Bloodland: A Novel (42 page)

Amid the confusion, the first man will recover and leave.

What could possibly go wrong?

Right?

Well, apart from the first hundred most obvious things, Rundle did have one question.

Why leave Gilroy behind?

Logistics, was Ribcoff’s response, manpower, timing. Szymanski is off the grid, this keeps it that way. Gilroy’s disappearance might drag things out, not to mention dredge things
up
. By doing it this way it’s open and shut, he’s here, he’s dead – questions remain, but they’re unlikely ever to be answered to anyone’s satisfaction.

The whole thing should only take two minutes, max. Most people in the general area won’t notice a thing and those who do will inevitably have conflicting memories of it.

It’s high risk, no question about it – but really, do they have any alternative?

Rundle opens his eyes. He looks around, out the window, at his watch. ‘Come
on
.’

‘Few more minutes, Clark, trust me.’ Ribcoff texting with one hand, keying something onto his laptop with the other. ‘We didn’t come here today equipped for this. And the first guy who walks in there
has to
look like a civilian. Otherwise it won’t work.’ He pauses, nodding his head in the direction of the coffee shop. ‘Besides, look at them over there, yakking like two old ladies.’ He shakes his head. ‘No one’s going anywhere.’

His other phone rings and he picks it up. ‘Yeah?’

Rundle closes his laptop. He takes out his own phone. As Ribcoff is talking, Rundle dials the number for Regal. He faces away, gives his membership code in as low a voice as possible and asks if Nora is available.

She isn’t.

Nora is no longer with the agency.

‘
What?
’ Too loud. ‘Why not?’ Whisper ‘Where is she?’

They’re not allowed to give out that kind of information. It’s confidential. But they have many other beautiful and sophis—

He hangs up.

Shit
.

Ribcoff looks at him, phone held to his chest. ‘Anything wrong?’

‘No.’ Rundle waves a hand at the window. ‘Except for
this
shit. When do we get moving?’

‘Now.’ Ribcoff says. ‘Zero minus thirty seconds.’ He nods at the screen of his laptop.

Rundle doesn’t understand. ‘What?’

‘There.’ Ribcoff points. ‘Asset number one.’

On the screen is a webcam feed from just around the corner, on Third Avenue. The man Ribcoff is pointing at is approaching the main entrance to the coffee shop. He’s of medium height, in jeans and a corduroy jacket, has longish hair, looks a little scruffy. A writer type, or an academic.

Looking to score some joe.

Surrounding him, flowing in both directions, are …
people
– woman with a buggy, two businessmen, a flock of Japanese tourists, others, random, nondescript, it’s all very quick, and as well, to the left, there is a blur of passing traffic.

Intermittent streaks of yellow.

Rundle’s stomach turns. Is this really happening?

The guy disappears in through the door.

Rundle lifts his head and glances across the street.

In the long side window of the coffee shop both men turn their heads for a moment, then turn back and continue talking.

‘OK,’ Ribcoff says, pointing, ‘here comes asset number two.’

Rundle looks back at the screen. From halfway along the block comes a second man. He’s of similar height to the first but is dressed all in black.

Baseball cap, shades.

Zero minus … what must it be now for this one? Twenty seconds? Fifteen?

Rundle stares intently at the screen.

But suddenly, his focus shifts – from the black-clad asset in the centre to a streak of yellow on the left, a streak that solidifies into a cab pulling up at the kerb.

Zero minus ten seconds.

The cab door opens. A man gets out, then a woman.

Seven.

Rundle lurches forward, almost vomits. ‘Stop.’

‘What?’

Five.

‘Abort.’ He elbows Ribcoff. ‘Abort.
Stop
.’

‘
What?
’

Three.

Moving across the sidewalk, striding with intent, the man and woman cut in front of the asset and get to the door of the coffee shop before him.

‘That’s Ellen Dorsey.’

‘
Jesus
.’

One.

Ribcoff raises a hand to his earpiece, squeezes it. ‘Abort,’ he says. ‘Repeat,
abort
.’

*   *   *

Jimmy stands up as Ellen Dorsey approaches. He extends a hand, whispering, ‘Shit, am I glad to see you.’

