The Gordian Knot (16 page)

At four o’clock he was standing outside the MacIntyre Building. The door was open and painters were working in the lobby. The same dark-haired beauty with the ugly glasses let him in, and showed him into a small, windowless conference room. “Mr. Benton will be with you in a moment.”

The room was gloomy. Dim light came from a slot between the
low ceiling and the wall. Six chairs of dark leather stood around a heavy table made of dark wood. Set into the wall was an empty black screen. The air conditioner was humming.

Georg looked around for a dimmer to turn up the light. He couldn’t find one. There was no knob on the door either. The screen lit up with a gentle buzz, and a small image appeared in the middle and grew, coming toward Georg until it filled the screen. There was a lot of black, with flitting yellow and red lights. It took him a few moments to realize that these were video shots taken from a moving car: yellow headlights and red brake lights that jerked with the rattling of the car from which the video was shot. At times the windshield wipers, the hood, the edge of the windshield, or the steering wheel came into the picture. The car was going fast, and yellow headlights came racing by. It was following another car’s red brake lights on the right side of the road and, trailing them, switched to pass the other cars on the left. The passing maneuvers were rough and aggressive, and the approaching headlights shot like a spray of sparks off the screen. The film had no sound. The traffic grew lighter. When there were no more oncoming headlights, and only the red brake lights were ahead, the car swerved next to the other car in front, the camera swinging toward its interior, to the profile of the driver and his hands on the steering wheel. The image kept jumping, showing a trouser leg and the roof of the car, as if the hand holding the camera had been knocked aside. For a few moments Georg couldn’t make out anything. Then both cars were in the picture. They had stopped, one having forced the other into a ditch. In the glare of the headlights, Georg could see two men beating up a third. Pummeling him. The third man collapsed, and the two other men began kicking him. The camera zoomed in, showing the bloody head of the man who was lying motionless on the ground. It showed his face from the side, and the tip of a shoe that pushed his head to the other side. It
showed his face from the front. The image on the screen disappeared with a light crackle. A chill ran down his spine. That was him. They had made a video of beating him up on the road back from Marseille.

“My young friend!” The door opened, the room brightened, and an effervescent Bulnakov came bursting in. He was just as fat, but now had on a blue three-piece suit. Gone were the shirt with the unbuttoned collar, the rolled-up sleeves, and the patches of sweat under his arms. There was a hint of eau de cologne. His English had the same hard tone as his French. “I can’t believe Janis made you wait here in this horrible little room. Come with me into my office.”

Georg followed Bulnakov past the map of the world and up the spiral staircase to the next floor, through an empty room with large pictures of trees, and through a double door. Bulnakov was talking incessantly. “This is quite different from my office in Cadenet, isn’t it? I’d have preferred a green carpet here. If you ask me, they overdid it a bit with the color of the wood, and without the green of the leaves, there’s no brown of the trees. The fight I had to put up for those pictures! Ah, but roughing it over there in the south of France had its charm too. Those were good days! Speaking of south, did you know that New York lies on the same latitude as Rome? You’ve already had a taste of the heat and humidity here. You just up and came to New York, to the New World! I’ll admit I was taken aback! I would never have thought you capable of that! But here you are, and I welcome you to the Big Apple and my office!”

He shut the door. It was a corner room with windows on two sides, a bare wall, and a wall with a picture of two beach chairs beneath an umbrella by the sea. In the corner between the windows stood the large desk, and across from it a sofa and chairs. They sat down. He’s all show, Georg thought, and not even
especially good at it. The gloomy room they had put him in for the movie, the door without a knob—that had been quite something. But they’d have done better to corner him right then and there: with the walk to Bulnakov’s office and all of Bulnakov’s swagger, Georg’s fear had dissipated.

“One look at you, and I can see you’re a changed man,” Bulnakov said. “This is no longer the timid young …”

“We’ve been through all that before. I’m sure you know what I want. I don’t like Provence anymore, and Provence doesn’t like me. Beginning a new life in a new place takes money. And I want that money from you.”

