A CNN woman came on, lots of hair, eyes wide open, and a big cone-shaped mouth. She said:
Pressure on US Defense Secretary Michael Denoon to enter the presidential race intensified today when Newsweek reported that an informal poll showed 155 of 222 Republican members of the House of Representatives would support Denoon’s candidacy.
Republican Senator Robert Gurner is thought to be unelectable since the disclosure three days ago of his two-year homosexual relationship with New York actor Lawrence Wellman.
Denoon again. He put his head to one side, ran a hand across his hair, modest, straightened, looked at the camera.
Of course I’m deeply honoured by this expression of confidence by people who speak for millions of ordinary Americans. I’m humbled too. This nation bears deep wounds from the great sacrifices it has made in faraway places to fight evil and promote freedom and democracy. Now we need calm, peace and prosperity. We need to renew ourselves, to put America first, to see clearly our place in the world. But whether I am fit to take up this great challenge is a matter for long and careful thought.
Anselm went to bed and thought about America. He tried to remember what it had been like to feel wholly American, to look at the world as an American. He knew he had once but he could not recapture it. Over the years, moving from war to war, horror to horror, his nationality had been bled from him. The more he saw of the world’s conflicts, of people dead, wounded, mutilated, raped, dispossessed of what little they had, the more unreal America seemed, the more the cruel naivete of America embarrassed him. That was partly why he was drawn to Kaskis. Kaskis didn’t expect America to behave sensibly and so he wasn’t disappointed when it didn’t. He remembered sitting in a dark bar in San Francisco with Kaskis. It was the mid-1980s. He was about to go to Pakistan and Afghanistan, Kaskis had just come back.
‘The CIA wants to fight this one to the last dead Afghan,’ Kaskis said. ‘More CIA in Islamabad than in fucking Langley. Bill Casey’s got this hick from Texas, he’s the point in Congress. The prick’s been up in the hills hanging out with the mojahedin. He thinks we give them the right stuff we can do a reverse Vietnam. And for nickels and dimes. This time we stay at home and our proxies kill Russians. Lots of Russians. Fifty-eight thousand would be a nice number.’
Kaskis had stubbed out his cigarette, fished for another. ‘I weep for my fucking country,’ he said. ‘Everywhere we go we sow dragon’s teeth.’
On the long slope towards sleep, he saw Kaskis, saw his face as he was taken away, the look back, the lift of his dark-stubbled chin, the wink. Anselm tried to shake the image away, dislodge it, but it clung, tenacious.
The dark eyes of Kaskis, the flash of his teeth. In all of it, Kaskis had never shown a sign of fear.
Before dawn, Anselm woke in a foetal clutch, straightened his body and lay on his back, stretched his arms and legs. I haven’t woken myself by crying out loud for a while, he thought. I haven’t woken wet with sweat to find tears on my face.
15
…LONDON…
The man on the front page of the newspaper was overweight, middle-aged, naked. He was looking at the camera, standing, flabby. Sagging teats, hairy belly out, engaged in a sexual act with someone lying face down. The detail had been obscured. A big headline said:
WELL, I’LL BE
BUGGERED,
MR BRECHAN!
Niemand took the newspaper from the next table when he sat down with his breakfast on a styrofoam tray. The story was about a politician called Brechan, filmed having sex with someone called Gary. Gary was quoted as saying: ‘Look about fifteen, don’t I? That’s why they like me. I’m twenty-two. Believe that? Anyway, Angus passed me on to this other bloke. Not a clue till I saw him on telly. Oh my god, I said to…’ Niemand ate the scrambled eggs, powdered eggs, and the small tasteless meat patty and the piece of extruded bacon. He didn’t mind food like this. It was assembly-line cooking, reasonably clean. They couldn’t risk people getting ill. Counter-productive. Easier to be hygienic. Just like the military.
He turned the page. The story went on. Three politicians were involved but the others weren’t named. The writer said they would be: tomorrow.
The writer’s name was Caroline Wishart. There was a picture of her above her byline. She had long hair and her nostrils were pinched as if she were drawing a big breath, sucking in air. He sat and thought, eyes on the street. London was much dirtier than he remembered, more poor people, more junkies.
A face. Inches away, beyond the glass, bulging hyperthyroid eyes stared at him, a woman in a knitted hat, dirt marks on her face, ash smears, darker marks. She tapped on the glass, a hand in a cotton gardening glove with its fingers cut off at the second joint.
Niemand looked away. The woman tapped again, angrily, then gave up. He watched her go. Her crammed plastic bag was splitting. Soon her possessions would begin to fall out, just more rubbish on the street.
He couldn’t deal with Kennex Imports. They wouldn’t send a fat and a slow the next time. He was well ahead, he had Shawn’s money. He should cut his losses, take a ferry to France, Holland, Belgium, anywhere, post the tape to a newspaper or a television station.
But he didn’t like being thought of as something they could simply squash, a capsule of blood, like a tick. They had tried to get the tape for nothing. Next to nothing. The price of hiring a fat and a slow.
What was the tape worth?
He found the newspaper’s telephone number in the middle of the paper, on the opinion page. They kept him on hold for a long time.
He had to listen to a news radio station. Then she came on.
‘Caroline Wishart,’ she said, a voice like the women on English television, the newsreaders who could talk without moving their lips.
He used his Glasgow accent again. ‘I’ve got something that will interest you,’ he said. ‘A film. Much more important than that article today.’
‘Really,’ she said, dry. ‘I get a lot of calls like this.’
‘A massacre in Africa.’
‘A lot of that goes on.’
‘Soldiers killing civilians.’
‘What, the Congo? Burundi?’
‘No. White soldiers. Americans.’
‘American soldiers killing civilians in Africa? Somalia?’
‘No. This is…it’s like an execution.’
‘You’ve got a film?’
‘Yes.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘Doesn’t matter. Just give me five minutes of your time.’
He heard her sigh. ‘You’ll have to come here. Not today, today’s impossible.’
‘Has to be today.’
‘Are you, ah, offering this film for sale?’
‘Twenty thousand pounds.’
Caroline Harris laughed. ‘I don’t think you’ve come to the right place.’
‘See it and decide,’ said Niemand.
She laughed again. ‘Are you a crank? No, don’t answer that. Let me see, ah…twelve noon.’
She gave him the address. ‘Tell reception you’ve got an appointment. Give me a name.’
‘Mackie,’ he said, seeing in his mind’s eye the little redheaded killer, the empty blue eyes, the big freckles. ‘Bob Mackie.’
16
…HAMBURG…
Anselm sat in the driver’s seat of the Mercedes and watched the ferry heading for the landing. It was a windy day, tiny whitecaps on the water, windsurfers out, three of them, insouciant, skidding over the cold lake on a broad reach.
‘Noisy,’ Tilders said. ‘May not work.’ He had a scope suspended from roof brackets trained on the boat. It was an English instrument made for military use with an image-stabilised lens, 80x magnification. A small LCD colour monitor sat on the console. He fiddled with the plug in his ear. Its cord ran to a black box on his lap.