‘To do what?’
‘Justify a pre-emptive strike at North Korea. The US Administration has launched a programme to get the American public on side and make other countries think that the Pyongyang Government is such a threat that unless someone does something, nuclear war’s just around the corner.’ Coburn paused. ‘We’ve uncovered the biggest and nastiest public relations exercise anyone’s ever tried to pull off – one that Washington’s not about to let me screw up for them.’
‘Well, aren’t you clever?’ In spite of her sarcasm, Heather was looking more thoughtful. ‘All this was written on a big sign inside your fridge, was it?’
Coburn grinned. ‘Don’t you want to know why the Rybinsk is the key?’
‘Not if you’re going to say it was the Americans who arranged to have that radioactive waste hidden on board.’
‘That’s exactly who it was. It all fits. If you were given the job of creating false information that’s going to convince a whole lot of ordinary Americans to support the idea of a US strike against North Korea, how would you go about it?’
‘I don’t know.’ She frowned. ‘I haven’t thought about it.’
‘I’ll tell you what you’d do. Step one: you get on a plane to Russia where you buy yourself a bunch of Kalashnikovs and some blackmarket nuclear waste. You crate everything up, stick on false labels addressed to Plant 38 and Bureau 39 in North Korea and hide the crates on board the Rybinsk before it sails from Vladivostok. Are you with me so far?’
She nodded.
‘OK. Step two: when the Rybinsk arrives at Fauzdarhat with its crew half-dead from radiation, you make a quick trip to Bangladesh and hire yourself a truck and some local bad guys to help you retrieve the nuclear stuff. On your drive down to the beach you stop beside the road and make an anonymous phone call to the army barracks in Chittagong to say that a truckful of armed men are heading for shipyard four.
‘Step three: you deliberately leave the guns behind along with a piece of label torn off the crate you’re taking away. After that it’s easy. To make sure the Rybinsk hits headlines around the world, and that the international media pays attention, on your way back from the beach you get your men to kill all the soldiers who arrive, shoot as many shipyard workers as you can and run over a whole lot of innocent kids.’
By now Heather was ahead of him. ‘Step four,’ she said. ‘Arrange for the US Counter-Proliferation Centre to send someone to Fauzdarhat to investigate.’
‘Right. O’Halloran didn’t know it, but he was being used. Once he’d connected all the dots, he came up with exactly the answer the Americans wanted him to come up with. He had a poisoned crew, residual radiation from a missing crate and labels addressed to Plant 38 and Bureau 39. And if that didn’t give him the message about North Korea, he had guns, dead soldiers, dead shipyard workers and the children. Pity none of us realized the whole thing was a crock of shit. O’Halloran thought he’d cracked it, and you and I believed him.’
‘What about step five?’
Coburn hadn’t got that far. ‘Which is?’
She smiled at him. ‘Keep reminding people about what happened, and keep pumping up the story to feed public paranoia in the States. Then, when you’ve got all the mileage you can out of Bangladesh, do the same sort of thing in other places so it looks as though North Korea is buying arms from everywhere, selling arms to terrorists and getting more dangerous by the day. We know that’s happening because of all those news reports.’
‘Which is why I’ve got half a pound of Semtex sitting in my fridge. Every time Armstrong’s tried to find out something for me by asking questions in the wrong places, all he’s done is make Washington more nervous about me getting closer to the truth.’
Hari went to the sink and extinguished his cigarette. ‘Uncovering the truth does not make you safe,’ he said. ‘If you are right you must assume the Americans will try again to kill you.’
‘Not if I’m dead they won’t.’
‘You have the idea of setting off the Semtex so they will believe they have been successful?’
Coburn had already made the decision. ‘There’s only one way for us to get out of this,’ he said. ‘And there’s only one guy who can access the information to get us out.’
Heather stood up and left the table. ‘If you mean O’Halloran, you’re crazy,’ she said.
