The Ambassador, page 15
‘Roark, are you in a rush to get back to Boston?’
‘Not particularly.’
‘You’re going to stay the night. Why not stay for a couple, go through the journals with me, and we can see if there is anything in them. It’s pretty nice up here. We’ve got acres of woods and plenty of hunting if you are interested. It’s close enough to the season, and the locals won’t tell if you bag one out of season.’ Suddenly I was all right in his book, and all it took was my hurting someone, or maybe he just liked the idea of having another hired gun around.
‘I can stay for an extra day or two to go through your notes and diaries.’ I didn’t feel like explaining that while I had nothing against hunting, it just wasn’t something I was interested in doing. I’d had a bellyful of that type of thing in Vietnam, but at least the NVA was trying to kill me. I was pretty sure that Bambi didn’t have an AK-47.
‘Good, good. You’ll have to sleep on the couch here. We’ll get you sorted out, but between Maureen, Bradley, my son and Baz, we’ve run out of guest rooms. But the couch is more comfortable than it looks, and the booze is cheap.’
‘The best kind.’
‘Good. Good. I will let the cook know to set an extra plate. We have an old German lady who comes in from the village to cook dinner. It isn’t haute cuisine, but it is good food, as long as you aren’t a vegetarian.’
‘I’ve been accused of a lot of things but never that.’ As long as there was bourbon, it wasn’t too hard to match Stevenson’s bonhomie. He was casting himself as a Hemingwayesque character, and it seemed like I was to be in on the act. Some fees were harder earned than others.
‘Do you want another drink?’
‘Please.’ I excused myself to use the bathroom and followed Stevenson’s directions to a door to the left of the massive fireplace. I assumed it wasn’t the closet door under the staircase. I went through the door and found myself in a washroom with a washer, dryer and chest freezer. There was a door with two steps to the right, leading to a sort of root cellar where the house was built into the raw granite of the hill. It was chilly and sloped upward, so that at the far end even a toddler would have trouble standing upright. The door to my left proved to be the bathroom.
Instead of heading back to Stevenson, I decided to poke around. There were more Andersen windows, the place was lousy with them, and a wash sink. There was another half glass door and beyond that, an identical glass storm door to the one upstairs. Outside there was a grassy hill that sloped downward, and the grass seemed to flow into a gap in the wall of trees in front of me. They were only thirty feet or so from the house.
There was another door to my left, and I opened it to find a sort of work room, a small table, some tools, a daybed against one wall, a closet and bureau. There was a duffle bag and a faded Army field jacket. This was where Baz was sleeping. I guess the hired guns slept on the first floor. I wanted to toss his kit just to see what he had or what he was about, but there wasn’t time.
Prudence being the word of the day, I would let it keep. I closed the door and doubled back around to where Stevenson was waiting for me with a bourbon on the rocks. He handed it to me. ‘Thanks. Nice place you’ve got here. Feels like a Bavarian hunting lodge.’
‘That isn’t an accident. I bought the land so I would have a place to hunt when I was home in the States. I used to camp out and then I had a little hunting shack. You know the type of thing, two rooms and a wood stove, not much else. But then they built the interstate and the off-ramp you took would run smack through it. My first wife didn’t like to hunt, but she liked to ski, and so I built this place so we could both enjoy it.’
‘It seems like a nice place to get away.’
‘It is. It is close to everything, skiing. Hanover, you know, where Dartmouth College is, is across the river and twenty minutes south, which means that there are bookstores in town that have a wider selection than in most towns up here. There’s plenty of good hiking, camping and hunting. All in all, it is a pretty good mix of culture and outdoor activities. If you ever get sick of the rat race in Boston, you should consider moving up here.’ There was no point in telling him that there probably wasn’t much use for private investigators this far north where the trees outnumber the people.
‘Sounds nice. Me, I’m lucky if I can get to the Irish Riviera.’
‘Ireland is nice. Many great rivers for fly fishing.’ It wasn’t that he was oblivious, it wasn’t even his fault. He had been raised with money, and the closest he had been to Wollaston Beach was when he had sailed by it on his yacht.
