Rules of Deception

17

Jonathan trained his eyes on the entrance to the Landquart station, and the parking lot directly across the street from it where a late-model Mercedes sedan sat in the center of the third row, precisely where the map in Eva Kruger’s bag said it would be. His vantage point was the doorway of a shuttered restaurant fifty meters up the road. For the past ninety minutes, he’d been circling the station. Trains arrived on the half hour from Chur and Zurich. For a few minutes before and after, the sidewalk filled with commuters. Cars entered and left the parking lot. And then activity died until the next train arrived. Not once in that time had he caught sight of a policeman. Still, it was impossible to determine if someone was watching the parking lot. Whatever the case, he’d decided that Simone was right. The cops who’d wanted to steal Emma’s bags were crooked.

At five minutes to six, evening traffic was at its height. Headlights passed in a blinding parade. He stamped his boots, working to keep his circulation active. He’d left Simone at the edge of town, against her strident wishes. There was a time for teamwork and a time to go it alone. This was a solo run, no question.

Huddling inside his jacket, he kept his eyes trained on the Mercedes.

Pick up letter.

Show receipts.

Retrieve bags.

Consult map for location of parked car.

Change clothing. Slick back hair. Don’t forget wedding ring.

Change lives.

Deliver sweater with envelope containing one hundred thousand francs.

But where? When? To whom? And, most maddening of all: Why?

He ran his fingers over the car key, thinking about Emma.

Question: When is your wife, your wife?

And when she isn’t your wife, who is she?

Dr. Jonathan Ransom, graduate of the University of Colorado at Boulder, Southwestern Medical School, chief surgical resident at New York’s Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and Dewes fellowship recipient at Oxford Radcliffe Hospital with a specialty in reconstructive surgery, stands on the tarmac of Monrovia-Roberts Airport in Liberia, as the last of the passengers deplane and stroll past him. At eight a.m., the sun sits low in an angry, orange sky. Already, the day is hot and humid, the air rank with the scents of jet fuel and sea salt, and cut by shouts coming from the horde of black faces bunched on the far side of the stadium-high fence bordering the runway. From all too near, the rat-a-tat-tat of machine-gun fire punches the air.

Not a thing to worry about, they had promised him during his orientation. The fighting is confined to the countryside.

He walks toward the immigrations building, passing a pair of bloated corpses pushed against the fence. A mother and daughter, to judge by the way they hold each other, though it’s hard to tell because of the flies.

“You’re Ransom?”

A battered military jeep trawls alongside him. A young, suntanned woman with wild auburn hair pulled into a ponytail grasps the oversized steering wheel. “You?” she shouts to be heard over the roar of a departing transport. “You’re Dr. Ransom? Get in. I’ll rescue you from this circus.”

Jonathan throws his bag into the back of the jeep. “I thought the fighting was out in the country,” he says.

“This isn’t fighting. This is ‘dialogue.’ Haven’t you been reading the papers?” She extends a hand. “Emma Rose. Delighted.”

“Yeah,” says Jonathan. “Back at ya.”

They drive through the worst slums he has ever seen, a wall of poverty five miles long and ten stories high. The city stops abruptly. The countryside takes over, as quiet and lush as the city is noisy and barren.

“First posting, is it?” she asks. “They always send the newbies.”

“Why’s that?”

Emma doesn’t respond. A Mona Lisa smile passes for her answer.

The hospital is a converted sumphouse situated on the edge of a mangrove swamp. Dozens of women and children lie idle in the grass and the red, scalloped mud surrounding the drab building. It’s apparent that many are injured, some severely. Their silence is an affront.

“We get a group like this every few days,” says Emma, stopping the jeep around the back. “Mortar attacks. Thankfully, most of the wounds are superficial.”

Jonathan glimpses a boy with a chunk of shrapnel the size of a three iron jutting from his calf. “Superficial,” meaning he won’t bleed to death.

A short, bearded man with bloodshot eyes greets Ransom warmly. He is Dr. Delacroix from Lyon. “Good thing the plane was on time,” he says, wiping his hands on a blood-caked T-shirt. “The girl in OR two is yours. Chop-chopped her right hand.”

