by Peter Riva
He opened his eyes and stared at his right arm, already positioned across his chest, under-forearm resting on his heart. Addiena … On that right under-forearm was tattooed the name of his wife who had died in the Lockerbie disaster. Pero knew his habit of putting her name over his heart was thought of as sweet by his family, but to him it was fierce loyalty to and love for her—so he would not forget. The possibility of forgetting her riddled him with guilt.
Come on Pero, referring to himself in the third person, think about where you are going and the work you need to accomplish. You have to stop wallowing in all this emotion every time something happens!
Eyes firmly shut, trying to recapture mental level, he went over the events of the week before. He saw himself in his Manhattan Lower East Side apartment, third floor, in the den, clean and dressed after weeks of moping in his pajamas after returning from Kenya. In an effort to snap out of his funk, he dialed his contact number in Washington DC, “Baltazar, P. here, requesting Director Lewis.”
“One moment sir.”
“Directors office …”
“Baltazar here, calling for Mr. Lewis.”
“Mr. Lewis is unavailable Mr. Baltazar. You could try calling back this afternoon or maybe trying him on his cell phone, do you have that number?”
“I do. When would that be convenient do you think?”
“He is in congressional hearings today, but I am sure at lunch, say noon, he could take your call.” He thanked her and hung up.
Off his computer screen, he read the number of his television agent Dick Tanks, a home number supposedly on Malibu beach. Pero knew it was just a postal drop, that the agent lived in the hills out of sight of the ocean—Hollywood glitter—all that shines is not gold.
Dick answered on the third ring, his voice tired. “Huh, yeah?”
“Morning Dick, Pero here. I am ready to get back to work, find me some.”
“Pero? Pero? What’re you doing to me, calling at this hour? Christ, what time is it?”
“Time an ambitious agent was up running the beach at Malibu, right Dick?”
“Yeah, yeah, very funny, more like having coffee in Cher’s local café. What was it you wanted?”
“Work.” Everyone worth anything in television and film has an agent. Those agents do almost nothing, they like to take credit and cash dollar checks. If you don’t provide the financial stream, a steady stream for them, they stop you working. Dick worked for DBB, a very powerful Hollywood agency, and they represented Pero, poorly, but then he wasn’t exactly ambitious, and they knew that.
“I told you, you’ve got the new series starting in September …”
“Dick, I want something now. I was thinking of calling around.”
“Fine, do that, but if you renege on the documentary series with Mary Lever, you’ll never …” Mary Lever, the Dinosaur Lady as the media called her, was a hot property. Pero and Heep had signed her to a thirteen one-hour series for a network. Pero was to be the exec-producer and his friend Heep, the producer/director.
“Save your breath, Dick. I know the score. Remember, Mary is a personal friend.” He gave his voice a rough edge, “And if I ask her, she’ll drop the series …”
“Christ, don’t do that!” Dick was wide-awake now. “No, no Pero, it’s just that it’s a golden opportunity for you, for your career …”
“Let’s not BS each other here. Look, Dick, I was just after something to get me moving again. I’m a little stagnant, getting rusty, gotta get out, okay?”
“Sure, sure, no offense meant, you know I’m your greatest supporter. I’ll find something.” He had regained his composure. “I’ll call soon, okay? Bye.” Unusually, he sounded as if he meant it. Mary Lever must be a huge deal for him. As an agent, maybe he maneuvered himself into a coproducing slot for the bigger bucks and power. Power was the real name of the Hollywood game, not money.
As Pero had warned his agent, he was going to call around, and as Dick hadn’t forbidden it, Pero made a few calls to people outside mainstream US television. A Canadian company had something on offer for next month, a ski movie being shot in Banff. A French crew was off to Bali for a butterfly special and, interestingly, Dr. Sylvia Earle was hosting a special on the benefits of drilling platforms and car dumping as new reefs for fish. He asked them all to consider his temporary services.
He called Heep’s number in LA and got the machine. Calling Heep’s agent, he found out that Heep had just left to shoot in Austria—a commercial, arranged by a European agency. Heep was due back in two to three weeks.
