Dead End (26 page)

Back in the apartment Parnell unpacked and opened one of the bottles of wine, slumping with the glass between his cupped hands, reviewing the day. He hadn't done well – he had, in fact, been stupid, losing his temper. Too late now, for self-recrimination. He'd got it wrong, again, and deserved Jackson's rebuke, and next time he'd try to remember and behave better. He had little doubt there would be a next time: maybe even a time after that. Bethesda had disorientated him, although not in the way Jackson suggested the FBI agents had expected him to be disorientated. He hadn't suddenly collapsed, said anything or done anything, on being somewhere where he'd been with Rebecca, to indicate any guilt or awareness of something he hadn't told the investigators. The disorientation had actually been far deeper than any of them had imagined. On the near-wordless return to Washington, Parnell had confronted a truth he hadn't wanted to admit to himself, let alone to anyone else. He didn't think he'd loved Rebecca. He had feelings, of course – maybe, in time, he would even have come to love her, although that was the most scourging of uncertainties. But not that Sunday when he'd unthinkingly talked of their living together. And not now, not ever. So, he had a lie to live, pitied by the few who knew him here, as someone who'd lost a woman whom he'd planned to marry. How difficult, he wondered, would that be to live with? Something else he didn't know, like so much else.

He jumped, startled, at the telephone, recognizing his mother's voice as soon as he'd answered. ‘What's going on?' she demanded at once.

‘You know. I told you. It's all right.'

‘It's not all right! I've been questioned. So have people at Cambridge.'

‘What!' Some of Parnell's wine spilled, with the urgency with which he came up out of his chair.

‘Two Americans. FBI, from the London embassy. They wanted to know if you were political. If you belonged to any organizations. That's what they asked the people at Cambridge. I've had two calls, one from Alex Bell, your old tutor. Everyone here is worried about you.'

‘There's nothing to worry about. It's an unusual investigation.'

‘I want to come out.'

‘No,' refused Parnell. ‘It's not necessary and I don't want you to.' If he were a target, so would she be, he supposed.

‘Who's looking after you?'

‘I'm looking after myself, very well.'

‘Why not come back? Quit and come back?'

‘That isn't a question I thought I'd hear you ask. At this stage of the enquiry I doubt I'd be allowed to leave the country anyway. And I don't want – or intend – to leave the country.'

‘There was an attempt to frame you once. How do you know it won't happen again? Succeed this time?'

‘Because it won't. I've got a good lawyer and I'm not going to be framed.'

‘I didn't like being questioned as I was, as if you were still a suspect or in some way involved in terrorism.'

‘Is that what they talked about, terrorism?'

‘Of course it was! Asked about foreign countries you'd visited, how long you'd stayed there. That's what they asked everyone else here, the same questions.'

‘I'm sorry. Call me back, with the names of everyone who was bothered. I'll call them and apologize. And I'm sorry to you, too. I didn't imagine it would come to that.'

‘They're hysterical, about terrorism.'

‘Everybody is.'

‘Not everybody,' she contradicted. ‘You want anything? Money?'

‘No, thank you.'

‘You'll tell me if you do.'

‘Yes,' lied Parnell.

‘Call me. I want you to call me every day.'

‘Not every day, Mother. Often.'

‘I want your lawyer's name and contact numbers. Just in case.'

‘Just in case of what?'

‘Just in case.'

Nineteen

I
t was a welcome change for Dwight Newton to enter the Dubette corporate building on Wall Street at the same time as everyone else and take a public elevator to the executive floor. He'd been able to catch a later shuttle, too, but he'd still allowed himself time for waffles and maple syrup, unsure if the emergency meeting of the parent board and its subsidiaries would run over lunch time. He entered Edward C. Grant's office through the secretarial cordon, to smiles and insistences it was good to see him again. The moment Newton was inside, without any greeting from behind his enormous desk, Grant demanded: ‘Bring me up to date. I need to know everything!'

