Chaos Theory (31 page)

 

The Buick turned south-east on Route 5 and kept on going, and although it was touching seventy most of the time, Rick and Leon kept on following it. A half-mile apart, the two cars sped past Anaheim and Santa Ana and Mission Viejo, and then due south to San Clemente, and along the coast towards San Diego.

The moon came out, and its flat white light turned the scenery into cardboard, as if they were driving through a child’s dream.

They had bought a giant bag of cheesy Doritos at the 7–11, and Leon sat back and tore it open. Rick wasn’t hungry at all, but he could have used a drink.

Eventually, just past the little strung-out community of Oceanside, the Buick turned off Route 5 without making a signal, and headed inland. It was nearly midnight now, and there were scarcely any other cars around, so Rick made sure that he varied the distance between them as much as possible. Once or twice he indicated that he was turning off to the right, and pulled into a side road for a count of ten, before rejoining the main highway, and putting his foot down to catch up with the Buick before he lost it.

They climbed through the mountains, around one twisting bend after another, with the reservoir gleaming in the moonlight below them. It seemed wild and remote out here, but after twenty minutes they suddenly found themselves driving through the small town of Escondido, between neat whitewashed houses and red-tiled roofs and orange groves.

Rick kept his speed down to twenty. He knew about these small towns and their over-zealous traffic cops. ‘We haven’t lost him, have we?’ he asked Leon, as they left the lights of Escondido behind them.

‘No, he’s there, I can still see his tail lights. Look out – he’s pulling over. Slow up.’

On their left, they were passing a wide scrubby area, fenced off from the road by a high grey-painted security fence. Rick slowed right down to a crawl. On the other side of the fence, he could see what looked like factory buildings: two older ones, squarish, constructed of concrete and painted grey; and three or four newer ones, almost the size of aircraft hangars, made of silvery aluminium.

The whole complex was lit by floodlights and covered by CCTV cameras. One first-floor window was lit, and Rick could see a man in a grey shirt sitting at a desk, but that was the only sign of life.

‘Look,’ said Leon. ‘They’re going inside.’

The Buick had driven along the entire length of the security fence, about three quarters of a mile, and now it was turning into the factory entrance. Rick pulled over to the side of the road. At the gate, a grey-and-white-striped barrier went up, and the Buick drove inside. Immediately, the barrier went down again.

‘So,’ said Rick, ‘it looks like your question has been answered. They were taking Silja and Adeola
here
– wherever
here
is.’

He waited until the Buick had disappeared from sight around the side of the factory buildings. Then he drove past the front gate, as slowly as he could without attracting suspicion. A large grey sign stood outside, with a painting of a bell on it, and the words
Tocsin Weapons and Rocketry Systems, Escondido, California. Strictly No Admittance To Unauthorized Personnel
.

‘Tocsin!’ said Leon. ‘That figures. Now we know for sure that he’s connected to Professor Halflight . . .’

Rick kept on driving for another hundred yards and then stopped.

‘It’s all beginning to make some grisly kind of sense, isn’t it? Professor Halflight needs finance to keep Nakasu active; Hubert Tocsin needs chaos in the world so that he can sell more bombs. That’s what you call
symbiosis
, isn’t it?’

 

‘
H
ow did you find out who I was?’ asked Noah.

Professor Halflight eased himself into a worn velvet-covered armchair, and sniffed. ‘I don’t think we ever would, if a certain Korean gentleman hadn’t succumbed to some friendly persuasion.’

‘Hong Gildong?’

‘You shouldn’t blame him, Noah – you don’t mind if I call you Noah? Hong Gildong was under considerable duress when he told us all about you and your video. I must admit your killing of Adeola Davis was very well done. Totally convincing. And of course your psychology was spot on. You knew how much we wanted Ms Davis eliminated, and how grateful we would be to anyone who did the job for us.’

‘You should have an Oscar!’ grinned Captain Madoowbe.

‘And so should your make-up artist,’ said Professor Halflight. ‘Your disguise is absolutely brilliant. Your accent slipped now and again, but I have to confess that didn’t ring any alarm bells. I just thought that Abdel Al-Hadi had picked up some Americanisms since he had arrived here. From his brothers in Orange, New Jersey, maybe.’