“Chop-chopped?”

“You know?” Delacroix makes a gesture like a guillotine falling. “Took a machete to it.”

“Where do I scrub?” asks Jonathan.

“Scrub?” Dr. Delacroix exchanges a tired look with Emma. “You can wash your hands in the lavatory. You’ll find some gloves in there, too. Save them. We try to use each pair at least three times.”

Afterward, Jonathan stands on the patch of alkali dirt outside the field hospital that serves as terrace, reception, and triage area. At midnight, the air is wet with heat, populated with the cries of howler monkeys and the punctuation of small arms fire.

“Coffee?” Emma hands him a cup. She looks different from when he saw her earlier. Thinner, smaller even, no longer so full of piss and vinegar.

“No O positive,” says Jonathan. “We lost two patients because we didn’t have enough blood.”

“You saved a few.”

“Yes, but…” He shakes his head, overwhelmed. “Is it always like this?”

“Only every other day.”

It is Jonathan’s turn not to reply.

Emma looks at him thoughtfully. “The older ones won’t come,” she says after a moment.

“Excuse me?”

“You wanted to know why they only sent the newbies. That’s the reason. It’s too hard after a while. All this gets to you. It wears you down. The older ones can’t handle it. They say you can only look at so many dead people before you start feeling dead yourself.”

“I can understand.”

“Not like Blighty, is it?” Emma goes on, her tone sympathetic, comrade to comrade. “I saw you were at Oxford. I was at St. Hilda’s. Comparative Political Systems.”

“You mean you’re not a doctor?”

“God no. I’ve got my practical nursing on the side, but admin’s my thing. Logistics and all that. If we ever do have enough O positive, you’ll have me to thank.”

“I didn’t mean to-” Jonathan begins to apologize.

“Of course you didn’t.”

“I couldn’t tell at first whether you were English. Your accent, I mean. I thought either Scottish or London by way of Central Europe. Prague or something.”

“Me? I’m from the southwest. Cornwall, that area. We all talk funny down there. Near Land’s End. Penzance. You know it?”

“ Penzance? In a way.” He takes a breath, and though he knows he will look foolish, he puffs up his chest and recites in a sing-song voice:

I’m very well-acquainted, too, with matters mathematical,

I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical,

About binomial theorem I’m teeming with a lot o’ news,

With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse.

When she says nothing, he adds, “Gilbert and Sullivan. Pirates of Penzance. Don’t tell me you don’t know the Modern Major-General?”

Suddenly, Emma bursts out laughing. “Of course I do. One simply isn’t used to hearing that in the wilds of Africa. My God. A fan.”

“Not me. My dad. He was a diplomat. We lived all over the place. Switzerland, Italy, Spain. Wherever we moved, he joined the light opera. He could sing that song in English, German, and French.”

A driving backbeat lifts to them across the crowded night sky. The electric thump of a funky bass. Emma tilts her head in its direction. “The Muthaiga Club. Great dance spot. They don’t do the Mikado, though, I’m afraid.”

“The Muthaiga Club’s in Nairobi. I saw Out of Africa.”

“So did I,” she whispers, standing on her tiptoes. “Don’t tell anybody I pinched the name. You coming?”

“Dancing?” He shakes his head. “I’ve been up way too long. I’m fried.”

“So?” Emma takes his hand and leads him toward the source of the pulsing music.

Jonathan resists. “Thanks, but really, I’ve got to rest.”

“That’s the old you talking.”

“The old me?”

“The chief resident. The terrible drudge. The one who wins all those awards and fellowships.” She tugs his hand. “Don’t look at me like that. I told you I was admin. I read your papers. Want some advice? The old you, the one who works far too hard. Forget about him. He won’t last a week out here.” Emma’s voice drops a notch, and he can’t be sure if she’s serious or scandalous. “This is Africa. Everyone gets a new life here.”

Later, after the dancing and the home brew and the wild, joyous singing, she leads him out of the club, away from the throbbing drums and the swarming bodies, into the bush. They walk through a grove of casuarinas along a footpath, a scratch in the night shadow, until they reach a clearing. Above them a howler monkey lets go with a cry, then bandies from tree to tree. She turns to him, her eyes locked on his, hair askew, falling about her face.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” she says, a hand going to his belt, pulling him toward her.

