Night Of Knives

Chapter 22

Entering the American embassy is like teleporting back into the First World, into an office complex occupied by some moderately successful business. Everything is clean, new, imported from the USA.

It takes five minutes to get past the security gauntlet of razor wire, concrete barriers and guard posts. Strick parks, leads Jacob and Veronica into a side door, up a staircase and into a meeting room dominated by an elliptical wooden table surrounded by big office chairs. One wall is a large whiteboard. The other three are lined with folding plastic chairs, maybe thirty in all. A sleekly designed conference phone sits in the middle of the table. Strick reaches over, pushes a button on that phone, sits down, and motions for them to do the same.

Once they are all seated Strick says, his voice controlled, "This is the part where you tell me everything. And don't you dare fucking leave anything out."

Jacob thinks back to what Prester said: Strick is a prick, but he is not dirty. That's one thing I am fucking certain of. He begins to tell the whole story. Veronica chimes in from time to time. Strick listens without asking questions. Jacob thinks his expression softens slightly as they tell their tale.

"I hope you still have those airline tickets," is all he says when they are finished.

They nod.

"Being full-fare first-class tickets, they're good for a year after purchase. I can't actually make you use them tomorrow. But I very strongly suggest it."

"And then what happens?" Jacob asks.

"And then we take care of things. It's a matter of priorities. There are a lot of innocent lives at risk. The first thing we do is take care of Al-Qaeda in the Congo. We can put our own house in order later."

"What if they're planning something?" Veronica asks. "What if they're blackmailing whoever set up Derek to help them?"

"We're well aware of that possibility and we're taking measures to ensure that doesn't happen."

"What measures?" Jacob demands.

Strick fixes him with a cold stare. "Classified measures."

"Classified my ass," Jacob says, his anger finally bubbling over. "You aren't well aware of shit, and you aren't the least bit interested who set up Derek, or you wouldn't be hearing about all this from us. This is insane. You're telling us to go away? You should be asking us for help. I've found out more sitting at my computer than you have with the whole American intelligence budget behind you. Derek was murdered by one of you. By someone he was working for. But you don't actually want to find out who it was, do you? All you want is to use your pet Zimbabwe general to clean up in the Congo, collect the hosannas, then make your own problem go away before it makes you all look bad for not having noticed, this whole fucking time, that one of your own guys was in league with terrorists and genocidists. Never mind that they might be planning something in the meantime. The important thing is to keep your dirty laundry private, isn't it? You're nothing but a useless bureaucrat."

Strick recoils slightly, as if he has just been slapped. He looks at Jacob for a long moment. Then he says, in an oddly gentle voice, "I know he was your friend. But you have to let go."

"No, actually, I don't."

"Let me tell you a story."

Jacob opens his mouth to say he doesn't want to hear it. Veronica kicks him in the shin. He looks at her and subsides.

"I knew a woman once," Strick said. "A Kurdish woman. I was there on duty, this was between the gulf wars. We were going to be engaged. That is, we were engaged, but it was secret. We couldn't tell anyone. Then one day she disappeared. I didn't take it seriously for the first couple of days. I thought she'd come back. It wasn't the first time. She had a history. Fits of madness. I guess you're not supposed to call it that any more. Madness. She was younger than me. Sometimes it hits women in their twenties. Especially trauma survivors. Her family was all murdered in the eighties." He takes a deep breath. "But this time it wasn't madness. She told her cousin, he told her uncle, they took her away and killed her. Honor killing. So-called."