The Zul Enigma (36 page)

‘Take the freight
elevator,’ the doctor cut in. ‘That’s what we do when we use the stretcher.’ He
turned to Erika. ‘It stops at level minus three here in E Building.’

‘Do you know how to get
there?’ Greg asked her.

‘I can follow the
signs.’

‘Best you take a
security guard,’ Greg said. ‘We don’t want you getting lost. Park there and
wait. The other guard can help us with Carlos.’

‘Good,’ Erika said, ‘and
Corrinne, don’t forget to grab Carlos’s briefcase. He might need it at the
hospital – ID and all that.’

 
‘Okay,’ Corrinne muttered. After the
initial adrenaline rush that had kept her focused when she first found Carlos,
she was now in a state of shock.

Erika was half way to
the door when she spun round, making her chin length white blonde hair flare.
‘The CCTV cameras. Who monitors them? We don’t want security panicking if they
see Carlos being helped out of his office and down the corridor. Can you help
with that, sir?’

‘I already told security
to keep it quiet.’ Smart woman he was thinking as she sped off.

‘Now,’ Greg said to the
doctor, ‘let’s see if he can walk,’ and he lumbered over to where Carlos was
sitting. ‘Carlos, Carlos…’ Greg shook his elbow. ‘Carlos,’ he called louder.
‘Wake up. You collapsed. We’re taking you to hospital. Can you stand?’

Carlos turned his head
and looked at Greg, who thought he saw a flicker of recognition but then it
disappeared. ‘Come on, son, try and stand up.’

He
moved behind the sofa and after several attempts at pushing Carlos while the
doctor hauled on one arm and the security guard on the other, they inched him
forward on the couch. In spite of his pitching this way and that they finally
got him on his feet and half dragged, half carried him out of the office and
along the corridor while Corrinne kept her finger on the call button for the
lift. By the time they reached the basement Erika was already waiting in her
Ford Focus with the engine running and the security guard in the passenger
seat. They manoeuvred Carlos into the back where he sat sandwiched between
Corrinne and the doctor, oblivious to what was going on.

It was a tight squeeze
but Greg slammed the door shut and Erika drove off leaving him to exit the
building in a separate car accompanied by his personal plain clothes security
man.

***

As soon as he’d completed Carlos’s admission
procedures, the UN doctor left. Meanwhile Greg telephoned the chief registrar,
who was off duty at the time, to impress on him the importance of keeping
Carlos’s presence at the hospital secret. He then joined Corrinne and Erika who
were sitting in the empty waiting room, sipping coffee they’d got from a
vending machine.

‘Have you any idea what
caused this?’ Greg asked Corrinne, pulling up a chair to the small table around
which the women were hunched.

She pushed a plastic cup
towards him. ‘Mr Secretary-General, sir,’ she said looking up. ‘I did something
I shouldn’t have. I accepted a holovideo call from someone who wanted to talk
to Carlos.’

‘Corrinne! What were you
thinking?’

She sat twisting and
untwisting the button at her coat collar.

The previous afternoon, while Erika’s boys were at a birthday party and just
after Corrinne had finished her first holovideo call with Carlos, the two women
had grabbed a cup of tea at the coffee shop in UNO City. They’d had a real
heart-to-heart, with Corrinne becoming even more worried about Carlos when Erika
explained how he’d fallen out with Drew. Corrinne then explained that Greg had
arranged for Carlos to come to Vienna on his way to Spain.

‘The Secretary-General’s
fond of him, isn’t he?’ Erika said. ‘You know, I’d like to see Carlos too. Give
him those magazines. I know he’ll want to take them with him.’

Corrinne sucked in a
breath. ‘There’s enough time to get approval for you to come up to the office
and drop them off. But you won’t be able to see Carlos. Anyhow, he’s got a lot
to wrap up and he’ll only be here for a few hours. And none of us knows how ill
he really is,’ she said, popping a forkful of chocolate cake in her mouth.

‘How was he when you
spoke to him just now?’

‘He looked tired. And
dishevelled. Very unlike him. We had a normal enough conversation considering,
although he seems very anxious.’

