Chaos Theory (24 page)

‘I guess we’ll have to leave the country, and give ourselves new identities. I always fancied living in the South of France.’

‘And Silja? And Leon?’

‘Let’s just take this one step at a time, shall we?’ said Rick. ‘Look – it’s nearly time we made contact with DOVE.’

‘I’m not too sure I can do this,’ said Noah.

‘You have to. We’ve gone this far. We can’t give it up now.’

Noah took a deep breath. He sat down on the sagging beige leather couch, and Rick handed him a sheet of notepaper and a disposable cellphone, which Steve had bought for them yesterday, in Anaheim.

He lit a cigarette and then punched out the number of DOVE headquarters in New York. The phone rang for a long time before an operator eventually picked up.

‘DOVE, can I help you?’

Noah cleared his throat. ‘This is Armed Front for Freedom of Palestine. We have your negotiator, Ms Adeola Davis.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Jesus,’ said Noah, under his breath. Then he repeated himself, speaking more slowly and emphatically.

‘You have seen TV news?’ he asked the operator.

‘Yes, sir. I know what’s happened to Ms Davis.’

‘We have her. The AFFP. So far she is alive and well. But we have demands. You must meet our demands or she will be executed.’

‘Sir – can I put you on hold for a moment?’

‘We are AFFP! I mean, AFPF! We have demands!’

‘Sir – I need to put you through to somebody in authority.’

‘I am speaking to
you
. You can tell your bosses what we want. Immediate withdrawal of all Israeli forces in Palestine. Immediate demolition of separation wall.’

‘Sir—’

‘That is all. No discussion. Now it is one o’clock. I will call again at six o’clock. You will say yes to our demands or Ms Davis will be executed.’

‘Sir—’

‘That is all.’

Noah switched off the cellphone and tossed it on to the glass-topped coffee table. ‘Christ almighty. I sounded like Eddie Murphy!’

‘No, you didn’t,’ said Adeola. ‘You sounded exactly like one of those Palestinian freedom fighters I was talking to.
Exactly
. Macho. Intolerant. That poor girl must have been shaking in her shoes.’

 

At 6.15, Eastern Standard Time, Noah called DOVE headquarters again.

‘This is Armed Front for Freedom of Palestine. I am ready for your answer. Yes or no?’

‘Sir – I’m going to put you through to a gentleman who is authorized to negotiate with you.’

‘There is no negotiation. Yes to our demands, or no?’

‘Excuse me,’ a man’s voice broke in. ‘May I ask to whom I am speaking?’

‘AFFP. Armed Front for Freedom of Palestine. We have Ms Adeola Davis. You know our demands. Withdrawal of all Israeli forces from Palestine. Demolition of separation wall declared illegal by International Courts of Justice. Yes or no?’

‘Please, hold up a moment,’ the man asked him. ‘I have to confess to you that none of us have ever heard of the Armed Front for the Freedom of Palestine.’

‘We are secret organization, that is why. Secret. AFFP.’

‘OK . . . and you’re saying that you abducted Ms Davis?’

‘We have Ms Adeola Davis. Yes to our demands, or she will be executed.’

‘How do we know that you really have her? Can I speak to her?’

‘Of course.’

Noah passed the cellphone to Adeola. Adeola closed her eyes tight and tried to sound fearful.

‘Ms Davis?’

‘Yes, this is Adeola Davis. Please, help me. They say they’re going to kill me if you don’t give them what they want.’

‘Ms Davis, this is Special Agent George Windom of the FBI. I’m a trained hostage negotiator. I’m going to do everything I can to get you out of this situation quickly and safely. Don’t panic. We have hundreds of officers looking for you, and one way or another we’ll make sure that you come to no harm.’

‘They say you have twenty-four hours. Then they’re going to kill me.’

‘Adeola? This is Alvin. You just need to hang on in there. We’re all thinking of you. We’re all rooting for you.’

‘Can you give us any idea where you are?’ asked Special Agent Windom. ‘Are you still in Los Angeles, or have they taken you someplace else?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t know where I am.’

Noah snatched the cellphone away from her. ‘Listen! We are AFFP! We have demands! You say yes to our demands, or you will never see Ms Adeola Davis again, only on death video! You have till six o’clock, evening time tomorrow! Then I call you again! Then you say yes!’

