Potboiler (15 page)

60.

The vending machines were set in a nook around the bend in the hall. One sold snacks, another sold drinks, and a third dispensed ice. The sight of packaged food behind glass turned Pfefferkorn’s stomach. He fed the quarters into the drink machine and pressed the button for a grape soda.

The machine hummed.

A can banged into place.

Pfefferkorn waited. Was that it? He was now out of instructions, and he had spent all his money on a beverage he did not want.

He took the soda. The label read
Mr. Grapey
.
The drink contained one hundred sixty calories, no fat, no cholesterol, fifty-three milligrams of sodium, forty-seven grams of sugar, no vitamins, look in your back pocket.

I’m hallucinating, he thought.

He rubbed his eyes.

The words remained.

He reached into his back pocket and removed a slip of paper the size and shape of a fortune-cookie fortune. On it were printed two words.

TURN AROUND

Pfefferkorn turned around.

Not three feet away, where ten seconds prior there had been nobody, a man now stood. Pfefferkorn could not fathom how he had gotten there so quickly and quietly. Yet there he was, a medium-sized man in a shapeless charcoal suit. Pfefferkorn could not tell his age, due to a full eighty percent of his face being hidden behind the largest, bushiest, most aggressively expansionist moustache Pfefferkorn had ever seen. It was a moustache with submoustaches that in turn had sub-submoustaches, each of which might be said to be deserving of its own area code. It was a moustache that vexed profoundly questions of waxing, a moustache the merest glimpse of which might spur female musk oxen to ovulate. It was a moustache that would have driven Nietzsche mad with envy, had he not been mad already. If the three most copiously flowing waterfalls in the world, Niagara, Victoria, and Iguazú Falls, were somehow united, and their combined outputs rendered in facial hair, this man’s moustache would not have been an inaccurate model, save that this man’s moustache also challenged traditional notions of gravity by growing outward, upward, and laterally. It was an impressive moustache and Pfefferkorn was impressed.

“I’m afraid you’ve been misinformed,” the man said.

61.

Moustaches or no moustaches, Pfefferkorn knew at once who he was talking to.

“Jameson?” Pfefferkorn asked. “Is that you?”

The moustaches moved in a disappointed way. “For the purposes of this operation,” Jameson said, “you should refer to me as Blueblood.”

Pfefferkorn followed him to a black coupe at the rear of the parking lot.

“Why are you wearing that ridiculous getup?”

“All information will be provided on a need-to-know basis.”

They peeled out onto the highway.

“Can I at least see some identification or something?” Pfefferkorn asked.

“Field agents don’t carry ID. My official picture wouldn’t match my face, anyhow.”

“I’m not sure why I’m supposed to trust you.”

“Have you seen the news? I cut you loose and you’ll either be in jail or dead by sundown. If not both. And sooner. So it’s in your interest to listen to me. But”—Jameson/Blueblood veered onto the shoulder and slammed on the brakes—“it’s your call.”

Pfefferkorn stared out at the shimmering blacktop. He had no food, no water, and no money. His clothes didn’t fit and he had a headache. He could run, but where? He could seek help, but from whom? There was a reward posted for his capture, and he was one of the most famous writers in the world. Not as high-profile as a movie star, perhaps, but still.

“Well?” Blueblood/Jameson said. “Do you accept?”

“Accept what.”

“Your mission.”

“How am I supposed to answer that? I have no idea what I’m committing to.”

Blueblood rooted around under his seat. “This might help.”

He tossed a manila envelope in Pfefferkorn’s lap. Pfefferkorn opened it and withdrew a photo. It was pixelated and blurry, a still taken from a video. It was what they called a “proof of life” picture. It showed a newspaper with yesterday’s date. The newspaper was being held up by Carlotta de Vallée. She was dirty. Her makeup was smeared. Her left temple was matted down with dark crust. She looked petrified. She had a right to be. There was a gun to her head.

62.

The safe house was a four-story log cabin on a private lake. Pfefferkorn clambered out of the seaplane and took in a lungful of piney air.

“Go on ahead,” Blueblood said. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

Pfefferkorn walked up the dock toward the house. The front door opened.

“Howdy doody,” Canola said. “Glad you could make it.”

