The Garden of Betrayal (24 page)

I felt light-headed, as if I’d been sucker punched from behind.

“It’s possible,” I admitted.

“Has there been much going on at work?” Claire asked.

“A huge amount. Way more than I’ve had time to tell you about.”

“So, Kate could be correct that the bugging has something to do with the e-mail about Kyle, but we can’t rule work out.”

“Right.” I rubbed my forehead with my hand, trying to think. “Frankly, I have no idea what’s going on.”

Claire tucked her hair behind her ears, looking pensive. Kate slipped a rubber band off her wrist and handed it to her.

“The earliest files on the Cayman Island server were from Sunday night, correct?” Claire said, glancing from Kate to me as she pulled her hair back into a ponytail. “And you got your phone back on Monday morning.”

We both nodded.

“So, it seems likely that the people who bugged us are interested in either something that happened this week or something that’s supposed to happen soon.”

“Probably,” I said. “But I don’t see how that helps. The e-mail and the work stuff all fall in the same time window.”

“I have an idea,” Kate said. “Maybe we should go through your entire week minute by minute and do what you do when you’re working on a big project—write everything down on note cards, and tape it all up on the wall, and see if any connections pop out.”

I didn’t have any better suggestion.

“Sounds good,” I said. “Let’s get to it.”

I took the creepy photographs down while Kate and Claire ran out for supplies. They came back with coffee, bacon-egg-and-cheese sandwiches, and enough note cards, poster paper, colored markers, and Scotch tape to document the entire Civil War. Our goal was to lay out everything that had happened by event, time line, and people involved. Two hours later we’d created a flow chart from hell, with dozens of boxes connected by lines and arrows that intersected everywhere. If there was a pattern in the data, it was well hidden. Pushing my chair back from the table, I leaned forward and rested my elbows on my knees. Tired and frustrated as I was, I felt buoyed by working together with Kate and Claire—particularly Claire. Her transformation was nothing short of incredible, a testament to the rejuvenating power of
having something to do other than brood. It made me wonder if it had been a mistake all those years ago not to insist more forcefully that she accompany Kate and I on our leafleting. Maybe the activity would have taken her out of the moment she’d felt trapped in.

“I’m going to have to go soon,” I said, rubbing my eyes. “I promised Rashid I’d meet him at eleven.”

“Did Rashid know the Venezuelan guy who got murdered?” Kate asked.

“Maybe. I haven’t asked him.”

She drew a dotted red line from Rashid’s name to Carlos Munoz’s and labeled it with a question mark. I looked at the line and shook my head.

“Any relationship the two of them might have had is ancient history. We have to be careful of cluttering the picture with extraneous facts.”

Kate glanced at Claire.

“It’s hard to know what might be important,” Claire said, shrugging.

“The problem here is that the only obvious link between everything and everybody is me,” I said, circling my head to stretch my shoulders. “I broke the Nord Stream story, I received the Saudi data, I’m the one who was bugged, and Kyle was my son.”

“My God,” Claire gasped. “What if that’s the connection?”

“What if what’s the connection?” I demanded.

“You. You just said it. Kyle’s your son.”

My heart skipped a beat.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning we’ve always assumed Kyle was kidnapped randomly,” she said tremulously. “That’s what made things so difficult for Reggie and the other police, right from the beginning, because they didn’t have any motive to work from.” She rose unsteadily and took the marker from Kate’s hand. “But look at the facts. Kyle was supposedly last seen in a car belonging to an OPEC diplomat, and that same diplomat was in trouble with his own people because he’d turned down a bribe of shares in an oil company.” She touched Kate’s written words with the tip of the marker as she spoke. “Don’t you see? It’s all your world. Maybe the connection we’re looking for is you.”

I couldn’t breathe.

“We don’t know enough to reach any conclusions,” Kate protested vehemently. “It’s not fair to blame Dad.”

“This isn’t about blame,” Claire said, visibly struggling to stay composed. “There’s more than enough blame to go around. This is about finding out what happened to your brother, and about protecting our family.” I could feel her looking at me, but I couldn’t meet her eyes. “What do you think, Mark?”

