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She put her hand up to stop him. “Before you go any further, I need to lay down a few rules. First, no heads of state. We don’t care how much money you’re willing to pay. We have no desire to spend the rest of our lives living under a rock. Second, we will set the terms and conditions. You will have nothing to say, operationally speaking. The only thing we will allow you to do is set a deadline.”
“And pay you, of course.” Abel smiled.
She smiled back. “Of course.”
Abel was struck by how beautiful her smile was. He desperately wanted to reach out and take her sunglasses off so he could complete the picture. “Now, on to your résumé.”
“I forgot the last point, and I doubt you will like it.” She folded her arms across her chest. “We reserve the right to back out at any time prior to the deadline. You will of course receive a full refund with the exception of the hundred-thousand-dollar retainer that you have already paid.”
Abel kept his cool even though his German temper was bubbling up just beneath the surface. “I have never heard of such a preposterous thing.”
“I’m afraid those are our conditions.”
“You cannot conduct business this way.” Abel pushed his cup and saucer away. “I have proceeded in very good faith. I have paid an obscene retainer for which I have received nothing in return other than a list of your conditions. I need to be protected just as badly as you do, and I must tell you that if you insist on being so one-sided in this negotiation I will be forced to look elsewhere.”
“Herr Abel,” she began, “you can look all you want, but if you need something done in Britain or America, you need to look no further.” She opened her purse and fished out a cigarette. “We are not in the business of sharing secrets. We are a fee-for-hire service and our reputation is everything.” She lit the cigarette and pointed it at him. “Things come up in this line of work. Unexpected things that we cannot control. A true professional knows when to walk away. I can guarantee that we will do everything possible to fulfill the contract, but in the end, if we decide to walk away, that will be the end of it. You will get your money back, and we will take your secret to our graves.”
Nothing was going as he’d planned. These two had done their homework. They had allowed him to think he was the smarter man and then they had knocked him off balance and set the entire tone. He was the one supposed to be doing the interviewing, not them. As much as he wanted to stay and continue chatting with this lovely woman he needed to show at least one sign of strength.
Abel pushed his chair back and stood. “I am sorry we have wasted each other’s time. The fee you stood to earn was extremely large.” He extended his hand more in hopes that he could touch her skin than as a courtesy. She did the same, and he held her hand delicately. “If you decide to be more flexible in your negotiations, I will reconsider doing business with you.” He gave her a curt bow and left.
A BLOCK AWAY a man stood leaning against his motorbike pretending to read a copy of Rolling Stone. Gnarled dreadlocks cascaded down to his shoulders. He had a messenger bag slung over his shoulder and his helmet was hooked onto one of the handlebars. Clipped to the strap of the messenger bag was a two-way radio. A wireless earpiece was linked to the radio via Bluetooth technology. For the last fifteen seconds there’d been nothing but the background noise of the city.
Finally, her voice asked, “As-tu tout compris?” Did you get all of that?
“Yep.”
“You don’t sound very concerned.”
“Nope.” He glanced sideways at his rearview mirror and just as he expected he saw the German walking in his direction.
“What are we going to do?”
“Give him a little private audition, I think.”
She sighed. “Why do you always insist on taking risks?”
He began tapping his foot and singing a Peter Tosh so
ng replete with Jamaican accent. Once the German had passed he said, “We’re in the risk business, my darling. I’ll see you back at the place. Give me a ten-minute start.” He closed the magazine and shoved it in his saddlebag. After strapping on his helmet, he started the bike and raced out into traffic.
14
MCLEAN, VIRGINIA
R app pulled into the parking lot, shut off the car, and got out. He walked to the asphalt curb and looked out across the playing fields. His mood began to change almost immediately. It had been more than fifteen years since he’d been back, but the place was more familiar to him than perhaps any in the world. It was pretty much as he’d remembered it. Some of the trees were bigger, some were gone, and there were a few new ones planted near the parking lot, but other than that, it was the same old place—the place of his youth.
