Goucher sniffed. “Where do you want me to start?”
“When you left the States.”
“That was seven years ago.”
“Is that all? I thought it was longer. Where did you go after you left the States — Beirut?”
Goucher stared at Dunjee suspiciously. “I know you from somewhere. From somewhere way back.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Yeah, I know you. I’ll get it in a minute. How’d you know about Beirut?”
“I’m just guessing.”
“Sure, I went to Beirut. I was there awhile.”
“How long?”
“Maybe a year. Maybe longer. Then Damascus for a while. Then Baghdad. I was on the circuit.”
“What circuit?”
“The PLO circuit. I gave talks, you know, about how we did things in the States.”
“How long’ve you been in Rome, Giles?” Dunjee said.
“A couple of years.”
“No more talks?”
“I got sick.”
“Did they come to you — or did you go to them?”
“Who?”
“You want the money?”
“Yeah, I want it. I went to them.”
“Three of them, weren’t there?”
“I just saw the German. Frank.”
“Is that what they call him — Frank?”
“Yeah. Frank.”
“What’s his real name?”
“I don’t know. Something German.”
“Try.”
“Diringshoffen. Bernt Diringshoffen.”
“How’d you know they were in Rome?”
Goucher shrugged. “I heard. I heard they were looking for—” He didn’t finish the sentence.
“Recruits?”
“They don’t call ‘em that.”
“But you volunteered.”
“We just talked. It was all exploratory.”
“But they turned you down.”
Goucher looked around the room again. He shook his head sadly at what he saw, sighed, and said, “Well, what the fuck. Can you blame them?”
“What’d they say about Felix?”
“I only talked to Frank.”
“What’d Frank say about Felix?”
“He just hinted.”
“Hinted at what?”
“Well, he hinted that Felix was having a rough time. That’s why they were looking for — for new people.”
“But not you?”
“No, I guess not.”
“They still in Rome?” Dunjee made the question as casual as he could.
“No. I don’t think so anyway.”
“Where’d they go?”
“How should I know?”
“For four hundred dollars, Giles — where’d they go?”
“Who the fuck are you guys?”
“I’m with the CIA. Mr. Ralph’s with MI 6.”
“Like hell.”
“You asked,” Dunjee said, and then put a hard cutting edge on his voice. “For four hundred bucks, Giles — where’d they go?”
“I met Frank in a hotel, a cheap one down near the Piazza del Popolo. That’s where we talked. Somebody came up to the room. A woman. They talked in German — except she had a French accent. They only said a few words, but they were talking about what time a plane left. I had four years of German at Oberlin. I don’t guess Frank knew that. So they talked about the plane and when it left.”
“A plane to where?”
“Malta.”
Dunjee sighed. “Pay him, Mr. Ralph.”
Hopkins again rose and went over to the mattress, where he slowly counted out four hundred-dollar bills into Goucher’s palm. “Makes you feel just a bit like Judas, don’t it, lad?” Hopkins said.
“Fuck off.”
Dunjee took out a cigarette and lit it. “Miss the Weathermen, Giles?”
Goucher looked up at Dunjee, then down at the money in his hand, then up at Dunjee again. There was recognition in his eyes. “Yeah,” he said, “I know you. You’re Dunjee. I remember you now. You were a fucking Congressman.”
Dunjee rose. “Let’s go, Mr. Ralph.”
“Suits me,” Hopkins said.
They started for the door, but stopped when Goucher called after them, “Hey, Dunjee.”
Dunjee turned.
“I fucked your wife, man!” Goucher yelled. He looked at the money in his hand. “Did you know that, man? I fucked your wife!” He threw the four hundred-dollar bills at Dunjee. They didn’t go far. They fluttered down, one of them settling slowly on the mother cat.
“You want me to go pop him one?” Hopkins said.
Dunjee shook his head and opened the door. “For what?” he said. “Telling the truth?”
22
The Polaroid snapshot showed Bingo McKay, left ear neatly bandaged, sitting in a chair, actually smiling as he held the front page of the International Herald Tribune up under his chin. There was nothing in the photograph’s background — nothing useful anyway — only a white blur, and the Ambassador decided that they probably had used a bedsheet to block out anything that might have hinted at the location.
“He looks... fit enough, don’t you think?” Faraj Abedsaid remarked as the big man with the round chocolate-colored face and the scarred cheeks produced a small magnifying glass. The big man was His Excellency Olufemi Dokubo, Nigeria’s Ambassador to the United States. Dokubo used the magnifying glass to examine the headlines on the Herald Tribune’s front page.
Dokubo had flown into Rome that morning from Washington and waited at the Nigerian Embassy for the Libyans to call. He had waited all morning. When the call finally came, just after noon, there had been fifteen minutes of silly palaver over where the meeting should take place. The Libyans had insisted on a neutral site. Ambassador Dokubo had suggested several, including the Swiss Embassy, pointing out that nothing could be more neutral than that. But the Libyans — on one pretext or another — had turned down each of his suggestions until Dokubo finally had suggested the place where they were now meeting.
It was an immense conference room — more hall than room — in the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization complex. Dokubo and Abedsaid sat at the head of a sixty-two-foot-long conference table around which selected food and agricultural experts sometimes gathered to muse about the three billion or so persons in the world who went to bed hungry every night.
The room was high-ceilinged and chandeliered and draped and carpeted. It had a hushed air, as if something monumental was about to be said. Alone in the room, Abedsaid and Dokubo found themselves whispering to each other.
The night before, just prior to catching his flight to Rome, Ambassador Dokubo had had his second meeting with President Jerome McKay. They again had met in the Oval Office. The President looked tired. He had put one foot up on his desk, locked his hands behind his head, and stared at Dokubo.
“We haven’t got him,” the President said.
Because of his quick mind, it had taken Dokubo only a second to realize what McKay was talking about. “Felix, you mean,” Dokubo said, trying to disguise his shock.
“That’s right. We haven’t got him. We never did. We don’t know who has.”
“But they still think you do. The Libyans.”
“Yes.”
“I see.” Dokubo paused as he decided on the phrasing of his question. “Is there any possibility that he may have been — uh — mislaid?”
The President grinned. It was a sour, even bitter grin. “You mean am I sure the CIA hasn’t got him locked up out in a toolshed somewhere? I thought of that myself. They haven’t got him. I made sure. Damn sure.” He looked at Dokubo sympathetically. “Puts you in a hell of a bind, doesn’t it?”
“It reduces my effectiveness as a negotiator.”
“There won’t be any negotiations.”
“You wish me to withdraw?” Dokubo said, not quite sure whether he wanted the answer to be yes or no.