All morning Pero kept calling contacts and emailing his updated bio.
At noon, he called Director Lewis’ cell phone. Lewis was terse and business-like. Pero could hear other people and the clink of dishes in the background. “Having lunch with congressional folks?”
“Something like that.”
“Just wanted you to know I am back in the saddle. Could you tell me who I report to?” Then remembering, “Hey, nothing like before, just something like a courier job.”
“Your usual contact,” he meant Tom Baylor, his contact for thirty years, “is still away on medical leave. We’ll call you when we’re ready but glad you called.” He added a few pleasantries for cover about a fictitious wife and kids to mislead whoever he was lunching with and hung up.
A day went by. Pero hit the gym, played squash with the club pro and lost, but not as badly as he might have. He called on his father and mother for dinner, took a friend to lunch, watched the news on BBC America, and, as was his habit, listened to the rest of the real news on Deutsche Welle and Radio Suisse Romande on the Internet. By the time Dick, his agent, called back, he felt connected to the sordid little world again.
“Well, a studio called and asked who we had, and I thought of you …” They discussed the details. An independent film company wanted a producer for a second unit shoot, complete with team. The subject was background footage for a feature, meant to be “taking place in Berlin, a throwback to the tensions between East and West.”
Especially because they were now the same—Berlin’s East and West being terms linked to time already years past. It irked Pero to have this recently graduated business school brat agent—his sockless loafers twitching on his office coffee table no doubt—emphasize the old Cold War status. As if he was even alive when that mattered.
Once, it really did.
As the agent explained, the film was the usual spy flick—a street scene, a chase on foot, and loads of atmosphere shots of a male star riding the old elevated S-Bahn in the cold, “dead-of-winter with frosted glass looking onto some technical museum, very ex-Nazi era” shots.
“Dick, don’t they know the S-Bahn has heating?”
“But it was East Germany, they were commies—tough, hard people—they wouldn’t have heating, surely?” He said into his head microphone. Pero could hear his breathing beating on the foam microphone cover even three thousand miles away. Ah, well, if Hollywood wants frosted glass, we’ll give them real frosted glass.
Pero was sure the star actor of this adventure thriller would be pleased to have the “authentic experience,” so the celebrity would have a real story to brag about at cocktail parties. He’d be able to tell a long tale of all of fifteen minutes spent suffering for his art, standing on a heating-uncoupled S-Bahn train overlooking the real modern, Technisches Museum entrance. Dick told Pero they had recreated the museum on the sound stage and were building a perfect replica of the S-Bahn station on the back lot at Warner’s.
“So do you want it? It pays well enough.” They discussed fees and deadlines. A three-week shoot, maximum.
Piece of cake, Pero thought, don’t let him know that. “Well, sounds harder than you think, the permits alone can be a bitch. And we’ll need a really trustworthy DP to pull it off. Someone who’s fluent in German.” DP meant director of photography or camera operator.
“Christ, we can’t make conditions—and why German?” The fact that Dick even asked, affi
rmed Pero’s suspicion the boy was dumb, naïve at best.
“Look, Dick, we’re not going to argue this. I know the shooting conditions in Berlin, I know the cops there. One false move, one misunderstanding, and your big Hollywood star will languish for weeks. You want that? You personally want that?” He asked it with emphasis. “Who is this guy anyway?”
“They’re not telling me, yet, until we reach a deal. Okay, I understand the German angle. Who do you suggest I recommend to them?”
“Bill Heeper.” After Pero explained that Heep was over there anyway, Dick agreed and hung up abruptly, as usual, to show he was in control. Or wanted to think he was. Dick knew a movie offer with an anonymous big name film star attached was elevating his agency status with every call. In insisting on a German-speaking DP, he would spin it to seem as if it was his idea, protecting the shoot. If they got Heep, Heep’s agent would know better but still go for the pot of gold.
Twenty minutes later, Pero was halfway through a hurried sandwich lunch when Dick called back, “It seems the cameraman they hired has come down with the flu anyway. It’s his loss. I suggested Bill Heeper as a replacement as he is already in Vienna shooting a TV commercial. They called his agents and made the arrangements. They were even happy at saving his trans-Atlantic airfare. So, instead, as a personal thank you for you Pero, I got you an upgrade to first class. I set good deal terms with them as well.”