The view, the smell, the weather, all brought back a deluge of memories—most of them good, but not all. This was where he’d broken his arm at the age of seven. He’d gone running home bawling, only to have his father enforce his “no blood, no tears” rule. After a brief check, his father, who was fond of the phrase “Suck it up,” told Mitch it was just a sprain. When young Mitchell awoke in the middle of the night soaked in sweat, and his arm twice its normal size, his mother intervened and Mr. Suck It Up was ordered to take his son to the emergency room. It was not their first trip to get x-rays, but it was their last. The next year his father died of a massive heart attack and left behind a relatively young wife and two kids: Mitch and his younger brother, Steven.
Rapp didn’t think of his dad often, other than the brief periods when he lamented the fact that they never really got to know each other. They’d been together for just eight years, the first four of which Mitch had no real recollection, and the next four which were pretty vague. His dad, like most dads back in the seventies, wasn’t around much. He was a lawyer and worked long hours. He played golf on Saturday mornings, rain or shine, so Sundays were really the only time they spent together as a family. What he did remember about his dad was that he was a firm but decent and fair man. His mother, a deeply religious and eternally optimistic person, made it very clear to her boys just how responsible their father had been both alive and from beyond. Like the good attorney that he was, everything had been in order when his heart stopped pumping. The estate planning was all up to date and their father had purchased more than enough life insurance to take care of them. The mortgage was paid off and money put aside for college. Financially speaking, his mom never had to worry.
Mitch never heard his father raise his voice other than the few times that he or Steven had done something really bad—like the time Steven almost burned the house down or the time Mitch got the ladder out of the garage and got up on the roof with Steven. Mitch jumped and landed in a pile of leaves and Steven, who was only a year and a half younger but considerably smaller, didn’t quite make it. Little Stevey, as he was known by the entire neighborhood, landed instead on the sidewalk and ended up in the emergency room with two broken legs.
Mitch actually got slapped upside the head and spanked for that one. It was the only time he ever remembered his dad laying a hand on him, and even all these years later he still felt like shit about it. Not because his dad had hit him, but because he’d let his father down. Steven was the miracle baby. Born five weeks early, he’d spent the first three months of his life in the hospital, clinging to life. Mentally, Rapp’s kid brother was a phenom, but on the athletic fields of their youth, Steven was a runt. He was extremely small for his age, and to draw further attention to himself, he was topped with a shock of blond, almost white hair. He and Mitch could not have looked more different. Where Mitch had black hair and olive skin, Steven had light hair and fair skin that would turn pink inside fifteen minutes if a liberal coating of sunscreen wasn’t applied. Mitch spent summers in swim trunks or shorts, and Steven spent them covered with light-colored clothes or in the shade. Mitch took after his dad and Steven took after their blond-haired, blue-eyed mother.
Rapp looked over at the baseball diamond and remembered how Steven used to bellow out the pitch count, number of outs, and runs after every pitch. For a little kid he had an unusually deep voice, and he used it to great effect. Even back then the little genius had a thing for numbers. Because nobody wanted him on their team, he was designated permanent catcher and scorekeeper. In addition to his ability to never lose track of the score, he was also perfect for the job because he was incapable of telling a lie. There was no favoritism when he was behind the plate.
It was also decided at Mitch’s urging that Stevey didn’t need to tag the runner. All he had to do was catch the ball and touch the plate. This way there would be no collisions with kids twice his little brother’s size. Everything had gone fine that summer until Bert Duser, the fat neighborhood bully, decided to steamroll the minute and neutral catcher. Mitch had caught a fly ball on the run in shallow center field and one-hopped it on a line to home plate. Duser was on third and tried to tag. In direct relation to his size Duser was very slow. Knowing he was out with a good ten feet to go Duser brought up his elbows and nailed little Stevey. Rapp remembered his little brother’s black athletic glasses flying up in the air and the tiny white-haired catcher going ass over teakettle into the backstop.