He ushered Pfefferkorn to an elegant room appointed with bearskin rugs and Craftsman furniture. A stag’s head hung over a stone fireplace roomy enough to spit-roast a yak. There was a stately grandfather clock and a long conference table polished to a mirror shine. If not for the presence of a bulletin board tacked with a map of the Zlabias and a ceiling-mounted projection screen, it would have made an appropriate setting for a state dinner party, especially one whose menu called for yak.

“Take a load off,” Canola said. “Op com will be by soon to brief you. Hungry?”

Pfefferkorn nodded.

“Sit tight.”

Pfefferkorn fiddled with the knickknacks on the mantel. Muted voices drifted down the hall. He tried to eavesdrop but got nothing.

Canola returned with sandwiches and ice water. “Lunch is served,” he said.

Pfefferkorn bit into an egg salad on seven-grain.

“Sorry about all the rough stuff,” Canola said. “You understand.”

Pfefferkorn, chewing, nodded. He didn’t understand, but he was beginning to sense that it was better for him to pretend he did.

Canola grinned. “I gotta say: you looked real scared when we cuffed you.”

A voice in the hallway said, “Did someone say lunch?” Sockdolager entered and spied the food. “Don’t mind if I do,” he said. He stuffed half a sandwich into his mouth and spun around a chair to sit backward, grinning through crumbs at Pfefferkorn. “What’s new, puddytat?”

“Everything,” Pfefferkorn said.

The “detectives” chuckled.

Pfefferkorn set down his sandwich and went to study the map. Together, the two Zlabias made a shape akin to a misshapen root vegetable. That both fit onto a single sheet of paper while yet maintaining enough fineness of resolution to label the individual streets spoke to how tiny the countries were—neighborhoods, really. Why was it that violence always burned hottest in cramped, obscure places? The dividing line, Gyeznyuiy Boulevard, cut clean up the middle of the map, ending at the top of the page in a plaza labeled, on one side,
Square of the Location of the Conclusion of the Parade of the Commemoration of the Remembrance of the Exalted Memory of the Greatness of the Sacrifices of the Magnificent Martyrs of the Glorious Revolution of the Zlabian People of the Twenty-sixth of May,
and on the other side,
Adam Smith Square.
Along the bottom edge of the map bulged a blank space marked
Dzhikhlishkh Nuclear Exclusion Zone.

“It’ll all be on the exam.”

Pfefferkorn turned. The speaker was a young man with ash-brown hair neatly parted along the right side. He wore a bland suit and an understated necktie held in place by an American flag pin.

“For the purposes of this operation,” he said, “you can call me whatever you’d like, Dad.”

63.

“We downloaded this from the de Vallées’ home security system,” Paul said.

Pfefferkorn watched the computer screen. It showed closed-circuit footage of the ballroom. Carlotta and Jesús María de Lunchbox were dancing the tango. The video had no sound. It made them look like they were having very well-coordinated seizures. A minute or so into the video, they pulled apart with identical expressions of terror. Eight masked men rushed into the frame. Four of them grabbed Carlotta. Pfefferkorn was proud to see her fight like a champion. She could have been an actress in a silent movie, exhibiting “The heroine struggles courageously.” The men carried her off screen. Meanwhile the other four men were busy with Jesús María. Three of them restrained him while the fourth took out a boning knife.

Paul pressed pause. “I think you know what happens next,” he said.

Pfefferkorn was shaken. “Where is she,” he asked.

In answer to this question Paul closed the file and clicked on another. A new window filled the computer screen. The video was the source for the still photograph Blueblood had shown him. Carlotta was sitting in front of the same blank, scarred concrete wall. The same gun was to her head. She was holding the newspaper. She sounded scared but in control of herself. She repeated the date. She said that she was fine and being treated well. She said that she had been taken captive by the Revolutionary Movement of the Twenty-sixth of May. She said that in order to secure her safe return, the U.S. government would need to hand over the workbench. She said a few more things Pfefferkorn couldn’t make heads or tails of, either. Then she said something that stood his hair on end.

“The delivery must be made by American novelist Arthur Pfefferkorn. He must come alone. If anyone else comes, or if he fails to deliver the workbench, I will be—”

The image froze. Paul closed the window.

