KILLING PLATO (A Jack Shepherd crime thriller) (30 page)

After he had hung up, we sat quietly saying nothing for what was probably only a few minutes, but looking back it seems to me to have been hours.

I did not know the man who walked out from the house and handed Karsarkis a flat letter-sized envelope, manila in color, and I do not remember now what he looked like. All I can recall was watching the envelope he was carrying and being relieved beyond all reason it was so thin as to appear almost empty.

I HAD BEEN
expecting the worst, but for a moment my hopes soared. It wasn’t transcripts of conversations that had taken place when I was out of the apartment. That was what I had feared at first, but the envelope was too thin for that. But then what was it?

Karsarkis held the envelope in his right hand until the man who had brought it was gone. Then he shifted it to his left hand, absently tapping it against the edge of the table.

“This is not something I want to do, Jack,” he said, watching my eyes as he spoke.

I said nothing. Just held out my hand.

It was whatever it was. Waiting to look at it wasn’t going to change it into something else.

Karsarkis pushed the envelope across the table. I picked it up and opened it.

It contained a single photograph.

It was hard to tell where the photograph had been taken, but I did not think it was Bangkok. Anita was standing next to a dark blue Mercedes. She was wearing a short green dress I had never seen before, one which suited her perfectly. She had on yellow pumps and a big yellow belt with a silver buckle. She looked absolutely breathtaking.

There was a man with Anita, of course, but I didn’t know him. He was a few inches taller than she was and I thought they looked to be about the same age. His hair was long and he was dressed in what seemed to be an expensive, well-tailored suit with a white shirt and dark tie. He was unquestionably a handsome man, and he looked poised and confident.

His left arm held Anita around the waist with what was obvious familiarity and her right rested on his b怅ack. Her head was bent to his shoulder, her cheek pressed against it.

All of that I could have survived. All of that I could possibly have even one day forgotten. But it was the look on Anita’s face that took everything out of me. Even I could see the grace of love written on her features, the deep familiarity and indisputable devotion to the man at her side. And it broke my fucking heart.

I returned the photograph to the envelope, tucked in the flap, and slid it back across the table to Karsarkis. He left it where it was.

A yellow long-tail boat tracked across the cove below us, scoring it with a line as straight and as white as if it had been drawn with a ruler. Then after a few minutes the boat passed out of sight and the mark faded away and everything was exactly as it had been before. I wondered briefly if I had ever seen the boat at all. Perhaps I had only imagined it.

But I had not imagined the photograph of Anita and her…well, what? I supposed I had to decide what word to use, if only in my most private thoughts. I would be thinking about this a lot, of course, swimming back and forth between hatred and hurt, and thoughts that came without words were hard to get a grip on.

Her lover perhaps? Obviously true, but not an expression I would be able to bring myself to use. Her boyfriend? That sounded juvenile, dismissive, and this was a pain I could not dismiss with ridicule. Her friend? Christ, I couldn’t call him that. That hurt more than calling him her lover. The word would have to wait. It was too soon. Too soon for a word.

I sighed deeply and laced my fingers together behind my neck. Here I was, sitting in the bright sunshine of a beautiful Phuket morning, watching the sea capping gently in a light breeze, sharing coffee with the world’s most wanted fugitive, and trying to absorb the simple fact that my beautiful wife, the woman I had been devoted to beyond measure and loyal to without exception, had found someone else to love.

So drawing on the sum total of the wisdom I had gleaned from well over forty years of living, what was I going to do now? Was I going to wail and beat my breast? Was I going to fling myself off Karsarkis’ cliff and into the sea? Was I going to demand Karsarkis get me a bottle of something and get stinking drunk?

And what would be the point of any of that?
I asked myself.
What would be the fucking point?

I cleared my throat and shifted in my chair until I was facing Karsarkis again.

“Can we get back to business?” I asked him.

“Yes,” he said, keeping his expression neutral. “If you like.”

Karsarkis watched me carefully, but he didn’t say anything else.

“What is it you know that makes so many people want to kill you?” I asked him after a moment or two.

