Liars and Tyrants and People Who Turn Blue (15 page)

“But
why?
” Martel slapped the top of his desk in frustration and then looked surprised at himself. “What does she want?”

“I can't say what she wants, but I do know what she's got. Something the rest of us have all been looking on as merely an annoying by-product of this inquiry.”

“And that is?”

“Publicity.”

Martel's shaggy eyebrows rose. “She's done all this for publicity?”

“A possibility,” Sir John cautioned.

“Personal publicity? I can't believe that.”

“Not personal publicity. Li Xijuan is not the ego-driven creature Schlimmermann is. If she
is
trying to draw attention to something, we don't know what it is yet.”

Martel's big head seemed to sink lower into his shoulders. “Good God in heaven. What are we involved in?”

Sir John didn't answer. He wasn't ready to tell Martel about an investigation he'd just put in motion—nothing might come of it, after all; it was what the Americans called a long shot. Li Xijuan had given most of her adult life to the UN, working her way up from a minor assistant in the Chinese delegation to Ambassador, surviving the changes in the political winds blowing through her homeland. She had made her mark on history with her work in establishing the Militia. But Sir John suspected it wasn't the UN that held the answer they were all looking for.

He thought the answer lay in China.

CHAPTER 35

HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME

Music is a habit, like spitting
.

—Percy Grainger, as quoted on the BBC program (me?)
My Music

“Meet Kevin Gilbert,” Shelby said. “Kevin, this is my sister, Tee. My brother-in-law, Max.”

“Pleased to meet you,” said Tee, and burst into tears.

“What? What?” said Shelby.

“Max says,” Tee snurfled, “Max says he's going to string me up by my thumbs!”

“Neater than boiling in oil,” Max said cheerily and stuck out a hand. “Kevin? You're just in time for round four.”

“Ah, mumph, yuh,” said Kevin, shaking hands.

“But what's it all about?” Shelby demanded.

“Max has turned into a monster,” Tee said. “That's all. A monster.”

“No more Mr. Nice Guy.” Max gave a stage-villain snarl. “Things is a-gunna change round he-ah.”

Kevin: “Uh, maybe we should come back later.”

“Nonsense, we need an audience. I'm going to fix us drinks, and we can all have a nice drunken brawl.” Max squinted an eye at Kevin. “Scotch.” It wasn't a question.

Kevin grinned. “Have you thought of going into intelligence work?”

Shelby: “
What is going on?
”

“Wait until that
monster
leaves,” Tee said, “and I'll tell you.” The monster obligingly went into the kitchen to fix the drinks. “Shelby, remember the Three Rivers Piano Competition?”

“Of course I do.”

“Well, one of the judges is now the assistant conductor of the Boston Symphony. He's scheduled to conduct the Prokofieff and his soloist canceled out on him and he remembered I played it in the Competition and—”

“And he wants you to step in!” Shelby shouted. “Fantastic!”

“And my monster husband is threatening all sorts of dire things if I don't—”

“And he should, he should! My God, Tee, what an opportunity! The Boston Symphony!”

“Yeah,” Tee shivered. “The Boston Symphony.”

“Congratulations?” Kevin ventured, not sure this was what was called for.

“Uh-huh, thanks, I don't know—”

“Now, Tee,” said Shelby, her voice rising, “
you are not going to say no
. It's the chance of a lifetime!”

“Yep,” said Max, coming back with the drinks. “Old Steel Fingers here has a chance to show her stuff.
And she's going to do it
.”

“Max, it's only two months from now,” Tee protested. “I can't be ready in two months.”

“You're ready
now,
” Max and Shelby said together.

“You're bullies,” Tee accused. “Both of you. Bullies.”

“I'm a monster,” Max reminded her. “Shelby can be the bully.”

Tee cast around for an adequate expression of her indignation at being bullied and came up with a cliché. “After giving you the best years of my life—”

“Oh tush, you haven't even reached your best years yet,” Max said amiably. “Accept it, Tee. This time you're just not going to get away with copping out.”

