The Second Saladin Read online

  He awoke in a hospital room, on his stomach, in the presence of two Soviet Marines with AK-47s. He was much improved, though groggy. Bright sunlight flooded in through the window, and beyond he could make out the city. They brought him a glass with some high-protein concoction in it, mostly egg and wheat, and he sucked it down.

  The door flew open and the Russian came in.

  “How are you, Paul? How are you?”

  Chardy had no answer and looked at him stupidly. He could only think that he had just begun a day where there would be no torch.

  “We broke it, Paul. Yes, we did it. I did it, Paul. Broke it, broke the revolt. We broke the Kurds, Paul. All American advisers have been ordered back to Rezā’iyeh. The mission there will be closed down. The Shah has arrested the Kurdish emissaries in Tehran, and closed the border. It’s all over.”

  He looked carefully at Chardy.

  Chardy had trouble concentrating. Even now his memories were beginning to jangle on him, to mix and twist and fabricate themselves. His back felt numb. He’d been jacked up to his eyeballs on narcotics. He could hardly remember his own name.

  He looked away. Stupidly, he lurched from the bed. One of the Soviet Marines grabbed him, but he pulled away and stumbled to the window. He looked across Baghdad from a fifth or sixth story and saw a filthy sprawl of stone slums and crappy modern buildings spilling to the horizon. A sluggish bluebottle struggled against the dirty glass. The sun was shining, though a hump of clouds gathered in the distance, over the mountains far to the north.

  “A wonderful city, eh, Paul? Beautiful Baghdad, storied Baghdad, city of princes and miracles. Beautiful, isn’t it, Paul?”

  Chardy said nothing. He sensed the Russian beside him.

  “Ah, Baghdad! Do you know in my last post I had a fine view. I could see a river, a giant old Ferris wheel, white baroque buildings. Europe. Civilization. Perhaps now I will be going back there.”

  “The girl,” Chardy said. “Johanna. Please?”

  “Well, Paul, the news is optimistic. We believe she got out. We have examined the bodies and hers is not among them. Unless she was killed earlier, of course, in which case of course I can take no responsibility. But—”

  “Bodies?” Chardy said.

  “Yes, Paul. We killed them. We killed them all.”

  Chardy fell to his knees. He began to weep. He could not stop himself. He sobbed and gagged. He tried to hide his face from the Russian towering above him.

  “You are truly a broken man, aren’t you, Paul? I wonder if you’ll ever be any good again? At anything? I hope when you get back you can find this woman and get her to marry you. You’ve certainly paid a dowry. Perhaps the highest in the world. You can marry her and live in the suburbs and work for an advertising agency. Tell me, Paul. Was it worth it?”

  That night, on the flight to Moscow, Chardy managed to open both his wrists with a broken glass. He bled considerably, but they caught him and would not let him die.

  Chardy blinked awake in his apartment, alone in the cold night.

  Be reasonable, he told himself.

  He rolled from the bed, went to the refrigerator. There was no beer; he had not gotten any. Was it too late? He badly needed something to drink. He looked at his Rolex and discovered it was the hour of four. He stared out the window above his sink. A sprawl of streetlights lay beyond the filthy glass.

  Chardy stood barefoot in the kitchenette. He got himself a lukewarm glass of water in a plastic glass and was too spooked to chase down ice. He thought of Johanna, who was dead, and Ulu Beg who soon would be. He thought of Speshnev too, and even thought he heard the Russian’s voice now, lucid, full of reason and conviction. Speshnev said, and Chardy heard it as if the man were here, now, in this room: “In my last post I had a fine view. I could see a river, a giant old Ferris wheel, white baroque buildings.”

  Chardy could see nothing. This was the suburbs; there was nothing to see. Chardy thought of the Russian looking at his white baroque buildings, and marveled that in the man’s mind there was room enough for pleasant views and baroque architecture and the theory and practice of the torch.

  He shook his head, took another sip of his water. He looked at his watch, to discover that only a minute had passed since he’d last checked. He knew he’d never get back to sleep. He looked again into the darkness and at that instant, that exact instant, it hit him with such force as almost to drive him through the linoleum that in only one city in the world could there be such a congruence of rivers, Ferris wheels, and white baroque buildings. He’d been there himself.

