Diplomatic Immunity (30 page)

“Tomorrow morning at nine,” I say, slicing my hand through the air, bringing the bargaining to a close. “That’s it.”

Lemtov gazes at the stones. His choices are clear: Sit tight or run. If he sits tight, remains in New York, he will be gambling that Russia’s influence in the General Assembly will be enough to protect him from any charges emanating from the Secretariat. And if the Special Committee fraud turns out to be the sum total of his crimes, he might even ride out the storm, his career stymied for a time but not destroyed. But if he has been involved, as I strongly believe now, in something worse—money laundering? Toshio’s murder?—my wager is he will run. Maybe back to Moscow, where his network of high political contacts will shield him, or maybe to some sun-drenched isle where he can play golf with people who will accept him unquestioningly as one of their own, another brilliant guy who proved how smart he was by getting his hands on the loot.

Lifting his head, Lemtov asks me to reconfirm that the report will not go to the SG within forty-eight hours.

“You have my word.”

“But what is the guarantee?” he asks. “If the Headquarters Committee releases the girl at nine tomorrow, what is the guarantee your report will not pass immediately to the Secretary-General?”

“I’ve just given you my word.”

“Your word,” he says, smiling crookedly.

And that does it. That look, the cynicism that defines the whole man, it is finally too much for me to take. Rising, I run the towel over my chest and shoulders, then drop it on the bench. I point at Lemtov over the water barrel, through the steam. And in a voice that is unmistakably threatening, I say, “Don’t wait. Get yourself on a plane. Get yourself out of the country. And before you go, make sure you speak to your friend the Tunku. I want my daughter released. By nine.”

Outside, the September air is cool, the afternoon turning to evening, office workers spilling onto the sidewalk and heading for home. Mike crosses over from the 16th Precinct and falls in beside me. Handing him my jacket, I turn up my collar and start knotting my tie.

“Early bath?” he inquires.

“Lemtov’s in denial.”

“About everything?”

“We didn’t discuss everything.”

“Rachel?”

I finish doing my tie, then turn down my collar. Taking my jacket, I explain that there will be a Headquarters Committee meeting tomorrow at nine
A.M.
to discuss Rachel. I do not say a word, of course, about the deal I have struck, the threat I have made. I know that Mike would not approve. But then, Rachel is not Mike’s daughter.

He stops and turns me around to face the 16th Precinct. “See up there,” he says. “Third-floor window?”

“So?”

“Good view of the Russian mission.”

Nodding, I pull on my jacket. Two cops emerge onto the precinct steps; Mike turns and draws me after him.

“Well, here’s the scoop,” he says. “Last month the Bureau was up there for a week.” The Bureau, the FBI. “Listening gear, cameras, the whole nine yards. Interesting, no?”

I am not hugely surprised, and I say so. Spying always has been, always will be, a permanent if unsavory fixture of the diplomatic game.

“The Bureau,” Mike repeats emphatically. “Not the goddamn CIA. Not the State Department. These guys were investigating a crime. And I’m telling you, NYPD and the Bureau, they don’t get along. Like a Bloods-versus-Crips thing. Territorial. No precinct captain’s gonna let those guys bring a setup like that on his turf just to check out parking infringements. It’d have to be a major crime. Serious shit.”

I turn that over. “You’re thinking money laundering.”

“That’s what I’m thinking.”

“Can we find out?”

“I got some ideas.” As he flags down a cab, he explains that he’s due at some hotel a few blocks downtown, a UN event where he has to straighten out the security. He wants me to go with him and brief him on my talk with Lemtov; he also wants to discuss how we’re going to approach the FBI. As the cab pulls up, a squad car goes racing past, siren blaring. I glance back over my shoulder at the precinct and the Russian mission. Surveillance, I think. People watching people. A thought, some connection, hovers just out of reach. Then Mike bundles me into the cab.

“Frigging cocktails,” he mutters, referring to our destination. “You believe it?”

Up ahead the squad car swings left, downtown, and disappears like a wailing specter into the darkening city.

32

“C
AKE!
”
SOMEONE SHOUTS.
“
TABLE
’
S READY, BRING IT
out!”