‘Who else are we going to ask? Don’t say your godfather.’
‘I wasn’t going to. If you’re thinking of going to the States to see O’Halloran, you’re mad.’
‘Why? If I can convince O’Halloran that he’s being manipulated by his own government, he might be pissed off enough to see if he can get some proof about what’s really going on. If he can do that, he can go public with it or, if we have to, we can.’
‘And you think that’ll stop Washington from carrying on with this sick plan of theirs, do you?’ She turned away.
‘It’s worth a try. At least it’ll get them off our backs.’
Hari had more immediate concerns. ‘Do not underestimate the Singapore authorities,’ he said. ‘For them to believe you have died in an explosion, first they will require a body. Had we known, we could have brought one with us from the Selina. But no matter. I shall return to the village to collect one, and deliver it to you here in the morning. We leave many bodies to rot in the swamp, so if the wild animals have not yet taken them, I shall be able to choose a size that will be suitable for your purposes.’
‘You don’t have to do that,’ Coburn said. ‘It’s a hell of a long way to go just to get a body.’
‘It is not a problem. If you would be kind enough to call a taxi for me, I shall at once visit the bar where each evening Lin conducts his business. From there he can drive me back to the Selina and also pick me up again tomorrow.’
With some reluctance Coburn went to use the phone, leaving Heather to start searching for food in the kitchen cupboards.
‘We need to eat,’ she said. ‘If there’s nothing here we’ll have to go out.’
‘No, no.’ Hari shook his head. ‘For the moment it is best you stay indoors. I think there is little danger, but in case I am wrong, you should look after this for me.’ He gave her his gun. ‘You are happier now we understand the reason for everything that has been going on?’
‘No. No, I’m not. You’re both out of your minds. If the United Nations couldn’t stop the US from invading Iraq, why do you think anyone can stop them doing this?’
‘Different situation,’ Coburn said. ‘You stop this from the inside. That’s why we need O’Halloran.’
‘What if he already knows and agrees with what Washington is doing?’
‘Have you got a better idea?’
‘Yes. I’ve got a much better idea. For all anyone knows, you could have been shot when the village was attacked. Why don’t you just disappear and have a nice holiday somewhere?’ She tossed him a can of spaghetti. ‘If you want me to fix dinner, open that for me.’
If a holiday had been an option, Coburn would have taken it. But he knew it wasn’t close to being one. Exploiting the presence of the Semtex in his fridge would buy him time, he thought. But that in itself wouldn’t necessarily keep either of them safe for long.
While he waited for Hari’s taxi to arrive, he endeavoured to refine his plan, trying to convince himself that O’Halloran would listen and wondering what the hell he would do if the American proved to be uncooperative.
With so many other weak spots he had to somehow plug, he was no further ahead when he said goodbye to Hari at the door, remembering to ask the Frenchman to call in at an appliance store to buy a cheap electric timer, but nearly forgetting to thank him for all the trouble he was going to.
It wasn’t until they’d finished Heather’s spaghetti and she’d found them a can of peaches for dessert that he gave up searching for solutions and noticed how quiet she had become.
‘I’m not going to be able to talk you out of this, am I?’ she said.
‘T
ry.’
She smiled slightly. ‘I would if you weren’t such a complicated person. The minute I start thinking I’ve got to know you, something happens to make me realize I don’t. I’ve never met anyone like you before.’
‘Is that good or bad?’
‘Bad.’
‘You know more about me than I know about you.’ Coburn leaned back in his chair. ‘Are you going to tell me what you were doing in Darfur?’
‘I already did.’
‘You didn’t go there to drive food convoys, did you?’
She shook her head. ‘UNICEF kept sending medicine for the children in the refugee camps there, but none of it was getting through to them. I was supposed to find out why?’
‘Was the stuff going somewhere else?’
