by Nina Darnton
James was still asleep when she tiptoed in. Greatly relieved, Lindsay gently put his keys back in his pocket. He stirred and she withdrew her hand as if burned. She bent down and tentatively kissed his cheek to see if there was any reaction. Nothing. He sank back down into a deep sleep.
She poured herself a scotch, her hand shaking. Then, quietly, she opened her filing cabinet and placed the notes in the file titled “J.R. GOVT. OPPOSITION.” As she locked the drawer, she noticed James had opened his eyes. He appeared dazed but she wasn’t sure if he had seen her at the filing cabinet. Suddenly, he sat bolt upright and looked at his watch.
“What happened?” he asked, sounding angry.
“You were so exhausted you fell asleep.” Lindsay moved toward him and hugged him from behind. “I didn’t have the heart to wake you.”
He didn’t respond, but he stared at her in a way that made her nervous. When he stood up, he was clearly still disoriented and he held on to the table for support. Lindsay couldn’t tell if he was confused or suspicious. He looked at her for a long moment and she felt her heart pounding.
“James,” she said softly. “Are you okay?”
“I really have to go,” he mumbled.
Before she could answer, he left.
CHAPTER 36
Lindsay was dry-eyed as she arrived at the embassy the next morning. When Vickie saw her, she leaped up to greet her, but Lindsay waved her back. This was not a social call.
Lindsay opened her notebook, tore out the pages that recorded her espionage work, and tossed them onto Vickie’s desk. Sitting down, she told Vickie what she had discovered.
Vickie’s manner was professional, for which Lindsay was grateful. After answering a few questions, Lindsay knew it was time to go, but she just sat staring at the floor. Vickie was silent. Finally, Lindsay rose and reached over awkwardly to shake Vickie’s hand.
“I’ll be leaving soon,” she said. “After my story on J.R.’s murder, I’m pretty sure my credentials will be lifted. In any case, after working with you, I’m through as a journalist anyway—”
“Not necessarily,” Vickie started to interrupt.
“Forget it, Vickie.” She gave a small, tight smile, turned, and walked out.
“One more thing,” Vickie called after her. “You didn’t say if you found out his plans. We need to know when he’s leaving the country and where he plans to go.”
Lindsay had deliberately left the page with his escape plan in her notebook, and she hesitated before answering. She knew that his plane was not leaving from Lagos but from a small airport about an hour’s drive away. Even if he was being followed, James was adept at shaking a tail. Vickie would be unlikely to find out if Lindsay didn’t tell her.
Vickie seemed to understand.
“Jesus, I know what you’re feeling. You think you can stop his network but let him get away. But remember what he’s done. Stopping the network isn’t enough because he can always build another.”
Vickie was talking so loudly that Lindsay was alarmed. “Please keep your voice down,” she said icily. She knew that Vickie was right. She knew what she had to do. Still, she hesitated.
“He’s used you,” Vickie said, in a near stage whisper. “He used you from the beginning. Are you going to let him continue?”
“You used me too,” Lindsay said.
Vickie couldn’t answer that.
“And I used him too,” Lindsay continued. “I owe him something for that.”
“That’s bullshit, Lindsay. How can you compare it? How did you ‘use’ him? By loving him?”
Lindsay looked down in frustration. “Being with him changed me.”
“He changed you the way love changes you, the way pain changes you. So what do you mean? That you used him to open something inside you, to help you feel? Okay. Maybe that’s true. But he used you in a more callous way. He used you to help him achieve terrible goals.”
Lindsay was silent.
Vickie continued, speaking urgently. “Look, Lindsay, if you won’t think of all the anonymous people he’s hurt, just remember Maureen.”
Furious at Vickie for manipulating her, Lindsay couldn’t help thinking of her funny, ambitious, loyal friend, whose body was blown to bits. Then she thought of Eduke, of Martin banging his fist against the wall, of J.R., and finally, the bloodstained couch, the dead dog, its fur sticky with its own blood.
“Paris,” she said at last. “Thursday night, six o’clock from a private charter airline. The flight leaves from a small airport outside of Lagos. Two tickets. I think one is meant for me.”
Vickie released her breath. “Thanks, Lindsay.” She scribbled the information onto a pad. “Believe me, you did the right thing.”
Before leaving, Lindsay stopped in the women’s bathroom across the hall. As she opened the door to leave, she saw Dave Goren and the ambassador go into Vickie’s office, followed by the ambassador’s secretary, pad in hand. They didn’t see her and they left the door partly open—she could hear the murmur of their voices in the hall. Stealthily, she moved closer to listen. She couldn’t hear every word, but caught snippets of conversation.
“Good work,” a man’s voice said. She identified it as Goren’s. “. . . never thought . . . Lindsay.” Then a laugh.
Vickie’s voice was louder and easier to make out. “It was painful for her. She’s full of guilt and anger.”
Goren spoke louder this time. “Right. But her psychology isn’t my concern.”
“Her psychology may become all of our concern,” the ambassador said in a sharp voice.
