Hard Rain (28 page)

I
was lying down, trying to sleep and hoping to wake and find this all a nasty dream, when there was the sudden sound of metal on metal and the heavy, grey-painted door swung open. Mallet and Goddard walked in behind it.

I didn’t sit up. ‘So let me guess,’ I said. ‘Masters entered me for an extreme makeover and you’re here to start my transformation into Brad Pitt.’

I got blank stares from both of them. ‘Let me take another guess. You two are playing Dumb and so far it’s a tie game.’

‘A room with rubber walls, Cooper, that’s what you need,’ Goddard said, pushing out his chin.

I hoisted myself up off the cot. My hand throbbed and my rib jagged on something, causing a spasm that stretched my lips tight across my teeth. I had a sudden loss of interest in sparring.

‘For a cop, you seem to spend a hell of a lot of time behind bars,’ said Mallet. ‘It’s time to leave. Can you get up under your own steam or do you want a hand?’

‘Keep your applause to yourself.’ I rubbed my rib cage with my good hand. ‘Where are we going and what’s the catch?’

‘No catch, Cooper. Holding you for an extra hour was Istanbul
homicide’s little joke. They called the embassy, who told us to come and get you. And here we are, fast as our little legs could carry us.’

I managed to stand, feeling woozy. A strong hand under my armpit held me upright.

‘You’ve lost weight, Cooper,’ said Goddard. ‘We heard about your stint underground.’

Was I mistaken or were these guys playing nice? They weren’t biting like they used to, but I knew how to fix that. ‘The folks who killed Ten Pin down at Incirlik – I think you knew who they were,’ I began. ‘That’s why you came across Masters and me being heavied in the park. You weren’t tailing us, you were following
them
– the woman called Yafa, the jerk with the toothpick and their entourage of sociopaths.’

‘You’re guessing, Cooper,’ said Mallet.

‘I don’t think so. Down at Incirlik, you wanted to know if I’d recognised the two guys in the van who died in the fire. You were fishing. You thought I might have identified them because
you
knew who they were and you were curious about whether we did, too. Their names were Ben and Jonah, by the way. So, you want to come clean and tell me about the shit you guys are wading around in? And maybe while you’re at it, you could drop the whole CID routine.’

‘Harvey will be seeing you later, back at the ranch,’ Mallet informed me. It was like the guy had had a lobotomy, a slack smile on his face. I think I preferred him mean. ‘You got questions, ask him,’ he continued.

Harvey Stringer. CIA. I might have known.

As I walked, the blood started flowing again and the muscles felt a little less seized. I collected my belongings from a bored guy behind a thick wire screen, belongings that included a box of bandages and the laces for my shoes. I checked my cell phone but the batteries had rigor mortis.

‘Where’s Special Agent Masters?’ I asked.

‘Outside,’ said Mallet, pointing me in the general direction.

Winter sunshine bathed the access road out the back. I lifted my face to soak up some warmth. It was a handful of minutes after midday.

A black Suburban idled, waiting. A young guy trying too hard to look the part in Ray-Ban Aviators, jeans and leather jacket, held open the rear door. I could see Masters dozing, her head against the window concentrating the sunshine. I stopped and scoped the building behind me. Somewhere up there, Karli and Iyaz were having a laugh at my expense. Maybe we weren’t so different after all.

There was a fully equipped OR in the basement of the consulate-general. The doctor, a middle-aged woman with a crooked nose and a mole on her cheek sprouting hairs, saw to my knuckles.

The x-rays came back without delay and the picture said things weren’t as bad as they felt, although it was back to square one on the original fractures. At least they wouldn’t require surgery to line up the pieces.

The doc drew off half a syringe of reddish fluid from them and re-taped my rib. Being up to date on my shots, I passed on the hepatitis and tetanus boosters. She left to go stir a cauldron while I sat on the cot and waited for the plaster to dry out a little.

Not long after, Masters walked in with a glow, looking like she’d spent a week at a health farm. Rat agreed with her. ‘How you doing?’ she asked.

‘I’ll never play the violin.’

‘So we’re all in luck. I just saw Cain,’ she said. ‘He thinks he might have struck gold on that email, the one signed by the mysterious B.’

‘Yeah?’

‘More than likely it’s B for Bob. Bob Rivers – CEO of Thurlstane’s European operation. He’s based in Paris.’