Jonathan has been waiting for her, too. Not for weeks, or months, but longer. In the space of a day, she has seized him. He is kissing her and she is kissing back. He runs a hand beneath her shirt, feeling the hard, moist skin, sliding it higher, cupping a breast. She bites his lip and presses herself into him. “I’m a good girl, Jonathan. Just so you know going in.”

She unbuttons his shirt and smooths it off his shoulders. A palm rubs his chest, then moves lower. Stepping back, she pulls her T-shirt over her head and kicks off her jeans. She devours his hungry regard.

“How do you know?” he asks, as she wraps her body around his.

“The same way you do.”

He lies down in the grass and she arranges herself above him. The moonlight dances across her burnt copper hair. The trees sway. Somewhere, a shriek pierces the sky.

The train pulled in from Chur, and a minute later, from the opposite direction, one from Zurich. Passengers crowded the pavement fronting the station. It was now or never. Jonathan left the doorway and hurried across the street. Vaulting the wall bordering the parking lot, he walked down the center aisle. If anyone was watching the station, they had a clear view of him. One six-foot-three-inch Caucasian male clad in a newly purchased navy parka, a matching ski cap pulled low over his brow to hide the thick, slightly curly hair that had started to go gray at the age of twenty-three.

Don’t rush, he told himself, straining to keep his muscles in check.

He pulled the keys from his pocket and activated the remote entry. He had the feeling that things were run very tightly around here. Emma had always been a stickler for organization. The car beeped. Don’t look around, he told himself. It’s Emma’s, which means it’s yours. An S600. Diamond Black. The car every surgeon’s wife was born to drive.

He slid into the driver’s seat and closed the door. He touched the gearshift and the engine roared to life. He jumped in his seat, slamming his head against the roof. “Shit,” he muttered, before realizing that he’d pressed the ignition button atop the shift lever. It was the latest in automatic functions. He settled down, finding his breath. Soon, he decided, cars would be driving themselves.

It was then that he took in the interior of the automobile. The smell of fresh leather, the pristine condition of the cabin, the air-crackling “newness” of the vehicle. Not just a Mercedes, but a brand-spanking-new, top-of-the-line sedan. Cost: stratospheric. Not so much a car as a temple of luxury; automotive engineering elevated to a higher plane. He got himself settled, adjusting the seat, the mirrors, putting on his seat belt. He slid the transmission into reverse and backed out of the space. The car moved in hushed silence, negotiating the ice-encrusted pavement as if floating on a cloud.

He felt a sudden, irrational streak of hatred for it, not just because it was evidence of Emma’s deception, but because it represented the life he’d never wanted. Too many of the surgical residents at Sloan-Kettering had dreamed aloud about their Park Avenue practices and houses in the Hamptons. They could have their baubles and bangles. God knew they’d worked hard enough to get them. It was just that to him, medicine was not a means to an end. Medicine was the end itself. He refused to be defined in any way by his possessions. By cars like this. It was actions that mattered. Dr. Jonathan Ransom took care of others.

He backed out of the parking space and drove to the exit. On the main road, traffic sped past in both directions. Pedestrians took advantage and crossed in front of the Mercedes. A man drew up and stopped in the glare of Jonathan’s headlights. Shielding his eyes, he looked through the windscreen at Jonathan. It was a policeman. Jonathan was sure of it. He dropped his hands from the wheel and waited for the man to draw his pistol and shout, “Out of the car! You’re under arrest.”

But a moment later, the man was gone, another head weaving in and out of the sea of homebound commuters.

Traffic cleared. Jonathan eased the car onto the street, turning left, away from the station. Four blocks down the road, he pulled over and rolled down the window. “Get in.”

Simone climbed into the car. Pulling her coat around her, she took in the car’s interior. “This is Emma’s?” she asked.

“Guess so.” Jonathan joined the autobahn, heading east. A roadside sign read, “Chur 25 Km.”

A shadow crossed Simone’s face. “Where are you going?”

“Back to the hotel. We have to find out who sent those bags.”