The Wreckage: A Thriller (39 page)

An hour passes. Luca takes a copy of the
Herald Tribune
from the front pocket of his smal rucksack. More suicide bombings in Iraq. Fifty-nine dead in Baghdad. More than a hundred injured. Most of them young men lining up to enlist outside an army recruiting centre. Luca keeps turning the pages. Another ship captured by Somali pirates; the Lockerbie bomber stil alive after a year; Robert Pattinson the world’s sexiest man; a missing banker in London…

The door opens. A head comes into view. He’s in the right place. The tal thin man is dressed in a pinstriped suit and trousers that are fractional y too short for his legs. His name is Douglas Evans and he reeks of public service.

He has brought Luca a sandwich and a bottle of water.

“Sorry about the delay,” he says, businesslike. “I suppose you’re wondering why you’re here.”

“Yes.”

“Is that your only luggage?”

“I travel light.”

“I wil need to search your bag.”

“Is that necessary?”

“A routine requirement of anyone coming through UK Customs.”

“I thought you were immigration.”

“Two hats.”

“You’l have some form of identification then?”

Evans smiles with less enthusiasm and produces a Home Office ID card.

“You sound quite paranoid, Mr. Terracini.”

“I’m just very careful.”

Evans unzips Luca’s bag and searches through the underwear and clean shirts that Luca purchased in Istanbul. Daniela helped choose them.

“Are you going to tel me what this is about?”

“We’ve had a complaint from the caretaker government in Iraq, via the US ambassador, that you fled their jurisdiction while stil the subject of a criminal investigation.”

“My visa was revoked two days ago. I was told to leave the country. Check with the American Embassy in Baghdad. Mr. Jennings.”

“Why was your visa revoked?”

“The Iraqi government doesn’t always see the point of a free press.”

Evans touches his chin with a long index finger. He has feminine hands, which remind Luca of a girlfriend he once had. Penny, that was her name. They shared a bedsit in Paris for six months. When she orgasmed she used to cal out her own name, which either made her completely narcissistic or so unsure of herself that she needed reassurance.

“I’ve been asked to review your status here, Mr. Terracini.”

“My status?”

“Why have you come to England?”

“I’m here to see my commissioning editor at the
Financial Herald
.”

“You’re working on a story?”

“Yes.”

Evans taps at his wrist as though checking that his watch is working.

“You left Iraq in a hurry.”

“I left Iraq as instructed by the Iraqi police and the US Embassy.”

Evans taps again. “It seems the Iraqis may want you back.”

Luca smiles wryly. “You and I both know that the British government is not going to extradite an American journalist back to Baghdad.”

“You can be denied entry to the UK.”

“On what grounds?”

“Undesirable activities.”

There is a knock on the door. A uniformed Customs officer whispers a message to Evans. The door closes on a heavy spring. Luca is alone again.

Opening the water, he sips it thoughtful y. The English are so polite yet Hol ywood is always portraying them as fiendish vil ains. Christopher Lee, Alan Rickman, Charles Dance.

Jeremy Irons. The lip-curling sneer, the cut-glass accent—it is just another cartoonish stereotype, of course, like the amusing Indian, the arrogant Frenchman and the inscrutable Asian.

Luca’s father loved the English poets. Donne and Blake were his favorites, but he didn’t like Wordsworth, who he said was a rock star poet, famous in his own lifetime, as if that were his worst crime.

More time passes. Luca closes his eyes and tries to doze. Daniela wil be through the airport by now. She’l cal Gooding. He’l pul strings.

The door opens. It’s not Douglas Evans this time. Two airport police officers escort Luca along stark corridors and through swinging doors until he emerges into the arrivals hal .

Daniela and Keith Gooding are waiting. Gooding gives him a bear hug. Their bodies don’t fit wel together.

“You didn’t tel me you were bringing someone,” Gooding says. “Daniela wanted me to cal out the Queen’s Guard.”

“I inspire loyalty.”

Daniela shakes her head. “You attract trouble.”

