Samuel had been relieved by Frank, a stout thick-necked Minnesotan who, as Samuel had told me, was built like a linebacker, albeit a short one. Frank seemed as if he’d only just gotten the job and wanted to impress his bosses with his understanding of regulations. He searched the hotel room when he arrived that final morning of the Forum, claiming that he couldn’t be sure Samuel had checked it (he hadn’t), and when he didn’t come up with any contraband he parked himself at the door rather than by the window, where Samuel had lounged the whole night, nursing his bruise. I don’t know how Samuel ended up explaining it.
There was nothing to do but reflect on those traumatic minutes at the bar. Haroun, in the flesh, explaining to me how his life had ended up where it had, and how he justified it all. He was a creature of loss—the loss of belief—and cynicism. More specifically, his was a story of temptation as old as Genesis, but inverted: Instead of learning of good and evil, he had learned that neither existed. There was only profit and loss, and somehow he had decided that those values were worth risking his life for.
Or maybe I was overthinking it. Maybe he only saw his job the way most people did, as a way to earn a living so that he could live life. But he hadn’t said a word about paychecks or a splendid lifestyle at coastal resorts. No girlfriends, no children, no mortgages. Haroun had tried to justify his life on purely ideological grounds, and that was why I was still shook.
It was just after noon when Mel showed up. She asked Frank if I’d given him trouble, and when he shook his head she sent him out of the room and pulled a desk chair up to the side of the bed. Elbows on her knees, she looked at me, pressing her fingertips together, and said, “In your report, and in the recordings, there’s nothing about Milo Weaver’s plan.”
“Because he never told me.”
She nodded slowly. “Late last night,” she said, “he met with intelligence officers from the UK, Russia, Germany, and China.”
“That’s the meeting he invited you to.”
“Yes, of course, but there’s more. Yesterday morning a German representative to the UN disappeared after landing in Zürich, heading for Davos. Last night, Swiss police found three dead Chinese intelligence officers up the side of a mountain—they’re trying their damnedest to keep it quiet. Then Milo has his meeting. And this morning, his four intelligence officers met on their own, inside the security ring. At a café in the Congress Center. We didn’t get audio, but they seemed to be debating something.”
“Probably Milo Weaver’s plan.”
She took her phone from inside her blue business jacket. “Sure. Then one of them went outside the security ring and headed down to the train station, where he met with this person.” She pulled up a photo and handed the phone to me.
It was a photo of a small white man with a mustache, his arm in a sling, walking alongside a younger woman whom I recognized even though her hair was longer, cut into a bob around her jawline, and her makeup was different. I said, “That’s the woman who looked like Ingrid Parker. Back in Klosters. Who’s he?”
“German. BND.”
I frowned, remembering a stray character from Milo’s story. “Oskar Leintz?”
“Yes,” she said, not surprised that I knew.
“Maybe I was wrong,” I said, handing the phone back. “Maybe that is Ingrid Parker.”
“It isn’t,” Mel said.
I squinted at the image, not entirely sure myself now. “How do you know?”
“Because yesterday the FBI confirmed a sighting in West Palm Beach, near Mar-a-Lago. Secret Service is shitting itself.”
“I thought you didn’t trust the FBI.”
“I trust them. I just don’t respect them.”
I opened my mouth, shut it, then said, “Why would the Germans falsely report that Parker is in Europe, and then go meet her doppelgänger?”
“That’s the question, Abdul. What are they up to?”
I put on my analyst’s hat and thought about what I knew. Leintz’s fraught but essentially cordial relationship with Weaver. Weaver’s desire to put an end to Northwell’s private army, and his decision to enlist countries to help his fight. But this—this particular detail—what did it mean?
“We don’t have enough information,” I admitted.
She didn’t like that but didn’t say a thing.
“Did he call again?” I asked.
“What?”
“Milo. I thought he might try again.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think he ever wanted our help in the first place.”
I remembered the trouble they had gone through to get me to Madrid Airport. “No, he did want your help. But after that call he doesn’t trust you. He thinks you’ll undermine him.”
“But he trusts the Russians?”
I looked past her to where the sun was sitting high in the sky, illuminating a fresh layer of snow that had covered Davos overnight. From my angle, I could make out one of the snipers on top of the Congress Center. I thought about those intelligence chiefs meeting inside that heavily guarded building, a place they knew Milo wouldn’t find them. Oskar Leintz making contact with the fake Ingrid Parker …
Oh.
