The days that followed the accident, the memorial services, the funeral, the interment, the wake, and everything else became a mind-numbing series of rituals, through which Richard had stumbled like a zombie.
It was at the wake that he met Zak Goldberg again. Zak, who was his age, had left the Islamabad station two years earlier when his parents were transferred stateside. Before that, Zak and Richard had been close friends, growing up together in a foreign country. They’d been close enough that Richard had treated Zak as a brother, and vice versa. When Zak left, Richard felt as though he’d lost his best friend and idol, and had been incredibly unhappy. They’d remained in close contact by telephone and letter, and Zak and his parents had returned to Islamabad as soon as they heard news of the crash.
“Come back with us to California,” Zak had said after the funeral. “You can move in with us. Mom and Dad said it would be fine.”
Richard had checked with Zak’s parents directly.
“Yes, of course you can move in with us. Your parents were our closest friends. We were shocked when we heard what happened. We’d love to have you,” they had responded.
It hadn’t taken Richard very long to weigh the pros and cons of the Goldberg’s offer. With his parents gone he was absolutely alone in the world. The prospect of having a family again, of being surrounded by people who cared for him, had seemed like a dream come true for the young man.
That was how Richard and Zak had moved from being good friends to actually being brothers. As he sat in the central ballroom of the American Embassy, those memories played painfully in Richard’s head. He was sitting on the edge of a couch, his hands covering his face, rocking slowly back and forth. Most people didn’t notice, given the impact of the statement the President was reading. Michael Buckingham did.
Marak’s private line rang. He looked up and frowned. Almost no one had this number — not even his closest subordinates. It was a line that rang only in moments of great urgency. He cautiously picked it up. “Yes?”
“Marak, you fool, you crazy dumb camel-shit-for-brains fool! What in God’s name were you thinking?”
Marak recognized Yousseff’s voice. He couldn’t recall the last time that he’d heard his friend so upset.
“Yousseff, what is it?”
“You goddamn moron! Do you have any idea what you did with that body-in-front-of-the-Embassy stunt?” The anger was definitely there, and it was riding the edge of a knife.
Marak thought fast. “It was Ghullam who put it there, actually. But I thought it was a poetic touch, Yousseff. A nice way to let those Yankee bastards know not to mess around in our territory.”
“Nice way my ass,” retorted Yousseff. “I told you to extract whatever information you could, and dump the body in some canyon. Instead you drop it in front of the American Embassy?”
“Yeah. What’s the big concern? The Pashtun will love it.”
“She is a sleeping tiger, America is!” snapped Yousseff. “And you have just awakened her. Do not ever underestimate the power of the enemy, you dumb ox. And do not ever disobey an order from me again. Not ever! I am repeating what I said 35 years ago. Do not forget that day, Marak.”
“I am sorry, Yousseff. I over reached.”
“Yes you did, Marak. Yes you did. And in doing so, you may have jeopardized the whole mission.”
“Yes, Yousseff. I am sorry. But in my defense, I did direct the attention of the Americans away from Karachi Star Line.”
“Just for awhile, Marak. Just for awhile. They’ll be back.”
Yousseff hung up the phone and gazed long and hard at the blue of the Arabian Sea, thinking furiously.
22
Indy had cheated death, yet again. Leon had let him live. He had biked furiously back to the gates of the park and climbed back into the bus, with a stoned Dennis Lestage none the wiser about his tourist’s extracurricular activities. On the way back to the bus, Indy had phoned Catherine and arranged to meet with her before making the long trip back to Vancouver. Now he was relating his experiences to her over yet another cup of coffee.
“It was his eyes, Cath. Utterly cold. Deadly eyes. Lizard eyes. I’ve seen that before. He’d have pulled the trigger if I hadn’t done the moron-tourist thing,” he told her.
“What are you going to do with this?” asked Catherine, nudging the camera. “How far ahead are you, anyway?”
“In my mind, he’s clearly within the reasonable doubt test,” responded Indy, referring to the Canadian standard required for proving a criminal charge before a jury. “In fact, I am absolutely, drop-dead sure about this,” he continued. “Before I came here I had our commercial crime people attempt to trace the ownership of a number of these smurfing accounts. While it wasn’t easy to do, because they were owned by other numbered companies, Leon’s name did appear here and there. I think that there’s a strong possibility that these boys are running drugs across the border into Montana in a big way. There’s just too much money in that account. Especially for losers like these. I’ve now had the opportunity to meet three members of the Lestage/Hallett gang. Two are dumb as a bag full of hammers. The third, Leon, is a cold-blooded killer, who I’ll wager has murdered more than a couple of people over the years.”
“Fine, Indy. You’ve shown that they’re not Boy Scouts. We kind of knew that already. But how does it play out in court? You’re sure. But now you need to prove it. You need to establish the method. You need to show the mechanism of the crime. So far, we’ve got a lot of petty crimes, and maybe even money laundering. But you need to show that a massive drug importing/exporting operation is actually taking place. How do you do that?” Catherine asked.
“Look,” he said, watching the sun slip behind the mountains. “Leon is sitting right on the border of Montana. He’s found a way to get large quantities of drugs over it, somehow. I know it. He’s found a way past the satellites and the video cameras and the sensors and whatever else the Americans have on the border.” He was shoving his coffee mug back and forth, sloshing coffee over the rim in his excitement.
Catherine watched him with a smile on her face. She could practically see the wheels turning. “So what’s the next move, Indy?”
“I’m not sure. I’m going to think about it. I’m going to talk to Hagen. I’m also going to analyze the photographs I took, pixel by pixel. There may be something there that I’m missing. We’ve got a pretty decent digital lab back at headquarters. I’m sure we’ll be able to get something. Anything.”
Eventually, Indy bade Catherine goodbye, and headed west on the long trip back to Vancouver. En route, with more than eight hours to do nothing but think and drive, he worked himself into a fine lather. He began to ruminate about the idiocy of it all. He was fed up. Fed up with Ottawa bureaucrats. Fed up with cabinet subcommittees. Fed up with dopers pointing guns in his face. Fed up with judges releasing hardened criminals back onto the streets, instead of putting them in prison where they belonged. “It’s only marijuana, my boy. What’s the big deal? This is British Columbia in the Twenty-First Century. Wake up. Get a life.” That’s what they told him. And he should have done just that, he thought sometimes. With his knowledge, built up over decades of police work, decades of breaking rings of smugglers, cultivators, importers, exporters, retailers, and manufacturers, he’d be able to make a fortune overnight. And instead here he was, with a cramped little bullshit office on Heather Street in Vancouver, driving an aging Chevy pickup truck, with most of his meager salary going to his living expenses. What the hell was the point, anyway? One awesome play, and he would have it all. He had the means and the knowledge. It wouldn’t even have to be a Hail Mary.