Pigment (17 page)
“You really are ill.”
“I’ll expose you...I’ll go to the media...”
Günther lets out a loud ironic chuckle. If Santa were Satan it might be something like how he’d present. His hand flaps more on Rolf’s back -- a winged dragon. “Delightful.” Then, more intimately, “You are spinning out of control. You can’t do anything to me. Now...” His tone jovial, “...it is unfortunate, this last attempt you’ve made. Threats, even if not serious, are not something I am patient with, no matter how pathetic they may be. I knew you weren’t going to play according to the rules. Which was fun at first, to see how you would play. But now you bore me. What’s more, you have become a liability. Now you must suffer the ultimate consequence. You will be terminated along with all whom you wish for me to save. The game is over. You lost.”
“What game?” This is not a game.” Rolf is desperate.
“I’ll explain to the board about your sudden terminal illness and convey your regrets for having to decline the position. It’s awful, some cholera-esque rare tropical illness you contracted while working with the refugees, maybe something sexually transmitted, so they don’t think they’ll contract it… but definitely something deadly.”
Rolf tries to lift his fist to punch Günther in the face, but his hand won’t lift. He looks at his teacup. That’s why all the blood left his head...poison. Rolf tries to speak, but looks like he’s having a stroke instead and his mouth won’t annunciate. His legs start to turn to jelly. Günther’s bodyguard, Claude, takes him to the executive elevator. Once inside, he presses the basement level parking garage button. Rolf watches, wanting to press lobby or any other floor, the alarm for help, but he can’t now, he is more than ever before at Günther’s mercy and there isn’t any.
August 3 (later)
Unknown caller, she ignores it. They call back. She dismisses it again. Third time, she takes the call -- it could be Mr. Teigen after all, ready to reveal some truth to her, confess something beyond the pain so undeniably present in his eyes, “Hello.”
“Fiona.”
Not the voice she expected, but she recognizes it. Before she can reply...
“...Don’t say anything. Listen, you’re not safe where you are.”
“How...?”
He cuts her off. “They’ve taken Rolf. They’re coming for you. There’s an old black car parked behind you across the street.” She turns to look but his words stop her. “Don’t look at it. Just walk to your left in the opposite direction.” The voice adamantly prompts her, “Go now!” His tone scares her as bad as the nuns in first school used to, scares her enough to move her. “I’ll stay on the phone with you.”
Bewildering, this is the first time she felt fear since Tanzania and even that was clouded by the thick veil of grief. She hears the car engine start behind her. The driver makes an illegal K-turn to follow her. She looks over her shoulder trying to stay calm and look inconspicuous, but she’s trembling, clumsy. The pavement feels hard on her soles and her joints are stiff from the hours of vigilance at the feet of the dragon. She missteps as the car approaches, drops her phone and the screen shatters. As she stops to pick up her lifeline, a man swiftly stomps it, demolishing what’s left of it. He grabs her from behind and restores the momentum of walking forward. “Leave it, Fiona. There’s no time.” Jalil has her arm. She feels safer, but not safe enough. One man gets out of the front passenger seat and pursues them on foot. The car stays with them. Jalil steers Fiona into a train station and all the lunch hour mayhem that goes with it.
They duck into a passageway leading to the tracks of a train that’s boarding. Once up and inside, Jalil opens the door on the opposite side and leads her down onto the tracks between two trains. The thug follows them as they weave onto another car drawing the attention of a conductor, Fiona pleads with him in German, “Help us. This man is following us.”
Jalil is impressed, “I didn’t know you spoke German.”
She retorts, “I didn’t know you were in Germany.”
They resume their brisk walk as the conductor intercepts the thug.
The train is about to move out…She steps up and looks back for Jalil to follow. But he isn’t boarding, “I can’t…Rolf.” She gets off the train and follows him back out to the street. Something about the car caught his eye before. It is no surprise this head of Drake Enterprises would have the same car as Herr Himmler in WWII. But looking at it again, Jalil confirms that the taillight is jutting out, as if pushed from the inside. He pauses; Fiona tries to tug him along to keep moving.
