Conspiracy (30 page)

Not long afterward, Ross Cantrell’s limousine came to a stop at the ornate entrance to the Ministry of Culture. Across the street was parked a UBC mobile van, but Cantrell’s uniformed chauffeur did not seem to notice it as he got out. Leaving his employer in the back seat, he walked directly into the building through the filigreed doorway.

Several minutes later he returned, accompanied by Sharon Foster.

“How’s my girl?” Cantrell asked when Sharon got into the back of the limousine. His voice was kind, his eyes sympathetic.

They talked for several minutes. “Look,” Sharon said at one point, “it’s Monday. There’s nothing happening here in the tournament until the semifinals Wednesday. It seems to me that Keith Palermo is the story.”

But was Sharon covering the story, Cantrell asked, or trying to make it happen? It seemed to him that really all anybody knew was that Keith had dropped out of sight. Was it responsible journalism to play up all the “hostage” stories? More to the point in Sharon’s case, was it the producer’s job to try to influence the government’s search? The network’s relations with the authorities were becoming strained.

“I’m sorry,” Sharon said, “but I really don’t think they’re making any kind of serious search for Keith. Somebody’s got to try to get some action out of them. I seem to be the only one who cares enough.”

“You’re sure he needs to be looked for?”

She nodded. “He was to meet me Saturday night. He never called, never sent word. Keith wouldn’t have done that.”

“You’re sure? Or is that just what you want to believe?”

Tears of frustration clouded Sharon’s eyes, but she kept her voice firm. “I don’t need to have my belief in Keith questioned, Mr. Cantrell. Not by you or anyone.”

There was a moment’s silence. The upholstered interior of the Rolls seemed smaller to Sharon; the glass partition that separated them from the driver seemed to be closer.

Cantrell was asking her what she planned for tonight. She tried to think ahead. The officer on duty yesterday in the Guardia Civil office had promised to give her a detailed report, she said, and after that she would try the local police once more.

“I mean for tonight’s program, Sharon. The broadcast.”

She didn’t understand what Cantrell was driving at. “Most of it’s taped, don’t you remember? We allowed a half hour each for updates these off nights; the rest is all ready to roll.”

“Then there’s really not a lot you have to do?”

“Right now I have this to do.” She gestured at the gilded facade of the Cultural Ministry. “It’s something that needs to be done.”

Cantrell cleared his throat. “The point is, if you’re here as a UBC producer, you’re fouling things up for us with the government. They’re already complaining.”

“I can’t help that. If they’d spend some time looking for Keith instead of calling your office—”

“Sharon,” he interrupted, “there are more tourists here in Spain right now than there are Spanish citizens. Do you realize that? It’s impossible for the government to keep track of them all.”

“All the more reason somebody has to keep after them about Keith.”

“You sound pretty determined,” Cantrell said. “Are you ready to make a choice?”

Now she understood. “Between Keith and my job?”

“Between your job and carrying on this crusade of yours,” he replied. “Keith himself may be on his way back to you right now, without your lifting another finger.”

Sharon controlled her temper, thought hard, and still chose to keep on with her efforts; nothing else seemed to make any sense. She did have enough presence of mind to negotiate a bit, though. Rather than severing her connection with UBC entirely, she worked it out with him that she would remain as an unpaid associate producer. That way she would be able to rejoin the network when Keith turned up again—which was something Cantrell seemed to want—and to continue using her UBC credentials to open doors in her search for Keith, which was something Sharon wanted that Cantrell seemed to overlook. 

That settled, they drove back to the UBC studio setup in the stadium tunnel. Cantrell wrote out a check for Sharon’s salary to date and signed it. Sharon looked at the amount, planning for the worst. Assuming the tournament ended with Keith still missing, this would pay for her travel for a month or two, tracking down leads. “And you’ve got your plane ticket home,” Cantrell said. “The other half of your round trip, right?” He wished her the best of luck in her search as they said goodbye.

When Sharon told the others she was no longer the producer, nobody believed her at first except Maria Coquias. The young Basque woman immediately begged Sharon not to go. Knowing how Maria felt about Wayne Taggart, Sharon understood.

