So how about the Council for Swedish-American Trade? Was it a nonprofit agency to stimulate business, a government-sponsored agency, or a private concern that put itself in the middle of any potential deal and took its ten points?
Neal found the Washington, D.C., phone book on microfilm, but couldn’t find any listing for the Council. Ditto when he called information. He got the number for the Department of Commerce, and a half-dozen transfers and holds got him to somebody at the International Trade Administration’s Export Counseling Center who at least pretended to be interested in Neal’s brilliant plan to market high-efficiency electric space heaters to the Swedish consumer. This helpful person forwarded Neal’s call to the Administration’s desk officer for Sweden, who politely feigned fascination and advised Neal to contact the Swedish consulate, board of trade, and interior affairs bureau, but who never mentioned the Council for Swedish-American Trade.
“What about the Council for Swedish-American Trade?” Neal asked finally.
He could almost hear the chuckle that preceded the answer, “They’re not really in your field.”
“How come?”
“They tend to handle more high-tech, larger-volume sorts of things.”
“I’m planning real high volume,” Neal said with a trace of belligerence.
“And when you get there, I’m sure they’ll be glad to talk to you. In the meantime, I really recommend you give the consulate a call…”
Okay, okay, Neal thought. What do we have here? A guy on the board of an agrichemical company who has no background or education in agriculture or chemistry. The same guy has worked for a bunch of companies that can’t be traced and for a council on Swedish-American trade that isn’t interested in talking to someone about trade between America and Sweden.
We have a company that should be public that’s private-a company that makes pesticides and is desperate to get back a biochemist whose specialty is fertilizer. We have the Bank writing a big loan to this company to develop not a new pesticide, but a new fertilizer, and then taking a seat on the board of the company. And we have the Man at the Bank sending me to get the scientist back. Then someone tries to shoot me when I do.
We have Levine lying about Pendleton’s return, and AgriTech security backing up the lie. We have Levine telling me to come home and forget about it. Why would they say Pendleton’s back when he isn’t? Why isn’t Levine jumping up and down and screaming at me to do my fucking job and bring him back?
Unless all of a sudden they don’t want him back.
Unless they want to make sure he doesn’t come back.
Ever.
Paranoia is like a seatbelt-it’s when you don’t put it on that you get in an accident.
So thought Neal Carey as professional paranoia gripped him around the middle. Graham would never let anything happen to me while he’s on the job, so they take him off. They make a big show out of sending their golden boy retriever, me, to find the absent professor. Good old dog that I am, I go on point, and someone shoots… not me, but what they think is Pendleton. Dark night, dimly lit deck, the back of my head to the hill, where the shot came from. It’s possible.
So someone goes out and picks up my poor corpse and makes the sad announcement that Robert Pendleton is dead. Murdered. The investigation fizzles and is forgotten.
But who has the swag to carry that kind of load? The same people who have the swag to set up dummy companies, phony histories, and multimillion-dollar insider loans.
He reran his conversation with Pendleton in his head. Meeting in a hot tub to make sure he wasn’t wired. “So did the company send you?” No, idiot, not the company, but the Company. The Company.
Paranoia. Pure fucking paranoia, Neal thought. The CIA? What would a dorky biochemist be doing for the CIA? Get real.
But the bullet was real. Very real, so pay attention here. Suppose they did try to whack Pendleton? That presents some problems for one Neal Carey. If they still think they killed Pendleton, they have to deal with me somehow. And if they know by now that they missed Pendleton, they’ll be looking for both of us. They’ll know where to look for Pendleton. He’s with Li Lan.
And they sure as hell know where to find me, don’t they? I have a return ticket to my isolated cottage in the moors.
Except I’m not going to be there. There’s only one thing to do when paranoia hits this bad-run with it.
First he had to get to Crowe, because Friends and their new CIA buddies could connect Crowe to him with a quick cross-referencing of the files just by pushing a couple of buttons and asking for Neal Carey cases in San Francisco. So he had unwittingly put the artist in some danger.
Crowe answered on the first ring.
“Crowe.”
“It’s Neal.”
“You are taking me to an expensive dinner, aren’t you?”
“Crowe, has anyone been around asking for me?”
“No.”
“Anything unusual? Repairmen you didn’t expect? Pollsters? Jehovah’s Witnesses?”
“No! I’m in the mood for French cuisine, I think.”
“Just shut up and listen. I won’t be back. Thanks for all the help. If anyone comes around asking questions, you haven’t seen me or heard from me in years, okay?”
“Where are you going?”
“It’s too long a story.”
“Where are you now? Neal, are you in trouble?”
Well, sort of, Crowe. I have this creepy feeling that the CIA and my own employers want to kill me, but other than that…
“I just need to disappear for a while, Crowe.”
“Let me help, Neal.”
“You already have. Thanks, Crowe, and ’bye.”
Neal met Graham outside the Chinese Crafts Center on Grant Avenue. Groups of tourists from Grey Line bus tours were prowling Chinatown, gawking in store windows and choosing restaurants as night fell and the neon came up.
“Let’s take a walk,” Neal said. He told Graham about his research and his suspicions about AgriTech.
“And the Man is on their board?” Graham asked when Neal was finished.
“Yeah.”
“So what is AgriTech to the CIA or the CIA to AgriTech?”
“I don’t know. But I’m going to find out.”
Graham grabbed him by the elbow. “Are you crazy? You’re not going to do shit. What you’re going to do is what I’m going to do.”
Neal wrenched his arm away. “Which is what?”
Graham started walking again and gestured for Neal to come with him. As they were walking, Graham started to lecture.
“Neal, listen. I don’t know if you’re right or not about this CIA thing. Sounds crazy to me. But whatever is going on here, it is very serious. With this kind of stuff, we don’t fuck around. So what we’re going to do, we’re going to catch the next plane to Providence, we’re going to walk into the Man’s office and say, ‘Mr. Kitteredge, please tell anyone you may or may not know that Joe Graham and Neal Carey don’t know anything and care less.’ Then we’re going to ask him what he wants us to do. He’s going to tell us in polite terms to keep our fucking mouths shut and forget about Dr. Robert Pendleton, and Neal-that’s what we’re going to do.”
“They’re going to kill her!”
“You mean him.”
“I mean both of them.”
Graham looked at him real funny. “You mean her.”
“All right. Her.”
Graham slammed his rubber hand into a lamppost. “Fuck! What is it with this babe, everyone falls in love with her?”
“I’m not in love with her.”
“Yes, you are.”
Yes, you are, Graham thought. I know you, kid, you’re in love with the heartache.
“Look, Neal… say you find them, say you warn them. What then? Are you going to save them? How? You won’t save them, dickhead, you’ll join them. You’ll be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and this time the bullet won’t miss. Son, you don’t know these people, what Pendleton did, what the China doll did. Maybe they deserve it.”