Karsarkis smiled at that, although I didn’t immediately see anything amusing about my question.

“It’s not so many,” he said. “Not really.”

“Then exactly who
is
on the list?”

“I would have to guess.”

“Go ahead,” I said. “Guess.”

“I’d rather not.”

“Did you know US marshals have you under surveillance?”

“Of course,” Karsarkis said and he shook his head and chuckled slightly. “I’veuo;I&rsq known about the kidnapping plan for a long time. That’s not going to happen.”

“They’re out there right now.” I gestured vaguely toward where I thought the road was. “They’ve got you cut off in both directions.”

“Good Lord, Jack, if I really wanted to go anywhere, you don’t really think a few glorified rent-a-cops driving a couple of panel vans could stop me, do you?”

I thought about Marcus York’s dead black eyes and about the silenced M-16s with laser sights, and I started to tell Karsarkis he probably ought to reconsider that, but I didn’t.

“What would you say if I told you it might have been the marshals who killed Mike O’Connell?”

Karsarkis studied my face, although I could read nothing in his eyes as he did. “Why would you think that?”

“I’ve got friends in Thai intelligence. They gave me a copy of what the NIA claims are intercepts of email between the marshals and somebody in Washington. None of it actually says they have orders to kill you, not in so many words, but that’s what it says nevertheless. I’m not even sure the stuff is genuine, but maybe it is. If it is, if the marshals are willing to kill you because of something you know, then maybe O’Connell also knew and…”

I stopped talking and spread my hands, my conclusion having become self-evident.

Karsarkis made little clicking noises with his tongue, thinking sounds, but he remained expressionless.

“Do you really believe the government of the United States goes around killing its own citizens, Jack?”

“Not very often,” I said. “But, yes, sometimes.”

Karsarkis was watching me carefully. He could see I was thinking about something, but he had to guess what it was.

“You do remember the fee I offered you,” he said, keeping his eyes on mine to see if that was it.

He was wrong. That wasn’t what I was thinking about. But I kept my face still and he didn’t know that.

“Yes, I remember.”

Indeed I did. A million dollars just for taking on the case. Four million more if the president ultimately pardoned Karsarkis. It made me think of a crusty old Jesuit priest who had taught me criminal law at Georgetown and of something he never tired of telling us, something he always called the lawyer’s prayer. ‘Oh, Lord God,’ the catechism went, ‘I pray for only one reward in this life. Send to me one day a very, very rich man, who is in very, very deep shit.’

In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.

“Why would the White House even consider pardoning you?” I asked Karsarkis.

Karsarkis offered a mirthless laugh. “Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon. Bill Clinton pardoned Marc Rich. How much worse am I?”

“There’s always somebody worse,” I said. “Maybe this time it’s you.”

Karsarkis pulled the box of cigars toward him and flipped up the lid. He studied them for a moment, selected one, and then turned the box and gave it a little push in my direction. I shook my head.

“Was it just about the money?” I asked. “Is that why you sold oil for the Iraqis and laundered the income?”

“Yofy">&ldqu’re not thinking big enough, Jack. It wasn’t ever about selling oil for the Iraqis. And, for me, it wasn’t ever about the money.”

“Then what was it?”

“It was about doing the right thing.”

“The right thing?”

“Hasn’t anyone ever asked you to do the right thing? And then you did it just because it
was
the right thing, even if you harmed yourself by doing it?”

Karsarkis snipped the end of the cigar and lit it with a long wooden match. He drew gently, rotating it in his hand until the tip was glowing evenly. Then he shook out the match and dropped it into a heavy cut-glass ashtray.

“I don’t understand,” I said when he had finished. “I really don’t.”

“No, I don’t imagine you do. Only a handful of people know the whole truth.”

Karsarkis began to snap his index finger rhythmically against his thumbnail. In the silence I could hear the little
click-click-click
it made.

“Go to your friend in the White House, Jack. Tell them the president must give me a full pardon. If he does not, I will tell what I know. And if I do, it will bring them down. It’s that simple.”