6

LUTON

The café has three computer screens at the rear of the far wal, squeezed between shelves of canned goods, breakfast cereal and soap powder. Internet access is four pounds an hour.

The Bangladeshi owner, Mr. Rahman, has three unmarried daughters and has already quizzed the Courier about whether he needs a wife.

Ibrahim is twenty minutes late, sweating profusely. Big pores, he explains. A bad diet, thinks the Courier.

Coffee is ordered, double espressos with the consistency of tar.

“Why haven’t you found the notebook?” Ibrahim asks.

“Maybe it doesn’t exist or the ex-soldier threw it away. He died slowly. I gave him every opportunity to tel me.” Ibrahim grunts and spoons four sugars into his coffee. Across the road, through a first-floor window, he notices a girl making a bed. She’s wearing a black skirt and a blue apron.

Something about maids, he thinks. He once offered a hotel housekeeper three hundred pounds to sleep with him. A Filipino girl. She got offended. It was more than she earned in a week. Foolish pride.

“Are they ready?”

“They’re boy soldiers.”

“They can stil be ready. Soldiers or dogs, they al obey.”

Ibrahim studies him for a while. He expected more of the Courier. Average height, average looks—only his eyes are predatory. Normal y, they communicate via internet cafés, logging into an email account. Instructions are left as a draft message in the draft folder: a message that is never sent. Untraceable.

The Courier returns his gaze and Ibrahim looks down, touching the col ar of his shirt. Outside a long-legged woman, dressed in black, is buying fruit from a stal . She steps around a couple sitting on the curb sharing a bottle, a beggar on one corner, a drunk on the next, invisible to her.

Ibrahim can feel his heartbeat increase as the caffeine and sugar fire up synapses in his brain.

“The operation is brought forward.”

“I don’t have the materials.”

“They’l be provided.”

“The payment is double.”

Ibrahim mumbles in agreement.

“And the notebook?”

“If it fal s into the wrong hands, we clear the accounts.”

“How long wil that take?”

“A keystroke.”

7

LONDON

Rowan likes the old Mercedes. The smooth leather bench-seat in the back is perfect for sliding across when they turn corners. Elizabeth keeps teling him to sit stil and buckle his seat belt.

“This is the way to Granddad’s house,” he says, recognizing his surroundings. “You said you were going on a venture.”

“An
ad
venture,” she corrects him.

As they near the house, Ruiz pauses at a set of lights.

“There’s Polina,” says Rowan, pointing out of the window. Elizabeth catches a glimpse of the nanny in a smart VW Golf that crosses the junction and disappears from view.

“Maybe she’s visiting Granddad,” says Rowan.

“I don’t think she knows Granddad.”

The electronic gates glide open and stutter to a stop, revealing a long, sweeping driveway and verdant lawns that slope down to a pond. Ruiz notices the security cameras and broken glass embedded in the perimeter wal . How the other half lives: the rich and the anxious.

As the Merc pul s up in front of the main house, Alistair Bach emerges from inside and jogs down the steps. Fit for his age, with teak-colored forearms and a ful head of hair, he hoists Rowan aloft and holds him giggling and kicking above his head.

Elizabeth touches Ruiz’s shoulder. “Don’t tel him about what happened. Not until we’ve talked to the police.”

“Someone broke our window,” Rowan announces breathlessly. “And Mummy slept in my room because of the monsters.” Bach glances at Elizabeth looking for confirmation and then back at his grandson, who has spotted the Labrador and is squirming to be put down. Soon he’s running across the grass cal ing Sal y’s name.

“Does he ever take off that costume?” asks Bach.

“When he has a bath,” replies Elizabeth.

“I don’t know if it’s a healthy obsession.”

“He doesn’t want to save the world… just his daddy.”

Bach notices Ruiz for the first time.

“This is Vincent Ruiz,” explains Elizabeth. “He’s a former detective.”

Bach shakes hands. He has the sort of handshake and “look-’em-in-the-eyes” attitude that has been practiced in a thousand business meetings.