Bulnakov sighed. “Money … Had you agreed to my proposal back in Cadenet, we could have saved ourselves a whole lot of trouble. Especially you. But let’s forget about that, it’s water under the bridge, over and done with,
finito!
You see, I have no funds in connection with this matter anymore.” He held his empty hands out to Georg.

“Over and done with?” Georg replied. “Surely this story has the kind of plot that could go on. In fact, it
has
gone on quite excitingly for me: scene changes, a world metropolis instead of the back of beyond, this elegant office instead of the little poky one, rare woods and precious gems instead of technical translations, Mr. Benton instead of Monsieur Bulnakov. And yet the interests and the players are still the same. The next episode could be a winner if journalists, the police, and the CIA make an entrance.”

“Let’s not go into all that again. We already established back in Cadenet that the last thing
you
want is police involvement,” Bulnakov said, shaking his head with the kindly but impatient expression usually reserved for a petulant child.

“I came to you because what
I
want is two million dollars. I’d be happier with those two million than having to deal with the police, the CIA, or reporters, but if I don’t get the money, I’m quite prepared
to endure the little bit of trouble the police might put me through.” Georg stressed
little bit
and
trouble
.

“Two million dollars? Are you mad?”

“Fine, then let’s make it three. You mustn’t forget that I’m quite irritated. I loved my life in Cucuron, my cats, and my physical well-being. I’d need a large sum of money to turn my back on all the fuss I could make.”

Bulnakov laughed. “How do you picture your next step? You just go waltzing over to the CIA, ask for whoever’s on duty, and tell him your story? Whisper in his ear that Townsend Enterprises is a front for …”

“…  the Polish or even the Russian secret service.”

“And they’ll lap it all up, no questions asked? I have to say …” Bulnakov continued laughing, slapping his thighs, his belly hopping.

Georg waited. “In case you’re interested,” he began, and Bulnakov fell silent, “First of all I’d go to the press and show them all my papers and photographs. I’d let them decide when I should go to the CIA or the police. They’ll have their own ideas about timing and so on. Furthermore … as I’ve just seen in your screening room, you have quite a bit of photographic material yourself, but still you might like this little souvenir of the good times, our good times, back in Provence.” Georg took out the photograph of Bulnakov sitting behind the wheel of his Lancia, his arm resting on the rolled-down window, the sun in his face and on the license plate. He reached across the table and handed it to him.

“It’s a nice picture,” Bulnakov said. “And how nicely you put it: ‘the good times in Provence.’ It
is
amazing how you’ve developed. What a pity that you weren’t then who you are now. I’m sorry to bring this up again, but we could have worked so well together. As for the money …” He shook his head. “Even if we forget your little joke about the three million, I can’t see how … not to
mention …” He rested his head on his right hand, and with his middle finger rubbed his left eyebrow. Then he sat up. “Give me a few days. I need to give this some thought and make a few calls. Can we reach you at your friend’s number?”

At the door Georg asked about Françoise. “Is she okay?”

“Most definitely. She’s living a quieter life, doesn’t get out much. She’ll go to a baseball game now and then,” Bulnakov said with a smile. “You might even bump into her at one. I hear you’ve become a Yankees fan.”

THE NEXT FEW DAYS
were like a vacation for Georg. He spent them in Riverside Park. A blanket of heat was smothering the streets, but in the park there was a breeze from the river. He even put up with the pigeons. They covered the benches with their droppings and nodded their heads idiotically. Sparrows bathed in the dust. Squirrels darted nervously across the paths. The same homeless people sat on the same benches at the same time every day. The same joggers jogged. The same people walked the same dogs, some picking up the dog shit with plastic bags, others letting it lie, looking around guiltily. The same little brats in designer T-shirts terrorized the same black nannies.

Georg was pleased with the way his meeting with Bulnakov had gone. He hadn’t expected him to agree to his demand for money, let alone that he’d have paid it right away. Georg was happy to make Bulnakov squirm for a while before he would grudgingly realize that he had no other choice.

One afternoon there was a sudden thunderstorm, but Georg stayed on his park bench. The wind tore through the trees. Raindrops fell like sparkling pearls in the lightning flashes. Only one of the buildings on the street had a slanting roof, and the water came
pouring down the incline, flooding the gutter and spraying over the edge. He was soaked to the skin and very happy.

