Black smoke billowed out of the building. Glass lay strewn in the street. A car alarm shrieked like a startled bird warning other members of the animal kingdom of danger.
This TV is crap,
Peter thought to himself as he ate a bowl of corn flakes and watched his team, FC Groningen, beat up Utrecht on the screen.
Sirens blared outside his window in a Doppler effect. His Blackberry danced on the glass surface of the coffee table.
“Ah, hell,” he said, looking at the number. It was Timmermans.
Peter ignored it and went back to watching the game. The Blackberry went off a second time.
Timmermans, again.
This time, Peter replied.
“What do you need?”
“Turn on the news, Peter.”
“I’m watching the game.”
“Just turn it on, Peter.”
Peter flicked channels. He watched as images of twisted metal and rubble flashed before him. An excited reporter explained what had happened. People were dead. One of them was Minister Menno Kuipers. The police were at a loss as to who would want to blow up the building.
“Jesus,” Peter said. “What the hell is going on?”
“I’m not sure.”
“This just happen?”
“About 40 minutes ago.”
“Cannondale …” Peter said softly.
“What’s that, Peter?”
“Ah, nothing. I was just saying, ah … does Cannondale …”
“Does Cannondale what?”
“Does he know about this?”
“He’ll know soon enough. I don’t know where he is. He’s not answering his cell phone.”
“This is bizarre,” Peter said.
“Apparently Pettigrew was there.”
“In the building? What was he doing there?”
“I don’t know.”
* * *
Several hours away by car, in Brussels, Graham Eatwell had opened the window in his den. It was an unusually warm night in Brussels for early March. He was reading Thomas More’s
Utopia
when he heard a car pull up on the street in front of his apartment. The engine went silent. Eatwell was having a hard time concentrating on the book and increasingly became fixated on the presence of the car.
He hadn’t heard the doors open or close. Funny, he thought to himself, how we are conditioned to expect a certain course of action a car parks on a street, engine goes off, doors are supposed to open, then close, maybe there’s some laughter, maybe a conversation. When the course of action doesn’t happen the way that we expect, we become curious.
Eatwell waited to hear the car doors. Nothing. He tried hard to focus on the page he was reading, but he couldn’t. He had to take a look outside. He rose from his chair and moved to the window where he gently peered from behind the curtain. It was a black car, or maybe dark blue. The lights were off. He couldn’t see anybody, but certainly there had to be someone. As his eyes adjusted he could make out one head in the car, then two. He couldn’t see any facial features, but he had the feeling that the two orbs were looking in his direction. He backed away from the curtain.
He’d never seen the car before. Probably just a couple having a conversation or a fight before they got out and walked along the sidewalk. But they weren’t leaving. They just hung around – looking in the direction of his townhouse.
Eatwell laid the book down on a side table. It was deadly quiet; it had been that way for the past several hours. He wanted some background noise. He picked up the remote and turned on the TV news. What he saw and heard next took the wind out of him.
* * *
Hayden was in his apartment in New York. He had just made himself a bourbon & ginger, and turned on a jazz CD by a new kid named Jacky Terrasson. As he began to take off his shirt for a shower, he looked out of the window onto the Park Slope section of Brooklyn, his home for the past four years. The sun was dropping. A group of girls played hopscotch on a homemade sidewalk outline. Farther down, two women in peach-colored dresses chatted. One had a grocery bag overflowing with papayas and mangoes. He liked the vitality of the place.
The phone rang.
“Hayden, it’s Benbow. Turn on your TV.”
It was the call that Hayden had half anticipated since he began working for Cannondale. Benbow — CIA crew chief, former Navy intelligence, Vietnam vet, career curmudgeon, Hayden’s former boss.
Hayden’s Arabic language training and his technology skills
meant that the Langley boys had him on their speed dials. Once upon a time, he had been one of their budding stars. Benbow had taken a shine to him in a way that he had toward no other neophyte, that is, at least until the day Hayden walked away from it, tired, pissed off, worn down by the bureaucracy.
When he formally left the Agency, they negotiated that he would occasionally be called upon for assistance. Now was such a time. The master/student relationship between Benbow and Hayden had died a while ago, but the kid was talented. The Agency needed Hayden, and Hayden had a soft spot for helping it. Notch it up to duty or intrigue, Hayden didn’t really know which, but when Benbow called, he usually responded.