“We have to get him before we move on the others. We can’t let him escape.”
“Hell no,” Goren said. “This time we’ve got the bastard cold.”
“Well, he’s got tickets for them to go to Paris,” Vickie said. “The French will cooperate as long as we’re not going to charge him with a capital crime. We can extradite him.”
Lindsay couldn’t hear a response. She moved slightly closer to the door.
“Extradite him?” she heard Goren say contemptuously. “Vickie, get real. We can’t extradite him.”
Vickie’s voice was louder this time. “Why not? We have good relations with the French secret service and plenty of evidence against him.”
Goren laughed. “Evidence only matters if you are going to trial.”
Lindsay heard a sound in the corridor and turned quickly. A young man pushing a cart laden with packages was walking toward her. She ducked into the bathroom again and waited a minute or two. When she came out, she caught part of Goren’s sentence: “. . . embarrassing to us and worse.” Then something she couldn’t make out before he said, “He’ll compromise all our other operations. There will be investigations, congressional committees.”
Vickie spoke softly now, but Lindsay could still make out her words: “You want him to disappear without a trial, do I understand you correctly?”
“Without a public trial, Vickie. That’s all,” said the ambassador.
A woman from a neighboring office opened her door and headed for the ladies’ room. Lindsay hastily moved away from the door and walked down the hallway toward the front exit.
She could hardly believe what she had overheard. Goren wasn’t talking about a private trial. He was talking about a disappearance, an assassination. She was sure that Peter Bresson wouldn’t sanction Goren’s plan, but she was still disturbed that Goren would suggest it and that Peter listened without throwing him out of his office. She knew that there were undercover CIA operations in which people “disappeared,” but they were not, to her knowledge, aimed at Americans.
She had decided she would leave Lagos as soon as possible. She’d quit her job, go back home to New York, and start to think about what she should do with the rest of her life. She’d have to see James again before he left or he would know something was wrong. He might even invite her to come to Paris with him, but she’d come up with some excuse and pretend to make plans to meet him there. She rooted arou
nd in her bag for her keys as she approached her door. Just as she found them, the door opened.
“I’m back, madam.” Martin beamed at her. “Are you well?”
“No, Martin. Not at all well. But I’m very glad to see you.” Then, suddenly, she burst into tears.
“I’ll make you some tea,” he said, embarrassed. “And I baked some banana bread. Would you like some?”
“Yes,” she said, wiping her eyes. “Thank you.”
CHAPTER 37
It was time to pack. Lindsay moved around the room, picking out her most treasured possessions.
She chose the items that mattered to her. Picking up two small statues dressed in cowry shells, and wrapping them carefully in tissue paper, she remembered her first conversation with James about ibejis. She packed the Shango staff she bought the day they went to Ibadan, the day she bought the fertility statue and lied to him about it, saying she’d paid less than she did. She opened her safe and removed the fine antique ibejis James had given her. She looked at them for a long time, then put them back in place. Every item held a memory; every memory was painful. She went into her bedroom for her clothes.
What a nightmare. She returned to the safe, pulled out the ibejis again, and went in search of Martin. She found him in the laundry room and handed him the statues.
“These are very good sculptures, Martin. You can sell them for a lot of money. I’d like to give them to you as a good-bye present.”
Martin held them and said shyly, “These are too good, madam. You keep them.”
“No. I don’t want them. They’re for you.” She walked away before he could say another word.
She went upstairs, undressed, and stepped into the shower. The phone rang but she ignored it, listening for the machine.
“Hi, sweetheart.”
His voice sounded so cheerful, so dissonant. “It’s me. Let’s have dinner tonight. There’s something I need to talk to you about. I’ll drop by at eight.”
She stood in the shower and let the water wash over her for a long, long time.
At 6 P.M., Vickie knocked on the door. When no one answered, she walked in and found Lindsay in the living room, packing. Otis Redding blasted on the stereo.
Don’t know much about history.
Don’t know much biology . . .
Vickie was the last person Lindsay wanted to see. She blamed her even though she knew she was misdirecting her anger.
“What did you forget?” she asked dryly. “Do you want me to shoot him?”
For just a second, before she realized that Lindsay was being sarcastic, Vickie was startled. Then she smiled.
“No. But there is something else we would like you to do.”
“What a surprise. And I thought this was a social call.”
“Come on, Lindsay. I’m just doing what I have to do—like you, actually. I don’t like it either.”
“Yeah. Right. So what did you and the boys forget?”
“We need to get James to Athens instead of Paris.”
“So?”
“So, you’re the only one who can do that.”
Lindsay shook her head. “Look, I’m through, understand? Don’t come to me again. I simply can’t do more,” she said, wrapping another set of ibejis and putting them into the carton. “I’m not trained in your special brand of deception.”
“You mean you’re not as good as James is.”
Lindsay suddenly felt very tired. She sat down on the sofa and closed her eyes briefly. When was this going to end? And then she knew that like all stories, it would end only when it was over and it would be over only when these people had James.
“Why Athens?”