In his office, Ross Cantrell buzzed Molly on his desktop speakerphone. “Any more calls come in about Sharon Foster,” he said, “you tell them she’s no longer on the payroll.”

It was a shame, Molly agreed later, while talking with Cindy Ling. Ever since Sharon had failed to handle that Russian documentary properly, she hadn’t seemed able to react to these outside events without becoming personally involved. Molly was sure that was the main reason Mr. Cantrell had had to let Sharon go.

Talking with Dan Richards, Molly said it probably had been building ever since Sharon had failed to safeguard that tape of Alec Conroy.

Talking with Rachel Quinn, Molly said it was probably the risk Sharon had run authorizing Walter J. and Max to stand by with the van, hoping to get that little Russian girl to defect. Ever since the word about that fiasco had drifted through the grapevine back to Mr. Cantrell, he’d been concerned about Sharon’s stability. What would Sharon do, Molly wondered, if Keith really was being held hostage somewhere?

Mr. Cantrell probably shared the same worries, and so had been forced to turn the producer’s job over to Wayne Taggart.

15

On her way back downtown to the Guardia Civil, Sharon stopped off at the hospital for her daily visit with Larry Noble. Larry had news for her before she could tell him what had happened with Cantrell: the doctors here in Madrid had pronounced him well enough to travel to New York, where he had a three-vessel bypass operation scheduled for early next week. 

“After that,” he said, “they tell me I’ll be feeling pretty good again. Probably good enough to hire you away from Cantrell, once I get something going.”

She told him it was nice to know she’d have another job someday; right now she was an unpaid lobbyist on behalf of one missing soccer player.

When he heard the story, Larry swallowed hard and smoothed the fringe of hair around the edges of his bald scalp. “I guess you know what you’re doing,” he said. “But I’m sure glad I don’t have to make a choice like that.”

Sharon couldn’t help smiling. “Look at you, Larry,” she said. “You’re about to fly off for open-heart surgery and you’re sitting there as though I were the one with the problems.”

“And I’m right,” he said. “All I’ve got to do is learn to get to sleep without cherry cordials.”

Her visit with Larry was the high point of the afternoon for Sharon. She made the stops at the Guardia and the police offices; neither had anything new. Worse, from Sharon’s point of view, they seemed to be growing resentful of interference from the press. Reporters from newspapers and magazines had begun to hound the same offices Sharon was visiting. Officials acted as though they had said all they had to say to other Americanos as soon as Sharon started in with her questions. She began to have the feeling that she was no longer necessary as a prod to the Spanish; that the reporters, who were in need of stories on these two off days, would apply more pressure than she possibly could. If so, then she had given up her job for no practical purpose, and was using this search of hers only as an escape mechanism, a way to do something about her sense of loss.

She decided to try the American embassy. 

There she met the same State Department official who had badgered her by transatlantic telephone from Washington. In his late thirties, with flowing black hair and wire-rimmed spectacles, he came bounding into the reception area to greet her only moments after she had given the purpose of her visit. 

“Elliott Strether, Ms. Foster,” he said, pumping her hand. He led her into a small, brightly lit anteroom with high beamed ceilings and freshly whitewashed walls. “There’s been just so much on this World Cup thing, I thought it best to come over and liase directly with all the American personnel involved. You see, it’s important to speak with only one voice on these matters, and we’ve got to measure our impacting with some considerable care.”

He paused and pointed to a chair, taking the one with its back to the window. “I must say,” he continued as Sharon sat down, “you’re much younger, smaller, and prettier than I’d imagined. From talking to you on the telephone, I’d pictured a stately Brunhilde of a woman.”

Sharon squinted at the afternoon sun that streamed in from the window. “Would you close those drapes behind you, please?”

While he was occupied fumbling with the drapery cords, she told him why she had come, and that she was no longer the UBC producer. He returned to his chair, sat down heavily, and put his palms on his knees. “Do you mean to say I’ll have to interface with someone else?”