Feeling something like a fifth wheel, Kevin sank down into a leather armchair, winced, and pulled one of Tee's handgrips from under him.

“Now I want you to repeat after me,” Max said. “‘I'm going to do it.' Come on now. ‘I'm going to do it.' Say it.”

Tee seemed to be having trouble breathing.

Max: “‘I'm going to do it.' You can say it.”

Tee swallowed three times, fast.

“Say it, Tee,” Shelby half commanded, half pleaded.

Max repeated it for her. “‘I'm going to do it.'”

Tee took a deep breath. “I'm.”

“That's the first step!” Max exulted. “Come on, Tee. Say the rest of it.”

“I'm going to.”

“You're going to what?”

“
I'm going to do it!
”

Kevin Gilbert joined in the cheering that greeted this display of determination. What it had cost Tee to commit herself was something he'd never fully understand, but he could recognize a turning point when he saw one.

“See?” said Shelby. “Didn't hurt a bit, did it?”

“I'm going to do it,” Tee repeated wonderingly.

“Of course you are. And you're going to do it
beautifully
.” Shelby hugged her sister and blew a kiss to Max. “That's a great monster husband you've got there, kiddo.”

Tee turned to Max and smiled. “I'm going to do it.”

He enfolded her in a bear hug. “Just keep saying it.”

“What's the matter?” Kevin asked Shelby.

“I want to cry,” she said apologetically.

“Understandable.”

“No, Tee's the one who blubbers. I'm the stalwart one.”

“Oh, I didn't understand,” he laughed and finished his drink. “Would I be overstepping my role as guest if I fixed us refills?”

Shelby looked over to where Tee and Max were wrapped up in each other. “I don't think anyone would even notice.”

Kevin took her glass and went into the kitchen. Shelby felt suddenly drained—kitten-weak, in fact. And happy. Happier than she'd been in years. She watched the two people who were the most important in the world to her and she felt good.

“I'm going to do it,” Tee beamed. “I really am.”

CHAPTER 36

WOODCOCK TO MINE OWN SPRINGE

So those who thirst for glory smother

Secret weakness and longing, neither

Weep nor sigh nor listen to the sickness

In their souls
.

—“The Wanderer,” anonymous eighth-century poem

P. J. Martel and Li Xijuan were eying each other carefully, cat and mouse. But it wasn't clear to Shelby which was the cat and which the mouse.

Martel started it off. “You say you provided faulty weapons to the insurgents for the purpose of protecting the Militia.”

“That is correct.”

“And you say that was your only purpose.”

“That is also correct.”

No
, Shelby signaled once again.

“Ambassador Li, I suggest you are withholding something. You have some other purpose in mind that you are not telling us.”

“What purpose could that be?”

“Suppose you tell us. We know you're motivated by something other than concern for the welfare of the Militia.”

“The Militia has long been my primary concern.”

“And thereby makes a perfect cover,” the walrus said smoothly. “But it's no good, Ambassador. We know you've been lying to us.”

“You can prove this, of course?”

Martel grumbled something under his breath. She had him there; by now everyone knew Shelby's testimony was not admissable in any court of law. But the walrus didn't give up. “We don't have to prove it, Ambassador. This is an inquiry, not a trial. If we are convinced you are lying to us, then we must act in accordance with the dictates of our own judgment.”

“Then I must rely upon your sense of fair play, mustn't I?” the Chinese woman said calmly.

The walrus let a silence develop. Then, rapidly: “Did you ask any delegates other than Ambassadors Aguirrez and Schlimmermann to join you in your plan to sabotage rebellions?”

“No, I did not.”

Lie
.

Martel flicked his eye at Shelby's machine and said, “We have information that says you did.”

Li Xijuan gave her almost-smile. “Then produce it.”

Shelby knew Martel well enough by now that she could see he was uncomfortable. He didn't like being cast in the role of bullying inquisitor, hinting at evidence but never producing it. It was a sure-fire way of generating sympathy for this murderess who sat before them.