Thinking was beyond me. Claire reached across the table and took my hand.

“Stay with us on this,” she pleaded. “We really need your help.”

“You might be right,” I managed, drawing strength from her touch. “Kyle might have been deliberately targeted.…” My voice faltered, and I began again. “Kyle might have been deliberately targeted because of something I was involved in.…”

“Why?” Kate asked.

“I don’t know. But if we’re right, those same people might still be out there, and they might be interested in me again for some reason. They could even be the people who broke into our home and bugged us.”

There was a horrified silence as we all considered the possibility.

“I need to talk to Reggie,” I said.

Claire squeezed my hand hard and then let go.

“No. I’ll talk to Reggie. You have to go meet with Rashid.” She leaned back and touched his name card on the flow chart. “He knows everybody and everything in the oil world. That’s what you’ve always told me. You have to go ask him if he knows who took our son.”

Claire’s words thundered in my head as I staggered the three blocks crosstown to the Four Seasons. I couldn’t think of anyone who had reason to attack Kyle to get to me, or even of a reason that seemed plausible. Revenge? To send some kind of message? But I hadn’t been able to come up with a reason for anyone to spy on me, either. Claire was right—even if I’d never met him, Carlos Munoz was part of my world. It was only because the possibility of a connection between my work and Kyle’s disappearance was too terrible for me to imagine that I hadn’t realized it sooner. I did a sudden about-face on the corner of Madison, seized by a panicked urge to rush back to the Meridien and make sure that Kate and Claire were still okay. No one knew where they were, I reminded myself, and Claire had promised not to open the door to anyone other than me or Reggie. I turned again and resumed walking eastward. I had to go meet with Rashid. And what if he knew the truth of what had happened to my son, and withheld it for his own reasons? Over the years, the uncertainty had taken almost as brutal a toll on my family as the loss. I never would have believed Rashid was capable of anything so monstrous, except that so many things I never would have believed had already happened.

Lobby seating at the Four Seasons is on two low balconies flanking the somber central chamber. I climbed a flight of stairs and checked the western balcony first. I was retracing my steps when I glanced to my right. A man exiting the hotel through the revolving door looked back over his shoulder at me. I noticed a scar, or some other type of disfigurement,
running from his mouth to his ear. I’d seen him somewhere else recently, but I couldn’t place him.

“Mr. Wallace.”

I shifted my gaze up, spotting the bodyguard who’d admitted me to Rashid’s suite the other day. He was standing in the middle of the eastern balcony, leaning over the rail and beckoning to me.

“This way, please,” he called.

I climbed the matching stairs on the opposite side of the lobby and saw Rashid at a table set for two in the far corner. The bodyguard took my coat and then escorted me toward him, whispering out of the side of his mouth.

“He was up all night on the phone. His doctors are very unhappy. Try to be as brief as possible, please.”

I hadn’t thought Rashid could look worse, but he did. His previous pallor had taken on a yellowish tinge, and his features seemed to have sunk, as if he were a balloon with a slow leak. I took his hand delicately, afraid of hurting him. The suspicions I’d had on the way over seemed absurd in his presence. Rashid was a friend.

“As-Salāmu ‘Alaykum,”
he said hoarsely. Peace be upon you.

“Wa ‘Alaykum As-Salām.”
And on you be peace.

“You’ll have something to eat or drink?” he asked, gesturing toward the pastries and coffee on the table.

“Nothing, thank you.”

He scratched his neck with the backs of his nails and sighed.

“Courtesy obliges me to insist, but then I’d have to take a bite of something myself, to shame you. And I can’t bear the thought of eating just now. My sense of taste has entirely gone—a side effect of the drugs. Every meal is like working my way through a plate full of cardboard.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s my own fault, for being seduced by Western medicine. My people have a saying: There comes a time for every old man to ride his donkey into the desert.” He walked his hand across the table and let it fall off the edge. “It’s a different mentality.”

Even in my agitated state, it hurt to see him so low.

“Old people here ride the Amtrak to Florida. That’s kind of the same thing.”

He laughed, as I’d hoped he would.

