Skin in the Game, page 28
Footsteps behind them become louder, then stop. Joe and Sofi stay still. There is some shuffling back and forth, then silence. Then the footsteps gradually taper off into the distance and finally disappear.
Kate keeps a tight grip on the handle of the gun—it feels unnatural holding it in her hand. Joe places his hand on her shoulder and looks into her eyes. Confused, she clicks on the safety, realizing as she does that it had never been on. She opens her handbag and places it back inside. After a few minutes, they continue down the alley and re-enter Boulevard Saint-Germain. The fog is lifting; the sidewalks are beginning to come to life. They look in either direction, but there is no sign of the man. Kate spots a taxi coming toward them. She hails it, and they jump in the back seat.
“Opera,” she says.
As they drive away, Kate looks out the rear window, but there is still no sign of the man.
*
Kate stares out the window of the hotel room, sensing Joe watching her from behind.
“His name is Avery.”
Kate lets go of the drape and turns to him.
“That seemed too easy …”
She shakes her head.
“Sorry, what did you say?”
“Avery.”
“Yes, an agent with MI6. He—”
“He was in Dubai.”
“What was he doing in Dubai?”
Joe lies back on the bed and stares up at the ceiling.
“He works with Sallow. Together, they support Density. And Baexter and Mandrake. But Sallow runs the show.”
“Baexter and Mandrake?”
“Sallow uses his position to support corporate corruption. Density executes on behalf of Baexter and Mandrake.”
“Sallow? He’s reviewing our operations. Krug told me he was—can you remember anything else? Details of what you had uncovered?”
“Sallow has more to lose than anyone.”
“Anything else, Joe?”
He falls silent, lost in thought. Then he turns to her.
“My name is Joe Hawkins. I’m thirty-six years old. I’m a politics professor. When I was eighteen, my mother died. I wasn’t there for my brother. Now my father is dead, and they’ve killed my brother.”
She sits down beside him on the bed and places her hand on his knee.
“Joe, you are remembering. I knew you would. Joe, do you remember if you had a doctor in America? One you saw regularly?”
He lowers his eyes, his blank look gradually taking on something more disturbing.
“What is it, Joe? What is bothering you. Is there something else that’s becoming clearer?”
He nods.
“What is it? What do you remember?”
He stares at the white drapes in the window. Kate watches as his head shakes a little. He’s been on stabilizers for a few days now. And he’s becoming more lucid, with some coherent episodic memories. But the eccentricities are still present. The wild notions, the verbosity, the poetry. The mood changes. And his shakes. He looks into the flowing white drapes, mesmerized, as if he were seeing a ghost.
“Do you remember anything of what it was like to be you?”
He looks into her eyes and follows the light across her cheeks and beyond to the outline of her hair.
“I was in love.”
He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, unable to see that her expression has changed. She stands and approaches the window once again.
“I am in love with Sofi Watt. I need to find her. I need to save her.”
Kate looks down on the street. She can feel Joe watching from behind. A chill works down her face and into her chest. What am I doing? She breathes slowly, letting the oxygen circulate through her mind, then leans her forehead against the cold glass of the window.
She holds her head up and places her fingertips on the glass.
“OK … we’re getting somewhere. That’s good. Do you know where she is, Joe?”
“Dubai.”
She turns to him. He watches and waits.
“Then we need to go to Dubai.”
CHAPTER XI
The model of gray matter is mounted on a steel stand and sits perched on the middle shelf between stacks of hardcover texts on brain anatomy and physiology. With two hands, Harold Sallow picks up the model, about the size of a melon, and sits on the sofa in the corner of Krug’s office. He squints as he checks his glasses, then polishes the lenses with a cloth one more time.
He pulls at and fondles the model, finally peeling away the outer layer: frontal, parietal, occipital, temporal lobes and cerebellum. Underneath, a layer in darker gray, the corpus callosum. He peels once again and finds a removable maroon red core. Nudging it out, he examines the miniature pieces that compose it: septum, fornix, pituitary gland, thalamus, hypothalamus, hippocampus and amygdala. He picks at one and the core falls apart in his hands. Wiping his hands, he turns to Krug.
“This is a disaster.”
Krug looks on from behind his desk. He steadies his eyes, waiting for contact with Sallow’s, but none is forthcoming.
“Let’s walk through this slowly. I think you’ll see—”
“I won’t understand how you could stand by and let Hawkins saunter out of here. The only reason I kept him alive was the slim prospect of recovering the damaging evidence he has under his control, evidence which could take down this entire government and all of us with it. And yes, by that, I would include legal proceedings against you and me personally.”
“Are Baexter and Mandrake leaning on you?”
“You really don’t get it. Baexter and Mandrake aren’t leaning on me. If anything, they’ll distance themselves from me and leave me to hang. You and I will be left holding the bag and they will walk. Importance to the economy, national security … Of that you can be sure.”