‘Sir – could you tell me your name, so that we can talk man-to-man?’

Noah put his hand over the phone. ‘Adeola – he’s asking me what my name is. What’s my name?’

Adeola thought for a moment. Then she scribbled on his crib sheet ‘Abdel Al-Hadi’.

‘I am Abdel Al-Hadi,’ said Noah. ‘I am leader of AFFP. You say yes to our demands!’

‘You have to understand, Mr Al-Hadi, that what you’re asking for isn’t going to be easy. The Israelis never give in to any kind of threat, even if it means the loss of an innocent life. And Ms Davis is nothing if not innocent.’

‘She is guilty! She is a hypocrite and a whore! She is a two-legged spider, who spins out a web of sticky lies!’

‘You know that’s not true,’ retorted Alvin Metzler. ‘She speaks for everybody who wants peace, whether they’re Israeli or Palestinian or any other nationality. You need to release her, Mr Al-Hadi, and then we can talk about the things you want to achieve.’

‘Six o’clock tomorrow!’ Noah insisted. ‘Then you say yes – or then she will die!’

He switched off the phone. Rick shook his head in admiration. ‘You’re living this part, man. You should have been a character actor, instead of a stuntman.’

‘I’m a two-legged spider?’ said Adeola. ‘First time I’ve ever been called that!’

‘Sorry,’ said Noah. ‘Guess I got a little carried away there.’

 

That night, bundled up on his couch, Noah dreamed of Jenna again. This time, he was walking across the Piazza San Marco, in Venice, and it was raining. Jenna was fifty or sixty yards ahead of him, wearing a thin white dress that was almost transparent. As she walked, she scattered scores of pigeons, which settled again as soon as she had passed.

Jenna!
he called, but his voice was dead and flat and he knew that she couldn’t hear him. Three hundred feet above him, the bells rang from the campanile, and the bells sounded equally dead and equally flat, as if they were tolling a death knell.

It began to rain harder, and he stumbled into the chairs outside one of the outdoor cafes. A waiter in a long apron shouted at him. ‘
Chaos! Chaos!
’

Noah waved to the waiter to show that he was sorry, but by the time he had picked up the fallen chairs, Jenna had disappeared around the corner. He hurried after her, just in time to see her walking between the two granite columns outside the Palazzo Ducale, one of which was topped by a statue of St Mark, and the other by a statue of St Theodore, and the sacred crocodile of Egypt.

He knew that it was unlucky to walk between the columns, because this had once been a place of execution.

Jenna!
he shouted. But hundreds of pigeons exploded into the air in front of him, and he lost sight of her altogether.

‘You’re shouting in your sleep again,’ said a hot whisper, close to his ear.

‘I said, you’re shouting in your sleep again.’

He opened his eyes. Although it was two o’clock on the morning, there was a full moon shining through the window and the living room was unnaturally bright. Silja was kneeling on the floor next to him, naked, her ash-blonde hair sticking up in a halo of white flames.

‘I’m sorry. I was dreaming. I thought I was in Venice . . .’

‘Venice? Very romantic.’

‘I don’t like Venice. For some reason it always gives me the creeps.’

Without being invited, Silja lifted his blanket and climbed on to the couch on top of him. ‘I was thinking that it would be sad for us to die without ever making love.’

He stared up at her. Their faces were only inches apart. ‘You think we’re going to die?’

‘I am quite sure of it. This kidnap plan is all going to go wrong. It is a crazy plan. How can it go right? Those men in grey suits will cut our throats the same way they killed Jenna and Mo Speller and everybody else, and nobody will ever find out what happened to us. And nobody will care, either.’

‘I didn’t know Finns were such pessimists.’

‘No – realists.’

She kissed him, and then she kissed him again, sliding the tip of her tongue into his mouth. She tasted as if she had been eating sweet white grapes. She stroked his face with her fingernails, delicately touching the sides of his eyes and outlining his lips, over and over, as if she wanted to remember what they felt like for the rest of her life.