He backed off. “What made you choose Ambassador Aguirrez and Ambassador Schlimmermann as your partners?”

“They are both men of action. They are not afraid to run personal risks in order to achieve a greater good.”

Martel almost groaned; slogans again. “A greater good. Are you saying the only way to deal with malcontents is to kill them?”

“There are degrees of discontent. They can't all be treated the same.”

“Ambassador Li, where did you get the idea that you had the right to pass judgment on those people? You are a member of a lawmaking body, but that does not make
you
the law.”

“I have already said it was a mistake.”

“And I don't believe you. I believe you look upon the law as merely a tool to be used for your own purposes.”

“You are mistaken. It is only Herr Schlimmermann who assumes the laws of the universe are suspended just for him,” Li Xijuan said in a voice so bland that it took everyone a moment to understand exactly what she'd said.

Schlimmermann glanced at the Chinese woman condescendingly and then looked away again. Not worth answering.

Thieves fall out?
Martel wondered. More likely a diversionary tactic, but one worth following up. “We know Herr Schlimmermann disagreed with you and Señor Aguirrez as to tactics. Is that what you're referring to?”

“Yes,” Li Xijuan said shortly.

“And perhaps motivation as well?”

“That too—they are interrelated, cause and effect. I wish to emphasize it was not my purpose to see that members of the Militia were harmed in any way. The deaths of the Militiamen stationed in Greece were the work of the Ambassador from West Germany, who acted more out of personal motives than from any sense of political responsibility.”

Martel looked at Shelby's machine and almost gloated out loud when he saw Li Xijuan was not lying. She had told them something after all: her own motivation was different from Schlimmermann's. Whatever the reason was for what she'd done, it was political,
not
personal. As he'd suspected. Martel ignored the murmurings in the hearing chamber while he thought about it. Maybe he should take the bait Li Xijuan had dangled in front of him. The alternative was to keep pressing for the Chinese woman's true motive, a line of inquiry that had already proved a dead end more than once. He decided: Li Xijuan was dismissed and Heinrich Schlimmermann recalled.

A wild idea: “Are you a neo-Nazi, Herr Schlimmermann?”

Schlimmermann laughed out loud. “Certainly not. Please do not associate me with those bumblers.”

“Neo-Nazis are bumblers?”

“I was referring to the original Nazi party. The neo-Nazis aren't even a party—just groups of ineffectual men living on dreams of lost glory.” Contemptuously.

Truth
, Shelby signaled.

“You called them bumblers,” Martel said. “So you disapprove of the Nazis because they were failures?”

“Yes,” said Schlimmermann.

Yes
, echoed Shelby.

Martel dropped his voice to a near whisper. “But you have no moral objection to what they did?”

Even the sound of paper rustling stopped as everyone in the chamber waited for Schlimmermann's answer. The German ran his tongue over suddenly dry lips. “I do not approve of their persecution of the Jews,” he said carefully.

Shelby signaled
Yes
.

“On moral grounds?” Martel persisted.

“On moral grounds, of course.”

No
.

“You're lying,” Martel said bluntly.

Schlimmermann shot a look of disgust at Shelby and said, “It was the biggest single mistake they made. They should never have tried to exterminate an entire race.”

“Oh?” Martel allowed his voice to rise. “So it's
efficiency
again, is it? The only reason you object to the slaughter of six million people is that it was a mistake in strategy?!?”

“That is past history,” Schlimmermann said tightly. “It has nothing to do with the present inquiry.”

“It has everything to do with it—if it helps explain why you decided to play God. You killed three thousand people, Ambassador. Why? To prove that you could?”

“No!”

No!

Martel: “You're lying again.”

Schlimmermann jumped to his feet and glared at Shelby over the tables separating them. “Get her out of here!” he shouted. “Get that bitch out! Get her
out!
”

“So you can lie to us with impunity?” Martel shouted back. “Sit down, Ambassador! Sit down, or I'll have the guards restrain you!” Already two uniformed men had moved away from their stations by one of the doors. Radiating hatred, Schlimmermann slowly lowered himself back into his chair.