“Let’s not worry about that part,” he said.

If Pfefferkorn was shaken before, he was really quite badly shaken now. He was like a martini inside a rock tumbler being held by a detoxing epileptic standing on stilts atop a trampoline inside the San Andreas Fault. He stared at the blank blue screen, the afterimage of Carlotta’s face dancing before him.

“Tell me everything you know,” Paul said.

64.

Pfefferkorn told him everything he knew, starting with the theft of the manuscript. When he came to the part about the note from Lucian Savory, Paul said, “He’s a double agent.”

“You say that like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.”

“Don’t feel bad,” Paul said. “We only just found out about it ourselves.”

He clicked another file. Up came a photo of two men greeting each other.

“This was taken three weeks ago at Khlapushniyuiyk Airport, East Zlabia. I’m sure you recognize Savory.”

The sight of that bulbous forehead caused Pfefferkorn’s blood pressure to rise.

“Three guesses who he’s shaking hands with.”

The second man was hugely tall and broad as a bear. An entire carton of Marlboros jutted from one pocket of his tentlike sportcoat. In the background was a contingent of expressionless men armed with machine guns as well as a squad of improbably buxom women wearing the uniforms of the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders.

“I have no idea,” Pfefferkorn said.

“East Zlabian Lord High President Kliment Thithyich,” Paul said.

“The guy I shot?”

“You didn’t shoot him.”

“I didn’t?”

Paul shook his head.

“Thank God,” Pfefferkorn said.

“If I were you, I wouldn’t start congratulating myself just yet. You did kill Dragomir Zhulk.”

“Oh.”

Paul minimized the photo of Savory and Thithyich. “A lot of what Savory told you was true. The books were coded. Bill did work for us. And you were his intended replacement. But the part about
Blood Eyes
causing Kliment Thithyich to get shot was bullshit.”

“Then who shot him?”

“He did.”

“He shot himself? Why?”

“To create a pretext for invading West Zlabia,” Paul said. “He’s already filthy rich—casinos, mostly, plus some telecom and media—but control of the West Zlabian gas field would bump him up to the big leagues. He’s tried rallying international support for an invasion through more respectable channels. You might’ve noticed his campaign to promote awareness about West Zlabian human rights violations? It didn’t catch on. The opposite, in fact: Thithyich actually lost a few neutral-to-favorable percentage points, probably because, as our own polls indicate, ninety-six percent of people haven’t heard of either Zlabia, and eighty-one percent of those that have can’t tell them apart. You can imagine how antsy Thithyich must be getting if he’s willing to fake an assassination attempt. It hurts, getting shot in the ass.”

“Then why didn’t he invade?”

“Because he’s a chicken. Remember, before the Wall came down, we propped up guys like him as a bulwark against the Soviets. They have the most grotesque sense of entitlement. He was counting on our support as part of any offensive. We’ve since made it clear that we have no intention of getting involved in another war for the sake of lining his pockets.”

“So there was no code in
Blood Eyes?
”

“There was, but it was a dummy—a call-and-response code. We wanted to test whether your name brand would have sufficient penetrance to be useful for future operations. And did it ever. Perfect score.”

“But I mangled it,” Pfefferkorn said.

“Mangled—”

“The flag. ‘In one fluid motion.’”

“That wasn’t the flag.”

“It wasn’t?”

“No.”

“Then what was?”

“‘Sank to his knees, gasping for breath.’”

It depressed Pfefferkorn to realize that he had let such a wretched cliché slip through the cracks. “How did you know I would take the manuscript in the first place?” he asked.

“We knew. We have a profile on you running back to the seventies. You were emotionally needy, financially strapped, alternately self-congratulatory and self-loathing, led to believe that your more successful friend held you to be the superior writer. It was the perfect storm of ego and greed. And, like I said, you showed big promise. We were all set to bring you in and give you the hard sell when forty percent of our covert network, including all of Zlabia, was scrapped due to budget cuts. Believe that? Thirty-three years of work—gone, overnight.” Paul shook his head forlornly. “Politics.”

“How does
Blood Night
fit into all of this?”

“Thithyich got wind of the cuts. From Savory, presumably. So he hurried up before our operatives in the field were recalled and had Savory slip you a doctored code—”

“Blood Night.”