Pero was too tired of the pecking-order game not to simply congratulate him. “Well done Dick. Okay, so who’s the star?”
“Danny Redmond, it’s a career move for him. He’s also a backer and producer too. I negotiated directly with him in London.” Pero knew right then that Dick’s rating at DBB had suddenly shot up. The minor TV agent was dealing with a real movie star, one-on-one.
“Okay, Dick, I’ll start the permit process tomorrow bright and early. When do I leave?”
“You can leave—well, it’s up to you. We’ll send over the script and material by email tonight. The below-the-line expenses are finite. They warned me to keep you in check, you can call the studio contact tomorrow. It’ll be in the email. Your billing and expenses must run through this office.” That meant DBB was adding a cut. Dick hung up before Pero’s laugh of derision could travel down the line to LA.
Business as normal. Time to get rolling. It would take about a day or two to get permits in place, arrange crew, local and Heep’s … his mind began to compile lists, set priorities. It is what producers do. They juggle facts, permits, people, places, equipment, and money. And they never, hopefully, drop the ball.
The plane hit an air pocket and jostled him out of his reverie. Pero opened his eyes, saw all was calm, and closed them again, determined to get some sleep. Never drop the ball, he thought as he dozed off, lounging across the two first-class chairs, the Cognac was unwinding his nerves, must not drop the ball, this has got to go well, gotta get out of this funk.
Across the aisle, one seat ahead of him, the ambassador lifted his eyeshade and stared back at Pero, memorizing his face.
Chapter 3
Gedächtniskirche
It was drizzling on final approach. Pero thought, so what else is new in March in Berlin? The plane pierced the steel gray skies, settled onto the runway, and taxied to gate fourteen. Tegel is a small airport, not meant for larger mini-jumbos like the 767. Slowly they maneuvered the Boeing snugly into the gateway.
After the usual overly long wait for the luggage to make the fifty-yard trip from the belly, up the conveyor, and onto the carousel, Pero loaded his two bags onto a cart and pushed his baggage cart past the green customs section sign. And he was stopped.
“Kommen sie mit, bitte.” The girl with the light green shirt and dark green epaulets smiled thinly and beckoned him toward a mirrored examination room door. Pero pushed his cart obediently. The door clicked shut behind. “Bitte warten sie hier jetzt,” telling him to wait. Even using the bitte for please—the jetzt for now had the tone of a command. She exited through the only other door, marked Notausgang (exit). Pero noticed it too clicked shut ominously. The one-way mirror there showed his reflection perfectly. No doubt, he was being watched.
About two minutes later, Arnold Phillips entered with a briefcase. “Hello Pero.”
Surprised, Pero responded politely, “Arnold, nice to see you too.” He decided to skip the obvious questions. Arnold would get down to business soon enough, Pero was sure.
Arnold had known Pero from New York days when he was at the US Embassy at the UN Headquarters. The next time he saw him was an unpleasant experience—for them both—in Nairobi months ago. Arnold had been used by the authorities, trading on their acquaintance, to give Pero false security. However, the fact that Arnold even knew Pero at all had tipped off the terrorists that Pero was a legitimate target. Arnold had been unhappy to be endangering Pero. Pero knew that. Back then, Arnold hadn’t known what was going on. Now, however, he looked his old self—healthy, fit, and eager. Maybe a bit too eager. Career government employees are not known for their get up and go. Pero thought he looked edgy.
“Have a seat, Pero.” Pero sat. Arnold leaned on Pero’s baggage cart, playing with Pero’s coat, luggage tags, not making eye contact, generally fiddling, clearly nervous. “I see you have managed to get Local One down in one piece, nice going there, Pero. He’s demanding to know who you are, to thank you properly.” Local One was coded embassy speak for the ambassador. When the ambassador left Germany, he would be called Berlin One everywhere else, but when he was here, he was Local One, even in dispatches. It told you he was on duty in Berlin.