Benbow’s way of punishing Hayden was through periodic calls like this one, when Hayden found himself working for someone who raised suspicion. Benbow had some vague intel on Cannondale. Besides, Cannondale was the world’s sixth richest man, which in Benbow’s book made him worthy of suspicion, if not jealousy.
“I thought we were through after your last Dear John letter, Benbow,” Hayden said with a laugh, moving the phone from one ear to the other.
“You’ve been hanging around with an interesting crowd lately.”
“Are you envious?”
“Concerned.”
“So you do care, Benbow. You really do care.”
“Cut the crap, Campbell. It’s not you I’m concerned about. Have you seen the headlines?”
“No, I’ve been working. Why?”
“Turn on your TV.”
Hayden turned on CNN International. There, in full color, was the wreckage - a crumpled building, fire engines, a blonde reporter with a pained looked on her face struggling to explain the scene unfolding behind her.
“Jesus, someone blew up the building, Benbow.”
“Kuipers was in there.”
“You’ve been watching Kuipers?”
“No, I’ve been watching the news. Do you have any idea who it may have been, Hayden?”
“Hard to say.”
“Have you heard from Cannondale?”
“No. I haven’t talked to him in a couple of days. He’s traveling.”
“Where?”
“I think he’s at his place in Bermuda.”
“You think?”
“Benbow, I put words in his mouth. I don’t give him advice on what he should do in his free time.”
“I’ll send someone around to get you. We need to talk.” Hayden stared in disbelief at the TV screen. He needed fresh air.
He grabbed his leather jacket and headed to the bodega on the corner for coffee. It was his usual place — a newsstand run by a Yemeni with a heavy New York attitude who Hayden guessed had learned his English from rap videos. He called himself “Jeff.” Hayden had been in Jeff’s place getting coffee and a paper when they hit Control-ALTDelete on New York back in 2001.
Hayden breathed deeply as he walked out of Jeff’s place. The image of the fiery scene in Amsterdam played in his head. What the hell had happened? Just then, a windowless, silver conversion van abruptly pulled up next to the curb. A twenty-something guy leaned out the window.
Hayden immediately recognized him. It was Shelly. Hayden had worked with him several times in the past at the Agency. Despite Shelly’s affinity for metal music and his Ken doll good looks, Hayden liked him. The side door of the van slid open. Hayden could see two women in the back.
“Shall I just climb in, or do we make this look dramatic?” Hayden said.
Shelly motioned for Hayden to get in.
“I see you’ve added some groupies, Shelly,” Hayden said, referring to the two women, who were not amused.
“Hayden, meet Dierdre and Kendra. Kendra and Dierdre, meet Hayden Campbell.”
“Pleasure,” Hayden said, nodding to the women. “This wasn’t what I had in mind when Benbow said he’d send someone around to pick me up.”
“Never know if they’re watching your place,” Shelly said.
“I’m a speechwriter now, Shelly. Life isn’t as interesting as it once was. I can’t think of many people who are interested in monitoring me eating moo shoo pork and watching Survivor.”
“You never know,” Dierdre said officiously.
The van pulled through Brooklyn. Hayden watched the street signs. “Hey, isn’t ‘Uncle Liao’s’ near here? Good Chinese. Let’s stop, Shelly, come on.”
Shelly gave Hayden an eat shit look in the rearview mirror.
“You two hungry?” Hayden asked the two women. No answer.
They came to a narrow street. Shelly took a hard right in front of a row of mews. A garage door lifted. Shelly pulled the van in as the door closed behind them. The van door slid open. There, standing in front of Hayden, was Benbow — as beat up and as angry as the last time they’d seen each other. The carapace of hostility the man had built around himself was as solid as ever.
“Benbow, you look marv’lous,” Hayden said, doing his best Billy Crystal. “What are you doing in New York? Have you lost weight?” Shelly laughed under his breath. Benbow glared at Hayden, lit a cigarette, then turned around to walk up some stairs in a gesture intended for Hayden to follow him.
Benbow was based in Washington. The borrowed New York office was the kind of hackneyed hideaway Hayden had quickly tired of when he worked for the Agency – dark, uninteresting, stale. This one had a lumpy couch, an eddy of Styrofoam coffee cups in the corner and a photograph of the boxer Kid Gavilan having his face nearly taken off in the ring.