The place is hung with flags. The French tricolor in honor of the hosts, a number of UN banners, and a scattering of national pennants that appear to be purely for decorative effect. Silver trays of canapés are ranked on white tablecloths. A small army of cocktail waiters is busy laying magnums of Krug on beds of ice. Abundance; riches abounding, the stunning cornucopia of the Western world. When two waiters hurry over to open the doors for the entrance of the cake, I am suddenly twenty-six years old and driving home with Sarah from the one and only UN cocktail party she ever accompanied me to.

We had a fourteen-year-old girl on the ward today, she told me. A druggie.

At the time, Sarah was an intern in an obstetrics ward up in Washington Heights.

She lost her baby, Sarah said. We did the blood tests. They came back with the lowest iron readings on record.

Anemia? I inquired, the diagnostic reflex of the medical intern’s spouse.

Sam, the girl was malnourished.

Naive, I know, but I was shocked. Malnourished in America, not some famine-blighted basket case in Africa but right here in New York. Ironic, considering the fate of our own daughter. She was barely four years old at the time, a healthy kid. Sarah never mentioned it again, but thereafter I attended all UN gala events alone.

And now when the chef wheels in a cart creaking beneath the weight of an enormous cake crowned with a marzipan model of UNHQ, I decide that it is time to follow Sarah’s example and absent myself from what promises to be a spectacularly extravagant and tasteless affair. Rising, I signal across the room to Mike that I am leaving. He has been darting in and out with the harassed hotel manager for the past half hour, catching a few words with me each time he passes by. Now he waves and calls to me that he will be right on it tomorrow morning. What he’ll be right on is the half-assed plan of action on which we have agreed. Mike will make an unofficial approach to an ex-colleague from City Hall, the liaison officer for the plethora of state and federal law enforcement agencies at work in the city. Mike is confident a meeting can be set up between us and the FBI, maybe as early as next week. Given my recent chat with Lemtov, next week might as well be next year for all the good it is going to do anyone now. But I nod anyway, and Mike dives through a rear door in pursuit of the hotel manager.

I am already halfway across the ballroom, when the Brits, led by Lady Nicola, come rolling in. Lady Nicola peels off from the entourage and comes over. Her cream dress, spangled with white sequins, reaches to the floor. Her hair is piled high, held in place by two bright silver hairpins.

“Unfashionably early,” she remarks, smiling as she casts a glance around the empty space. “My driver’s always hopelessly punctual. What’s your excuse?”

I nod toward the door. I tell her that I am just leaving.

“Not still smarting from Ms. Dale’s comments in the side chamber, are you?”

“No,” I lie.

“I understood you were friends.” She gives me a look. I decide not to rise.

“We’re acquainted.”

“Tempers wear rather thin. Especially on a day like today. I’m sure you can understand that, Samuel.”

Samuel. Not Windrush, just Samuel. As if she hadn’t presided over the verbal mugging inflicted on me by Jennifer. As if Lady Nicola still holds the same personal regard for me that she had before this whole thing started. And it is a bleak testament to the lessons of the past few days that my first thought is, what does she want?

When I move to step by her, she lays a hand on my arm.

“Might I ask why you found it necessary to visit the Kwoks?”

I stop dead. Her face is unreadable. The Kwok brothers. Jade Moon Enterprises. Finally, guardedly, I manage to speak. “It was part of the investigation into Toshio’s death.”

“Oh?”

“Can I ask one?”

“Please do.”

“Who told you I was there?”

“The Kwoks,” she says after a moment’s reflection, and seeing my surprise, she adds, “Not directly. They went through our mission.”

Her look turns cryptic. By now, of course, I begin to get the idea. Wang Po Lin, scourge of the British imperialists, brought low. But God almighty, I am so tired of diplomats’ games. Leaning toward her, I lower my voice.

“The rumor was that your people were responsible for Po Lin’s recall.”

“My people?”

“The Brits. True or false?”

“Po Lin was responsible for his own recall.”

“All those speeches he made about the damn Opium Wars. Hong Kong. Don’t tell me you weren’t glad when he was recalled.”

“That hardly makes us responsible.”