  The city was Vienna, where Frenchy Short had been found in the Danube after a solo job.

  40

  The strange patterns of fortune that swirled through it all disturbed him, made him deeply suspicious: things were always baffling, always astonishing, constructed as if with an Arab’s cunning. The curious passage by which, as Chardy left the arena, Ulu Beg entered—as if it were written above that their meeting be postponed for a different day. Then again, the Kurd reflected, the play of whatever force had kept the fat Danzig alive. From fifteen feet he’d fired, seen the clothes fly as the bullets hit, seen the man knocked down. He’d seen it, with his own eyes. Then by what magic did Danzig survive?

  DANZIG SHOT AT CAMBRIDGE PARTY

  2 KILLED IN GUNBATTLE

  FORMER SEC’Y IN ‘STABLE CONDITION’

  Was it some American trick, whose subtle purpose no mind could divine? Or had he in fact failed?

  He had read the newspaper until he came to an explanation.

  A vest to stop bullets!

  A vest! And then, when he thought he was done with surprises, he’d turned a last page and found still another, a familiar face gazing at him from under another disturbing headline:

  HARVARD STAFFER FOUND DEAD IN ROXBURY

  She was dead. Two strangers also. Two ex-brothers, one hunter, one hunted, pass in the night. And after it all, this Danzig still lived.

  Ulu Beg sat back wearily and rubbed his hand across the stubble of his beard. He was tired, his eyes raw. He’d been on the move now a week since it happened and he was running low on money. He needed a shave, to wash, to rest.

  He looked about him. The train station was crowded, even at this late hour. Outside it was raining. America was supposed to be full of miracles, and yet this train station smelled of the toilet and was dirty and hot. It was also full of peculiar people: madmen, old ladies, mothers with wild children, sullen soldiers, rich dandies; in all, a much stranger range of passengers than the buses. Or maybe it was his desperate mood or his fatigue, and the knowledge that his chances were growing more slender each day; he would never reach Danzig; he would be caught.

  He had nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. Nobody would guide him. He’d made a terrible mistake a few minutes ago, confusing a quarter and a fifty-cent piece and there’d been a scene at a little coffee bar and a policeman had wandered by to straighten things out. Even now the officer was watching him from behind a pillar.

  The Kurd looked at the clock. In a few minutes—unless the train was late and they were always late—there would come a train that would take him to Washington. In Washington, he would find Danzig’s house. He had a picture of it still from a newspaper he’d read weeks ago in Arkansas. Somehow he’d find it. And this time he’d get close enough to place the muzzle against the head before he fired.

  He sat back, looking up at old metal girders. His head ached. The rain beat a tattoo against the roof. The smell of the toilet reached his nose. He felt himself begin to tremble. He wished he could sleep but knew he must not. He thought he might have a fever.

  He wished he had some help. He wished he knew where he was going. He wished he knew what was written above. He wished he knew what surprise would come next.

  A man sat next to him and after a few seconds turned and said, “Do you care for a cigarette?”

  It was Colonel Speshnev.

  41

  Now Roberto was gone too. Trewitt h
ad seen him die, shot in the lungs at long range.

  “May Jesus take his soul,” said Ramirez, crossing himself, “and may He take the soul of that abortion out there with a rifle and telescope and wipe His holy ass with it.”

  Trewitt was wedged behind some stunted cripple of what passed for a tree in the higher altitudes of the Sierra del Carrizai. He shivered at the memory of Roberto’s sudden passing, which was—when, yesterday? the day before? And he shivered also for the cold, which was intense, and thought briefly of all the coats he’d owned in his life, nice, solid, American coats, parkas and jackets and tweeds and windbreakers, a whole life written in coats, and now, now when he really needed one, he didn’t have it, didn’t have a goddamned thing.

  “Mother of God, this is one fine mess,” said Ramirez. “Jesus, Mr. Gringo, I wish you’d hit that fart in the car.”

