"I recall the matter you mention, and it is resolved," Apostoll said.
"How?" said Flynn.
"The woman concerned conceived a romantic interest in me. I was urging her to join our praying army, and she mistook my purposes. She has apologised, and I have accepted her apology."
But this was already too much for Father Lucan. "Michael, that is not an accurate rendering of the truth," he said severely, removing his long hand from the side of his face in order to speak. "Michael's been two-timing her, Patrick. First he screws Annette, then he screws her roommate. Annette gets suspicious, so she tries to check him out. What's new?"
"Can I take the next question, please?" Apostoll snapped.
Flynn placed two pocket tape recorders on the table and set them going.
"Are the Blackhawks still in, Michael?" Flynn enquired.
"Patrick, I did not hear that question," Apostoll replied.
"Well, I did," Strelski retorted. "Are the cartels still going for fucking combat helicopters? Yes or no. Jesus!"
Burr had seen people play good cop-bad cop before. But Strelski's disgust seemed alarmingly genuine.
"I make it my business not to be in the room when matters of that nature are discussed," Apostoll replied. "To use Mr. Roper's felicitous expression, it is his art to fit the shoe to the foot. If Blackhawks are necessary to Mr. Roper's vision, they will be included."
Strelski scribbled something angry on a pad. "Anybody got a date for finalising this thing?" he demanded roughly. "Or do we tell Washington, wait another fucking year?"
Apostoll gave a contemptuous laugh. "Your friend must contain his patriotic ardour for instant gratification, Patrick," he said. "Mr. Roper is emphatic that he will not be hurried, and my clients are in full agreement with him. 'What grows well grows slowly,' is an old and tested Spanish proverb. As Latin people, my clients have a very mature sense of time." He glanced at Burr. "A Marian is stoical," he explained. "Mary has many detractors. Their scorn sanctifies her humility."
The to-and-fro resumed. Players and places... consignments ordered or delivered... money entering or leaving the Caribbean financial laundromat... the cartels' latest building project for downtown Miami...
Finally Flynn smiled at Burr in invitation: "Well now, Doctor, would there be anything at all by way of an interest of your own that you might be wishing to pursue with Brother Michael here?"
"Well, yes, Patrick, thank you, there is," Burr said courteously. "Being new to Brother Michael ― and of course very greatly impressed by the quality of his assistance in this matter ― I'd like to ask him first a couple of broad, background questions. If I may. More of texture, shall we say, than content."
"Sir, you are most welcome," Apostoll cut in hospitably, before Flynn could answer. "It is always a pleasure to match intellects with an English gentleman."
Start wide and come in slowly, Strelski had advised. Wrap it in your British cotton wool.
"Well, there's a riddle to me in all this, Patrick, speaking as Mr. Roper's fellow countryman," said Burr to Flynn. "What's Roper's secret? What's he got that all the others didn't have? The Israelis, French, Cubans, all of them offered to supply the cartels with more effective weaponry, and all of them except the Israelis came away without a deal. How did Mr. Richard Onslow Roper succeed where everybody else failed in persuading Brother Michael's clients to buy themselves a decent army?"
To Burr's surprise, a glow of unlikely warmth lit Apostoll's scrawny features. His voice acquired a lyrical tremor.
"Doctor, your countryman Mr. Roper is no ordinary salesman. He is an enchanter, sir. A man of vision and daring, a piper of people. Mr. Roper is beautiful because he is beyond the norm."
Strelski muttered an obscenity under his breath, but there was no stopping Apostoll's flow.
"To pass time with Mr. Onslow Roper is a privilege, sir, a carnival. Many men, coming to my clients, despise them. They fawn, they bring gifts, they flatter, but they are not sincere. They are carpetbaggers looking for a quick buck. Mr. Roper addressed my clients as equals. He is a gentleman, but he is not a snob. Mr. Roper congratulated them on their wealth. On exploiting the asset that nature had given them. On their skill, their courage. The world is a jungle, he said. Not all creatures can survive. It is right that the weak should go to the wall. The only question is, who are the strong? Then he treated them to a film show. A very professional, very competently assembled film show. Not too long. Not too technical. Just right."
And you stayed in the room, Burr thought, watching Apostoll inflate with his story. On somebody's ranch or in somebody's apartment, surrounded by the hookers and the peasant boys with jeans and Uzis, lounging among the leopard-skin sofas and the mega-sized television sets and the solid-gold cocktail shakers. With your clients. Captivated by the aristocratic English charmer with his film show.
"He showed us the British special soldiers storming the Iranian Embassy in London. He showed us American special forces on jungle training, the American Delta Force, and promotion film of some of the world's newest and smartest weaponry. Then he asked us again who the strong were, and what would happen if the Americans ever got tired of spraying herbicide on Bolivian crops and seizing fifty kilos in Detroit, and decided instead to come and drag my clients from their beds and fly them to Miami in chains and subject them to the humiliation of a public trial under United States law in the manner of General Noriega. He asked whether it was right or natural that men of such wealth should be unprotected. 'You do not drive old cars. You do not wear old clothes. You do not make love with old women. Then why do you deny yourselves the protection of the newest weapons? You have brave boys here, fine men, loyal; I see it in their faces. But I wouldn't think there's five in a hundred of them would qualify for the fighting unit I'm proposing to put together for you.' After that, Mr. Roper described his fine corporation to them, Ironbrand. He pointed to its respectability and diversity, its tanker fleet and transportation facilities, its noted trading record in minerals, timber and agricultural machinery. Its experience in informal transportation of certain materials. Its relations with compliant officials in the major ports of the world. Its familiarity with the creative use of offshore companies. Such a man could cause Mary's message to shine in the darkest pit."
Apostoll paused, but only to sip some water from the glass that Father Lucan had poured him from a plastic bottle.
"Gone were the days of suitcases packed with hundred-dollar bills, he went on. Of swallowers with olive-oiled condoms in their bellies being hauled off to the X-ray room. Of small planes running the interdiction gauntlet across the Gulf of Mexico. What Mr. Roper and his colleagues were offering them was trouble-free, door-to-door shipment of their product to the emerging markets of Central and Eastern Europe."
"Dope," Strelski exploded, unable to endure any more of Apostoll's circumlocutions. "Your clients' product is dope. Michael Roper is trading guns for refined, processed, nine-nine-nine fucking cocaine, calculated at airstrip fucking prices! Mountains of the shit! He's going to ship it to Europe and dump it there and poison kids and ruin lives and make mega-millions! Right?"
Apostoll remained aloof from this outburst. "Mr. Roper wished for no cash advances from my clients, Doctor. He would finance all of his side of the bargain out of his own resources. He did not hold out his hand. The trust he bestowed on them transcended the normal trust of man. If they cheated on the deal, he assured them, they could ruin his good name, bankrupt his corporation and turn away his investors forever. Yet he had confidence in my clients. He knew them as good men. The greatest blessing, he said ― the greatest guarantee of security from interference ― was to finance the entire enterprise a priori out of his own pocket until the day of reckoning. That was what he proposed to do. He placed his faith in their hands. Mr. Roper went further. He emphasised that he had no intention of competing with my clients' customary European correspondents. He would enter and leave the chain entirely in accordance with my clients' wishes. Once he had delivered the merchandise to whomever my clients chose to nominate as the recipient, he would regard his task as done. If my clients were reluctant to name such persons, Mr. Roper would be happy to arrange a blind hand-over."