“You ever get tired of this life, Benbow?” Hayden asked. “I mean, the work isn’t that interesting at the end of the day — stage a coup here and there, frustrate a tyrant. They all grow back, you know.”
“Take a seat, Hayden,” Benbow said, turning his back. Hayden sat. Benbow took one of the wooden chairs from the small center table, turned it around and sat across from Hayden.
“Pretty simple, Campbell. You stay close to Cannondale and we’ll stay close to him.”
“Do I have a choice here?”
“No. As much as it pains me, you’re the logical go-to on this.”
“Why is it every time I try to get away from you, Benbow, you pull me back …”
“That’s enough of the dramatics, Campbell.”
“What’s the matter, you guys running out of money — trying to get your intelligence on the cheap?”
“Something like that. You wouldn’t have this problem if you hung around with the faceless crowd a bit more. You choose to mingle with this kind and you stay on my dance card. Just the way it is.”
“Okay, okay. Spill it. What are we talking about here, exactly, Benbow?”
“Hard to say.”
“Guess.”
“Cannondale covers his tracks well.”
“ I suppose you can tell me now, Benbow — who did you have bugged at that meeting in Brussels?”
“None of your business, Campbell. Now there’s one more piece to this puzzle.”
“Ok, what’s that?”
“Jagmetti.”
“Who?”
“Otto Jagmetti. He’s a banker in Switzerland. Fashions himself as a real fixer. Wears a bowler hat.”
“What about him?”
“He’s the guy who hooked Cheyenne up with Riga-Tech. We’re keeping a close eye on him. I’d like you to do the same.”
“I’ve never met the guy.”
“You will in time.”
“Alright, Benbow, let’s have it. Who have you got working the inside at Cheyenne – Peter?”
Benbow smiled. “You.”
Kuipers’ death rocked Brussels. Days seemed like weeks to Eatwell. He walked around in a stupor. The apartment was quiet. He had sent his manservant, Bernard, home indefinitely. He wanted to be alone. Derek had sent his condolences in a telegram from Zambia where he was doing another shoot.
The whole thing was troubling, not only because Eatwell had lost a good friend, but because he couldn’t help feeling that somehow he, too, would be a target. What had happened to Kuipers had a purpose. It was no accident, but the police still had no real leads. Strangely, no group had come forward to claim responsibility as they normally did with these things. All that was left was an eerie silence, a pall of suspicion and a handful of conspiracy theories whispered over cups of coffee in the cafés.
And the memories. He and Kuipers had been through a lot together. Eatwell tried to go about his usual course of business. His friendship with Kuipers wasn’t widely known, so he was spared the endless procession of well-wishers and sympathy. At work, his mind was miles away while he presided over meetings. He couldn’t sleep at night, and he couldn’t stop thinking that whoever killed Kuipers may now be focusing on him.
Maybe I’m just being arrogant,
he thought to himself over a solitary cup of tea at his dining room table one evening.
Maybe there’s no connection between Menno’s death and me at all? Maybe it was a botched assassination meant for someone else? Maybe Menno was into something that I wasn’t aware of? Unlikely.
All that made sense was that Kuipers, a somewhat obscure but powerful bureaucrat in the Dutch Ministry of Waterworks, happened to share the same prejudices about a piece of important technology and an American tycoon that he did. Despite the
Any Questions
performance, Eatwell had thought that he had successfully contained his concerns about Cannondale and the Cheyenne project, and that he had generally carried off a public image of impartiality. He thought Kuipers had walked the same line. But now Kuipers was dead.
Eatwell began to mentally go down the line up of suspects. The DeWeld government? Kuipers had gotten their backs up, but that would be ridiculous. DeWeld was mean, but he wasn’t a thug.
A radical environmentalist who Kuipers may have offended? No way. These groups had certainly resorted to playful acts of sabotage in the past, but they generally weren’t killers. Aaron Cannondale or somebody associated with him? Eatwell had never actually met the man, but he felt he knew his kind — ruthless and self-righteous with a predisposition for carrying the torch of capitalism forward. Cannondale liked to make money, pure and simple, regardless of the political systèm de jour. Would he kill? It was hard to say.