‘Poor Carlos. I know!
I’ll put a letter in with the magazines. And perhaps I can get Joe to call him
– that might cheer him up.’

Corrinne shook her head.
‘He won’t be able to talk to Carlos. The boss told me we have to keep him under
“close scrutiny”,’ she enunciated the last two words deliberately and raised
her eyebrows, ‘while he’s here. Other than the boss and me, he won’t be allowed
contact with anyone. Not even an old friend like Joseph.’

‘What if the
Secretary-General didn’t know?’

‘Erika! I’d be drummed
out of the Brownies.’

‘You could stay in the
room so you’d know what was said and if they spoke about anything they
shouldn’t, you could shut it down. Come on Corrinne, Carlos needs a friend
right now.’

‘No, Erika, I can’t.’

‘But now he’s fallen out
with Drew, it would do him so much good knowing there’s someone else out there
who cares.’

‘He has his family in
Madrid.’

‘Ha!’ Erika said,
‘elderly parents and a sister who’s run off her feet looking after two little
boys under three. You remember what that was like. Come on Corrinne, Carlos has
no one. Talking to Joseph may be the one thing that will help.’

Corrinne took a deep
breath and pursed her lips, ‘Erika. I just
can’t.
’

Greg stared at Corrinne, waiting for her to answer.

She was still fiddling
with the button on her coat. ‘I… I thought it would help him. Especially now
he’s fallen out with his only close friend, Drew Roberts.’

‘Who was it?’

‘Joseph Fisher. An old
friend from Goddard.’

Greg shook his head.
‘How could you do this? You know the position we’re in with the Americans. I
told you categorically that Carlos was allowed contact with no one other than
you and me. This man might contact the press. Then the whole thing’ll be blown
even more out of proportion than it already is.’

‘Sir,’ Erika
interrupted. ‘I’ve known Joseph Fisher for fifteen years. He won’t talk to the
press. I guarantee you his complete discretion. He does business with the
American military. He’s been security cleared by them for years. If they can
trust him, so can you.’ Greg started to open his mouth, but Erika continued,
‘and please don’t be angry with Corrinne. It’s my fault. I pressured her to
accept Joe’s call. We were just thinking about what was best for Carlos. That’s
all.’

Greg shut his mouth and
both women sat staring at the table.

‘I’ll need this man’s
number,’ he said, breaking the silence. ‘I’ll ring him when I get back to the
office.’

Corrinne’s chin had all
but disappeared, flattened as it was against the collar of her coat as if she
was trying to make herself invisible.

Greg cleared his throat.
‘Now, pull yourself together Corrinne, and tell me exactly what was said.’

She dug her hands deeper
into her pockets. ‘Immediately after you left Carlos’s office, Erika arrived,’
she began in a small voice. ‘I told you she had some vintage music magazines
for Carlos. But even they didn’t cheer him up,’ she looked round at Erika for
reinforcement. ‘I told you, right?’

‘Yes,’ Erika said, ‘you
see Carlos fell out with his old friend Drew in DC and he knows Drew and I are
close. I don’t think he wants anything more to do with me either.’

‘He acted like he
couldn’t have cared less about them. He just sat on the couch staring out of
the window. I brought him coffee – then my iTab buzzed.’ Corrinne looked
diminutive sitting opposite Greg’s huge bulk. ‘It was Joseph wanting to
instigate a holovideo call.’ She looked up at Greg and started twiddling the
button again. ‘Carlos looked so disturbed, so vacant… I… well… my heart went out
to him.’ Her eyes misted up, ‘I only wanted to help him, sir. So I logged in at
his terminal and accepted the call…’ her voice petered out.

‘Could the conversation
have something to do with his collapse?’ Greg asked.

Corrinne shook her head.
‘I don’t know. I was there all the time except at the very end, but we were
wrong. Carlos wasn’t happy to hear from that man. In fact, Carlos was trying to
get him off the line when I left.’

‘And you have no idea
how long he was unconscious?’

‘None.’

‘How about the CCTV
records?’