Local One’s real name was Pontnoire, James Pontnoire. He was a career diplomat who had done such an honest and reliable job in Saudi Arabia that Congress could find no fault—though they politically wanted to. And, as these things happen in politics, the State Department was forced to abandon him to what was considered an important country but a backwater diplomatically.
But no posting was backwater to Pontnoire. The man’s intellect rose to the occasion, and he became known for funding investigations, initiating probes, and generally raising the media awareness of fascist movements in the EU, mostly stemming out of radical factions unleashed from old Iron Curtain countries. His passion was anti-fascist and no one, nothing, seemed to get in his way. There had been an attempt on his life, raising his media profile considerably and adding to the power of his voice.
He wasn’t just a voice. His behind-the-scenes pressuring of the EU and the German Bundt renewed probes into neo-Nazi and fascist organizations, exposing links to terrorism, finding secret funding, and not least, naming names. He didn’t limit his criticism to Germany. American politics of the Cold War were, often, fertile resources for his investigations, and he named ex-senators and civil servants who collaborated with known hate groups in the fight against Communism. More than anything else, he was a staunch opponent of any form of racism and so-called neo-nationalists within any country.
All this had a downside. Pontnoire was known to be on his last tour of duty before mandatory retirement in four months. The White House and State Department were tired of hearing complaints from Senate Committees and EU member states. It didn’t matter if Pontnoire was right and had, time and again, exposed violent, illegal, groups to justice. In the world of diplomacy, he was a boat rocker on the sea of desired tranquility, even if the tranquility was often pretense.
“Local One has an idea that you could be invited to a cocktail in your honor—to acknowledge your bravery—and wants to call the media. I take it you would rather avoid such attention?”
He knew damn well Pero would. Arnold knew Pero had a sideline with the State Department and the CIA; Arnold had learned that in Nairobi.
“Stop going through my bag Arnold. What gives? And, I hadn’t planned only to save your man, Arnold. I was too busy saving my own skin. He was just along for the ride. Pun intended.”
“Gotcha. Well, we’ll say you’ve moved on, business to conduct, no media please, so forth
. Suit you?”
“That’ll be fine, thanks. Oh, and you may want to make sure Delta Air plays this down. Only first-class passengers knew I went into the cockpit, and there were only four of us. They may have seen me come out, there was a lot of clapping and whooping when the engines came back. People make a lot of noise when they think they are not going to die. Me? I’d scream just before I died, not much chance after.”
“That close was it?”
“Perhaps, I never asked how far the engineless glide could be. The pilots were cool and professional. If Local One wants to make a fuss, make it over them. That’ll boost Delta’s standings anyway, make sure your flight home is nonstop. You might suggest I was simply a Delta pilot deadheading, out of uniform. Don’t make the statement official, how about just a verbal hint?”
“Yeah, that’ll work. Okay. Now, on to why I am here. Here’s a package.” He lifted the briefcase.
Pero hated it already. He was here to film, see Heep, and regain some sort of professional competence, not get back into the game with State so soon. He waved him off. “Oh, no. Who’s it for Arnold?”
“You. CIA local station said so on orders from State.”
“No, Arnold, who did they tell you it was for? Exactly? And any message?”
“No message, just give this to Pero Baltazar, status active, arriving Delta one-zero-three. Told me they picked me so that I could have a chance to square things away with you.” Pero thought he was lying. Arnold saw his expression, “No, I understood back there in Nairobi. You knew I had been lied to, just as you were. I appreciated your support Pero afterward when you held me blameless, I really did. I always seem to be saying ‘thank you.’ Anyway, I am on staff here, two levels below,” he meant two levels below Local One, “and I do know you, trust you. This time I was asked, as a personal call because CIA local station knew you would be arriving, and I know you by sight.” Arnold paused, seeing Pero’s eyes squinting in building disbelief, “No, really, the package arrived from Ulm yesterday morning at my apartment. I stashed it in this briefcase and brought it along. It’s just a small package. You want it now? Are we okay?” said earnestly, Arnold desperately wanted Pero to take it, so he proffered it, arms extended.