‘I’m sure. Don’t get the chance to do much fly fishing.’
‘No? Well, you should try it. It’s getting close to dinner; we should head upstairs.’
I followed him, drink in hand, up the stairs. At the top of the stairs, there was a woman in her sixties in the kitchen. She was busy moving pots and pans around the stove. The aromas of cooking meat and cabbage reminded me that I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. We avoided the kitchen and went into the living room, which turned out to be an open floor plan with the dining room tucked in the corner of the house between the living room and the kitchen.
The living room had a fireplace tucked into the brick wall/chimney. There was an old Zenith TV and a Persian carpet. The couch faced the TV, and in the corner next to the sliding glass doors were two bookshelves making a corner of books. Between them and the couch was a card table covered in papers and journals, clearly Stevenson’s research materials.
The dining room was denoted by a heavy beam in the ceiling and highly polished hardwood floors instead of Persian carpets. The wall separating the kitchen was taken up by a china cabinet. There was a table of oak in the center of the room with matching chairs. On the opposing wall was a matching oak sideboard. There were more Andersen windows, and the whole effect was a comfortable living space that was light and airy.
I turned to look through the living-room windows. Outside the sun was going down, and the road out in front of the house had a few streetlights twinkling on. They were few and far between, splashing puddles of light for people driving down into the river valley. Across Stevenson’s field, beyond the little fairy-tale house, was the road, and across that was another field with a barn in the distance, all of it surrounded by a wall of green trees. The sky above the trees in the distance was turning reddish pink, and the infrequent cars driving down the road switched on their lights.
I picked up a pair of inexpensive binoculars that were perched on the windowsill and peered out at the land in front of the house. There was still enough light to see the terrain but not in much detail. Stevenson’s front yard, for lack of a better term, was about two hundred yards from the house to the road, maybe two-fifty. Directly in front, it was mostly flat, and the land around it angled downhill toward the river valley and what seemed like a wall of trees, the usual mix of hemlocks, birches and pines. Across the road, the land started sloping up and the tree line by the highway off-ramp came almost to the road in front of the house. Years ago, it had been cleared and angled away to make grazing land, leaving a space of almost a kilometer.
I unconsciously started to calculate where and how many helicopters I could bring in. Where the North Vietnamese Army would set up likely ambushes or conceal 37-millimeter anti-aircraft cannons. I mentally plotted where I would move a team to maximize cover and to best fight the NVA from. You could take the boy out of the war, but you couldn’t … well, you know the rest.
‘I did the same thing when I was building this place.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘I started thinking about things like beaten zones and fields of fire. Where I would land helicopters and all of that.’
‘I thought you spent all of your time in Vientiane?’
‘Oh, I got out to see the troops when I could. I needed to see what was happening with Vang Pao and the Air America types, floating around with their ad hoc air force. They were like something out of Terry and the Pirates.’
‘It must have been something,’ I said, trying to sound sincere.
‘Vang Pao was a magnificent leader. If we had ten more of him, we would never have lost the war. His men were brave, so brave. Did you know that the NVA and Pathet Lao tried to bring tanks up on to the Plain of Jars and we stopped them cold? Yes, we did.’ I don’t know if having more men like Vang Pao would have made a difference, but he was a good leader who had fought his noble lost cause with tenacity and courage. His men had been tough and loyal and deserved better treatment by the government.
‘He was, and he was lucky to have the Hmong as his troops.’ The Hmong were tough people from the highlands, like the Montagnards I worked with.
The table was set with simple china with a green and white motif on a plain white tablecloth. There were a variety of serving dishes, with steam rising from them, arranged in the center of the table. Two bottles of white wine were open, and the table had everything except candles, but it wasn’t that type of dinner. There were six chairs, and Stevenson took his at the head of the table facing the living room.
People began to make their way to the table. Honey was first, all legs, in cowboy boots, tight jeans and a cream-colored silk blouse. She stuck her hand out to me. ‘Mr Roark, I’m glad that you decided to join us.’ I wasn’t sure if she meant for dinner or if I had somehow gone off and enlisted again.