Krug remains firmly seated in his chair. He studies Sallow. He is a man of much smaller stature than himself. He wheezes when he gets excited, demonstrating his poor cardiovascular condition. The way he melts into the chair makes plain his flabby shapeless body. And yet he has presence. Because he’s a magician—through sleight of hand the prize disappears, only to reappear at his behest, at another time and another place. A master of survival.
“If you would let me explain how I see this panning out—”
“You fucked up, Cameron. Your neuroscience sucks. You thought you could tamper with his brain so he would forget everything incriminating, but at the same time selectively remember to surrender to us the whereabouts of the evidence. Your research into the mind is nothing more than experimental barbarism.”
Krug stands, placing his hands in his white coat.
“Now, see here—”
“You still believe you are a genius. A laughable delusion of grandeur. What, in fact, you are, Doctor, is a quack. What’s worse, you’ve confused the objective. You believe your experiment with Hawkins was an end in itself, a chance to prove your theories. And as a result, he’s now running around free.”
Krug’s left eye begins to twitch. He holds it steady with his index finger and walks around to Sallow. He towers above Sallow who hasn’t moved a muscle since he began.
“I would remind you, I have a long and distinguished career providing assistance on matters of the utmost importance to the national security of both our countries. I threw everything I’ve learned in my career at Hawkins. And I broke the limits whenever I spotted progress.”
Sallow shakes his head.
“Electro-shock treatment at five times the limit? Isolation box for more than a month at a time? You’re a sick fuck, Krug. Sicker still because you don’t even know you’re sick. All of this served only to satisfy your need to practice wanton violence on another human being.”
“Not something you’re totally unfamiliar with, eh, Sallow?”
“I don’t hold any of these things against you. In fact you can be quite amusing at times. But when your own psychological obsessions cause you to jeopardize this government’s ability to function, I hold you personally responsible.”
Sallow clutches in his hand some of the pieces of the model lying beside him.
“You can’t rebuild a man, Krug. The experimental history is there for anyone to read. You can only fragment his personality and leave him shattered.”
“I think we need to be calm about this.”
“All right, Dr. Krug. Let’s be calm. Enlighten me.”
“You brought Hawkins to me a little over five months ago. Since that time, I have discovered, beyond a doubt, that he has evidence on Density, Baexter, Mandrake and MI6, not to mention the CIA. And we can rely on the revelation that this information will be made public automatically when the clock strikes midnight on the first day of April. The documentary evidence Hawkins had in his possession will be spread all over the Internet, and the whereabouts of the originals will be delivered into the hands of those who could embarrass this government.”
“Embarrass?”
“That means we have less than a week to resolve this mess. When I could see he was not responding, I took it upon myself to execute a new course of action to get us closer.”
“You’re having them followed?”
“Yes, that’s right. And with her help, he’ll lead us straight to the evidence and unlock in his brain the codes for the information held on the Internet.”
“Where are they now?”
“Somewhere en route from Paris to Dubai. We’ve had one slight hiccup, but otherwise it’s—”
“What hiccup?”
“Avery was seen by them. But he covered up quick.”
“How?”
“He led them to believe he was chasing them and they were able to escape.”
“You really have that much faith in her?”
“Not in her methods per se. Not at all. But we never expected her to succeed, did we?”
Sallow narrows his eyes.
“No.”
“No, not without more. Look, we always thought she’d turn. We relied on it. Her views against the practices employed here—she never belonged. And we knew she would fall for Hawkins. He’s good looking and a well-spoken, literate nutcase. A rebel. He plays right into all of her soft spots.”
The hint of gray returns to Sallow’s face.
“It’s why we never could trust her with the full story.”
“I trumped up the terrorist persona, made him a villain. It played into her seemingly contradictory ambitions to do well here. She’d have believed anything. She’s malleable. And she is, and always was, totally dispensable. That’s why we chose her. Right now, she’s probably wondering what she has on her hands. But that plays into the total believability of it all.”
“Wondering? What do you mean?”
“The idea for his terrorist persona didn’t come out of thin air. He had contacts with that world, and some sympathies. He left State for so called ‘moral reasons.’ He was trained by an anarchist, for God’s sake. In fact, it’s feasible he is harboring true terrorist aspirations now, especially after what we’ve put him through. All of this makes him genuine. And she’s genuine. She’s fallen for him and he’ll fall for her, and together they’ll produce the goods.”
“We don’t have much time, Doctor. And come hell or high water, at the first sign they’re straying from the path, I want them eliminated on the spot.”
“You know Avery better than me.”
“They must never leave Dubai. We have enough blood on our hands on UK soil. But first, we must gain access to the information that he, and only he, has.”
“Understood. Shame, dying is too good for him. I would give my eye teeth to personally squeeze him until his mind is liquid jelly.”
“You are a sick bastard.”
“Not so unlike these third-world countries you liquidate for profit, Harold.”
“Queen and country, Doctor.”
“So we each have a sadistic side we carry around in our professional lives.”
“You will keep me posted and follow my instructions without objection.”
“Agreed. We want to avoid any risk of Parliamentary oversight, now, don’t we?”
