Pigment (16 page)
Rolf is gone by the time Jalil gets outside. He hops a cab and circles back to the Protea. As Jalil arrives, Rolf has been in and is on his way out, this time with a travel bag. He hales a taxi and pulls out. Jalil follows.
They arrive at the airport. Jalil considers how he might follow him. He’ll be flagged if he gets his own ticket or swipes his passport. The authorities will know he’s been in the country. To Jalil’s relief, Rolf’s taxi drives to a private plane hangar.
Rolf boards a Kotas Air private plane, Kotas is a subdivision of Drake Enterprises. “Bridging worlds” is the slogan branded on the tail of the plane. The irony of which is not lost on Jalil, who is spying on Rolf at a safe distance. Then Jalil stealthily makes his way to the cargo hold, rolls himself up in one of the rugs, so he is hidden from export customs agents and stows away.
Jalil hates traveling like this, but he’s been in worse conditions for longer periods of time. He doesn’t know the destination, only that it’s an international flight. He has no provisions. It’s been awhile and he’s gonna hate it -- he’s gotten a little soft stateside -- but he can do it. Rolf, whatever he’s up to, has information about Aliya. Information he’s not revealed to him.
Jalil gauges from the position of the sunlight filtering in through a crack in the hold, and from how the plane is moving and handling wind resistance, that the plane is flying northeast over the Indian Ocean… to Europe.
August 3
How dare Jalil imply she didn’t do enough to bring those responsible for Kennen and Aliya to justice. Who did he think he was? After all her work with nonprofits as a child, all the volunteering with the youth group for the Catholic Charities…she didn’t owe anyone an explanation. Oh but Jalil was sad, angry and confused and aching for answers, not excuses from her. When her Da passed, she’d had to transmute those efforts for the greater good and focus on winning bread for the family. Eldest of five siblings and with Ma’s health giving over to Alzheimer’s, she’d no choice.
She hadn’t thought about what he said much, since she’d gone back to Cork. Her priorities were clear: Bring her baby brother home and bury him; then grieve with the family and friends, heal, much as one can, and move on. She went back to work right after the burial, ‘had to. No one else was going to do it for her or the family.
Fiona had been working in corporate law for years, mostly overseeing contracts -- some she couldn’t believe she had had a hand in, but business was business and she couldn’t rock the fragile metaphorical barge the family was floating on. That was a luxury she didn’t have. The idea of a change was welcome, especially a change for good. She’d heard of the International Human Rights Initiative, but knowing no one affiliated with this non-profit, she was surprised to receive a call three weeks ago from the head of their Human Resources Department’s Mr. Hill. She knew they worked on third world issues, fighting the good fight, usually for indigenous populations who’d not had a voice nor the means to protect themselves and their resources -- by reputation, a quality organization, up there with Legal Aid and Human Rights Watch in terms of notoriety and in having had a positive impact in many cases as far as international law would allow. She took the job.
Once there, it took her a week to find out the source of her good fortune. She didn’t know him, but wanted to know his reasons for seeking her out and hiring her. Sure she’d faith in the ways of her Lord and even the mysterious. But she also loves solving puzzles and understanding how things work. She sourced his name through some creative dialogue and hobnobbing with Mr. Hill’s assistant, Leila. Nothing a few happy hour pints couldn’t extract or whittle out. “Mr. Hill had received a direct order from Mr. Mitchell, the head of IHRI, telling him to hire you…Whatever it took…It was at the request of an old friend of his he owed a favor, but couldn’t say who it was. How obtuse to have to keep his identity secret. Odd. Don’t you think?” Leila gossiped. “A Mr. Tiger, no Teigen it was. Mr. Rolf Teigen. Do you know him?” she asked fighting the onset of hiccups. “He is always at the holiday fundraiser in Kingston, a big advocate and donor.”
Fiona had never heard of him, but through some Googling, she found a picture of a Mr. Rolf Teigen. A Canadian Doctor had taken a shot of Rolf handing out supplies to some Burundi refugees at a field clinic in the bush in Tanzania three months prior and posted it on his blog. This hit her like a sucker punch in the stomach. This man must have known Kennen, but Fiona knew in her core it was more than that. Now she wants those answers.
This is why her last conversation with Jalil is playing over and over in her mind. The questions will haunt her if she doesn’t find the answers.