He let out a loud, harsh laugh, and he was still laughing when his cellphone played
Satisfaction
. He took it out of his shirt pocket and said, ‘Yes?’

He listened for a moment, and then he said, ‘Only those two? Where were the others?’

Another pause, then, ‘Damn. All right, then. But, good.’

He closed the cell and dropped it back into his pocket.

‘Bad news, I hope?’ said Noah.

‘Not quite as good as expected. But good enough.’

‘So what happens now?’ Noah fixed his eyes on the blond man standing in the corner. ‘You’re going to cut my throat, just like you cut my girlfriend’s throat, and Mo Speller’s throat, and Trina’s, and all those other people?’

‘My dear Noah, of course not! We admitted you to Nakasu, even if you tricked us into doing so, and now you are a Nakasu assassin.’

‘You don’t still expect me to shoot the President, do you?’

‘Why ever not? In fact, when I was told who you really were, and what you had done to join us, I was delighted! Every assassination presents us with knotty logistical problems – the main problem always being, how to escape afterwards.

‘This particular assassination was always going to be very tricky: confined space, very high security. But
you
, Noah – you showed me how to solve that problem.’

‘Oh, really?’

‘Yes, really! You see – our original plan was to wait for the photocall after the peace agreement was signed. As soon as the cameras started to flash, one of Captain Madoowbe’s security men would take out his gun, shout out some rabid political slogan, and shoot the President and Alvin Metzler at point-blank range. Three other security men would immediately surround him and disarm him, but at the same time, of course, they would be shielding him from the President’s Secret Service detail.

‘The security men would then rush the assassin out of the hotel and drive him at high speed to the Ethiopian Consulate on Wilshire Boulevard. Once inside, he would be protected from arrest by diplomatic immunity. The Ethiopian Consul General would insist that he should be deported to Ethiopia to stand trial in Addis Ababa, because he could never be given a fair hearing in the US.’

‘Are you kidding me?’ said Noah. ‘You don’t seriously think that you could get away with a plan like that? They’d have a SWAT team abseiling through the windows in ten minutes flat.’

‘If this were a Bruce Willis movie, maybe they would. But this is real life, Noah, and in real life diplomatic immunity is taken very seriously. In 1984, for instance, a female police officer was shot and killed outside the Libyan Embassy in London, and the police laid siege to the embassy for eleven days. In the end, they had to let all the diplomats leave the country, including the man who had shot her.

‘However, we’re not faced with that difficulty any more, because we have you.’

Noah shook his head, and in the mirror he could see Abdel Al-Hadi shaking his head, too. ‘If you think that I’m going to shoot the President for you – if you think that I was
ever
going to shoot anybody for you – then you’re pissing up the wrong post, Professor. The only person I was ever intending to shoot was you – and smiler over there.’

‘I’m sure you were. But that was before. And this is now.’

‘So what’s changed?’

‘First of all, we know who you are. Second of all, we know that Adeola Davis isn’t dead at all. And most important, we now have Adeola Davis in what you might call our protective custody. That cellphone call confirmed that Ms Davis is safely on her way to a secure destination, where she will be taken care of until you have successfully carried out your task.’

‘You’ve
kidnapped
her?’

‘“Kidnapped”, Noah? That’s a little strong. Let’s say “relocated”.’

‘So what happens to Adeola if I refuse to shoot the President?’

‘Ms Davis is dead already, as far as the police are concerned. She was shot by a Palestinian terrorist called Abdel Al-Hadi. But we don’t mind shooting her again, just to make absolutely sure. After all, they won’t be looking for
us
, will they?’

‘How much of a cold-hearted bastard are you, Professor?’

Professor Halflight sniffed, and took out a large grey handkerchief and blew his nose. ‘More than you think, Noah. More than you think. You see, we have also relocated Ms Silja Fonselius, and if you fail to do what we have asked you to do, she will be suffering the same fate.’

Noah stalked across the room and wrenched Professor Halflight’s cane out of his hand. He lifted it up, but the blond man said, ‘
No
.’