The other man was frightened, Newton guessed, enjoying the thought. Prepared, having even made himself prompt notes to read on the plane from Washington, the research vice president recounted his encounter with the FBI agents, for once without any interruption from Grant.

‘The lawyers have to intervene to prevent any awkward questions?'

‘No,' said Newton. He'd have to disclose the problem, but not this early.

‘That's good. Right they should have been there but we don't want to give the impression of having anything to hide.'

‘I thought we'd decided, you and I, that we didn't have anything
to
hide?' Newton actually felt superior to Grant and he enjoyed that, too.

‘What about that godamned flight number?' Grant ignored him.

‘They didn't ask.'

‘That's good, as well,' nodded Grant. ‘How did it go with the others?'

The upset wasn't far away, accepted Newton. ‘We got a bit out of synch there.'

‘What do you mean, out of synch?' The concern was immediate.

‘The way they set out their interview request was to see me first, then Russell Benn and after him Harry Johnson. That's how I arranged it, to have the lawyers with me, waiting, before going on to Russell's interview and after that to Harry's. But they saw Harry first.'

‘Alone!'

‘Yes.'

‘Shit!'

‘I think it's all right.'

‘It'd sure as hell better be! I want it – all of it – in every little detail!'

‘Harry's a former Metro DC officer.'

‘I know that. Do they?'

‘They didn't ask. He didn't tell them.'

‘What did they ask?'

‘If AF209 ever carried anything
addressed
to Dubette. Which it didn't, did it?'

Grant stared across his desk, momentarily unspeaking. Then: ‘Baldwin think that's OK?'

‘I haven't talked it through with him.' Because I don't want to be complicit, Newton thought.

‘No, perhaps not. What do you think?'

‘I'm a scientist, not a lawyer,' refused Newton.

Grant stirred, irritably. ‘What's Johnson say, from his police experience?'

‘That he answered all their questions completely honestly – that that's how it could be argued in court, if it ever got to a court – that he was asked a specific question to which he provided a specific answer,' said Newton.

Grant remained unmoving, his face fixed. With witch-doctor clairvoyance, he said: ‘What else?'

‘He didn't tell them anything about the phone-tapping.'

‘Why not?'

‘They didn't ask, so he didn't offer. His interpretation of the law, you answer the questions you're asked, not those that you're not asked.'

‘He shouldn't have been left by himself.'

‘It wasn't intended he should be left by himself! I told you how it happened!'

‘He's not to be alone if the FBI come back to him.'

‘I know that! He won't be. If there's another approach, he's to tell me before it happens and we'll get the attorneys back, with Baldwin.'

‘Did Johnson set the tap up by himself?'

‘He says so – says he learned to do it when he was with the police, and that he didn't need help, from any electronics guys.'

‘The switchboard must have known something!'

‘It's automated. Just a few supervisory staff and Johnson says it was easy to use his security authority to get by them and work unobserved.'

‘It still in place?'

‘I wanted your views, today.'

‘Take it off. Get rid of it. Today, as soon as you get back.'

‘I will.'

‘We got some frayed edges,' decided the president. ‘Too
many
frayed edges. You seen the
Journal
?'

He should have bought the
Wall Street Journal
at the airport, Newton immediately realized. A bad mistake. ‘I didn't have time.'

‘They've picked up on today's meeting. We've dropped three points already.'

Your problem, not mine, thought Newton. ‘We had to be affected, in the circumstances.'

‘We've got to lose this terrorism tag. I don't want this to become a mess.'

‘I don't see why it should. Dubette hasn't done anything wrong – doesn't have any skeletons in any closets, does it?'

‘You know what I mean,' said Grant, carelessly.

‘No, I'm not sure that I do.' Newton thought he'd made that refusal before. He wondered how many more times he was going to have to say it again. He became aware how creased, unkempt, Grant's suit appeared to be. Newton was glad he'd had his pressed.