“Right. Sayonara, Dragomir Zhulk.”

“Let me get this straight,” Pfefferkorn said. “Thithyich got Savory to get me to get my publisher to get your men to do his dirty work.”

“Give him points for creativity. We don’t communicate with the operatives directly. They only scan for the flags. There was no way for them to tell the difference between a real code and the doctored one. It was a masterstroke. With Zhulk gone, nobody’s driving the bus. There are at least half a dozen factions vying for control: the Party, sure, but also the anarcho-environmentalists, the Trotskyites, the Chomskyites, the nihil-pacifists, the open sourcers. It’s a total free-for-all. All the East Zlabians have to do now is pick their moment and they’ll waltz right across the border.”

Pfefferkorn massaged his temples. “So who kidnapped Carlotta?”

“That would be the May Twenty-sixers. West Zlabian counter-counter-revolutionaries. Third-generation hard-liners raised during perestroika
on a steady diet of disinformation, believing themselves the last great hope for Communism and dissatisfied with what they perceive as Zhulk’s passivity, although ironically, it’s his propaganda machine that created them in the first place. They’ve seen Thithyich building up his forces and they’re spoiling for a fight. They’re also short on firepower. So that’s what they’re asking for.”

Pfefferkorn thought. “The workbench.”

Paul nodded. “Capital W. Encryption software. You plug in a source code and out pops a blockbuster thriller, complete with message. Our working theory is that the kidnappers came to the mansion looking for it. They didn’t find it, of course, because we erased it, remotely, after Bill died. So they took Carlotta instead.”

It dawned on Pfefferkorn that she had been at the house at his insistence. If he had allowed her to come to his reading, like she’d wanted to, she would be safe right now.

“We have to get her back,” Paul said. “She’s too valuable to leave out in the field.”

Pfefferkorn found it disturbing that such an accounting could be made at all. “She’s an agent, too.”

“One of the best. Co-architect of the original fictocryption program.”

“So you’re going to hand over the Workbench.”

“No way. Are you kidding? It would give them the capacity to generate an endless supply of encoded blockbuster thrillers. It would give them access to most of our worldwide covert arsenal.” Paul paused. “Including several dozen nukes.”

“Oh, God.”

“We’ll use a dummied version. It’ll produce authentic-looking novels but the codes will be gobbledygook. Your challenge is to sell the Twenty-sixers on it.”

There was a silence.

“Why do they want me?” Pfefferkorn asked.

“I was hoping you might be able to shed some light on that,” Paul said.

Pfefferkorn shook his head.

“It’s highly irregular,” Paul said. “You’re not a trained agent.”

“No kidding.”

“I’d much rather send a strike force.”

“I’d much rather you did, too.”

Pfefferkorn stared at the map, at its impenetrable combinations of consonants. “And if I say no?”

Paul did not reply. No reply was necessary.

Pfefferkorn looked at him. “Who
are
you.”

“I’m family,” Paul said.

There was a silence.

“Please tell me she’s not in on it, too,” Pfefferkorn said.

“Your daughter? No.” Paul put a hand on Pfefferkorn’s arm. “And let me just say, for the record, because I’m sure you’re wondering: I really do love her.”

Pfefferkorn said nothing.

“It didn’t start out that way, but I do now. And I want you to know that, whatever your decision, whatever the result, you have my word that she’ll be taken care of.”

Pfefferkorn regarded him skeptically. “You framed me for murder.”

“Just showing you what we’re capable of. In case you got cold feet.”

“You stranded me naked in a motel.”

Paul shrugged. “We had reward points that were going to expire.”

Pfefferkorn said nothing.

“Carlotta really does love you, too. I know what it must look like, but that’s the truth. One of the reasons we picked you as Bill’s successor was because you already had an established relationship with her.”

Pfefferkorn said nothing.

“It doesn’t have to be one or the other,” Paul said.

Pfefferkorn shut his eyes. He saw Carlotta fighting to save herself. He saw her beaten and thrown into a cell. He saw her forced to recite a speech. He saw her begging him to come alone. He saw her need, and her need was him.

He opened his eyes.

“When do we begin?” he said.