‘He collapsed out of
camera range.’

‘Hm,’ Greg sighed. ‘I’d
better get back to the office and call this man Joseph. I want you to stay here
Corrinne and let me know immediately you have news from the doctor. Full
security will soon be in place and they’ll be here around the clock. And
someone will need to have a word with you, Erika,’ he shifted his gaze in her
direction. ‘You’ve become privy to some things you shouldn’t have today. You’ll
have to sign some confidentiality documents.’ Erika nodded.

Greg put the cup down on
the table. ‘We’ll talk later, Corrinne,’ he said hoisting himself off the
flimsy metal-framed chair. Then, turning to Erika again he added, ‘Thank you
for your help earlier. Especially for driving Carlos here. It was very kind of
you.’

She smiled a small smile
as he shambled out of the waiting room.

***

‘We did it.’

‘Did what?’

‘He’s in hospital.’

‘Oh hell!’

‘Our friend just called
to tell me.’

‘This is the best bloody
news I’ve had in days.’

‘His boss has arranged twenty-four
hour security.’

‘You’re sure he’ll be
safe?’

‘From what our friend
told me, it would take an army to get at him.’

CHAPTER 22

Just under an hour later Greg was back at the suite of offices on the
fourteenth floor of E Building that he always used whenever he visited UNO
City. The place was practically deserted. He leaned back in the chair as far as
it would go, feet planted on the floor, swivelling himself from left to right,
relief flooding through him with the knowledge that Carlos was hidden away at
AKH.

On his return he’d
explained to the American security people how Carlos had collapsed, requiring
Greg to rush him away for urgent medical attention. They were furious. When UN
security had done a sweep of Carlos and his office, they’d found the miniature
transmitters the Americans had planted on him and in his briefcase. The UN
security guard who helped Carlos out of the building relocated them in Carlos’s
office and although suspicious, the Americans couldn’t question why Carlos had
apparently stayed in one spot for so long.

Greg’s big shoulders
heaved as he sucked in air to clear his mind. He needed to speak to this Joseph
Fisher but he couldn’t risk calling via the UN switchboard. He knew Bob’s
National Security Agency monitored all UN communications, especially his. So he
fished out the mobile phone he used to make safe calls, put on his spectacles
and dialled the number Corrinne had given him.

‘Joseph Fisher?’

‘Yes?’

‘This is Greg Howard,
Secretary-General of the United Nations.’

‘Good evening,’ Joseph
sounded surprised.

‘I understand you
initiated a holovideo call with one of our employees, Dr Carlos Maiz, this
afternoon? Is that so?’

‘That’s correct. Is
there a problem?’

‘Yes, I regret to say
there is. Dr Maiz’s administrative assistant accepted your call contrary to
instructions. If this were to get out it would put both myself and the UN in an
extremely embarrassing situation with the American government.’

‘Mr Secretary-General,
can I speak freely on this line, if you understand my meaning?’

‘This is as secure a
line as I can get, yes.’

‘I’ve known Carlos for
years. We both worked at Goddard. A few days ago Dr Drew Roberts, another old
NASA colleague, told me Carlos had been detained by the Americans and
investigated by the NI. Of course, he couldn’t give me any details – he’d
signed a secrecy agreement with you people as well as the Americans – but
we all go back years and if he says Carlos is in trouble, I believe him.’

‘Go on.’

‘Drew told me he was
worried about Carlos’s mental state and what’s more, so were the Americans. Put
simply, he was afraid it would give them an excuse to hold onto him until the
threat he posed, real or imagined, was neutralised, if ever. Let’s just say
neither of us was prepared to let that happen.’

‘Hm.’

‘Sir, I head the MALAT
Division of Israel Aerospace Industries. It’s part of IAI’s Military Aircraft
Group. I work with militaries and ministries of defence all over the world. I’m
involved in big, bad business. I know how sometimes an innocent man can get steamrollered
if he’s in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’ve seen it happen and I don’t
want it happening to my friend. If he truly is sick then he needs to be in a
place where he’ll be looked after by people who genuinely care about him.’