‘Mm, all over the place. The Janjaweed militia were controlling the distribution points. They were taking almost everything and selling it on to sick people who had the money to pay for it. About all they left behind was the white electrolyte powder that you mix with water to treat diarrhoea, and even that was being stolen by someone from the Sudanese Government who was using it to cut heroin – you know, ten per cent heroin, ninety percent electrolyte powder. I couldn’t fix the system, so I started driving distribution trucks – well, I did until I realized that most of the aid workers knew how to drive but none of them could handle a rifle.’
‘But you could, so you started riding shotgun for the convoys?’
‘Yes.’ She nodded. ‘I was good at it.’
‘This was before you were assigned to Fauzdarhat, was it?’
‘I told you that too. I was in Darfur while you were getting into trouble in Iraq. In between Darfur and Bangladesh I had an office job in Brussels and six months off in England.’
‘Which is where you’re going now.’ He waited for a reaction.
‘Back to England?’
‘If the American Government knows I’m here, they’ll have guessed you’re here too. While I’m seeing O’Halloran, you’re the one who has to disappear. I don’t want to be worrying about you while I’m away.’
She opened her mouth, but shut it again without saying anything.
‘Is there a place you can stay where you’d be hard to find? Would your godfather know of somewhere?’
She frowned. ‘What do I say if he asks about you?’
‘Tell him I’m dead. Just say there was an explosion in my apartment. You don’t have to explain. Pretend you don’t know anything.’
As though she was unwilling to continue with the conversation, she left the table and asked if she could use his shower.
‘Sure. I’ll show you where it is.’ He went to fetch her a towel, hoping she wasn’t about to retreat into one of her moods, but deciding that he didn’t much care anymore whether she did or not.
While she was in the bathroom he took the opportunity to use the phone again, this time to book himself a seat on the first available flight to New York tomorrow afternoon – a less than foolproof means of guarding against the chance of the US Immigration Service receiving early notification of his death, but a precaution that he thought would be good enough.
To address his other problems, he sat down with a notepad and a pencil, but had got no further than listing them when he was interrupted by Heather calling to him from the bedroom.
She was standing by the dressing-table, wrapped in a towel and struggling with the clasp of a chunky bracelet she’d taken from the carryall she’d brought with her from the village.
‘I wanted you to see this.’ She held out her wrist to show him.
The bracelet was gold, set with diamonds and inlaid with entwined strips of what Coburn thought were platinum or silver.
‘Where did you get it?’ He fastened the clasp for her.
‘It’s a present from Indiri. Isn’t it lovely?’
‘Did you ask her where it came from?’
‘Oh. Do you think I should’ve done?’
Coburn grinned. ‘Probably not. If her husband came across it in a safe on board one of the ships, he’d have put it in his pocket. Pirates are pirates. They don’t just go after zinc ingots and boxes of mobile phones. I wouldn’t worry about how she got hold of it.’
‘I’m not going to.’ She waited for him to take it off again.
He wished she hadn’t. She was standing close enough for him to feel her breath and smell the freshness of her, but as usual, she was making no attempt to move away.
To stop himself from wondering why she wasn’t and whether her eyes could possibly have more flecks in them than they had done yesterday, he focused his attention entirely on the bracelet.
It didn’t work. No sooner had his fingers touched her skin than he wanted to grab her by the wrist and pull her into his arms.
‘Thank you.’ She placed the bracelet on the dressing-table. ‘Indiri said she gave it to me so I’d remember her. All I have to do now is work out how I’m supposed to remember you.’
‘Meaning what?’
‘Meaning that if I’m going to disappear and you’re going off to Maryland, we might never see each other again.’ She waited again as though she was expecting him to say something, but turned her head away in exasperation when he didn’t.
‘For God’s sake,’ she said. ‘What do I have to do? Don’t you want to make love to me?’
So unnecessary was her question that he couldn’t answer it.
She didn’t need him to. Taking a step forward she stood on tiptoe and fastened her mouth on his, pressing her breasts hard against his chest to show him how foolish he’d been and how long she’d been waiting for this moment.