Thurlstane Group, the US civil-engineering giant. I recalled the email:
You know the score better than anyone. We’ll hold you to your promise that the mess down there won’t sour our chances on future contracts. All best, B
. ‘So what was the mess Bob hoped wouldn’t curdle their reputation?’

‘A little two-billion-dollar project,’ she said.

‘What does two billion buy you?’

‘A big fat desal plant.’

‘Desalination . . .’ Water. It fit.

T
here were no cabs at Charles de Gaulle Airport, the drivers off striking for better pay. But a large number of enterprising locals had filled the gap, offering their private vehicles for a fare that was, ironically, double the usual going rate. We picked one of these at random from the line-up. As we rode into Paris I was thinking that maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea to get out of Dodge for a day or so – let everyone cool off.

‘You been to Paris before?’ I asked Masters as we motored away from arrivals.

‘As a matter of fact, I have. You?’

‘Yeah, I’ve been to Parris.’

‘Really?’

‘As in the island. Parris Island, Beaufort, South Carolina. Ah, those mad, impetuous Marines. What sweet memories.’

Masters gave me a smile that did a better job of warming up the vehicle than the heating, and said, ‘On the way, why don’t we detour and drive past the Eiffel Tower?’

‘Only if you think we’ll see some poodles with that funny haircut they give them.’

Masters surprised me again by having a conversation with the driver in fluent French.

We saw the tower, but no poodles. There weren’t any guys with pencil moustaches wearing berets and striped T-shirts either. But we saw a lot of Moslems wearing headscarves and more than a few dressed in hijabs. Maybe East had moved West from Istanbul and was having a meeting here too.

It was late by the time we arrived at Thurlstane, just after 8 pm, but within the range of time set down for the appointment. The conglomerate’s European HQ was situated on the Rue de Rivoli, overlooking the Jardin des Tuileries – very little of which I could pronounce – in a classic eighteenth-century Parisian building washed and sandblasted so that it gleamed in its floodlights like a clean conscience. A block and a half away, various kings by the name of Louis had lived in a little outhouse called the Louvre. And you could throw a stone into the front stalls of the National Theatre from here, or maybe a tomato if you didn’t like the show. Thurlstane had a reputation for buying its way into the local establishment. In Paris, cred was costing them plenty.

Masters and I were shown into a room lined with huge antique mirrors set in gold frames, portraits of Louis XVI and Napoleon staring at each other from opposite walls, and on the ceiling a bunch of Bonaparte’s soldiers on horseback surrounded by naked flying babies with wings sprouting from their backs. The table was wood, enormous, and so highly polished that it seemed to be covered in a thin film of water.

Before we left Istanbul, I’d spoken briefly on the phone to Bob Rivers and pictured a big guy with a confident jaw. In reality he was pushing five ten in lifts, was shaped like a football and had a wandering eye, so that I wasn’t sure which one to look at. He sat opposite us flanked on either side by an attorney, both of whom clasped their hands in front of them on the table. Rivers’ eyes moved around like they were on stalks. Collectively, the three of them reminded me of a crab sitting on a mud flat at low tide.

‘This is the second page of the email I told you about,’ I said, addressing Rivers and pushing the sheet across the table towards him.

One of the lawyers intercepted it, picked it up and read it. He nodded.
Yes, this is a sheet of paper. Yes, there are words on it. Yes it is signed ‘B’. So far, so good.
He passed it to Rivers, who read it and put it down.

‘What can you tell me about the desalination project at Kumayt?’ I asked, hoping for a monologue that answered all our questions.

The attorney on the left answered. ‘Before we start here, a few ground rules. We have instructed Mr Rivers that you have no authority to ask questions and that, in consequence, there is no need for him to provide you with answers on any matter. Most especially, do not ask about matters that are commercial in confidence. Should you transgress on this point, the interview will be terminated.’

Attorney on the right said, ‘From the outset, our client wishes to inform you that neither he nor the Thurlstane Group, which will henceforth be called “the company”, had any involvement whatsoever in the murder of Colonel Emmet Portman, and so if you ask him questions on this matter inferring his or the company’s involvement, this interview will be terminated. Furthermore, be aware that this interview is being taped for use in any possible proceedings that may arise as a result of this meeting.’

I loosened a blob of croissant dough from between my teeth and tried to connect with one of Bob’s eyes and approach the issues from another tack. ‘Did you send Colonel Portman this email?’ I asked.