He took hold of her narrow, boyish hips. Her skin was silky but she was completely lean and he could feel the sexual tautness in every muscle. Her nipples crinkled tight and brushed against his chest. Between her legs, his penis rose harder and harder, until he felt as if it had been fashioned out of solid ivory, instead of flesh, with every vein exaggerated and the head polished to a perfect shine.

Silja reached down with one hand and parted her hairless lips. She lifted herself up a little, so that the head of Noah’s penis was positioned between them. Then, very slowly, she lowered herself on to him, until he was buried inside her as far as he could possibly go.

She was warm inside, and very slippery, but more than that she had absolute control over her vaginal muscles, so that she could rhythmically squeeze him, almost as strongly as if she were massaging him by hand. She squeezed, and squeezed, and at the same time she looked into his eyes as if she were daring him to roll her over and thrust himself into her.

‘Is this love, Noah?’ she asked him.

‘Do you want it to be?’ He had a catch in his throat, and he had to clear it.

‘I don’t know what I want. I don’t know what this is. But how does it feel? Do you like it, when I do this to you?’

‘I’m too old for you. You know that.’

‘I don’t know anything.’

She stopped squeezing him, and started to ride up and down. With each upstroke, his penis came completely out of her, and then plunged back in again. She was so strong that she seemed to have no physical weight at all. There was no sound in the living room but their steady breathing, and the sound of
shlip
,
shlip
,
shlip
, with every stroke.

Noah could feel his climax rising. ‘Oh, shit,’ he said. It was far too soon.

Without hesitation, Silja lifted herself off him, and took hold of his penis in her right hand. She gripped the shaft, and pressed the ball of her thumb hard against the thin line of skin directly below the opening. She kept up the pressure until, gradually, Noah’s climax began to subside.

‘All right now?’ she asked him.

He nodded, and she climbed on top of him again.

‘The old Masters and Johnson squeeze technique,’ he said, smiling up at her. ‘I read about it in
Playboy
.’

‘In Finland we call it “Braking the Sledge”.’

 

They made love for over twenty minutes, until Silja bent forward and silently quaked. It wasn’t a shared orgasm. All Noah could do was hold her while she shuddered and shuddered. The full moon had moved around the house now, and the living room was dark.

Eventually she rolled over and lay close to him, caressing his face.

‘You’re right,’ she said, ‘you’re too old for me. But I love you. I love your body. I love the clockwork inside of your head.’

‘Clockwork?’

‘Yes. All those little cogs and wheels, always whirring. You are not a stupid man at all, are you? But you don’t think the same way as the rest of us, do you? You believe that every problem in life can be solved by a stunt.’

 

A
ll the next day, the news channels repeated the story of Adeola’s abduction, and the demands that had been made by ‘a hitherto unknown splinter group of Palestinian freedom fighters, led by a fanatic calling himself Abdel Al-Hadi.’

The police had found the metallic green Chevrolet in Otsego Street, but now they had to admit that the trail had gone cold. Police commissioner Pearson Drake said, ‘Nobody saw the kidnappers abandon the vehicle, and we have absolutely no idea where they might have gone next. Some intelligence sources suggest Canada, but we can’t be sure. All we can do is wait for them to contact us again.’

‘Can you tell us exactly what demands the kidnappers are making?’ asked Gwen Durango, for CNN.

‘At this stage, no I can’t, because it isn’t within our power to give them what they want, and we have to negotiate with a third party.’

‘Is it money? Or the release of political prisoners?’

‘I’m sorry, I simply can’t tell you. But we’re expecting to hear from Mr Al-Hadi again at six o’clock EST, and at that time I may be able to comment further.’

Adeola was sitting back in a wicker armchair heaped with Moroccan-style cushions, holding a glass of pomegranate juice. ‘I’ve had a terrible thought,’ she said. ‘Supposing they give in? Supposing the Israelis give us everything we asked them for – withdraw their forces and tear down the wall? What do we do then?’

‘It’s a good thing I know that you’re joking,’ said Rick.

‘I almost wish that I weren’t. What an achievement that would be!’

 

Silja cooked them a meal of stuffed vine leaves and tomato sauce, which they ate out on the veranda. Noah’s friend Dave McCray hardly ever came back to Los Angeles these days. The pool had been drained and the yard was wild and overgrown.