They shake. Dorsey has a laptop under her arm. She places it on the table. She turns to the man directly behind her.

He’s rugged and tanned, in his fifties.

Expensive-looking suit.

Something about him says lawyer.

‘Jimmy, this is Ned Goldstein. He’s with Reynolds, Fleischman & Brock.’ She pauses. ‘Attorneys.’

OK.

They shake, and then Jimmy introduces Tom Szymanski.

The next thirty minutes or so pass in a blur.

Dorsey sits opposite Jimmy, and Goldstein opposite Szymanski.

Goldstein, it turns out, specialises in whistleblower cases and has worked with Dorsey on several occasions in the past. The first thing he does is quiz Jimmy and Szymanski on what they perceive their current level of danger to be. Calmly and discreetly, Szymanski points out three parked vehicles in the vicinity that he judges to be Gideon surveillance units. He also outlines what he believes Gideon’s strategy would most likely be in circumstances such as these. Goldstein proceeds to grill Szymanski on his background, his history in the military and his subsequent employment record with Gideon.

While this is going on, Dorsey checks with Jimmy that he has prepped Szymanski for the interview, exactly as they’d agreed on the phone. Jimmy says he has but adds that Szymanski is adamant he doesn’t want to be filmed or photographed. Dorsey makes a face.
OK
. They go over the questions again and Jimmy outlines in general terms what Szymanski’s answers will be. When Goldstein has given the all-clear, Dorsey says, the interview should go ahead without delay. She will record it, simultaneously transcribing as much of it as she can, and will then immediately upload a text version onto her website and her Facebook page.

She says that given the incendiary nature of the central claim about Senator Rundle’s injury, the interview will be picked up straightaway and will go viral on Twitter in a matter of minutes. That level of public awareness will effectively provide cover for Jimmy and Szymanski, but she warns him that it will also be insane and unlike anything either of them has ever experienced before in their entire lives. Avoiding photographers and camera crews will not be easy.

Is he prepared for this?

Jimmy says yes. Nodding. He is. He also says he understands that the Senator Rundle aspect of the story will dominate at first, and probably for days, but that behind it is the even bigger story of BRX and Gideon Global, which is one he fully intends pursuing – all the way back to the hills of Buenke, and even further back, to the rugged coastline of Donegal.

‘Absolutely,’ Dorsey says, smiling, ‘I’d expect nothing less.’

‘And listen, thanks for everything you’re doing.’

‘Hey, this is
your
story, Jimmy, and I’m happy to help out – by doing this, by putting you in touch with people later if you want, whatever. These bastards deserve all they get.’ She pauses. ‘But remember one thing. If it all goes to hell for some reason, or turns out to be a crock of shit, it’ll still be your story.’

Jimmy says nothing, but acknowledges the point with a nod.

He looks at Tom Szymanski and wonders how he’s coping. This can’t be easy for him.

He seems to be coping fine.

Ellen Dorsey turns to Ned Goldstein. The lawyer shrugs his shoulders. ‘All looks kosher to me. I think we’re good to go.’

Dorsey opens her laptop. She takes a small recording device from her pocket, checks it and turns it on. She places it on the table between Jimmy and Szymanski.

She places her hands over the keyboard, poised. She looks up. ‘Gentlemen?’

Jimmy swallows.

As he is forming the first question in his mind, he notices the car across the street, the one with the tinted windows, starting up and pulling out of its place.

He closes his eyes. ‘Mr Szymanski, can you tell me first of all the exact date on which you started working as a private military contractor for Gideon Global?’

When Jimmy opens his eyes, the car has gone.

14

A
FEW HOURS LATER
– and a few blocks northwest of this Third Avenue coffee shop – James Vaughan opens his eyes and yawns. He takes an afternoon nap most days now. Doctor’s orders. It’s not the hardest thing in the world to do, an hour or so in bed after lunch, but he does find it interrupts his rhythm. Leaves him a little cranky.

He gets dressed and goes into the study.

There’d been no word from Clark by the time he was hitting the hay, and since his nap is sacrosanct, involving a complete communications blackout, Vaughan is anxious that he might have missed something. If there are any messages for him they’ll be here on his phone, but before checking he decides to go online first and see what developments there have been.