  Trewitt wished he’d hit him too. He also wished Ramirez hadn’t shot Meza and maybe had talked to “them”—whoever they were. He also wished he wasn’t on this mountain.

  A shower of pebbles now descended on him, and he turned to watch the big Mexican slither off. Wearily, Trewitt knew he had to join him. The trick was to keep moving, keep crawling and sliding and hopping from rock to rock and gulch to gulch and knob to knob. They were being stalked by—how many now? Who knew? But bullets came their way often, kicking up vivid little blasts where they hit. Scary as hell. You never knew when it was coming.

  At the same time Trewitt was almost beyond caring about moving on. His terror had eaten most of his energy, and his exhaustion had claimed what was left. He bled in a hundred places from assorted cuts, bruises, and nicks. He was rankly filthy and his own odor revolted him. A terrible depression, a sensation of worthlessness, a sense of having once again fulfilled his own lowest expectations of himself haunted him.

  You really are no good, Trewitt. You really are a fuck-up. You always were; you always will be.

  He watched the Mexican slithering through the rocks like a wily lizard. Something else troubled Trewitt about all this: there was only one way to go, and that was up, but what happened when they got all the way to the top and ran out of mountain?

  “We make a stand. Big heroes,” Ramirez said.

  “Maybe we ought to try and talk to these guys.”

  “Okay. You go talk. Go ahead, be my guest, you go talk.”

  “Who are they? How many are there? Is this Kafka?”

  Ramirez had no opinion on Kafka. He had no opinion on the identity of his pursuers either. But he thought there were at least five.

  This Ramirez was something: totally incurious, totally indifferent to all things beyond himself. Trewitt knew he himself only existed to Ramirez as a kind of pointless but exotic addendum to reality, a kind of minor character good for a page or two in the Cervantes-scale epic of the Mexican’s own thunderous life. A norteamericano—Ramirez despised Americans, but it was nothing personal, for he despised Mexicans as well. He despised everybody, everything: it was a mark of greatness, a symbol of the kind of huge, greedy will that in more primitive times might have made of Ramirez some kind of legend, a Pancho Villa, an Aztec chieftain, a dictator. Or was this Trewitt’s imagination rollercoasting all over the place once again? For on the other hand, the more prosaic hand, Ramirez was just a large, stupid peasant with a peasant’s slyness and hard practical streak.

  Yet he was important.

  Somehow he fit into a pattern Trewitt could not understand.

  He was important enough to kill, which made him important enough to save.

  “Hey, Mister Gangster Man. You coming?” the Mexican called in his border English.

  Trewitt rolled over and began to squirm up the mountain. At least where he was going there was a view.

  42

  Chardy awoke with a headful of ideas, but before he could begin to decide how to pursue them, the telephone rang.

  “Chardy.”

  “Chardy, it’s Miles. Listen, you better get over here. We’ve got a bad situation on our hands. Danzig.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “He wants you. And only you. He doesn’t want us. At all.”

  “Miles, I—”

  “Chardy, you have to get over here. The guy is acting crazy. Get over here, goddammit.”

  Chardy dressed and arrived within an hour and found Miles pacing the library, pasty under his acne, surrounded by other somber agents who would look at nothing.

  “Take him up,” Miles directed coldly.

  Chardy turned to leave with a younger man. But Miles grabbed him.

  “Paul. Just calm him down. All right? Just take it easy with him. Don’t stir him up. Okay? Don’t let me down on this, all right?”

  “Sure, Miles,” said Chardy.

  Chardy rose through the levels of the house with the other agent, coming at last to the top floor.

  “It’s down there,” the man said. “Third door. His office.”

  “He’s really flipped?”

  “He called Miles a Russian dupe. Miles. The little priest. He said we were all KGB. He said he was being held against his wishes. He tried to call Sam Melman. Miles almost died. He said he knew reporters all over town, he was going to have a news conference. He was going to tell them the Agency was trying to kill him—the whole thing was an Agency plot. He ordered Miles out of his house. He told him to go hide at the cathedral. He told him he could have the DCI over here in fifteen minutes. He told him he was looking for a gardener, would Miles like the job? All the time he was in his bathrobe, with his cock hanging out. He smells like a wino. All in all, it was quite a morning. And before nine. Jesus, Chardy, I want off this one. A bad op can stink up your records for years. I want to go back to South America, where it’s safe.”