“What’s this about a broken window?”

“A glazier is coming today,” says Elizabeth, pul ing an overnight bag from the boot of the Merc. “I just saw Polina. Was she visiting?”

“She came to see Mitchel .”

“Is he here?”

“Upstairs. He wants to talk to you.”

Elizabeth doesn’t show any emotion. “I thought Rowan and I might stay for a few days,” she says. “If that’s al right.”

“Of course it is.”

He pries Elizabeth’s fingers from the handle of her luggage and carries it inside. She goes through to the sunroom where she can watch Rowan from the French windows and wait for Mitchel to finish his phone cal .

Ruiz feels he shouldn’t be here. This is a family matter. He wanders on to the terrace, overlooking the garden where Rowan is throwing a bal for Sal y to fetch. Elizabeth and her father are arguing inside. Loud whispers. Pleadings. Recriminations. A door slams and the dog looks up towards the house.

Alistair Bach joins Ruiz on the terrace. He’s carrying two long-necked beer bottles. Imported lager. Cold.

“Thank you for bringing Lizzie.”

“That’s OK.”

Bach’s nostrils swel with air and he looks genuinely unsure of what to do. Like a lot of powerful men, every word he’s ever spoken and every action he’s ever taken has been an attempt to control his environment, but now he’s frustrated by his inability to comfort his daughter.

“Lovely place,” says Ruiz.

“I bought at the right time.”

“When was the right time?”

“The eighties.”

“Early 1800s I might have had a chance.”

Bach chuckles hol owly. “It’s not rocket science.”

“What isn’t?”

“Being a banker.”

Ruiz doesn’t respond.

“You don’t like bankers, do you?” says Bach.

“I don’t know any,” says Ruiz, which is a diplomatic answer. Even before the recession he had never given much thought to whether bankers were the architects of global prosperity or the sackers of civilizations. He had always been more worried about gangbangers dealing crack to black teenagers and bikers sel ing crystal meth into school playgrounds.

“You don’t like what we represent,” says Bach. “What you perceive we’ve done. You think we’ve caused nothing but grief.”

“I try not to judge people.”

“You’re a lousy liar, Vincent. Once upon a time we were the good guys. People admired us. They wanted to be like us. When Gordon Gekko said, ‘Greed is good,’ people lapped it up. They wanted our Italian silk suits, our Porsches and our penthouse flats. The tabloids wrote stories about East End barrow boys without an O-level who were pul ing in six-figure salaries and seven-figure bonuses. We made money. We created jobs. We paid most of your taxes. We turned the City of London into the second biggest financial capital in the world.” Bach pauses and points to Ruiz’s chest with the neck of his beer bottle. The skin along his hairline is shiny with perspiration.

“Do you own a house, Vincent?”

“Yes.”

“Has it doubled in value? Trebled?”

“I’ve done OK.”

“More than OK, I’d say. You should thank bankers for that. Al that wealth we created had a knock-on effect on property prices. Ordinary guys like you, living in suburbia, became mil ionaires because of what we did. You bought houses and sat back and watched the values rise. You thought you were geniuses. You thought it was down to
you
.” Bach looks at the recently hoed garden. He did the work himself, churning the soil until his shirt was soaked in sweat, working through the heat of the day as though avenging himself.

He sucks air through his nose and spits into the garden.

“Then it al fel apart,” he says, “the meltdown, the credit crunch, the global financial crisis. People panicked. They wanted out. They cashed in their investments, withdrew their money, and it al came crashing down. They squealed when governments bailed out the banks with taxpayer funds. Hated us even more. But none of them realized how those funds were also propping up their property prices and their jobs and the glorious consumer bubble they had grown to know and love.

“They blamed the bankers. They wanted us put in jail. They wanted to curb our bonuses and tax our salaries. But the only way America and Britain and Europe are getting out of this mess is if the banks recapitalize. And the only way taxpayers are getting their money back is if banks do what they do best. Trade. Hedge. Lend. Make profits.