“Yes, of course.”
Chapter 28
The matte-silver jet, the size of an Airbus A320 with target bearings set southeast, rocketed forward at cruising speed and altitude toward its destination, Dubai. The Baexter corporate jet, a custom-designed aircraft made specifically for the CEO and executive management committee, bore no logos or emblems, only registration numbers. The interior more than compensated. Designed by a leading artist engaged in the creation of unique flight experiences, the plane could have been easily mistaken for a modern urban penthouse suite.
The men sat in black leather swivel chairs around a rectangular glass table, positioned lengthwise in the middle of the aircraft. Toward the rear were two private sleeping cabins. To the front, a living space with two long sofas and a bar.
Barrendt Trace sat at one end of the table and Lincoln Covington at the other. In the middle, Cadan Blake and Harold Sallow sat across from each other. For Blake, this meeting was just a rehearsal for the performance to take place over the next forty-eight hours. An opportunity to warm up on a small crowd, before the main event.
Barrendt Trace took a slug of his bourbon Manhattan.
“I don’t need to tell you all how important it is for Mandrake to get its foot in the door in Central Asia. China and Russia would be quite happy if we didn’t come to the party. The commodities industry in Russia and China have the luxury of depending on substantial government support, a luxury we just don’t have.”
Lincoln Covington folded his arms and leaned in to the table.
“Barrendt, I couldn’t agree more. Our home government contracts are the problem. Defense budgets are getting hammered. We have some lines that will keep doing well, UAVs and other tactical weapons, ongoing advances in surveillance and communications technology. But it’s not what I would call a booming military-industrial complex. The fact is our governments can’t afford full-scale war. Not for another few years at least. In the meantime, we must survive on scraps from third-world countries with no more than rocks in the ground.”
“Has it ever been different?” said Blake. “The last few years have been a boom time for all of us. But full-scale wars are few and far between. I’m sure someone at each of your fair institutions has done a historical survey on your respective industries. Fact is, since 1945, where conflicts arise has always been somewhere with rocks in the ground, or bananas hanging from trees. Until we can find a new reason to rescale defense systems across the West, this is our bread and butter.”
“Quite right, Cadan, quite right,” said Trace. “But it’s a small world, and it’s getting smaller.”
“Which is why you need an advisor who can find you opportunities, who can create opportunities,” said Blake.
“And we compensate you well for that, Cadan. It’s worth saying, we have a choice,” said Covington.
Blake pressed his fingers against the sides of his tumbler. He nodded, then pulled out a cigarette and sparked his lighter.
“Gentlemen, we have made arrangements for Uzbekistan to come to the table more willingly. I won’t go into the details, but there may be a change at the top of the Uzbek administration. We have seen to it that the new acting president will be sympathetic to our objectives.”
“I expected no less, Cadan,” said Trace. “And this will all be handled in a manner that keeps our interests discreet?”
“Of course. Coincidental, but not a totally unexpected event in a shit-hole like Central Asia.”
Trace broke into a smile.
“What, then, is our plan for this shindig here in Dubai?”
“The only wildcard is Samarrai. I have spoken to Prince Nasid. The prince likes the deal. He doesn’t want to miss out on a big opportunity. We will, of course, make him feel warm and fuzzy. Samarrai will either comply with our terms, or he’s out.”
“You’ll see to it, should any sparks fly?” said Covington.
“Of course. You know me by now, Lincoln. Would I let a loose end get in the way of progress?”
Covington stared Blake down, then smiled.
“We must all take positions on what we see as the important questions of our time,” said Trace. “In the end, all that matters is that we follow through, ride with and live with the bets we make.”
He turned to Sallow.
“What does Her Majesty’s Foreign Secretary have to say on the matter?”
Sallow shifted in his seat and was slow to speak.
“Both Baexter and Mandrake are extremely important to Her Majesty’s Government. Important in terms of your domestic contracts, employment of highly trained professionals, R&D expenditure, tax revenues. We are aligned, gentlemen. You can depend on the full support of the government to see that this transaction comes to fruition.”
“Yes, but what exactly does that mean, Harold?” said Covington.
Sallow kept his head turned toward the table.
“Our part is a legitimizing one. As you are fully aware, we are unable to take on a substantive role. But, I can assure you, we are on board and will assist in managing the process.”
Sallow looked up at the frowns around the table.
“And, as you know, we still play an important diplomatic role. It is important for officials such as the prince to know you have the backing of government. It is important to leaders of your target countries to know that we are one unified force to contend with and partner with. We bring Baexter and Mandrake legitimization. And we work closely with Cadan to make sure there are no leaks.”
Blake laughed.
“What that boils down to, gentlemen, is, unlike our competitors in Russia and China, our government must watch its skinny little ass. But they’re happy to wave a flag and first to say they were glad to have been of some assistance.”
“I represent a country that upholds the rule of law,” said Sallow.
“And exploits those that don’t,” said Blake. “Can you really see the world this way, Harold, when we know that’s all just smoke and mirrors?”