The boardroom, normally over-large, was today inadequate for its intended function of reassuring unsettled boards. The cause was the electronic paraphernalia needed to link every other subsidiary board by satellite on to a wall-dominating screen, in many cases in what was the middle of their nights or early mornings. Each location was served by three cameras, the primary to provide a single, encompassing view of each and every board composition, the others to enable split-screen close-ups, against that general view, of individual speakers. To make that visually possible, none was able to sit, in the normal way, around a complete table, but had to be in a horseshoe, each chief executive at its middle, Edwin C. Grant heading the assembly – and the global gathering – from New York. Irrationally – but even more unfittingly – Dwight Newton had a mental image of the Last Supper, even before noticing that, including himself in New York, there were a total of thirteen men. He refused to extend the Judas reflection.

The worldwide gathering began, oddly, with the unnecessary introductions of individual boards and each member from each country. That done, the master camera came back upon Grant. They were, said the president, caught up in a situation beyond their control. The tragic death of a valued member of their headquarters staff was upsetting enough – the repercussions of her having in her possession the number of an Air France flight which had been the subject of a terrorist alert was severely affecting the company. Already, that morning, the stock was down three points on the Dow Jones after this conference had been publicized, which brought to a twelve-point drop the total loss since Rebecca Lang's killing and the discovery of the flight details. Certain people at McLean were co-operating fully with the FBI investigation. The parent board hoped for an early and successful conclusion of that investigation, until which time they had reluctantly to expect Dubette to be the subject of unsubstantiated speculation. To restrict that as much as possible – and by so doing limit any further stock-market uncertainty – the parent board's lawyers were retaining additional attorneys to initiate immediate action against publication of any material judged malicious or likely adversely to affect the reputation of the company. There was going to be a full media release at the end of today's meeting, in which this precaution was going to feature prominently, as a warning to the media. The parent board wanted that release simultaneously issued by each subsidiary. Additionally, legal teams were to be established by each overseas board he was addressing, to take similar action against any confidence-damaging publication in their respective countries.

One by one the chief executives of the subsidiaries recounted the individual effects upon them of what publicity there had already been. There had been stock-slippage in England, Germany, France and Japan. There had been no drop so far in Italy, Spain or Australia. Anti-terrorist police or agencies had examined company laboratories in England, Germany and France. It was chief executive Henri Saby who spoke from Paris. Newton only just stopped himself physically coming forward, and thought he detected a similar held-back shift from Grant. The thinning-haired, urbane Saby appeared quite relaxed on the satellite link, the superbly cut grey suit a sharp contrast to that of the president. In addition to scientifically examining everything in their laboratory, French anti-terrorism officers had personally questioned him about the AF209 flight listing being in Rebecca Lang's possession. Like everyone at Dubette headquarters, he had been unable to explain it but had assured the investigators of his full co-operation on any future developments.

Edward C. Grant picked up on that, insisting that all subsidiaries offer every assistance to official enquiries and investigators. The promised media release had been prepared well in advance by Dubette's public affairs division and faxed to every overseas branch. The president invited improvements, additions or corrections from every link-up. There was no challenge from any foreign division.

‘This has the utmost priority,' concluded Grant. ‘I want daily input from all of you. We must know, here in New York, of everything that happens in your countries. Nothing – nothing whatsoever – is too small or inconsequential …' He hesitated and then, as if they'd had a choice, said: ‘Thank you for participating, particularly those of you for whom your local timing is inconvenient.'

The parent board remained in session after the closedown of the satellite connection, but the discussion was a pointless repetition of what had been debated before and after the global conference. They adjourned both for the electronic equipment to be removed and to watch the midday television news in an outer office. All three major networks carried the press release threatening legal action against malicious publication, tacked at the end of stories about the global conference. To groans from almost everyone – and the outburst of ‘shit' from Grant – all three described it as an emergency session and listed the current stock-market loss.