Being a bit of a research expert and sleuth, she found a company Mr. Teigen had been nominated to sit on the board of, Drake Enterprises. The IHRI had been tied up in litigation with this company for years, but the evidence of criminal activity was lost in a fire and the case was closed. This was one of very few losses to the firm. Not so ironically, Drake Enterprises is one of the top importers of goods from Tanzania. And the board is to have a meeting to elect Mr. Teigen to join them.
She’s learned over the years to trust her instincts. She doesn’t always, but when she does it pays off. Following her gut, she made her way to Drake Enterprises’ headquarters for this board meeting. And while it’s a closed meeting, here she is on the morning of, positioned in a café across the street from the entrance -- a good perch, in from the gray chill.
Mr. Rolf Teigen approaches the entrance to the building, in a suit, checks his watch, then walks in to the café. As he stands in line to order, Fiona approaches him. She knows it is him, from the photos she’d found online. Albeit, he looks much crisper and gentrified in the flesh and not in the bush, she can’t mistake that strong jaw line and tall stature, a stature that seems to grow taller toward the ceiling as her petite Irish frame meets his.
“Mr. Teigen.” Her voice and brogue soft and low are at first lost in the morning hustle. She repeats, louder, almost too loud over-compensating “Mr. Teigen.” Rolf moves a little startled by his name coming at him in such a way. Upon seeing her, he doesn’t seem to know her.
“Yes.”
“Mr. Teigen. I want to thank you.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t...”
“My name is Fiona Dunnovan…”
Rolf’s eyes widen at her name.
“You recently recommended me for a position at the IHRI.”
How did she ever find me! He wonders. He steps back out of line and rubs the base of his neck with his hand.
She steps with him. “It’s strange being recommended for a position you didn’t even know about, by someone you don’t know. So I sought you out.”
“Oh, Fiona, yes. A friend gave me your name and I thought...Well I’m glad it worked out.” He dismisses her, stepping away from her and back into the line. He orders a double espresso.
“Which friend?” Fiona persists. “And how did you know I took the position?”
“That was some weeks ago. I’m sorry. It’s a busy morning. Nice to meet you.” He pays, downs his drink and steps outside. He crosses through the slow traffic to the building across the street.
As he places his hand on the gothic door handle to the corporate offices, she is right on his heels. “Did you know my brother?”
He is frozen by her words, his back to her.
“Kennen Dunnovan. Did you know him? He was in Tanzania the same time as you...”
He turns to face her. “I’m sorry, I have to go. Good day, Ms. Dunnovan.” There is despair in his eyes. “You should go too.”
“Veilcom, Herr Teigenn.” the security guard reaches out from the depths and holds the door for him.
“Gutten tag.” Rolf disappears into the bowels of this monstrosity of a building.
Fiona moves to follow him, but the guard shuts her out. She is left at the gates, staring up into the shiny intricate eyes etched in gold, metal all the way from Tanzania. That’s what that trial was about -- the local water supply was poisoned from all the mining -- it was a push for justice, a fight for the thirsty, still thirsty.
She steps back but stands tall, sizing up the ridiculous height of this monolithic black building. The gotham-style architecture, the deliberate flared nostrils carved into the cladding, she sees that she is now face-to-face with the dragon. If Herr Teigen had his way, she would go. But she’s staying. He knows more about what happened to Kennen and the American Albino Aliya, and she is determined to find out what, especially now.
The morning sun moves quickly, stranding her in the cold shadow. But she remains, unmoved, like the Irish women on Peace Bridge in Belfast, who stood in silent vigil for the mothers and children at Tuam. Her feet take deeper root in the pavement, despite the cold and the tormenting heavy gusts that blow on her each time the door opens. Were someone to light a match, she’d surely be roasted in the fiery breath.
Thankfully, she wore her sensible shoes, but she’d have stayed regardless. She can feel Kennen all around her, in her blood. Teigen knows more and she isn’t going to move until she gets it out of him.
It amazes her how some people respond to death, especially a murder. Heavens, if it’s not like the twelve steps of grieving, borrowed from the twelve steps addicts take to recovery and vice versa. Her Da never made it above step 3; then his cycle would start again and come to finish him young in the end. Here’s this man, who perhaps only briefly met her sweet brother. Kennen’s an impressionable lad, but people bring their own longings to mourning. It wasn’t hard to figure out Kennen’s timetable right before his death and put two and two together to know he was at Mr. Teigen’s party. In the café, she was feeling him out, not showing him her hand, wanting him to offer up what he knew. But he didn’t. Perhaps it’s cause he’s one of the last to see him alive, perhaps it’s a last straw on his own hay stack -- no doubt he has a lot with on his plate with all the refugee work she understands he does -- perhaps this, perhaps that. Perhaps perhaps perhaps… But how could she ever know? She shifts, getting off the “What if...?” wheel.
