Sixty percent of the city's population is black, the highest ratio of any city in North America. With strong religious roots dating back to the discovery of Louisiana in 1699 on Mardi Gras Day by a group of French Canadians, this mixture of Roman Catholicism, Bible Belt Protestantism and mass slavery resulted in a voodoo culture that still grips the dark side of the city.
New Orleans. Where everything is easy, where nothing is impossible.
Adam sat quietly in the back of the white Cadillac. In the front Billie listened to Frankie giving a guided tour of their route into the centre, his wheelchair now sharing the back seat with Adam.
'French Quarter's okay,' he heard Frankie expound, 'but you gotta remember it's for the tourists. Easy money country. A jerk on every street corner, ready to be taken. If you get up there, just watch out for the hustlers. And don't go up Basin Street alone, not north of the Quarter. Even the two's of you. That's bad terrain. Bad people. Cut you for a dime. Hell, cut you for nothing, just for the fun of it.'
They came in on 61, the Airline Highway. It was a flat land, the city having been built on the wetlands and bayou next to the Mississippi river. They turned off the 61 at the Charity Hospital and continued down Common Street to the Trade Centre where the Hilton Hotel was located.. Ahead, as they drove down Common, he glimpsed the mighty Mississippi, 'ole man river', as it wended its way through the southern half of the city. He saw the busy river traffic, barges and tugs and steamers and pleasure craft, working the water as they had done since man first stumbled on the Mississippi; the main artery and heartbeat that was the south.
The Hilton, twenty-five storeys of twin towers, sits on River Walk, on the banks of the Mississippi.
The two cars pulled up at the entrance, Trimmler, in his usual hurry, being the first to exit the lead cab, his wife scurrying behind him. By the time Adam had climbed out of the Cadillac and collected his small case, Tucker was organising the bellboy to deal with the luggage. Adam followed Trimmler into the building and took the moving staircase to the third floor where reception was. He kept his distance as he took in the lobby and its occupants. There was nothing to alarm him, all things seemed fairly quiet at this time. He watched Trimmler book in, then turn and go to the lifts.
'I'll get your key,' said Tucker from behind him. 'We're all on the eighteenth floor. You stay with Trimmler.'
Adam crossed the lobby area and joined the small group waiting to take the lifts. When the doors finally slid open, he followed the Trimmlers in. It was a viewing lift, glass sided and fixed to the outside of the building so that hotel guests could look out on the city as the lift climbed up to the twenty fifth floor.
Trudi smiled at Adam, but Trimmler ignored him. He had made a point of pointedly ignoring the Englishman ever since the wedding incident. That didn't worry Adam, in fact it made life easier as he could concentrate on keeping a watchful eye on the situation rather than get involved in idle small talk.
He returned Trudi's smile, then turned and watched the city fall away below him as the lift shot up, stopping twice before it reached the eighteenth floor.
He waited for the Trimmlers to exit before he followed them, skipping through the lift doors as they started to close. When the couple reached Suite 1844, Trimmler inserted his pass key and entered the room with Trudi behind him.
The loud slam was for Adam's benefit.
He walked back along the corridor and waited by the lift for the others.
'Everything okay?' asked Tucker when he emerged with Billie five minutes later, a bell boy with a loaded luggage trolley following them.
'Fine.'
'Good. You're in 1842. Billie's in 1840 and I'm the other side of the Trimmlers. We'll work out a schedule when we're unpacked.' Tucker turned to the bell boy and pointed at the luggage. 'That's for 1844, so's that. The blue valise…'
Adam took his luggage and Billie's from the trolley and turned back down the corridor. She followed him, leaving Tucker to sort out the remainder.
'Welcome to New Orleans,' she said.
'Is there something I don't know?' he asked suddenly.
'Like what?'
'Like why're we guarding someone who doesn't seem in any real danger.'
'We don't know that. Why?'
'Because if he's a prime target, then we need more cover. Unless one of us is going to live in that room with him, we can't guarantee anything.'
'It's how they want it.'
'They?'
'Top brass.'
'I know I'm not being told everything, Billie. I just hope, if anything does happen, that I'm ready for the unexpected.'
Ch. 30
A blistery morning. A cold morning. The sort of morning when the air stays chilled in your lungs and your cheeks burn with the cold of it.
It was also a sunny morning and the two diplomats had decided to meet in the open and enjoy the brief sunshine before the bad weather moved in again. Both men carried briefcases, two office workers on their way to a meeting.
A group of tourists stared up at the vast statue of a brooding Abraham Lincoln and the two men decided to walk in the open where they could enjoy their conversation in privacy.
'Moscow is worried that you might hold something back,' said Sorge, his feet crunching in the ice hard snow.
'Just what my people said,' replied Nowak.
'Old habits die hard.'
'They said that, too.'
'How honest are your people with you?' asked Sorge, sharply.
'Well, they haven't seen me eat pussy, like some have,' Nowak laughed. 'Sort of gives you a common bond. Hell, Dimi, I don't know. I mean, we all know that we get set up at times. But they're really nervous. They genuinely seem to want to know what's going on. I think they're being pretty straight.'
'I feel this also.'
'Have you been told everything by Moscow?'
'Yes. But they told me to let you speak first. To see how much you knew before I committed myself.'
'My lot read me the same scenario.'
'So who starts?'
'Okay. As long as I have your word…'
'I will tell you everything. At least we're honest between ourselves.'
Nowak walked over to a wooden park bench beside the path. He wrapped his coat round himself and sat, Sorge joining him immediately.
'One thing I didn't tell you last time was that our agents, the ones who had been killed, were also in their sixties,' Nowak started off.
'So you also employ pensioners.'
'In our case, they're all pretty ancient.'
'Why?'
'Because of President Carter. Once the National Security Agency went for satellite surveillance, the whole administration pulled back on agents in the field. But we kept a lot of the ones we had in place out there. It was easier than trying to get them back. Just low grade, maybe-we’ll-need-them-one-day sleepers. Growing older by the minute.'
'For both of us it is impossible to bring them back. How would we do it? Have an amnesty day. Hundreds of people all heading for borders. With wives, children, belongings. We don't even have borders to cross any longer. Not like the old days. All we can do is leave them to fade away.'
'So why's everyone going out with a bang instead of a whimper?'
'That, my literary friend, is what this is all about.'
'We lost another one. Just before Christmas. In Portugal.'