“What do you want, Lady Nicola?”

She drops her gaze and turns aside. I chop my hand sharply in the air.

“I’m very tired. I’m very pissed off. And if one more person misleads me, tells me one more goddamn lie, I might just do something stupid. Now. You wanted to let me know you’ve got a line into the Kwoks. That they’re working for you or something. Maybe helped you entrap Po Lin. Great. So now you’ve told me. So now you can tell me how Po Lin ties in with Hatanaka’s murder. Uncoded. Plain English.”

“Entrapped?”

I make a face.

“The Po Lin incident is closed, Samuel. We don’t wish it reopened. And we’d rather you not bother the Kwoks.”

I cast a glance around the ballroom. A string quartet is tuning up near the open doorway to the balcony. The British contingent, Lady Nicola’s entourage, is watching us curiously, so I take Lady Nicola by the elbow and guide her firmly out onto the balcony. Though surprised, she makes no attempt to pull away. Outside, I turn her, but she steps back against the stone balustrade. She draws her cashmere shawl up around her shoulders.

“You tell me exactly what went on with you, the Kwoks, and Po Lin,” I say. “If you don’t, I’ll have the NYPD go in and turn the Kwoks upside down. And if I do that, how long do you think the Kwoks are going to keep quiet about the assistance they’ve given you?”

“This isn’t a Secretariat affair.”

“It’s my affair. And this is your one chance, I’m not asking again.”

She stares past me, silhouetted against the New York night. Car taillights disappear behind her, then come snaking over her shoulder and move on up the avenue. Just when I think I have lost her, she faces me again.

“The Kwok brothers gave us some useful information on Po Lin. I’m not denying that. But that information had nothing to do with Hatanaka’s death.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Not good enough.”

We study each other.

“Very well,” she concedes. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’ve been investigating Po Lin because he was on the UNDCP Special Committee. The committee Hatanaka was investigating in relation to the fraud.”

I nod.

“Po Lin wasn’t recalled because of any fraud, Samuel. He was recalled by his government for the crime of moral turpitude. And the suspicion that a foreign government had used that to turn him.”

Translation: The rumor is correct. The Brits set Po Lin up for a catastrophic fall.

“His predilection for gay porn?” I venture. “Or something worse?”

She looks at me levelly but says nothing.

“What about all the companies Po Lin bought into? Those investments he made.”

“Investments?”

I have worked with Lady Nicola frequently enough to have seen her full repertoire of misdirection. And this is not part of it. Head half turned, brow creased, she is puzzled, and her puzzlement I know at once is real. I hang my head a moment. Po Lin’s investments still do not fit. Not anywhere. The underhand intrigue sketched by Lady Nicola, the blackening of Po Lin’s name courtesy of the Kwoks that ended in Po Lin’s recall, all that squares with what we know. But Po Lin’s investments? They remain a totally disconnected and unaccountable fact.

Inside, the quartet starts to play, the first champagne cork pops loudly.

“I trust I can rely on you, then,” says Lady Nicola, sliding seamlessly into professional affability. “No more visits to the Kwoks?”

I lift my eyes tiredly. How different is she—are any of them, in the final analysis—from Yuri Lemtov?

“I wouldn’t want to embarrass you.”

Her eyes grow somber. She straightens her shawl. “When I accepted the ambassadorship, an old and very wise head in our Foreign Office gave me two very good pieces of advice. Perhaps you’ve heard them. Nothing’s personal. And always remember that it’s only a game.”

“Po Lin might disagree.”

Lady Nicola smiles at that. And I know then that the British spooks in Beijing have missed the news. So I lay a hand on her shoulder and look hard into her eyes.

“Po Lin’s been executed.”

Her pupils dilate when she sees that I am in earnest. Her wrinkled neck beneath the line of her makeup flushes pink. She is appalled. As someone who has inadvertently taken a human life should be. But she is a professional diplomat; tomorrow morning she will be back in her Security Council chair, debating some weighty resolution, putting the world to rights, shuffling the diplomatic pieces and playing the game. She might even have some harsh words to say about the tawdry Chinese record on human rights. But right now she knows and I know. And to make sure of that, I lift my hand and tap her twice on the shoulder.