“You want me to threaten the President of the United States for you? Is that what you’re asking me to do here?”

“It is not a threat. You are simply delivering a message. I assure you your friend will understand it very clearly. He will also believe the message because it comes from you.”

I shook my head and looked away. Maybe the US marshals really were trying to kill Karsarkis. Maybe I was even starting to develop a measure of sympathy for their point of view.

“I don’t really understand why you want a pardon,” I said, after a minute or two had passed in silence.

“Why wouldn’t I?’

“If people in the United States important enough to command loyalty from the US marshals want you killed, why would you even think of going back there? Aren’t you safer here?”

“Even if it is the Americans who want to kill me…” Karsarkis stopped talking abruptly and scratched at his ear, then shifted his cigar from one side of his mouth to the other. “If I cannot convince them that killing me is a bigger risk than
trusting me, I am a dead man. Next week, maybe, or a month or two perhaps, but eventually I am a dead man for sure. If they really want me, they will get me. Just like I imagine they got Mike.”

“And even if the president pardons you, how do you know they won’t kill you anyway?” I asked. “You’ll still know whatever this is that makes you such a threat. How can you expect them ever to trust you?”

“You will be the proof I can be trusted, Jack. You yourself will be that proof.”

My hands rose and rubbed at my face and I closed my eyes. I had heard too much for one day and already had asked too many questions about things I did not really want to know about. But I couldn’t stop myself.

“I still don’t understand,” I said. “What proof am I?”

Karsarkis’ voice dropped to a husky, confidential whisper. “The proof that I can be trusted, that I have told
no one
the truth. Even
you
don&rsquoem> don&;t know what really happened.”

WHEN I GOT
back to the Cherokee, Plaid Shirt was gone. I put the key in the ignition and then just sat there leaning against the steering wheel trying to think clearly. It took only a few minutes for me to abandon the whole concept of thinking clearly as hopelessly unrealistic, at least right then, so I sat up straighter and turned the key.

Nothing happened.

I pulled the key out and stared stupidly at it. Then I pushed it back into the ignition, very deliberately this time, and tried the starter again.

Still nothing.

A grinding sound without the engine firing; an engine that started, then died; even a useless lurch or two from the starter motor. All of these seemed to be within the realm of the comprehension and would have at least provided some clue as to what the problem might be, but…
nothing
? What the hell did
nothing
tell me?

I fumbled under the dashboard. When I found a handle that felt right, I gave it a tug and felt an answering
thunk
as the hood release popped open. Getting out and walking around to the front of the Cherokee, I lifted the hood. That was when it occurred to me I didn’t have the slightest idea what I was looking for. Once I had confirmed the engine was still there and pretty much in its accustomed place, my skills as an automotive mechanic were exhausted.

“Car trouble?” a woman’s voice asked from behind me.

I turned around and found Karsarkis’ wife Mia smiling at me from a dozen feet or so away. Just behind her were Plaid Shirt and another man I didn’t recognize. I also noticed they were not smiling.

“It won’t start,” I said, demonstrating my flair for the obvious.

“Is it a rental?” Mia asked.

Why was it everybody had such a keen interest in my personal relationship with this vehicle?

“Yes,” I said. “Avis.”

“I could have one of the boys call them for you.”

She half turned toward Plaid Shirt, but then she stopped and looked back at me.

“I’ve got a better idea,” she said. “I’m going to Amanpuri to meet a friend for lunch. They have an Avis office there, don’t they?”

Amanpuri was the most exclusive resort on Phuket, one of those places where tourists from Europe paid thousands of dollars a night to stay in luxurious villas and avoid mingling with the locals. If they didn’t have an Avis office there, it would be the only thing they didn’t have.

“They could give you another car now,” Mia continued, “and then come get this one later.”

Amanpuri was perched on the tip of a heavily forested peninsula on the island’s west coast that separated the beaches at Bang Tao from those at Surin. I hadn’t had any intention of going in that direction, but sitting around Karsarkis’ place for a few hours hoping that a tow truck would eventually turn up was even less appealing.