Sometimes he brought along a book, newspaper, or magazine. It had been a while since he had given any thought to the world at large. Was the world giving any thought to him? He was glad to loosen up a little, now that the world was taking on a friendlier face, and that substantial investments were on the horizon.

There was an article in
Newsweek
that he found particularly interesting. A consortium of European aircraft builders was developing a new attack helicopter, in partnership with the Gorgefield Aircraft Company. A major political breakthrough was in the works: by the late 1990s all the NATO armies were to adopt this single make of attack helicopter. The aim was to break the superiority of the Russians. The conventional wars of the future would be won or lost with attack helicopters. Uniformity in this weapon system was of vital importance, which was why the NATO defense ministers were meeting in Ottawa with a view to clinching this political breakthrough. The technological breakthrough was already under wraps. The article mentioned stub wings, ABC rotors, and RAM-coating.

How very interesting, Georg thought. I’m not surprised that the Russians would do anything to get their hands on Mermoz’s plans. Back at the apartment, he took out the copies he had made during his last few weeks of working for Mermoz. He had translated words like
screws, bolts, connectors, valves, spindles, flanges, nuts, clamps, caps, joints, spars, flex beams, mufflers, regulators, filters, slots, axels, rotors
, and so on, without being interested in what they meant. Now he tried to decode their meaning.

In a nearby bookstore he found a book about attack helicopters and read up on stub wings, ABC rotors, and RAM-coating. Stub wings help support the rotor and carry the weapons. As Georg read on, he realized that the suspensions were connected to the stub
wings. He also recognized that on his plans the rotors were closely stacked over one another, which in the ABC concept had the advancing blades providing more thrust than the retrograde blades, giving the helicopter the remarkable speed of over three hundred miles per hour. Finally he thought he had decoded the last series of plans. There were slots at the rear letting out compressed air, helping to make the tail rotor redundant. Sensational. He didn’t have the plans for the radar absorbing RAM-coating, but here it seemed to be more of a problem of the material and pricing than one of construction. About the Hokum, the newest Soviet attack helicopter, the book did not have much to say. But if it was true that the Hokum still used a tail rotor and could only reach speeds of two hundred miles per hour, then the Soviets had every reason to be alarmed by the NATO developments.

On Sunday he went to pick up Helen to take her out to brunch. The money from Germany had arrived. He had paid the rent, and had a thick roll of hundred-dollar bills hidden in his belt, and a wad of twenties in his pocket. He felt rich. Helen should enjoy his good times. When he arrived she was on the phone.

“No, Max, both shoulders. Take hold of both shoulders with both hands and fold them back until they meet. Now take both shoulders in one hand. Are you holding them? No, Max, not the sleeves.… Of course I know that the sleeves begin at the shoulders, and if you mean the beginning of the sleeves … Are you holding both shoulders where the sleeves begin with one hand? Good, then with the other, fold the side with the buttons … over the other side … the side with the buttonholes. You can’t? … Because you’re holding both shoulders together with your hand? You’ve got to let go for a second. Then you can fold the side with the buttons over the side with the buttonholes, so that only the lining is visible. What? The jacket fell on the floor? You let go of it? You can only let go of it once you’ve folded one side over the
other.… You can’t?” She got up, cradled the phone between her ear and shoulder, and took her jacket off the back of a chair. “You see, Max, I know what I’m talking about. I worked in a clothing store. I have a jacket in my hands right now.…” She folded it as she had described. You learn something every day, Georg thought. “I know you can’t see me. ‘You see’ is just a turn of phrase. Of course I know you can’t see me. All I wanted to say was, I have a jacket in my hands right now and it’s quite simple when the hand that holds both shoulders from inside … no, Max, I’m not coming over to pack your jackets for you. No. You don’t have many jackets, just one? Then why don’t you just wear it? Because it’s too warm in Italy? Listen, Max, I’ve got to go. Call me this evening.… Keep practicing. Or don’t take the jacket with you, if it’ll be too hot for you anyway.…” Helen had spoken the whole time with the utmost seriousness. Now she threw Georg an impatient, exasperated look. “Listen, I really have to go. Yes, I’m hanging up. Yes, now.”