“You’re responsible,” I say.

And before she can speak I bow my head politely, turn my back on her, and go inside.

Out in the lobby, the French delegation has just arrived. Ambassador Froissart and the senior French delegates have brought their wives, the women all dressed like models from a Chanel fashion shoot. The talk is loud, coats passing from hand to hand toward the cloakroom as I edge by. Then, over the heads, I notice Marie Lefebre, dressed in jeans and a white shirt and sweater. She is speaking with the concierge. Catching her eye, I direct a glance toward the main door. She takes the hint.

“You have my story?” she asks as she joins me on the sidewalk outside.

“The Japanese went down in a screaming heap. You heard it here first.”

“Huh,” she says.

“I haven’t got anything for you, Marie. I want something from you.”

“Maybe you don’t know what you have.” Her glance wanders inside. Froissart is mustering his forces now, preparing for an advance on the ballroom.

“Do you have anything on Po Lin you’re holding back?” I ask. “The dates on those investments? Anything?”

Pulling at her sweater, she says, “I must change,” and her gaze wanders back to the lobby. I am not blind. I get the idea. Marie does not want to miss her chance by standing here talking to me. She wants to scoot off and change so that she can get back in time to mingle with the big guns like Lady Nicola and Froissart. Maybe the SG might even put in an appearance later. Journalistic nirvana.

“Marie.” I open my hands, a despairing gesture.

She considers me a second, then takes my arm. “Come.” She turns me around and leads me to the curb. She checks both ways down the street, then hauls me out through a break in the traffic. “You can talk and complain,” she says, casting an envious glance at another delegate’s wife stepping from the rear of a limo. “I can look at my wardrobe and cry.”

Marie’s apartment building is by an old Huguenot church, an elegant redbrick building that seems stranded from another time. A strong aroma of coffee seeps out of the apartments into the stairwell as we climb; many of the nameplates on the doors are French. And Marie keeps up the same inconsequential patter she launched into when we left the hotel. I am beginning to wonder if she intends to tell me anything useful at all. Then a guy sticks his head out from the apartment below and calls, “Monsieur!”

A fat guy in a Chicago Bulls sweatshirt. He gives me what can be described only as a leer; then he shouts, a short burst of French.

“Le plus beau moment de l’amour”—
something I don’t catch, then
—“l’escalier!”
Stairs?

He withdraws his head, slamming the door, and I look to Marie for the translation, some explanation. She continues to climb. “The super,” she tells me. “He is a pig.”

Taking out her keys, she leads me to a door just off the next landing. Her apartment is tiny. The front door opens onto two square yards of hall, an open door to the left leads into the bedroom. From the hall I can see the high bed in there and the dark drapes over the window. To the right of me is the living room, shelves piled with books, and a sofa against one wall, and immediately in front of me is the kitchenette. Marie flicks a switch in the kitchenette, then disappears into her bedroom.

“Alors,”
she calls back. “Now, what is my story?”

“Which one do you want?”

“The one that makes me famous.” Her face reappears in the open doorway. She smiles. “The one that gets me the job at
Time.
”

I tell her, only half jokingly, that I have not reached the conclusion to that one just yet. Her face disappears. I hear her opening and closing a closet, a drawer sliding.

Go in, she calls. Sit down.

So I wander into the living room, run my eyes over the framed floral prints on the wall, then slump onto the white sofa. A woman’s room. I put my hands behind my head. If I closed my eyes now, I would sleep.

“Did it help you,” Marie calls, “what you stole from our files?”

My eyebrows rise. I decide after a moment that I have not misheard her. “What I stole?”

Laughter from the bedroom. “I saw when we returned from the vote. The filing system is not so bad like it looks.” She recites the date of the article on Lemtov that I purloined.

I am embarrassed, of course, but I have a feeling that an apology is not expected here. Marie’s somewhat blasé acceptance of my breach of faith seems to signal that we are to handle this after the Gallic fashion, purely pragmatically.

The article was, I admit now, helpful.

Marie makes no response. I give it a moment, then raise my voice. “I said it was helpful.”