‘No worries. Glad to help.’ I tried to sound noble and heroic. Women like Honey bring that sort of behavior out in me. She went to the seat opposite Stevenson. I ended up sitting to his immediate left, and somehow Maureen ended up next to me. Bradley sat across the table from me, and next to him was a man in his twenties who was quite literally a pale reflection of Stevenson. Apparently, Baz was walking around the house making sure we were safe, and he would eat in the kitchen when he was done with his appointed rounds.
The meal was excellent, tenderloin of pork that had been rubbed with mustard and spices then roasted. One of the steaming serving dishes held boiled new potatoes that had been tossed with butter, garlic and dill. The last steaming dish held red cabbage that had been sliced thin, with bits of apple mixed in, then braised in beer. The wine turned out to be a very dry white Rhine wine which complemented the pork and cabbage quite nicely.
The dinner conversation was mostly taken up by Stevenson holding court and regaling us with stories he planned to include in his memoirs. He had been so used to being the focus of attention for so long that he couldn’t switch it off at the dinner table. I couldn’t imagine that it made him easy to live with.
Honey ate in small bites and beamed at him. When she wasn’t taking small bites of food and beaming, she took minute sips of wine. His son didn’t say much of anything and ate his food mechanically. Bradley made supportive comments that fell just shy of kissing Stevenson’s ambassadorial ass. Maureen and I managed to fit in a bit of quiet small talk when Stevenson wasn’t asking me questions that were worded in such a way that made it clear he was looking to validate his point of view on matters.
By the time the apple cobbler was put on the table, after second glasses of wine had been had, I noticed that Maureen’s elbow kept brushing up against mine. I became dimly aware of her hip and thigh close to my own. I wanted to believe that I could faintly smell perfume, something like honeysuckle. Maybe the trip to Vermont hadn’t been such a bad idea after all.
TWELVE
After dinner Stevenson said, ‘Let’s go downstairs and have a snort.’ Since he didn’t seem like the type to do coke, I figured he meant a drink.
‘Sure, why not.’
‘Bradley, bring the mail down. Honey, Maureen, come on down for a drink.’
Maureen said she would, and Honey begged off. We trooped downstairs into the land of lightly stained knotty pine and mementos of Stevenson’s glory. He flipped lights on as he went, and when he turned on the light in the bar, I realized that it was made from a bazooka round. Jesus, this guy took himself seriously.
‘What does everyone want to drink? Roark, another bourbon? Maureen, bourbon or a beer?’
‘Beer, please,’ she said in her accented voice. Years of watching PBS had given me a slight bias toward women with English accents.
‘Bourbon would be great,’ I said. Stevenson set about getting us our drinks, and Bradley came downstairs with some mail in hand. Stevenson offered him a beer and Bradley accepted. He took out two St Pauli Girls and popped off the caps. I liked the lady on the label, but not so much that I splurged on it over Löwenbräu. When everyone had a drink and had taken seats, or in my case, leaned against the wall by the spear, Stevenson spoke. ‘Bradley, show Mr Roark the letter.’
Bradley quickly riffled through the pile of correspondence he had with him and handed me an envelope that had already been opened. I put my drink down on the edge of the bookshelf and slid the letter out. It was like the others, typed and to the point. This variant said, ‘You know what you’ve done. You took everything from me. You have to pay! Either with Treasure or Blood you will pay!’
‘Short and to the point,’ I said, for want of anything more clever.
‘Yes, it looks like Mr Kovach is at it again,’ Stevenson said.
‘You have to stop him, Mr Roark.’ Bradley seemed quite earnest in his worry for his boss.
‘Exactly, Gordon, you need to take this seriously … this Kovach sounds dangerous. Pay him if you must.’ This from Maureen.
‘Pay him,’ Stevenson spluttered out, ‘pay him? Never. I won’t give in to threats. This isn’t something that can be bought and paid for.’
‘Did you tell me that part of your job had been bribing your country’s allies to stay allied with you? Didn’t you deal with mercenaries and warlords? How is this any different?’
