The Red Room

34

“I wish to speak to your office manager.” Grace slides the woman a business card left over from the op that sent her and John to Amsterdam that identifies her as a midlevel United Nations employee. It does the trick.

“Regarding?” The woman’s English is impeccable, her choice of nail polish and hair coloring regrettable.

“Your mail room.”

The receptionist references her computer terminal. “Our post clerk leader is called Kaplan. You are to find him in S-one, eighteen. Elevators to your right.”

Grace repeats the office number, collects her business card, thanks the woman and finds the elevators. She turns to the elevator mirror to check her face. There’s a man alongside her — Turkish, mid-thirties. The look he’s giving her is either a compliment or a cause for concern, because it’s not accidental, even though he plays it otherwise. The elevator car opens, and she steps off.

The mail room manager, Kaplan, is clean-shaven and thin, in his early thirties and going bald. She considers him exceptionally ordinary, though his voice is appealing in a stagecraft way. She gives him a quick look at her business card and then gives him the FedEx tracking number.

“This is a confidential inquiry, sir. If you pass along anything to do with my being here, or the nature of my inquiry, your actions will be considered criminal. This includes your co-workers and senior executives. Do you understand?” Grace came prepared. The accountant in her knows that paperwork intimidates far more than anything said aloud. She presents the man with a nondisclosure form downloaded from the Internet; it has little to do with their situation, but a quick scan of the consequences that stem from dissemination of “anything said or witnessed, or understood to have been said or witnessed” is so severe that the man barely reads a word before signing at the bottom. The click of his ballpoint pen nub retracting is as loud as the snap of a bear trap on his ankle.

To her credit, she could name the date and time, as well as the shipper, BioLectrics, which makes the request all the more convincing.

Kaplan carries out his duties, consulting a computer terminal silently and efficiently. With his eyes on the screen, he confirms receipt of the package on the day Grace has gleaned from FedEx. “Delivered in hospital the following morning.”

“To what department, floor, office or doctor?” she asks officiously, allowing a degree of impatience to seep into her voice.

“The Kazan Building. Floor five. Cardiology. Dr. Osman.”

“Contents?”

Kaplan looks up, suddenly terrified. “I am sorry, ma’am. I… we…” He looks befuddled. “Rarely, if ever, are we made aware of a package’s contents.”

“Yes, of course.” Grace considers her options. She feels electric. High from acting out her role convincingly, and from the man’s palpable response to the pressure she applies. Control is its own endorphin.

For dramatic effect, she paces in front of the desk, then turns authoritatively to face Kaplan. “I cannot make this inquiry. Do you see?” She is counting on him being unable to see anything of the sort. “It must come internally if it is to remain anonymous.” She pretends she needs a few more seconds to pull her thoughts together. “You will call Dr. Osman’s office and explain that there has been confusion about a certain package — this package, you understand? The contents of this package. They will please consult their invoice and confirm the contents of the package and that they received the contents in working condition.” She places her hands on the desk and leans toward him. “Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Exactly as I have said. You are doing your job, Kaplan. There must be nothing in your voice or your attitude to imply differently. Are we clear?”

The poor man is sweating from his forehead and hairline — what’s left of it.

“We process such shipments from BioLectrics regularly, ma’am. Every three to four weeks, without fail. Always approximately the same weight and size. Cardiology. They are pacemakers.”

A clap of thunder could not have been louder. Grace nearly squeals. Nearly runs around the desk and hugs the man. Chastises herself for her own stupidity.

Maintaining her calm, she asks that he not speculate, and to please confirm the contents of the delivery. Inside, she’s bubbling.

The clerk makes a show of collecting himself before placing the call. We’re both acting, she thinks. Though most of the Turkish escapes her, the man’s tone does not. He is annoyed, concerned, perhaps implying that an employee of his has come under suspicion of theft — she can’t be sure. He carries out his assigned duty and hangs up the receiver.

“One dozen pacemakers. Exactly as I have said.” His confidence borders on cocky. How quickly the attitude of men changes as their testosterone is reestablished. Grace moves to gather her documents and once again swears him to secrecy. She thanks him on her way out and phones Knox from an area outside the hospital’s main entrance, where a group of people stand smoking. She cups the phone so she can’t be overheard.

“Go ahead,” Knox says, answering.

“The package they substituted contains pacemakers.”

“How certain—?”

“Confirmed.”

“Someone’s going to have heart trouble. We need the POI’s medical records.”

She notes the care he takes not to refer to Mashe by name. “We will never get them,” she says. “I go through those firewalls, I bring the lions to our door again.”

“The package has to involve him.”

“But not directly. The switch was made days before either of us arrived in Istanbul. It is the mother who is hospitalized.”

“Shit,” he says. “Ali. The taxi. What if all of that has nothing to do with Mashe and the sculpture and everything to do with our spending time on the mosque terrace, shooting videos and chasing down FedEx shipments?”

“And hacking bank accounts and breaching Iranian university firewalls. Yes. I see.”

“Sarge said no deaths,” Knox blurts out.

“We should work with that.”

“How? He’s lying!”

“We can assume he knows nothing of this. Without a good deal of work, we would know nothing as well.”

“The more we know, the less we know,” Knox says irritably.

“Do you wish to abort?”

“Not an option. Victoria can blackball me with the Turkish cultural ministries. I ran from the Jordanian police. We moved the shipment on them. They have plenty of cause to bring me in if she stirs the nest. It could make it tricky for me and Tommy. The import/export. It’s important I satisfy her—”

Grace clears her throat.

“If I cut and run without paying her a commission… It’ll likely follow me.” Knox backtracks, reviewing his most recent conversation with Akram at the airport for relevant details. “Look, no matter what, this is over later today. We get our five minutes, and we get out. We can still do this.”

“We continue as scheduled,” she says. She pronounces it “shed-uled,” like the Brits. She didn’t pick that up in China, but from living in Hong Kong. She hears herself speak and it triggers a picture, a complex self-portrait that jumps from her parents’ traditional home to university, to her army service, to graduate school in California. The flashing images leave her with a sudden keen sense of her own mortality. She wonders if she’s getting old or if it’s only the poison of fear that makes her feel so. “Your Victoria is the connection to Dr. Adjani. She transports the art while you meet with the younger brother. I must remain here, collect pacemaker.” She hears herself sounding Chinese, knows it signals her stress level to Knox; hopes he doesn’t call her on it. They have agreed on the importance of knowing the role of the devices. No more surprises.

She hears Knox hesitate. Suspects that though he supports her, Knox is about to remind her that Dulwich doesn’t want them digging.

She intercepts him. “Do you trust her?”

“Of course not.”

“We arrange a driver for her. Besim keeps watch.”

Knox goes quiet on the other end of the call. She can sense that he’s considering arguing with her, and she takes it as points in her column when he says, “That works.” It’s spoken with more than a whiff of resentment.