Noah looked across at him. He was pointing a gun directly at Noah’s head, one hand supporting his wrist.

‘You’re going to shoot me?’ said Noah. ‘I thought I was the answer to your prayers.’

‘Let’s put it this way,’ said Professor Halflight, ‘if we have to shoot you, then we won’t have any further use for Adeola Davis or Silja Fonselius, will we? But if you behave yourself, there is at least a chance that all three of you might survive. Where there’s life, Noah, there’s hope.’

Noah dropped Professor Halflight’s cane on the floor. Captain Madoowbe got up from his seat and picked it up, and returned it to its owner. The blond man holstered his gun.

‘So what’s your plan now?’ asked Noah. ‘How can
I
get close enough to the President to shoot him? The Secret Service wouldn’t let me get within two states of him, looking like this.’

‘But you won’t look like that,’ said Captain Madoowbe. ‘You will look like
this
.’

He took a security tag out of his shirt pocket and handed it to Noah. The photograph showed an Ethiopian, about thirty-five years old, with a shaven head. His skin was so black it was almost dark blue. His nose was narrower than many Ethiopians’, more Arabic than African, and his lips were thinner.

‘Kebede Gebeyehu,’ said Captain Madoowbe. ‘One of my security team. Licensed to carry a concealed weapon, and authorized to enter all restricted areas. If your make-up man can make you look like a Palestinian, I’m sure that he can make you look like an Ethiopian.’

‘You can’t be serious!’

‘Never more so,’ said Professor Halflight. ‘The Secret Service may check your security tag, but you’ll be wearing dark glasses, and Captain Madoowbe will be treating you as if you’re the real Kebede Gebeyehu. And, let’s be honest, who can tell one jet-black Ethiopian from another jet-black Ethiopian, except another jet-black Ethiopian?’ He paused, and then he turned to Captain Madoowbe and added, ‘If you’ll forgive me, Captain Madoowbe.’

Captain Madoowbe waved his hand dismissively.

Noah was breathing deeply, as if he had been running. It was partly anger and partly his reaction to the enormity of what Professor Halflight was proposing.

‘So what happens once I’ve shot the President and Alvin Metzler?’

‘Our plan remains the same. You will be whisked away to the Ethiopian Consulate. But of course we won’t have to keep you there, as we would have been obliged to do with the real Kebede Gebeyehu. You will simply remove your black make-up, and we will spirit you out through the service entrance.

‘The real Kebede Gebeyehu will be flying back to Addis Ababa tonight. So when the FBI come calling at the consulate, the Consul General will be only too happy to cooperate with them, and allow them to search the building from top to bottom.’

‘So after I’ve assassinated the President, you’re really going to let me go? Knowing what I know? You couldn’t afford to.’

‘Why not? You came after us, didn’t you, Noah, because you wanted us to leave you alone? That was why you set up that little terrorist video. Well, we
will
leave you alone, provided you have amnesia about this for the rest of your life.’

‘And Silja? And Adeola Davis?’

‘The same applies to them. Trust me.’

Noah steadied his breathing. He believed that Professor Halflight would arrange for him to be smuggled out of the Ethiopian Consulate, but he doubted if he would survive for very much longer after that – just about long enough to be driven out to the desert and shot in the back of the head. And he didn’t believe for a second that Adeola and Silja would be freed – even if they were still alive now.

Professor Halflight said, ‘Why don’t you go back to Scholl Canyon, and call up your friend the make-up artist? Tell him what you need, so that he can get hold of all the necessary skin colorants. Then arrange for him to visit you the day after tomorrow, early, and transform you into Kebede Gebeyehu. Tell Captain Madoowbe what your measurements are, and he’ll fix you up with a suit. And sunglasses, too.’

‘Supposing I go back to Scholl Canyon and you never see me again?’

‘Oh, I don’t think that’s likely to happen, Noah. You wouldn’t want anything unpleasant to happen to Ms Fonselius and Ms Davis. But in case you do think of pulling a disappearing act –’ he turned in his chair and pointed his cane at the blond man in the corner ‘– our friend here is going to accompany you – and stay with you, until the day after tomorrow.’