The Last Testament

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

J ERUSALEM , F RIDAY , 9.41 AM

Maggie stared at the ground. She needed to steady herself and this was the way she would do it. If she looked up, if she looked at him, she would lose her balance.

A shift had just taken place between them, they both knew that. Now she needed something from him as badly as he did from her. She was in a position of weakness. Had this been a negotiation about a border, or water, or even weekend access and custody of the house in the Hamptons, she would have known how to disguise the situation, how to conceal her neediness. But the most skilled negotiator becomes a dunce when negotiating on his own behalf. Maggie’s colleagues told repeatedly the story of the UN mediator who, despite winning a Nobel peace prize, had tried and failed to land himself a pay rise.

‘What the hell is that supposed to mean: I did exactly what you wanted me to do?’

Miller smiled. He knew as well as she did the mistake she had just made, revealing her need.

‘Oh, come on, Maggie. Let’s not dwell on this. We’ve got work to do. Believe it or not, we have a peace process to save.’

‘Like you care.’

‘You kidding? Are you fucking kidding?’ The smile was gone now. ‘What do you think we were doing here? This whole operation was about saving the peace talks. We knew they’d be deader than a turkey in November the second that tablet got out.’ He gave Maggie a look of deep disgust. ‘You just don’t get it, do you? Not any of you smug East Coast, European, liberal elite assholes.’ He leaned across the table, his eyes flashing. ‘You love all the nice stuff, the talks, the meetings, the plans, the counter-plans, the roadmaps, the UN resolutions, the ceremonies, the White House handshakes-you love all that. But d’you ever stop for one goddamned second and wonder how all that is possible? You ever wonder what drags a bloodthirsty bastard like Slobodan Milosevic to Dayton to sit down for one of your fucking peace treaties? Do you?

‘Well, I’ll tell ya. It’s evil fuckers like me and my masked friends outside, that’s what. Milosevic didn’t do the deal because you flashed your pretty eyelashes at him. Just like your brethren in the IRA didn’t sign on the dotted line because you or someone like you wiggled your ass in their direction. No, they did it because someone like me was threatening to drop a megaton of dynamite on their heads if they didn’t. And not just threatening. Sometimes we did it, too.

‘Sure, we let you guys get the credit and the peace prizes and the book deals and the interviews on Charlie Rose. Sure, let the New York Times suck your dick. I don’t care. I’ll be the son of the devil, I can take it. But don’t fool yourself, missy. There’d be no peace unless there were guys like me ready to make war.’

Maggie took a deep breath. ‘And that’s what you were doing here? A bit of war so that we could make peace, that’s what-’

‘You’re damn right, that’s what we were doing. And it made sense, too. The two sides are still in the room-’

‘Technically.’

‘There’s a back channel too, so they’re talking, believe me. Besides technically’s better than nothing. And nothing and nowhere is where we would have been if this bastard tablet had got out. I’m proud of what we did.’

‘Did everyone know apart from me?’

Miller was quieter now, examining his own fingers. ‘The opposite. This was need-to-know. Me and a small team recruited for the job. Ex-special forces.’

‘The team who grabbed me in the street market. They did all the killing too?’

‘I leave operational details to them and their commander.’

‘And the rest of us were out of the loop? The Secretary of State? Sanchez?’

‘All of them. Except you.’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘You should feel proud.’

‘Proud?’

‘Of what you did. You nearly got us there. To the tablet. Just like we hoped.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Oh come on, this ain’t Little House on the Prairie. You know how it works. Why do you think we sent Bonham over there to get you?’

‘To close the deal. The two sides were nearly there and you wanted me to close the deal.’ Maggie’s voice was wobbling.

‘Yeah, whatever.’

‘That’s what Bonham said!’

‘Course that’s what he said,’ Miller was staring hard at Maggie now. ‘But come on, Maggie. You think the State Department’s not crawling with people like you, skilled diplomats who couldn’t do this job? Specialists on the Middle East conflict? Don’t tell me you didn’t wonder why, out of all the people we had, we had to have you. We needed you because of your-how can I put this delicately?-because of your unique expertise.’

Maggie could feel herself paling. ‘What are you saying?’

‘We needed someone to get close to Guttman Junior. If anyone knew where the old sonofabitch had hidden this tablet, it would be him.’

‘You brought me here to, to…’ She couldn’t say the words.

‘Well, let’s face it, Maggie, you had the right resumé. You got close to that lunatic in Africa and we thought, given the right context, you’d do the same here. And you did. Like I said, you should be proud.’

A moment of puzzlement, followed by a strange feeling, one that Maggie had not known before, as if she was being crushed from the inside. So that’s what this was about, that’s what it had been about from the very beginning. Maggie heard again the voice of Judd Bonham, how he had recruited Maggie for this enterprise. Cancelling out the sin through repentance, he had said. He even mentioned redemption. This is your chance. He had spoken so softly, his voice sweet with reason. And yet he had been telling the opposite of the truth. He did not want her to come to Jerusalem to undo her mistake in Africa, but to repeat it. He, Miller and God knows who else had deployed her not because of her strengths-all that bullshit about the indispensable Maggie Costello, the great ‘closer’-but because of this one weakness. All that praise; and she had believed every word of it.

She was nothing more than a honeytrap, that lowest form of espionage life, sent in to win the affection of Uri Guttman. The fact that she had succeeded only increased her nausea. What did that make her? Nothing more than a whore for the American government.

Instinct launched Maggie from her chair, where she had held herself throughout everything. She slapped Bruce Miller hard across the face. Feeling the sting, Miller put his hand to his cheek, then, with a smirk that oozed lechery, slapped her back. As she reeled, he pressed a button under the table, instantly bringing two masked men back into the room.

‘OK, Maggie. This has gone on long enough. Not that I’m not enjoying myself. But you need to tell me where that tablet is.’

‘I don’t know,’ she said, her words slurred by the blow to her face.

‘That’s not within a thousand miles of good enough, Maggie. Now, I think you know I got some boys here who’ve enjoyed getting acquainted with you. They might like the chance to get to know you a little better.’

‘So now you’re going to have the White House implicated in a rape.’

‘We would be implicated in no such thing. We would issue a statement mourning the loss of a fine American, brutally assaulted and then murdered by terrorists. The United States wouldn’t rest until your killers were brought to justice.’

Maggie could feel herself trembling, with rage, fear and a terrible sadness.

‘Do I have your attention now, Miss Costello?’