‘Well then – I probably ought to go.’
‘Sleep tight,’ he heard himself say.
She got to her feet. Jericho was baffled by his own behaviour, but did nothing to stop her going. She paused for a moment, drifted indecisively over to the computer and then back again.
‘We might hate it now but some day we’ll look back on this time of life and we’ll love it,’ she said, suddenly speaking clearly. ‘Some day we’ll have to make peace, or we’ll go mad.’
‘You’re twenty-five years old,’ Jericho said, tired. ‘You can make peace with whoever you please.’
‘What the hell do you know?’ she muttered and ran from the room.
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
She felt like a Dobermann chained up in front of a butcher’s shop. Loreena Keowa couldn’t think of any other way to describe it; her instinct had taken her straight to Beijing, to the conference which had led to Alejandro Ruiz vanishing so completely. She had caught the scent, she was just about to bite, she could sink her teeth into it, and now Susan wanted to talk. Why? What about? Sina couldn’t give her any more help for now, because Susan Hudsucker had reservations. What a pointless waste of time and of opportunity! Loreena didn’t doubt for a second that the reason for Ruiz’s disappearance would become clear as day if only she knew what the conference had been about, and that the mystery of the attempt on Palstein’s life would be solved at the same time. She was so close!
And now Susan wanted to talk.
Listlessly, she typed a couple of sentences into the Trash of the Titans script on her laptop. Strictly speaking, she didn’t even need Sina’s help. Sitting here in Calgary, she could access the databases at Vancouver headquarters just as easily as she could reach her own computer back home in Juneau. If she wanted, she could be headquarters. She could have searched the network off her own bat. All that was keeping her playing by the rules was respect, and the fact that so far Susan Hudsucker had always covered her back when it came to it. So she was planning to bring the chief a good, well-researched treatment – for Trash of the Titans, part 1: The Beginnings – to sweeten her up before she wooed her over to her cause, setting out the facts that would force her to make Palstein a priority.
Loreena shut her laptop. She caught the eye of the Chinese waiter killing time behind the bar polishing glasses, and held up her empty glass to let him know that she wanted another Labatt Blue. It was oppressively empty here in the Keg Steak-house and Bar at the Calgary Westin hotel. She was looking forward to a grilled salmon and a Caesar salad, and impatient for the intern to arrive. She was more and more cautious about eating with him, mind you, since she was afraid he could well explode, showering her with the vast quantities of sausage, steak and scrambled eggs she had seen him shovel down in the past few days. On the other hand, the kid was good at what he did. He’d certainly have some information for her, when he did turn up.
The waiter brought her beer. Loreena was just about to take a sip when her phone rang.
‘Good evening, Shax’ saani Keek,’ said Gerald Palstein.
‘Oh, Gerald,’ she replied, pleased. ‘How are you? Quite a coincidence you should call, we’re just busy right now with your friend Gudmundsson. Have you slung him out yet?’
‘Loreena—’
‘Maybe we should keep an eye on him for a while first.’
‘Loreena, he’s disappeared.’
It took Loreena a moment to realise what Palstein had just said. She stood up, took her beer, left the bar and found a private spot in the lobby.
‘Gudmundsson has disappeared?’ she asked, keeping her voice down.
‘Him, and all his team,’ said Palstein, looking worried. ‘Since today noon. Nobody knows where. Eagle Eye can’t reach him at any of his numbers, but I learned that one of your people had called them and had been asking about him.’
Loreena hesitated. ‘If I’m going to find out who shot you, there’s no getting past Gudmundsson.’
‘I’m not sure we still have a deal.’
‘One moment!’ she yelped. ‘Just because—’
‘No, you listen to me a moment, will you? You’re not a professional investigator, Loreena. Don’t get me wrong, I’m deeply indebted to you. I’d never have known otherwise that Gudmundsson was working against me! Believe me, I’ll do everything I can to support your ecological reporting, that’s one promise I will keep, but from now on in you should leave all this detective work to the police.’
‘Gerald—’
‘No.’ Palstein shook his head. ‘They’ve got you in their sights. Get out of their cross-hairs, Loreena – these are people who kill to get what they want.’
‘Gerald, have you ever wondered why you’re still alive?’
‘I was stupidly lucky, that’s all.’
‘No, I mean why you’re still alive. Perhaps it was never even about killing you. Perhaps you’d be alive now even if you hadn’t stumbled on the podium like that.’
‘Do you mean—’
‘Or perhaps they couldn’t care either way. Think about it! Gudmundsson could have taken pot-shots at you a thousand times over by now, but instead you’re running around without a care. I’m sure that the attack was simply intended to get you out of the way for a while.’
‘Hmm.’
‘All right, one small correction,’ she added. ‘If you hadn’t stumbled, that bullet would have hit you in the head. But everything else is right, it has to be. Somebody wanted to stop you from doing something. My guess is stop you from flying to the Moon with Orley. And that worked, so why should they kill you now? Could be that Alejandro Ruiz wasn’t so lucky—’
‘Ruiz?’
‘Strategic director at Repsol.’
‘Slow down, my head’s spinning. I really can’t see any connection between myself and Ruiz.’
‘I can though,’ she breathed, looking around to see whether anyone was within earshot. ‘My God, Gerald! You’re the strategic director of a company that has spent pretty nearly its whole existence doing exactly what you didn’t want it to do. It was only when everything was far too late and it was all going downhill that they gave you the power to do anything, and there’s hardly anything you can do. This is exactly how it was with Ruiz! He was a voice of conscience, he fouled their nest and got on their nerves. He kept up the pressure on Repsol to get into solar power, he wanted a partnership with Orley Enterprises just like you did! He was talking to a brick wall there. And all of a sudden, when the ship’s already sinking, they make him strategic director. You and Ruiz both spent years arguing for a stake in alternative energy, you’re ignored and then put on the throne, one of you gets shot, the other one disappears in Lima, and you don’t see a connection?’
Palstein didn’t answer.
‘On 1 September 2022,’ Loreena went on, ‘the day before he flew to Lima, Ruiz took part in a mysterious conference somewhere near Beijing. Something must have happened there. Something that shook him so badly that his own wife barely recognised his voice. Does that ring any bells?’
‘Yes. Warning bells.’
‘And what does that tell you?’
‘That you’re in danger. When you tell me all this, I actually think your suspicions are right. We can’t ignore parallels like this.’
‘There you have it.’