Bloodmoney

42

It was a beguiling Saturday afternoon for an outing in the park. Summer was at the cusp; a cool breeze rustled the trees in a shimmer of green. There had been rain overnight, and the well-nourished grass sparkled in the sun like a glistening jewel. The motorways west had been crowded in the morning, but by afternoon the traffic had thinned out, especially south of the Thames on the way to the Royal Botanical Gardens.

Kew was a trophy of imperial days that had survived into the post-colonial age. It had been built with the explorer’s spirit that had sent the East India Company off to Calcutta and Karachi. It was filled with imperial kitsch: a pogoda, a glass house fit for a maharaja, a conservatory sculpted like a Greek temple, exotic flowers and trees from every point of the compass. It was, you might say, the perfect place to assemble a group from the former empire.

Jeffrey Gertz was the first to enter the Kew compound. He had prepared for battle, just so, but nothing ever goes as planned. He had organized a half dozen shooters, dressed like Saturday tourists, but there was trouble at the gate. British security was tight, and the weapons were found at the entrance. Gertz’s men were detained and taken to Richmond for questioning. They would be there all afternoon, the detective sergeant at the station had advised. Fortunately, Gertz had planted a weapon for himself near the meeting site the day before, with help from a British security officer who had contacts in the Metropolitan Police.

Gertz would manage on his own. He had a big heart, and anyway, relying on other people always created problems. He entered the gardens at Victoria Gate, on the southeast side. Ahead of him was the curved glass facade of the Palm House, ribbed with white metal stays. It enclosed the tall palms like a giant hatbox. Gertz skirted the pond behind the Palm House and lingered by the rose garden, to make sure he wasn’t being followed. Then he moved west toward the meeting place.

The meeting with Dr. Omar was to take place just past the Badger Sett, a Christopher Robin sort of place carved out under the roots of a giant oak tree. That had been a strange choice, Gertz had first thought, but when he looked on the map he saw that it was the farthest landmark from the main gate, and thus the best venue for a clandestine contact. That had always been one of Dr. Omar’s talents, Gertz knew. He was meticulous about his tradecraft. That was why he had survived so long.

Gertz continued down the long promenade. The lake, narrow as a fjord and shining crystal-blue in the afternoon sun, was on his right. To the left was the grand Victorian structure known as the Temperate House, a name you could give to this whole damned country, as far as Gertz was concerned, so cool and well put together, never a hair or a shingle out of place. It was a wonder that they had managed to field a good army for so many centuries, but that was pretty well gone now.

The American continued on past the catwalk that connected some of the treetops in this western part of the gardens. He had intended to put some of his shooters up there on the arbor way, with a perfect line of sight out over the lawns toward the rendezvous. That wouldn’t work now, but it had been a sweet idea. Eventually Gertz reached the Badger Sett. It was empty, save for a few kids shouting at the critters they hoped were down there somewhere underground. The meeting site was a little farther on, hidden behind the next grove of trees

Gertz continued another fifty yards past the rendezvous point to a stand of trees ringed by dense ferns. He slipped into this natural hideaway, found the weapon he had hidden there and sat down to wait.

Next into the fold was Lieutenant General Malik. He was in mufti, as was the sturdy Pakistani soldier who accompanied him, following several steps behind. The general had thought to contact the MI6 liaison officer at the British Embassy in Islamabad before leaving. He said that he was traveling to Britain for a little personal holiday and that, as always, he planned to bring along a personal security detail, in this case just one chap. But the man would be carrying a firearm and he would need the necessary permissions. The general had even mentioned that he was thinking of doing a little sightseeing at Kew, and that he hoped his man wouldn’t have any difficulty at the gate.

The general stopped to look at the flowers: aloe, oleander and golden lotus. He was a horticulturalist, in his own modest way. As a young intelligence officer, he had read that the celebrated James Jesus Angleton cultivated orchids. That was a bit much for the general, and expensive, too, but he had an enlisted man who watered and fertilized his roses, and sprayed them when the bugs were out.

He was dressed in a blue blazer and charcoal slacks, and a pair of slip-on loafers that he disdained back home as too casual. Even after the long flight, he looked trim and taut, his face nearly free of wrinkles and his mustache clipped to the millimeter. He walked with a military bearing, so that a person would know, whether the general was in uniform or not, that he was a substantial man.

General Malik tried to be inconspicuous as he made his way toward the Badger Sett, but it wasn’t easy, for a man of his demeanor and self-regard. He liked to be looked at by others. That was any officer’s vanity. When children skittered noisily on the walkway between the general and his bodyguard, he gave them pats on the head, as if that were the normal thing to do, but he looked like the headmaster of a school.

When he saw the Badger house, the general turned and walked away. He was early; he didn’t want to hover conspicuously. He discovered a lily pond, on the other side of a thicket of pine trees, and sat on a bench gazing at the water plants while his bodyguard tried to keep still.