As the thought came to me, I said, “They’re setting him up.”
Mel’s face settled into a stiff mask. She said, “Explain.”
“I can’t. But all the reports about Ingrid Parker are from the Germans. Yes?”
“Yes.”
“Nothing from the Swiss, the French … no one else?”
She sank deeper into her chair. “Correct.”
It still didn’t make complete sense, but I could feel a truth pushing up from under the surface. “I don’t know why, but the Germans are running a parallel game Milo doesn’t know anything about.”
“What game?”
“Something that requires us, and other countries, to believe Ingrid Parker is here.”
Mel blinked at me, absorbing this.
I said, “My suggestion is to contact Milo Weaver and show him that photo. You don’t lose anything by it, and he might be able to stop a disaster.”
“What if Milo’s plan is the disaster?”
I shook my head. “He’s not here to make more trouble. He only wants his family to be safe.”
She continued to stare hard at me, stiff, and then her features relaxed. “Come with me,” she said.
We went out into the corridor, where Frank stood erect and obedient. “We’ll be right back,” she told him, and he watched us head to the far end of the corridor. Mel knocked on a door, waited, then opened it and brought me inside.
What I saw was a shock, though it shouldn’t have been. Standing with Sally in the room was an angry Gilbert Powell, founder of Nexus. Like a lot of other powerful men, he was taller than expected, and he barely noticed us enter—he was in the middle of a rant.
“What do you think? That I couldn’t find seed money? For fuck’s sake, I didn’t need yours!”
“Yet you took it,” Sally told him in a calm, quiet voice, raising a finger to Mel for patience. “Our terms were never hidden. You signed.”
“Enough!” he said. “I’ll write you a check right now. Give me a number. Just stay out of the system!”
“Gilbert,” Sally said, still measured and cool, “have you met Abdul?”
I was surprised to be brought into this, and Powell seemed surprised by this as well. He shook his head no and turned to the window, not interested in knowing me.
“Well,” Sally said. “Abdul has brought us the most interesting story about Northwell and its relationship to Nexus.”
Slowly, Powell turned back and focused on me. But he didn’t speak.
“It used to be called Tourism,” she went on. “I don’t know what you call it now.”
“I don’t know—”
“Remember Lou Braxton?” Sally cut in. “Where4 was a hell of a platform. Gave Nexus a run for its money. It was a shame he died so young.”
Weak now, Powell sank onto the edge of the perfectly made bed and looked at all of our faces.
Beside me, Mel said, “Principled, too. He refused to even sit down with us.”
“I admired that,” Sally said, then looked a long moment at Gilbert Powell, who seemed to be closing down. “There is a way out for you, Gilbert, and it’s so simple. You do nothing. Everything remains as it is. You do not block our access. If you do, then everything comes crashing down. Everything.”
Powell rubbed his forehead, thinking, then looked up. “You would go down, too.”
She shook her head. “We don’t need customers to buy into our product. There would be a minor storm, a scapegoat would be found, and a year later it’s business as usual. Nexus, though—I give it a month of solvency. No one would trust you. Your pariah status would last a lifetime.”
He breathed loudly through his nose, trying to figure a way out of the trap. But, for now at least, there was no escape.
“Go on, Gilbert,” Sally said. “Think about it. We’ll talk later, before the flight home. And if you get a chance, tell Anthony Halliwell we’d like to speak to him, too. We’re in Davos, after all. This is a place for acquisitions.”
I watched Gilbert Powell shuffle out of that room, defeated, and knew that I would never see him the same way again. I said, “We’re inside Nexus?”
Mel ignored my question and brought me deeper into the room. To Sally, she said, “Abdul’s assessment is that Weaver’s being played. Tell her.”
I repeated my argument, which, though thin, was no worse than any arguments they could come up with. “It wouldn’t hurt to tell Weaver what’s going on,” I said.
“It might,” Sally said, sounding a lot like Mel a few minutes ago. “Maybe the Germans are setting up a coup. Get rid of Weaver so the adults can take care of Northwell.”
“Or maybe, like you, they’re thinking of acquiring Northwell,” I said. Witnessing her conversation with Powell had crystallized that thought. “I don’t think you want German Tourism.”
Sally seemed to take that seriously, but she made no move to admit it. “Put him back on ice,” she told Mel. “You and I have some thinking to do.”