His misreading of the signals had been a huge mistake. By failing to understand the reason for her moodiness, and by misinterpreting the change in her attitude towards him, he’d given her the wrong impression. Worse still, in doing so he’d wasted all the nights she’d spent together with him at the village.
To make up for them she was in a hurry, as eager as he was and unwilling to wait for what she wanted.
Still continuing to kiss him, she released her towel and let it drop, refusing to let go of him until he gathered her up in his arms and carried her over to lay her on the bed.
She watched him strip, wide-eyed in anticipation, trying to catch her breath, but quickly making room for him when he went to kneel beside her.
To begin with he did nothing except kiss her on the shoulder, allowing her to relax before he brushed his fingertips lightly across her nipples.
She stiffened, pushing out her breasts to encourage him when he took his hands away and trying to kiss him on the mouth when he bent over to touch her again.
This time he was more enterprising, lingering until her nipples became more swollen and she was ready to reach out for him.
Trembling slightly she grasped him in both hands, no longer content to offer him her breasts, but inviting him to touch her between her legs by drawing up her knees.
Intoxicated by the warmth and silky smoothness of her skin he was slow to do what she was asking him to do.
To make him, she took one of his hands and forced it between her thighs. She held it there, opening her legs the minute he started to explore her, gradually surrendering herself to each of his caresses until she was unable to bear it and became overtaken by her own desire.
She pulled him towards her then twisted on to her back and guided him urgently inside her.
For a second or two she was too tense to accept him properly, waiting for him to take the initiative before she allowed herself to be penetrated to the point where, for Coburn, the experience began to assume the quality of a dream.
Lost in the world she was creating for him and unable to think of anything but the pleasure she was giving him and the need to possess her, by now he was no more capable of slowing things down than she was.
So eager was she that her contractions began almost before he knew it. Whispering to him, she started out on her climb, clinging to him and holding back her shudder
s until she suddenly arched her back to share in a climax of such intensity that, for an instant, Coburn could believe he’d been too late to prevent her from opening the fridge and that, as a consequence, none of this could possibly be real.
Not until the next morning did he come to realize she’d been trying to make a memory he’d be unable to forget. But by then the chance to tell her he understood had gone, and too much else was happening for him to explain how well she had succeeded.
CHAPTER 10
HARI WAS HAVING difficulty with the suitcase. While he’d been manhandling it over the doorsill one of its plastic wheels had collapsed, and now the other one had stopped rotating it was beginning to cut a groove in the lounge carpet.
‘Hey, let me give you a hand.’ Coburn went to help.
‘It is not necessary.’ The Frenchman dragged the suitcase the last few feet into the kitchen and stood it up in front of the fridge. His face was beaded in sweat and he looked as though he would expire at any minute. ‘I should have asked Lin for his assistance,’ he said. ‘If one day I am persuaded to do such a thing again, I shall find another way.’
‘Is Lin going to wait for us downstairs?’
‘He says the smell from the suitcase makes him feel unwell, so to flush out the air from inside his car he stays to run the air conditioning.’
Coburn could appreciate why. The stench was dreadful, already starting to fill the whole apartment, and so overpowering that Heather was hurrying around opening every window she could find.
‘I am sorry for the unpleasantness.’ Hari lit a cigarette. ‘At this time of year, bodies do not last so long out of doors, and for all of yesterday this one was left lying in the sun. If you think we should remove it from the case, we can try, but I must warn you that to make the body fit, certain adjustments to it have been made.’
‘Like what?’ Coburn wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
‘To hinder its identification by means of fingerprints or dental records, before I leave the village I arrange for the teeth to be smashed and for the tips of each finger to be burned a little.’ He glanced at Heather. ‘For ease of transport I regret to say that it was also necessary to package the legs on top of the arms.’
The Rybinsk Deception Page 11