‘Maureen does have a point, sir. If this can be resolved financially that might be best, save us potential embarrassment before your memoirs come out.’
‘Roark, what do you think?’ He pointed an index finger at me while the rest of his meaty hand was wrapped around his glass of bourbon.
‘First, we don’t know if it is Kovach. He looks good, but I haven’t proven he is our letter writer.’ And dog poisoner, window shooter, and would-be car blower-upper. ‘Second, if it is Kovach, there is nothing to say that paying him off will make him stop. He might take the money and keep coming back to the well as many times as he wants.’
‘Come on, man. It has to be Kovach. He is the most promising thing that you or the FBI have managed to come up with.’
‘Like I said, Mr Ambassador, he looks good for it, but I am not one hundred percent certain he is our guy.’ I didn’t add, as much as I was tempted to, ‘A prick like you has probably pissed off a lot of people.’
‘Mr Roark, who else could it be?’ Bradley asked in his earnest, Ivy League-accented voice.
‘Bradley, I don’t know. I do know that powerful men, like the Ambassador here, tend to make enemies. Kovach looks good. He may even have a grudge against the Ambassador, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he is doing this stuff.’
‘Well, you need to find out, and fast.’ More earnestness.
‘Yes, I do. Has there been anything else or any indication that he is escalating?’
‘No, just this latest letter.’
‘OK, tomorrow the Ambassador and I are going to go through his old journals and see if anyone else pops out. If nothing does, then I will go back to Boston and figure out a way to watch Kovach. Does all that sound reasonable?’
‘What if he isn’t at his apartment? What if he went to ground after your, frankly, amateurish attempts to date?’ Bradley asked.
‘Bradley, I am sure that you are a good lapdog,’ I enjoyed the angry look on his face, ‘but I am pretty sure your knowledge of investigating people begins and ends with you watching detective shows on TV.’ Bradley started to fluster when Maureen chimed in.
‘Oh, Andy … don’t pick on Bradley. He’s just concerned about the Ambassador. We all are … I think we are all worried that this Kovach could be out there somewhere, waiting to hurt Gordon.’
‘Sir, maybe Roark is right, maybe Baz should handle this? He’s tough and Roark … Roark clearly has his limitations.’
‘That’s fine by me. I can’t say that I was very eager to take this case to begin with.’
‘Roark, don’t be silly … and Bradley, I will decide who I want doing what on my behalf. Is that clear?’
‘Yes, sir.’ The lapdog knew how close to the doghouse he was.
‘I asked for Roark because he came highly recommended by Special Agent Watts. I also know for a fact that he is tough and resourceful because I know what he did in the war. He stays until he or I decide otherwise.’ In a flash I had insight into what had made him the right man in Laos. I didn’t like how he ran his war because of how it impacted mine, but he was a general through and through, just without the uniform and the stars. He then turned to me, ‘That suit you?’
‘Yes, it does.’ I turned to Bradley, ‘I want to make sure that Kovach is our man because if he isn’t, I can waste a lot of time and resources, and if there is someone else out there who is a threat to the Ambassador, I will be that much further behind the curve. I understand that you want results and that everyone is worried about the Ambassador, but my job is to find the person threatening him, and I am pretty good at what I do.’
‘OK, it’s just … it’s …’ He was trying to find the right words.
‘It’s scary. It’s scary when someone you care about, look up to, is in danger. It’s scary to feel like there isn’t much you can do, and it’s frustrating too.’
‘Yes, that’s it.’
‘Well, look at it this way. The boss has done a couple of smart things. One, he has hired Baz to protect him. Two, he is here, and this place is hard to approach without being noticed.’ I was lying to him about that bit. On three sides the house had nice clear views where you could see anyone coming, and it was higher than most of the ground around it. The problem was that it was too close to the tree line on one side, and even someone who wasn’t particularly skilled could get close without being seen. ‘Last, he hired me to find the guy. The Ambassador is doing all the right things. It will work out.’ I wasn’t sure I believed it, but I said it with confidence.