Omar al-Wazir, the man from the washboard mountains of Waziristan, oddly looked the most like a man out for a Saturday afternoon walk. He had come unarmed and penitent, with the grass of humility in his mouth, figuratively if not literally. His trip had been long and uncomfortable, with none of the special perquisites of the general; he wasn’t staying in a fancy hotel; indeed, he had barely found time to wash and shave at a small bed-and-breakfast in Kensington favored by Pakistani travelers. But there was a serenity about the Pashtun man that was genuine. He knew why he was in London. He had done his business, and now he had come to make a dignified ending of it. He would meet with his enemy, come into his house, find the gundi where life and death are in equilibrium.

The professor had arrived at the gardens half an hour before the appointed meeting. He did not need time to plan or reconnoiter. He obtained a map at the entrance, just inside the Victoria Gate, and was informed by one of the staff that it would take him ten minutes, walking briskly, to reach the Badger Sett, fifteen if he strolled at a more leisurely pace. He set off on a dogleg along a row of cherry trees, past the Greek temple built to commemorate King William, and then north through a corridor of cedars that made him homesick, just for a moment, for the deodars that stepped up the hillsides of Makeen.

The last to appear was a man in a voluminous summer suit, in a pastel color that did not occur in nature but was closest to green. He was wearing a white silk tie with small blue stripes, and he might have been the groom at a midsummer wedding, for the jaunty way he walked on his toes, almost prancing as he traversed the path toward the hidden clearing just past the Badger Sett.

This gentleman had actually been in the gardens since the morning, resting a quarter mile below the meeting point in a cottage that had been the haunt of Queen Charlotte, the handsome wife of George III who had loved these woods. He wanted to be ready, but also out of the way, so that he would be invisible for as long as possible. But when one of his spotters saw Dr. Omar arrive at the gate, and then another reported that he was moving up the Cedar Way, he knew that it was time to move. He left the cottage then and made his way to the rendezvous.

The big man arrived at the appointed spot at precisely four o’clock. This was his theater, for it was he who had set the meeting. At that same moment, onto the crest of lawn stepped the man he had planned to meet, Dr. Omar al-Wazir, punctual and precise as ever.

Cyril Hoffman, the concertmaster, embraced the Pakistani professor. He kissed him on both cheeks, and took the man’s hand.

“You came,” said Dr. Omar. “I was not sure you were ready to see me, after everything that has happened.”

“Of course I came,” said Hoffman. “I could not refuse a request from a man who has suffered, even if that man has made mistakes. For we all make mistakes, don’t we? Yes, we do.”

There was movement in the woods, but the professor did not hear or see it.

“I have been thinking,” said Dr. Omar, “that it is time to find an ending. There are so many dead, so much saz. It is enough, now. I come to ask forgiveness and asylum. I pray that you will be an honorable man and grant my request.”

Hoffman was about to speak, but he did not have time. Events moved more quickly than he could express the words. But what he wanted to say was, Yes, I grant your wish. It is over.

The other two men who had been awaiting Dr. Omar’s approach had moved into the clearing, too. They watched this greeting with utter astonishment and rage, in the case of General Malik, and a grim appreciation of the concertmaster’s art, on the part of Jeffrey Gertz. But they had come for their own reasons, these two, and they were not to be deterred.

General Malik walked toward Dr. Omar. There was a look of recognition in both men’s faces. They had been circling each other for so long. Each had tried to imagine the other’s motivations, and each had been wrong.

The general was the first to speak. He turned to his bodyguard.

“Execute this man,” he said, pointing to Dr. Omar. “He is a traitor. He is an American spy.”

The general’s bodyguard fired his service revolver. The sound was muffled by the silencer.

Gertz had drawn his own weapon. His eyes had been fastened on Dr. Omar, his sometime adviser. The Pakistani was the last piece of Gertz’s botched conspiracy that needed to be cleaned up. Gertz had been prepared to do the necessary job, as soon as Hoffman had told him about the meeting, but now it seemed that he was redundant.

Gertz watched the Pakistani professor fall, and saw the blood spurt from his shattered skull. He crouched and swiveled his body in a quick turn, aiming first at the bodyguard, then at General Malik, then at Cyril Hoffman-uncertain who was the enemy. Always have a plan, and always make the first move. That was his rubric, but it failed him now. He didn’t have a plan for this bizarre situation, and he hadn’t moved first.

There was a muffled sound of impact, like a fist hitting a pillow, and again. Two more gunshots had been fired. The first took down General Malik’s bodyguard. The second struck Jeffrey Gertz. These shots came from a different direction, from the nearby woods. The concertmaster had brought along a shooter of his own, with very precise instructions. They were clean shots to the head, both of them meant to kill.

Hoffman pulled at General Malik’s arm.

“We need to go now,” he said.

The Pakistani general surveyed the scene and made a quick decision. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and used it to wipe clean the prints on Gertz’s gun, and then put it into the hand of Dr. Omar. Malik was good at that sort of thing. He knew how to compose the frame.

“He was a stupid, dangerous man,” said Hoffman, staring at Gertz’s body as the life slipped away.

Hoffman led Malik away toward the cottage from which he had emerged minutes before. It was at the far end of the park, along Kew Road. A car was waiting for Hoffman, but he gave it to the Pakistani general and sent him away. He summoned another car for himself, and it was there in thirty seconds. If there was one thing Hoffman understood, it was logistics.

They exchanged a few words before they parted, about money. Oddly, on such a grim afternoon, both men were smiling as they said farewell.