“Because it’s a looser airport. We can operate without being watched. We want to pick this guy up quietly and get him home without a lot of questions and official forms.”
Lindsay had not lost all her reporter’s instincts.
“You mean without resorting to legal means?”
“I just know they want to pick him up in Athens,” Vickie said, shrugging helplessly.
Lindsay smiled in spite of herself. The idea of Vickie helpless was amusing. She didn’t care how they got him to trial, she thought, as long as they did, and she trusted Vickie to make sure that happened. The idea of justice, however painful, was comforting.
“I need to know something, Vickie,” she said. “After you get him, will I have to testify at his trial?”
Vickie didn’t miss a beat.
“No. We have enough evidence against him that we can spare you that. Do this last thing for us and we will never contact you again.”
“How am I supposed to get him to go to Athens?” Lindsay asked wearily.
“Tell him you need a few days of vacation. Tell him you always wanted to see the Parthenon. Tell him you just have to stop there to do an important interview. Tell him anything that works.”
Lindsay sighed.
“Okay. I’ll do what I can.”
“Good. Now listen. When you exit the plane at Athens, he will be picked up by local agents as he goes through customs. They have very few pictures of him, and it’s remarkable how bad they are. I don’t want the local agents to miss him. They have good pictures of you. Take his arm at the customs check. That’s how our guys will be sure they have the right man.”
“Why can’t someone from here be sent to identify him?”
“Too risky. We don’t want him to recognize us and we don’t want to be connected to his arrest. He’ll be brought to the U.S. without formal extradition to save time.”
Lindsay sighed. “I’m not sure I can get him to do this. I just said I’d try.”
“Fine,” Vickie said. “That’s all we’re asking.”
After Vickie left, Lindsay looked around at the mess in her living room and realized that she couldn’t let James see it if she didn’t want him to know she was planning to leave. She started to clean up, putting the boxes in closets, stashing the pile of newspapers inside them. She unwrapped some of the statues, placing them in their old positions.
She decided to dress well—James would definitely notice if she didn’t. He knew she always fussed over her clothes, makeup, and perfume when she prepared for a date with him. Even though she’d already showered, she bathed, shaved her legs, and smoothed almond lotion all over her body. She dried her long hair so that it flowed, silky and shiny, straight down past her shoulders.
She hurriedly put on cream-colored linen slacks and a green silk top that set off her auburn hair. She slipped into sling-back sandals and, taking a quick appraising look at herself, walked into the living room. She thought about what music to put on, and finally settled on Mozart’s Requiem. Not cheerful, but appropriate. This wasn’t going to be easy.
James bounded in at 8:10. By that time, Lindsay was calmer. He was carrying red roses that were wilting, like most picked flowers in the heat. She kissed him quickly and walked to the kitchen to put them in a vase. She cut the stems at an angle and added a little sugar to the water, taking longer than necessary to arrange the flowers. Then she carefully placed the vase on a side table and sat down next to him.
“I don’t think you’ve ever brought me flowers before.”
James smiled and switched off the music. Then he came back to the couch and, with a touch of self-mockery, got down on one knee in front of her.
“I don’t think I’ve ever proposed to you before.”
Lindsay froze. Was this a joke? She smiled tentatively.
“Well, that’s certainly true. And you still haven’t.”
“No. But I’m about to.”
She didn’t know how to react.
“Lindsay, my work here is finished. I think yours is too. Isn’t it time for someone else to pick up this story? I’ve got two tickets to Paris. Come with me.”
For just a moment, Lindsay allowed herself a surge of excitement. “I think I missed the will-you-marry-me part.”
He laughed. “Will you marry me?”
“
Where, when?”
“Anywhere you want. Anytime you want.”
Lindsay paused. This was her chance. Suddenly she remembered a story she had heard as a little girl in summer camp. It was called “The Monkey’s Paw,” and it was about a man and his wife who were given a monkey’s paw that had the power to grant any wish. But it came with a warning. There were often terrible consequences. The couple ignored the warning and wished for a great deal of money. Two days later, they got word that their beloved son had died. He left behind an insurance policy for the exact sum for which they had wished.
“I always wanted to get married in Greece,” she murmured.
“Greece? Why?”
“I don’t know. I visited there with my family and fell in love with it.” She put her hands in his, flushed with excitement, as if the scene were real. “James, are you really serious?”
“I’ve never been more serious.”
Lindsay threw her arms around him and kissed him. “Could we change the tickets? Could we go to Athens instead of Paris and get married there?”
James paused. He seemed, for a moment, slightly uncomfortable. Then he smiled.
“Athens it is,” he said. “You drive a hard bargain.”
So it was settled. It was terrifyingly easy to lie, Lindsay realized. You just had to believe, on some level, that the lie was real. James must have realized this early in life and made use of it. She wondered if something terrible had happened to him to turn him into a criminal or if it was never a clear choice. Maybe he’d gotten lost little by little. But what central moral decency was absent that allowed him to keep doing it? She didn’t understand. And she realized that she would have to accept the likelihood that she never would.