“It’s Aud. I need your help.” I could almost see the lightening then sudden stilling of her face as she understood that it was her daughter, not World War III, but that I was in trouble. There was a click on the line.
“A tape,” she said, “so you don’t have to repeat anything.” Norwegian. I couldn’t remember the last time we had spoken our native tongue together.
“I’m at the seter, on a cell phone.” I gave her the number. “I need the phone number of the Federal Police commander in Tijuana. A private number, or home number if possible. And the number of someone else, someone he might know, whom he could call to confirm my identity.”
She must have had a hundred questions but she asked only one. “How urgent?”
“It…Julia, a woman I love, it might mean her life.”
“I’ll call you back within an hour.”
Until she called, there was nothing more I could do. Now was the time for the water, painkillers, heat and food.
I took the old tin box that was the seter’s first-aid kit down from the bathroom shelf and ministered to myself with grim efficiency. Strip off damp pants. One syrette of morphine in the upper quadrant of right thigh. Pull on clean, dry pants. Drink water while that takes hold, fill kettle with water and put on to boil. Lay out compresses, antibiotic cream, peroxide, bandages. Think how I want to appear tomorrow in Oslo. Find clean dry knit silk tunic. Strip off damp, bloody sweater. Pick up peroxide.
It was messy, it hurt, I passed out twice. I ended up having to use a doubled-over pillowcase as well as the compresses: I could not afford to bleed in public tomorrow. I made instant coffee, very strong, and wished I had some soup that was not in cans. I ended up tearing chunks of ham from the bone with my teeth, and pulling the rest of the loaf to pieces. The morphine was laving my torn muscles like warm milk, swaddling my nerve sheaths in cotton wool. I could move my left hand well enough to steady a hot-water bottle, which I filled from the kettle in my right. It took four trips to assemble writing paper, ballpoint pen, coffee, hot water bottle and phone on the table in the living room.
The embassy in London would be a hornet’s nest, my mother rousting everyone out of bed, having them in turn rouse people in other embassies who owed her favours; tracking down the information I needed. I had seen her work before.
The pen was an old one, its clear octagonal plastic barrel chewed at the end, and when I put the tip to paper, it left a blot. I wrote the date, then paused. This must have been how Vortigern the High King felt when the last of the Roman legions withdrew, leaving fourth century Britain open to the prowling Saxon seawolves, and he had gambled, had picked a few from the pack and befriended them, gifted them with land along the south shore in return for a promise to defend the country from their hungry, landless cousins. Classic strategy, divide the enemy and hold the two opposing camps in perfect tension, only Vortigern had not known the sheer weight of numbers pressing up against the Saxon shore; the tension was unequal; his gamble had failed. The might of the Tijuana cartel and of Honeycutt were decidedly not equal, but when the cartel crushed Honeycutt and wanted to turn on me, this letter would be my Roman Legion in the hole.
I wrote steadily.
The phone rang. It was my mother. Fifty minutes. “The Tijuana Federal Police commander’s name is Luis Palma. I have his home number, his private work line, and the general office number. The name of the man in Tijuana who can confirm your identity is Hector Lorca, a television anchor. I have already called him, and he has agreed.” He must owe her a tremendous favour. Well, now so did I.
“Thank you.”
“Bring Julia to London to thank me.”
Four a.m. Still yesterday in Mexico, where Luis Palma would be sitting down to dinner with his family while outside the sky turned red.
I dialed. It didn’t have a chance to ring before it was picked up and a smooth male voice said, “Palma residence.”
“I wish to speak to Señor Palma.” My Spanish had been learned in England and Spain a long time ago. It was slow but, thanks to the few days’ practice with Beatriz, reasonably good. The European accent, too, would stand me in good stead.
“Señor Palma is a busy man and this is his family time. No doubt he would be delighted to speak to you tomorrow, from his office.” Unctuous as guacamole.
“Tonight I do not wish to discuss police business. Tonight I wish to impart some information about the cartel’s money launderer in Atlanta.”
“But that, of course, would be police business. However, as you have been kind enough to call with this information for Señor Palma, I will take a message.”
“No message. I need to talk to Señor Palma. Now. Tell him Michael Honeycutt is deceiving the cartel and stealing money.”
“If you will give me the details—”
“I will speak to Señor Palma only. Tell him my name is Aud Torvingen, that my mother is Else Torvingen, Norwegian ambassador to London. Tell him I am to be trusted, but that if he needs to check that I am to be trusted he may call Señor Hector Lorca at his home. Señor Lorca awaits his call. I will call back in twenty minutes.”
The knuckle bones were cast, the game with the bloody-handed Viking begun.
I wrote faster.
I covered three more pages with terse, blotched writing, then called again. The same smooth voice answered.
“Señor Palma will talk to you, Señorita Torvingen.”
“Thank you.”
“This is Luis Palma.” His voice was smooth, too, but smooth like a Rolls-Royce, secure with power and money and the kind of arrogance that does not even have to display itself. “You have some information for me.”
“Information and a request for your help.”
“I am of course happy to help a young lady if it is in my power, but I am just a humble policeman in a poor country.”
“Of course, señor. You have no doubt heard of the Tijuana business cartel and their business of shipping the produce of certain people in Colombia. No doubt it is already common knowledge to you, as a policeman and well-informed citizen of the region, that a portion of the revenue from this business is administered in Atlanta. Some of the money is put to work immediately, investing in works of art which are bought and sold in this and other countries. The proceeds of these sales should of course find their way into the bank accounts of the Tijuana businessmen who brokered the product, and naturally the banker who oversees these deals should be a very prudent man. He is not. Quite by chance I have discovered that the Atlanta banker, Michael Honeycutt, is”—I didn’t know how to say playing both ends against the middle in my rather formal Spanish—“deceiving these businessmen. He is also drawing attention to himself and therefore the cartel through various illegal activities, including the forging of these works of art, so that he may pocket money for himself.”
“I am sure that these businessmen would like to hear proof of their colleague’s disloyalty.”
“I have proof. I know the names of the people who supplied the forged art to Honeycutt; I know about his accounts in the Seychelles. So does someone else. Señor Palma, I believe someone in Atlanta has discovered Honeycutt’s activities, including his work for the Tijuana businessmen, and is blackmailing him. Honeycutt has made many, many mistakes. Many innocents have become entangled in his web. Many innocents, including myself and a friend whose name is of no importance.”
“And you, of course, have spoken to no one about this.”
“No one. But I have taken the precaution of writing down all that I know and mailing it to my lawyer, to be opened in the case of my death or disappearance.”