Rivers hesitated then checked with the claw on either side that this question was permitted. He received nods. ‘Yes. I wrote the email,’ he said.

‘Did “the mess down there”, as you wrote here, refer to a tender for works at the city of Kumayt in south-eastern Iraq?’

More nods. ‘Yes,’ replied Rivers.

‘A desalination plant?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did “the mess” you referred to have anything to do with radioactive contamination of the water supply?’ I asked, fishing.

Rivers was about to answer when attorney on the left interrupted. ‘“The mess” was in relation to our concern about the way in which
the tender process was being conducted,’ he said, answering on Rivers’ behalf.

Attorney on the right chipped in: ‘This meeting is teetering on the edge of termination, Special Agent.’

The meeting was teetering on the edge of making me want to punch the both of them.

Rivers must have felt the same way, because he pushed himself back from the desk suddenly and said, ‘Aw, this is pure bullshit.’

‘Mr Rivers – sir. As we agreed prior to this interview, we recommend –’

‘I recommend you go find a sock and chew on it. I’m going to speak for myself from now on,’ he said. ‘Emmet was a good man. I’ll take full responsibility for any . . . ah . . . transgressing.’ Maybe Bob had a square jaw after all. He continued. ‘The mess was simply that this tender was a farce from the very beginning.’

Attorney on the left got up from the table and walked to a control panel on the door. He flicked a switch. I guessed he’d had a change of heart about recording the meeting. He sat back down and said, ‘I’m sorry, Mr Rivers, sir. Please continue.’

Rivers sighed. ‘A lot of money had been changing hands under the table. There was stuff going on you wouldn’t believe. But there was two billion at stake, and that kind of money can warp the process, especially in a currency-hungry place like Iraq. I’d bumped into Emmet when I was in Ankara, looking into a highway we were building there. I hadn’t seen him for thirty years, maybe more. We grew up together, kids from the same neighbourhood.

‘Anyway, we had lunch and I got around to telling him about the problems we were having down in Iraq. He offered to look into it for us – said he knew some people who might be able to help out. As it turned out, there was not a lot he could do, but the project really fired him up. He started putting in a lot of time at some hospital there. Anyway, we – the Thurlstane Group and Emmet Portman – fought the good fight, but it was clear the project was always going to go to Moses Abdul Tawal. He –’

Masters cut in. ‘Who’s he?’

‘Moses Abdul Tawal. An interesting character. I’d love to see what you people could dig up on the man. He headed up a joint consortium of Iraqi, Turkish and Egyptian interests. Tawal won the tender. As I said, Tawal was always going to win the tender.’

‘What can you tell us about him?’ Masters asked.

‘That he’s a crook. But murder?’ Rivers shook his head. ‘I can’t say that he would or wouldn’t be capable of it.’

‘What can you tell us about the radioactive contamination?’ Masters enquired.

‘The contamination was part of the reason for building the plant. An environmental statement went out with the tender that included a water-quality report. Traces of chemicals and low-grade activity indicated the presence of depleted uranium in the surface water. The ground water was almost brine and undrinkable – the other reason for building the plant. The Iraqi government didn’t want to make too many waves about the DU, because of its reliance on Washington and its desire not to embarrass its biggest benefactor. Money was put up for the desal plant – and everyone was happy.’

‘Would you have a copy of the ES?’ Masters asked.

‘Shredded,’ said the attorney on the right. ‘One of the conditions of the tender.’

‘How did Colonel Portman think he could help you out?’

‘We were getting raked over local politics. Emmet was going to dig around and find out who was pulling the strings.’

Rivers gave a snort. ‘Y’know, this company can play hardball with the best of them, but these people operated on a whole new level.’

I noticed that both attorneys had been getting increasingly restless – huffing, wringing their hands.

‘I can tell you the plant they ended up building cost closer to three billion,’ the CEO added.

‘That’s a lot of over-runs,’ I said.

‘Yeah, either Tawal built more down there than was included in the scope of works, or big chunks of money went missing into someone’s pocket.’

‘Mr Rivers . . .’ attorney on the left interjected, unable to hold himself back. Attorney on the right pulled the plug, ending the interview. Attorney on the left claimed we were wading into dangerous, litigious waters. I hoped they both had cuts on their legs and that there were also piranhas swimming in those waters.