“Wayne Taggart,” Sharon said. “But the reason I’m here is important for the State Department too, I’m sure. If Keith isn’t found in time to play in the game against Argentina—”

“Well, that’s not quite the game plan from our reference vantage,” Strether interrupted smoothly. “You see, there’s a bit involved outside the sporting question, and also outside the safeguarding-individual-citizens viewpoint. On a national level, our relations with Spain could stand some patchwork. We’re after additional air bases, flyover rights for our Cruise missiles and conventional planes, space shuttle tracking, the whole NATO business—it’s quite complex.”

“But what does it have to do with Keith?”

Strether got to his feet. “Well, Ms. Foster”—he hesitated as he saw that Sharon remained seated—“I can see that you’re very much involved in the matter from the human-rights standpoint. And I can sympathize with you.”

“Then what can you do to help?”

He turned his hands palms up, empty. “We certainly would be happy to lend our resources to any specific effort if we had them available,” he said, “but I have to tell you in all frankness that it wouldn’t do our relations with the Spanish any harm if Argentina was to beat our soccer team in Wednesday’s playoff, and if Spain also beat us for the third place-”

His voice trailed off as he watched Sharon walking out of the room.

Hours later, Sharon climbed wearily out of a taxi in front of her hotel. Her afternoon, spent wrangling with others at the American embassy and with sergeants and lieutenants at police and Guardia stations, had left Sharon tired, angry, and wondering whether she was making any difference to anything except the state of her nerves. 

There had been a short relief from antagonistic officials when she had met Rachel Quinn and stopped at one of the sidewalk coffee shops in the Plaza del Sol. But that encounter had not brightened Sharon’s spirits.

“Don’t throw it all away for any man,” Rachel had counseled when she learned what Sharon was doing. “Especially not for an athlete who still goes on the road. The way those little groupies hang around the stadiums—”

What could you say when someone gave you that kind of advice? Sharon settled for “Let’s not speak ill of the kidnapped,” and sipped her coffee. Her remark diverted Rachel to the topic of Alec, and she proceeded to tell Sharon how painful it was to keep up a relationship with someone who might leave at any moment for someone younger and prettier. Rachel intended this rare confession of trouble as a kind of consolation for Sharon, to take her mind off Keith. Sharon knew that. But hearing Rachel’s unhappiness did not make her feel better.

She entered the hotel lobby ready to fall asleep. Habit caused her to look at her mail slot. She asked the cleric for the two letters she saw there.

Halfway to the elevator she stopped, realizing she had seen one of the two letters before. It was little Eddie’s: the one she had given Keith to answer because the boy liked
futbol
so well. The letter had been resealed.

And there was an additional postmark. Sharon squinted at the blurred letters, the smudged ink. Finally she took the envelope back to the clerk and asked him to look at it.

He did, and told her that the letter had been postmarked Sunday morning in Granada.

16

The following morning, Sharon sat in the office of the Guardia Civil captain in Granada. The captain sat across from her. With black hair as sleek as his patent-leather boots, and with snapping blue eyes, Captain Maracall was young, very correct in bearing, friendly, and had the air of one on the way up in the ranks. He spoke excellent English.

“My lady, I will do what I can.” He leaned across his desk to return little Eddie’s much-traveled envelope to her. “But you must realize. What you have there is far from definite evidence that Keith Palermo is in Granada.”

“They told me the same thing in Madrid,” Sharon said. “The envelope could have been mailed to mislead a search; or, assuming Keith was the one who managed somehow to get it mailed to me, he might have been moved from here since Sunday morning.”

“Both possibilities,” said Maracall, “are among those I find unlikely, considering we have not heard from Keith’s captors.”

Sharon blinked. “You’re the first person who’s been willing to believe that he’s been captured.”

The captain shrugged. “If he were free and wanted to communicate, it seems plain that he would have chosen some other way than mailing you one of two letters you gave him. If he did not want to communicate, why should he waste postage on the letter? You can see for yourself where a new stamp has been affixed. That indicates someone wanted you to receive this envelope. It also indicates that Palermo was not found dead by someone with this envelope in his possession. There has been enough publicity about the missing American to cause anyone who found his body to come forward. Anyone, that is, who was not involved in his disappearance.”