“Imagine me in Miami Beach.” He lifted his water glass, pretending to make a toast. “Next year in Jerusalem.”

I forced a return smile.

“That’s always a popular line at OPEC meetings,” he confided. “Delivered with and without irony.”

“Listen, Rashid,” I said, leaning toward him. “I have something very important that I need to ask you about.”

“Excellent,” he said, setting the glass down and crossing his legs. “Tit for tat, as ever between us. But I believe the possession arrow is in my quiver.”

“Sorry?”

“Did I say it wrong?” he asked, sounding abashed. “I’ve been watching American basketball in the evenings, when I have difficulty sleeping.”

“It’s more of a pointer,” I said, catching his drift. “There aren’t any quivers involved.”

He stroked his beard, looking put out.

“As you prefer. I have some preliminary reactions to your Saudi information, but before we get to that, I’d like to discuss the luncheon you attended with Senator Simpson.”

I felt a sudden chill. I hadn’t mentioned my meeting with the senator to him.

“Who told you I had lunch with Simpson?”

He shrugged.

“We exchange information, Mark, not sources.”

“Not today,” I said, struggling to keep my voice light. I felt irrationally certain that the knowledge must have come from whoever had bugged me. “Today I need to know your source.”

“Business is business …” he began.

“To hell with business,” I snapped, my nerves overstretched. I held up a hand, simultaneously taking a deep breath to calm myself. “I’m sorry. There’s a lot more going on here than I’ve been able to tell you. I really need to know how you learned that I had lunch with Senator Simpson.”

I could hear the bodyguard approaching, drawn by my outburst. Rashid waved him off and gave me a wan smile.

“It’s I who should apologize. It’s easy to be self-absorbed when
you’re ill. I heard about your falling-out with Walter Coleman. This must be a difficult time for you professionally.”

“This has nothing to do with Walter.”

He uncrossed his legs, seeming to gain strength as he sat up straighter.

“Then what?”

“Please,” I said, looking directly into his eyes. “If we’ve ever been friends. Just answer the question for me.”

He returned my gaze for a long moment and then sighed.

“This one time,” he said quietly. “As a token of respect for our long friendship. Everything I tell you to be held in strictest confidence.”

I nodded impatiently.

“The French minister of foreign affairs flew to Riyadh yesterday morning, where he met with his Saudi equivalent. The minister had with him a transcript of certain remarks made by Senator Simpson at a lunch at the Palace hotel. I was asked to learn whatever I could about this lunch. I have a relationship with the officer in your Secret Service who coordinates protection for visiting Arab dignitaries. I called that officer and asked if he could obtain a list of the attendees at the senator’s lunch, in exchange for certain considerations that don’t concern you. He tapped some of his former colleagues and was able to get the information. Your name was on the list.”

“The French minister of foreign affairs?” I said, bewildered. “Where on earth did he get a transcript of the lunch?”

“I don’t have immediate access to French state secrets. Would you like me to call Paris and ask for you?”

The sarcasm was deserved, but it didn’t lessen my interest in the transcript. My phone might well have been the source.

“Forgive me,” I said. “I didn’t mean to push so hard. I appreciate your candor.”

“It’s nothing,” he said wearily, slumping back into his seat. “Friends don’t hold grudges. Just tell me about your lunch with the senator.”

I made an effort to concentrate, still preoccupied by the existence of the transcript but feeling I owed him a proper response.

“In a nutshell? America first when it comes to Arab oil, regardless of Arab preferences. Disagreements to be resolved by the U.S. Marines.”

“Precisely what I heard from Riyadh,” Rashid said, shaking his head mournfully. “This is very bad for Arab-American relations.”

“Why? You said yourself that the Arab potentates all understand they’ve done a deal with the devil, and that America will eventually annex whatever it needs to annex. What difference does it make if Simpson says it out loud?”

“Every difference. You keep forgetting the importance of culture. Arabs are like Asians—face is more important than anything else. Tacit recognition of an inferior position is one thing. Having a bully rub your face in your inferiority publicly is quite another.”

I nodded, trying to think of a way to work the conversation back to the transcript.

“I’m missing the French interest here,” I said. “Are they just stirring up trouble?”