A multi-billion-dollar desal plant, a missing billion, DU contamination, and a water sample that folks were being killed over. These facts had caused a bell between my ears to ring, and it was ringing to point out that both Masters and I had missed something obvious and extremely dangerous.

Back on the street, the first thing I noticed was that our ride had disappeared. We had no choice but to head for the metro. A map informed us that there was a train line to Charles de Gaulle from the Châtelet metro station, a fifteen-minute walk away. Ten minutes if we hustled.

On the way, I told Masters about the uneasy feeling I’d had from the beginning. I wished to hell that bell had rung sooner. ‘We’ve got a mole, someone on the inside, working with Yafa.’

‘What?’

‘We’ve got a mole. No doubt about it,’ I said as we broke into a trot. ‘Think about it. That floor safe at Portman’s wasn’t on the plans – not even the leasing agent knew about it. So Portman’s killers cleaned out the wall safe, thinking they had everything there was to have, and split. And then suddenly they’re after Fedai. Why? Because someone had to have told them about the floor safe, and that Fedai was the person who ransacked it.’

‘Jesus . . . you’re right. I can’t believe we missed it. Any ideas about who it could be?’

‘That’s the sixty-four thousand dollar question. Could be someone within the consulate-general. Istanbul police has access to the case notes, so it could be someone in Iyaz and Karli’s department. Might even be Iyaz or Karli. Then there are the forensics people . . . I wouldn’t know where to start looking.’

We made it to the station in a little over seven minutes, took the stairs and headed for the ticket office. It might have been the world’s biggest
subway station complex, but at 9:30 pm the place was a morgue. We headed down to the platform. We had a few minutes to kill before the next train arrived, so I took the opportunity to get something else off my chest. ‘You know, I haven’t told you how much I enjoyed being stuck in a toilet with you.’

‘Like I keep telling you, Vin, a cistern isn’t a toilet,’ Masters said, leaning over the edge of the platform, examining the tunnel at both ends of the platform. ‘And “enjoyed” isn’t the word I’d have used to describe the experience.’

‘No, I guess not.’

‘But I know what you mean. We nearly, um . . . all over again, didn’t we?’

‘We did.’ The breeze coming through the tunnel stiffened. ‘We should talk about it one day soon. Maybe over a bottle of moisturiser.’

‘Don’t you ever give up?’ she asked, raising an eyebrow.

‘If you don’t ask, you don’t get, right?’

My eyes took a wander around the platform. It was almost empty. Around twenty yards to our left was a woman wearing a scarf over her head. She was looking straight ahead, towards the railway lines. In front of her was a stroller. Her baby was crying. To our right, two metro cops were walking the platform, chatting, coming towards us. There were also a couple of guys in hooded sweats, horsing around. The cops had words with them, which moved them on. One of them flicked the uniforms the bird behind their back. Something was giving me an uneasy feeling about the scene. I wasn’t sure what it was. But then I realised: it was the crying.

I glanced back at the woman. She was doing nothing to comfort her baby. Nothing at all. It kept crying; she kept ignoring it, motionless. Odd. And then she turned towards us. Stubble. The woman had forgotten to shave. She reached into her pram and extracted an Uzi. I turned towards the cops, looking for assistance, only now they were behind us. Pistols jammed into our backs.

‘We’ll give you and your partner a choice, Mr Special Agent,’ the man in a dress with the machine pistol called out as he strode towards us. His accent was heavy. ‘You can catch a bullet or the train.’

The breeze turned into a wind and the light down in the dark end of the tunnel became the silhouette of a train. Rushing air tugged at my coat. The pistol dug harder into my back. The cops braced. They were set to heave us both over the lip of the platform, into the path of the train. It burst through the tunnel into the station. We had one chance. No time left for alternatives.

Snatching Masters’ wrist, I pulled her with me, over the lip of the platform, into the train’s path. She screamed as we fell heavily into the space between the edge of the sleepers and the base of the platform. The fall winded me.
VOOM
. The train thundered past inches from our heads, brakes screeching, wheels locked, the driver executing an emergency stop. I fought for breath, winded, my taped rib like a knife in my side. I wrapped Masters in my arms, pushed her against the ground, away from the rails, the wheels, the sparks. I lay over her, shielding her, pushing her down into the dirty concrete. Hydraulics hissed and the subway cars heaved to a crashing halt.