Claude gets out of the driver seat and engages the station security guard who has detained his partner, all while still looking out for Fiona and the man who whisked her away.
Jalil tells Fiona “Walk through the alley and wait for me at the other side of the block.” She doesn’t get what he’s up to and is slow to turn as she watches his next steps. He’s closer to the Maybach, using passers-by as cover. They are only two yards from the front of the car. Jalil sees that the keys are in the ignition. He quickly gets in and starts the engine.
The men scramble as he peels down the street and speeds straight for a few blocks until they can’t see him any more. He can’t find any GPS or anything Lojack-like that they could use to track him. He’s grateful that Drake appreciates things in their authentic state in this instance.
He circles back on another street and picks up Fiona who is ducking behind the window display in the store at the corner where Jalil said to meet him. At first when she saw the car, she hides, thinking it’s the thugs from Drake. But when Jalil waves, she comes out. “He’s crazy.” She thinks out loud. “I’m crazy.” She adds, pushing her blistered feet back onto the cold street then into this Nazi car. Soon as she’s in, Jalil drives before she even finishes closing the door. “Easy!” she scolds as the g-forces push her back in to the seat and close the door the rest of the way. He’s not speaking yet, is fully focused on the action at hand. First, getting them and this attention-getter off the street.
Two miles of meandering on various streets and alleyways, Jalil pulls into a parking garage and parks up on the third level.
“What now?”
Jalil gets out of the car and pops the trunk. Fiona watches him through the side mirror, but her vision is limited and he’s back there a while. He’s talking to someone. She sees that Jalil is holding a hand. She gets out of the car slow at first, not wanting to see who is in the trunk, but in her gut she already knows.
Jalil feels a faint pulse. “Come on, man.” he coaxes Rolf, nearly comatose, almost as colorless as an albino.
Fiona grabs a bottle of water from the car and pours some on Rolf’s face. Jalil takes it and tries to pour some in his mouth, but it spills out and runs down his face.
“He looked fine hours ago. What did they do to him?”
“Poison.”
Rolf stirs, his eyes roll until he’s able to control the muscles enough to see a blurry Jalil and Fiona looking down at him. He hones in on Jalil who is gripping his hand, but he doesn’t know this, he’s lost all muscle control save for his eyes it took all else he had to kick that tail light out.
Flailing and jerking as his muscles grow stiff, Rolf gasps for air. His lungs petrify as he exhales his last barely audible word, “Sorry.” His eyes freeze, his whole body stills, except for the last beads of perspiration that roll down his face. He’s gone.
Some teenagers come out of the elevator toward the front of the car. They gawk at the car and approach. One of the boys takes his cell phone and starts taking pictures. Still cloaked by the trunk, Fiona takes Jalil’s arm. He sees them approaching and closes the trunk, turning quickly so their faces aren’t directed to the lenses of their phones or the security cameras and the two walk away from the kids quickly. They exit through the other end of the garage.
Outside, Jalil notices the contrast of the wet greys and cement grey of the city compared to Tanzania’s drought browns. They hail a cab and pay cash for a room at a dive hotel under a bridge in a seedy neighborhood.
“What was he sorry for?” Fiona asks while Jalil closes the blinds to the one small window in the room that overlooks an alley.
“He’s dead. We may never know.”
“We know more.”
“Be right back.”
“Where are you going? I’m coming with you.”
“I’ll be right back.” Fiona stays. Jalil steps out and buys a couple burner phones and sandwiches from the bodega on the corner. He thinks, Rolf tried to have a good heart, but he was the most tragic of want-to-be-heroes, often confusing his own desires with those for the greater good. He was involved and someone didn’t want him involved any more.
