine pistol. His fist was so big that the gun looked like a toy, but Adeola recognized an MP9A1 when she saw one. It could blow a hole through a bullet-proof vest.
The black man was followed by another bald man with a walrus moustache, and then a spidery-looking man with his right arm in a sling.
‘What’s this?’ Adeola demanded, wrapping her bathrobe more tightly around her, and tugging at the sash. ‘Who the hell are you? What do you want?’
Silja backed away. ‘I know this man,’ she said to Adeola, pointing to the spidery-looking man. ‘He came to Noah’s house and tried to kill us.’
The spidery man came around the kitchen table, flexing the fingers of his free hand as if he were preparing to shoot craps. ‘Be ye not afraid, ladies,’ he said. ‘This time, I haven’t come to do you no physical injury. Times have changed. Events have moved on.’
‘What do you want?’ Adeola demanded.
The spidery man approached her and leaned forward a little, only a few inches away from her, and sniffed. ‘Giorgio Wings shower gel. I would have thought that was a little flowery for a woman like you.’
He paused, and then he said, ‘Mind you, it’s something of an achievement, don’t you think, that a dead woman can take a shower at all?’
‘I asked you what you were doing here,’ said Adeola.
‘I think I’m entitled to ask you the same question, Ms Adeola Davis, since you were publicly plugged through the nut on network TV. But that philosophical stuff, that’s my employers’ concern, not mine. I’m in charge of transportation, that’s all. Sometimes I transport people from this world into the next, but in your case I’m simply going to transport you to meet a gentleman who would very much like to talk to you about your recent demise.’
While they were talking, the man with the walrus moustache had been looking through the other rooms, and out on the veranda. He came back to say, ‘Nobody else around.’
‘I see. So where are your friends, Ms Davis?’
‘They left. They’re not coming back.’
‘Didn’t take their clothes?’ snorted the man with the walrus moustache. ‘Didn’t take even take their toothbrushes?’
‘They were in a hurry.’
‘Oh, you don’t have to lie to me, Ms Davis,’ said the spidery man. ‘In any case, it don’t matter too much to me, except that I was instructed to use deadly force in the event of them trying to be obstructive, and I was looking forward to that. I don’t like leaving loose ends that might require tying up later.’
He drew back his sling and checked his wristwatch. ‘OK, time we were getting the hell out of here. Let’s go.’
‘I need to get dressed,’ Adeola protested.
‘You don’t need to do nothing except what I tell you to do. Now let’s go. You too, blondie.’
‘You can’t do this,’ said Adeola. ‘Don’t you know who I am?’
‘I know who you was,’ the spidery man leered at her. ‘But who are you now? The late Ms Adeola Davis, RIP. And dead people, they don’t have a whole lot of clout, not with the living, anyhow.’
Rick and Leon were turning off Glenoaks Boulevard into Scholl Canyon Drive when a grey sedan came speeding around the corner, so fast that its tyres were squittering in protest. Rick was momentarily blinded by its headlights, but Leon looked around and said, ‘Shit!’
‘What?’ said Rick.
‘It was Adeola, and Silja!’
‘What?’
‘Adeola and Silja! They were sitting in the back seat!’
‘What?’
Rick stamped on the brakes, and the Grand Prix slewed in a semicircle. Then he jammed his foot on the gas and they snaked back along Glenoaks Boulevard, leaving a cloud of rubber smoke behind them.
‘You’re sure it was them?’
‘Totally! And there were two guys sitting in the front!’
Rick was driving at nearly eighty miles an hour now, with the car bouncing and leaping over the bumps in the road.
‘Nobody’s supposed to know that we’re up here!’ he said, angrily.
‘Maybe one of the neighbours saw us, and tipped off the cops.’
‘Well, Mitch wouldn’t have told anyone, and Steve and Ted sure wouldn’t, they’re both ex-Secret Service.’
‘Hong Gildong?’
‘He knew, but look how much help he gave us, setting this up.’