The security guard calls up to Teigen in the executive conference room on the top floor to let him know the woman is still here, waiting for him. The suits are on a tea break from their affairs, Teigen strolls through the executive board members and gazes out the window. From the broad expanse of the city landscape reaching for the heavens, he looks down the cavernous glossy black granite, metal and glass that stretches down the outside of the structure. He’s too high and at too steep an angle to see the sidewalk below. He touches his forehead to the glass to try to see further. He manages a glimpse of her blurred reflection on the cafe window across the street, if that is even her. Maybe his imagination is imposing on his mind again. But surely she’s down there. The guard just told him.
A hand, full of ivory and precious stone rings rests on his shoulder and flaps like a flag in a hard wind. Rolf looks up to see his own withered reflection in the glass before him and that of Herr Günther’s too.
#
They had a deal. Teigen recalls the moment he made the bet with Günther. His hand was good. Good enough for him to raise the stakes at the table. He wagered for “Permission for Burundies to stay in Tanzania indefinitely and not be extradited back to Burundi.”
Günther liked the sport and Rolf’s pomp. “Haha. You’re serious? These people mean a great deal to you, but not to me. If I win, you must get me the American zeru-zeru from your party.”
“What do you mean, get her for you?”
“I mean entirely.”
“But she’s a person.”
“I find it interesting that you would wager the lives of 140,000 people, but give pause at gambling on the life of one?”
Günther was making him choose between her, the innocent daughter of the man who saved his life on more than one occasion and the lives of the refugees. He took the bet.
He thought he had an ace in his hand. He saw it wrong. Damn whiskey. He’d bet on an imaginary hand. He lost. Worse, Günther threatened him. “If you don’t deliver on your end of this bet, I will not only ensure the extradition of the Burundians, but I will hasten it and I will also guarantee you that the rebel forces will be awaiting their return across the border and will kill all of them. It’s your choice. The blood of many, or the blood of one.”
Günther had the ace. Teigen lost. Something in Günther’s eyes informed him that he’d taken too big a gamble and that he’d done so with a soulless man. A man he couldn’t cross. This devil owned him now.
#
That’s why Rolf is up for this position at Drake. The voting to instate him to the executive board is a mere formality in Günther’s game. Another guaranteed vote for whatever he’d want to push through on his agenda. Rolf had tried almost everything he could think of over the past few weeks to change Günther’s demands. He’s here for another shot, he’ll beg him for the lives of all of the refugees and for Aliya, if it’s not too late for her, he doesn’t know her whereabouts or fate. He’ll beg for mercy. He’s gotten pretty good at begging for things. Günther, on the other hand, is perhaps even better accustomed to having people grovel before him. Somehow it feeds him. But he never bends. If that doesn’t work, he’ll try to force Günther’s hand by threatening him with exposure, going public with everything Herr Günther knows about the immoral, and often, illegal acts he’s committed.
“Herr Tiegen. You are not going to jump I hope.” Günther is at the trunk of that jeweled hand. His relaxed stoic demeanor might have him back at Rolf’s cocktail party some weeks back. His German -- worldly accent disarms people, because he has an unexpected lisp, but only when he speaks English. When he speaks his native tongue, he might as well be Hitler addressing the Reichstag delegates in 1941, having declared war on the U.S. “Life is weighing heavy on you these days. No wonder, with so many lives riding on you. You should take better care.”
Rolf looked flushed after meeting Fiona earlier, now all the blood has flooded down to his feet and he puts his hand on the window to steady himself. If only he could, if only the molecules of the windowpane would part enough for him to slip through, it could all be over.
“Have some more tea.” Rolf has the waiter exchange his empty cup of tea for a fresh one.
Rolf speaks, much more softly than he’d intended, than he’d rehearsed in his head, but his voice is with his blood toward the floor. “You must stop all of this.” his voice cracks with the pale sweat swelling from his skin.
“Vas es das?
What is this?
Why would I stop anything I am doing? Oh, you’re not well.” He talks down to him, coddling him like a child.
“You must let the Burundians stay alive in Tanzania and tell me where she is.”