It’s pretty ugly.

On site after site, one story dominates.

Rise and fall, rise and fall …

When he heard that guy outside the hotel shout the word
Buenke
, Vaughan figured, at some level, that the game was up. Then when he heard the uncertainty in Clark’s voice a while later, he was left in little doubt.

He watches a couple of news clips, and winces more than once.

It’s not going to be easy for the Rundle boys, being hounded and savaged like this by reporters. But in a way they were asking for it.

Vaughan himself has never courted publicity. The very idea of it horrifies him, and always has. In fact – thinking about it – the first time he ever encountered the gentlemen of the press was at his grandfather’s funeral in the late 1930s, when he’d still only have been a small boy. He can see it now, the crowds on Fifth Avenue for the service, the carriage strewn with violets, the stiff collar and breeches he was made to wear and how uneasy he felt in the church having to file past the open casket. He clearly remembers the texture of his grandfather’s hands and face, too, bloodless and waxy.

That haunted him all the way out to Woodlawn.

But in the end, it was the press photographers he remembers most, the
flashbulbs
, dozens of them, all going off like so many tiny explosions, and then these grubby little men with their pencil stubs and notepads.

Who
are
these people, he remembers thinking at the time.

Who indeed.

He trawls through a few more reports. At this stage, the main focus is on J.J. and his trip to Paris. Was there really a motorcycle accident? Was there really a motor
cyclist
? The search is well and truly on now and that can only end one way.

In tears.

But Vaughan knows that the background stuff will come into focus as well, sooner or later, and that it won’t be long before the word Buenke is on everyone’s lips.

Thanaxite, too.

It’s a damn shame.

He checks his phone – a text from Meredith, who’s in LA for a few days, and due back tomorrow. Then three voice messages and four texts, all from Clark.

Oh dear.

He deletes them, and turns to go.

What exactly is it about the phrase
You’re on your own
, he wonders, that Clark didn’t understand?

*   *   *

Tom Szymanski paces back and forth between the window and the bed. In this hotel room he can do that, there’s enough space, unlike where he stayed before, in midtown, which was cramped, but at least
there
he was free to get shitfaced, bring a hooker back, whatever. Here he feels constrained, like he’s supposed to be on his best behaviour or something. It’s only been twelve hours since the interview in the coffee shop and already,
already
, he’s acquired an entourage – legal advisors, media handlers, a fucking bodyguard. He probably hasn’t gone about all of this in the best way possible – but in his defence, how was he supposed to know what to do, or say? This isn’t exactly the kind of shit he’s been trained for. Anyway, twenty minutes after Ellen Dorsey posted the interview on her webpage and did whatever Twitter shit it is that people do these days, a couple of photographers showed up, then a local news crew. Dorsey seemed a bit alarmed herself by how fast it was all happening, but then she tried to make out like it was better this way, that if he had his photo out there, his mug in the public domain, he’d be better protected, it’d be the perfect deflector shield against the very powerful and influential people he had chosen to go up against.

What the fuck?

He hadn’t chosen to go up against
anyone
, it had all just happened, and continued happening, inside the door of the coffee shop, then outside on the street, moving along the sidewalk, more and more people arriving, so that pretty quickly it became a circus, and he got separated from Jimmy Gilroy and Ellen Dorsey and her lawyer, and before he knew it … shit, before he knew
anything
this other woman was shoving a business card into his hand and asking him how’d he like to go on the
Evening News
with Katie Couric, or do
60 Minutes
, or if the sound of a nice, juicy book contract appealed to him at all? If she hadn’t been so gorgeous he might have moved on, but really, this woman was like a fucking movie star, with the eyes, and the lips, and the hips, and the OMG rack, and before he could catch his breath he was sitting next to her in the back of a town car, riding up here to this hotel …

For a series of …
meetings
 …

It crossed his mind at one point that she might be a Gideon plant, but no, thinking about it, Ellen Dorsey had been right – with the interview out there on the web, and his name, and his history, and pictures now too, actual footage of him on Third Avenue from that morning, BRX and Gideon wouldn’t be so stupid as to go anywhere near him.