They sped round a long right-hand curve, with the lights of the Ventura Freeway glittering off to their left. As they did so, the grey sedan came into view. Rick could even see Silja’s white-blonde hair shining in the large rear window. He could also see that there was a third man in the back seat, sitting on Silja’s right.
The sedan was a Buick Lucerne, the same type of vehicle driven by the men who murdered Jenna.
‘Bastards,’ said Rick, under his breath. ‘If they even breathe on Adeola, I swear to God, I’m going to kill them all.’
He started to speed up, until they were less than fifty yards away from the Buick’s rear lights.
But Leon said, ‘Slow up a little. You should give them some space.’
‘What the hell for? I’m going to ram the bastards.’
‘But they haven’t killed them, have they? They haven’t cut their throats?’
‘What? What are you talking about?’
‘They tried to kill Adeola, didn’t they? They tried at least twice.’
‘They tried, yes, but they failed. Well – they managed to kill plenty of other people, but not her.’
‘They tried to kill Silja, too, when they came to Noah’s place.’
The Buick was heading for the freeway, and travelling fast, but Rick was gradually gaining on them. He was trying to work out what he was going to do now: rear-end them, probably, force them into a crash barrier and then pull open the doors of their car while they were still (hopefully) dazed.
But Leon said, ‘They could have killed them back at the house. But they didn’t. And now they’re taking them someplace. Why do you think they’re doing that?’
Rick slowed up a little. ‘I don’t know.’
‘And, like, where are they taking them?’
‘For Christ’s sake, Leon, I don’t know that either!’
‘Don’t you think – instead of ramming them – we should follow them? Then we’ll find out.’
There was a long pause, while Rick thought about it. Then he eased off the gas.
‘You’re right,’ Rick finally admitted. ‘You’re absolutely right.’
He slowed up a little more, allowing the grey sedan to pull further ahead. It sped on, joining the Glendale Freeway and heading south. Traffic was light, but most of the time Rick was able to keep several vehicles in between them. He lit a cigarette to calm himself down.
‘OK if I hav
e one?’ asked Leon.
‘You want a cigarette? What’s the matter with you – you want to die?’
The Buick turned south-east on Route 5 and kept on going, and although it was touching seventy most of the time, Rick and Leon kept on following it. A half-mile apart, the two cars sped past Anaheim and Santa Ana and Mission Viejo, and then due south to San Clemente, and along the coast towards San Diego.
The moon came out, and its flat white light turned the scenery into cardboard, as if they were driving through a child’s dream.
They had bought a giant bag of cheesy Doritos at the 7–11, and Leon sat back and tore it open. Rick wasn’t hungry at all, but he could have used a drink.
Eventually, just past the little strung-out community of Oceanside, the Buick turned off Route 5 without making a signal, and headed inland. It was nearly midnight now, and there were scarcely any other cars around, so Rick made sure that he varied the distance between them as much as possible. Once or twice he indicated that he was turning off to the right, and pulled into a side road for a count of ten, before rejoining the main highway, and putting his foot down to catch up with the Buick before he lost it.
They climbed through the mountains, around one twisting bend after another, with the reservoir gleaming in the moonlight below them. It seemed wild and remote out here, but after twenty minutes they suddenly found themselves driving through the small town of Escondido, between neat whitewashed houses and red-tiled roofs and orange groves.
Rick kept his speed down to twenty. He knew about these small towns and their over-zealous traffic cops. ‘We haven’t lost him, have we?’ he asked Leon, as they left the lights of Escondido behind them.
‘No, he’s there, I can still see his tail lights. Look out – he’s pulling over. Slow up.’
On their left, they were passing a wide scrubby area, fenced off from the road by a high grey-painted security fence. Rick slowed right down to a crawl. On the other side of the fence, he could see what looked like factory buildings: two older ones, squarish, constructed of concrete and painted grey; and three or four newer ones, almost the size of aircraft hangars, made of silvery aluminium.
Chaos Theory Page 23