He comes back in the room. Fiona has the news on the TV. The media is already airing the security footage from the parking garage where Rolf’s body was found in the trunk of the car, showcasing a grainy blurry shot of the two of them taken by a security camera. They are looking for a black man and white woman, the low resolution and obscure angles keep their features indiscernible and anonymous. With no record of Jalil entering the country, the odds of him being identified are slim. Fiona on the other hand, had stood outside the Drake building, and was well known to Drake Enterprises. She’d flown in on a regular flight, and was processed through customs.
He hands her a sandwich, which she puts down on the dresser, unable to eat. They both stand, unable to sit, unable to be still.
“They’ll be able to identify you. Drake’s reach is global and they’ll enlist the help of the authorities to find you. They’ll try to pin the murder on you.”
“What about you?”
“No one knows I’m in the country.”
“I didn’t know your friend, I met him very briefly for the first time this morning. But he had gotten me my current position at IHRI...That’s why I’m here. It didn’t make sense. I want Kennen to rest in peace, but with all of this, I don’t think he is. And I most certainly am not. But, I can’t stay. I came here for many reasons, but I can’t solve them all here now.”
Jalil, “You’re right. You can’t stay.” He hands her a burner. “Take this. Don’t make any calls on it. When it rings, answer it. I’ll set up an extraction for you. You can’t travel out in the open. A friend owes me a favor. He’s rough around the edges, but he’ll erase any proof you were ever here and get you out of Munich and back to Ireland. Will you be alright there?”
“Yes, I have
friends
too.”
“Thanks, Jalil. What will you do?”
“I have to go now. She’s close. Drake has her.” He starts to leave.
She stops him, “I’m going to find out everything. I’m going to fight them, the way I know best, with the law.” She rests her palm gently on his cheek.
“You’re brother is gone, you have time for a slower fight.”
August 3 (later)
While trailing Rolf around town after he’d gotten off the plane yesterday, Jalil did some research. He learned that Drake Enterprises owned the plane they flew in on, owned the car that picked him up from the airport and owned the building he’d most definitely been poisoned in. On top of this, the head of Drake spoke at Saba Saba just before the powder incident. While still unclear what brought Fiona there -- of her own accord or that of Drake -- Jalil is certain about one thing. Rolf was not easily manipulated, nor was he easily taken in, so whatever was going on, whatever part he’d played was probably what he was sorry for. Prior to his dying breath, Rolf never apologized for anything. “Sorry” his last haunting word and the clues explaining that are sparse. Sorry for having a heart and wearing it on his sleeve. Sorry for trying to save people. Sorry for failing at that, for putting them at greater risk instead. Sorry for Aliya.
Jalil puts his attention to what or who compelled Rolf to come to Germany: The head of Drake Enterprises, Günther Drake. There isn’t a ton of information about him available online, surface details if anything, corporate news briefs and press releases. There aren’t even many pictures. Save for his company’s recent expansion in Tanzania putting him more front and center with the media through the Saba Saba incident. Günther is a relatively unknown eccentric, 50-something, elite class, man born from generations of wealth and closed circles. He had come out of his lair to play. It was not hard to figure out that he was in Africa and that his enterprise was there because he was growing his enterprise…and at the expense of those who actually lived there. But it would seem there is much more to the power he and his company wield. The entity has many strategic parts, dressed in different, seemingly disparate parts and logos: diversified and deeply rooted in every industry and every region of the globe. They make deals and break deals with the iconic dragon that they’ve made their moniker, with no care for the environment or villagers who dwell in the regions they infiltrate and pillage.
Upon receiving news from Claude that his car was confiscated by the police and that the Irish-woman had been helped by some man of color to escape, Günther takes the chopper to his estate outside of the city. He doesn’t like being around such scuttlebutt and plans to leave the country after he wraps up a few loose ends.
Jalil is driving an older BMW he “borrowed,” that was parked on the side of the road near where he left Fiona, and which he trick started. Now, as he approaches the Drake building, he sees the chopper take flight. He follows it Northwest across the river until it is out of sight. He is able to get the address for where he might be going online. There is an old estate about an hour drive into the countryside that has been in the Drake family since the times of the Duchy of Prussia in the 1500s.