  Chardy thanked him and went to the door. He knocked.

  “Chardy?” The whisper was ominous.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you alone?”

  “Yes.”

  Locks clicked and tumbled; the door cracked open.

  “Quick.”

  Chardy slipped into the twilight. The shades drawn, all lights off. In this darkness Chardy stood, momentarily paralyzed. Behind him the door clicked shut.

  His eyes adjusted. The room, large, was cased in books. Files lay all around, sheets of paper, index cards, clipped articles, photocopies. Two card tables stood inundated in paper. Two desks against a far wall bore heavy loads as well.

  “Sit down. Over there.”

  Chardy walked, slipping once on a pencil. Cups, glasses with a few stale ounces of liquid in them, were everywhere. He sat gingerly on a folding chair.

  “What time is it?”

  Chardy smelled something sour as he turned his wrist to see his Rolex. “Nine,” he said. “In the morning.”

  Danzig, unshaven, sat across from him in a bathrobe. His hair swirled about his head, unwashed. The odor was from him.

  “They say this room isn’t wired,” Danzig said.

  “I don’t think we wired anything,” Chardy said.

  “Where have you been?”

  “I had to go home. I was only gone a night.”

  “You look tired.”

  “I haven’t been sleeping well.”

  But Danzig wasn’t interested in Chardy’s sleep. Now, with an almost comically exaggerated look of conspiracy, he seemed to swoop in on Chardy, his features enormous, rabbinical, his eyes quite mad. His odor was overpowering.

  “It’s all a setup, isn’t it? It’s completely phony—it’s a scheme, isn’t it? Or are you part of it? They tried to ruin you, you know. When you came back from prison. Then just weeks ago after the shooting. I saved you. I intervened. Chardy, they want you dead. They hate you too. They hate me. For something I did, something I know. And it’s all part of—”

  He stopped suddenly and began to weep.

  Chardy was embarrassed for him. He watched silently.

  “Chardy. Help me,” Danzig said. “Don’t let them kill me.”

  “If you s
tay here, you’ll be all right. Just stay here—you have nothing to fear from these men downstairs.”

  A sudden spurt of energy jerked through Danzig; he lurched up, twisting away, staggering through stacked books and sheets of paper and files, slipping, knocking them aside.

  “You and I are natural allies in this thing. We are. We’re the same man, really. Yours the physical component, mine the intellectual. Help me, Chardy. You’ve got to promise; you’ve got to help me. They’re trying to get rid of both of us, don’t you see? You and I, we’re linked. Somehow.”

  Chardy watched him stagger through the room.

  “Do you swear to me, Chardy? You’ll help me?”

  “I—”

  “The Kurd is a triggerman. Don’t you see? Perhaps he doesn’t even know the real reason behind all this. The woman was another pawn. Perhaps you are still a third. It’s a plan, a plot, a design only they know. Why? I have to know. Why?”

  Chardy said, “They tell me only that it’s as straightforward as it seems. That Ulu Beg is here for vengeance, because he feels we—you—betrayed his people and let the Russians kill them.”

  “Do you believe that? Chardy, look at me. Do you believe that? Really, deeply, do you believe that?”

  “I don’t know,” said Chardy. “I just don’t know.”

  “It’s phony. And I’ll prove it.”

  “How?”

  “The answer is here. In this room.”

  Chardy looked around the dishevelment. Yes, somebody had been looking.

  “Do you know what I’ve got here? I’ve got a duplicate set of the Agency operational reports for the years during which I was Secretary of State; I’ve got the records; I’ve got the secrets; I’ve got all the analyses, the—”

  “How the fuck did you—”

  “I’ve had it for years. I had my friends in the Agency too, you know. For some time there was a considerable Danzig faction. I used a lot of the material for my first book. It’s in here, in these records. I’ll find it. But I need time. And they know I need time.”