James Church - Bamboo and blood

Jeno smiled. "Ready for this?"

"No."

"When he put you into the investigation of that woman in Pakistan, Sohn knew you would need protection. But he knew you wouldn't accept it. So he gave you an enemy. You felt guilty as soon as you saw Mun; that's all Sohn needed to get you back on board."

So. Sohn had set it all up. He'd kept it right at the edge of where I would figure things out. He'd even told me a story about his connection with the woman who died in Pakistan. I still didn't know what happened to her. I would never know, wasn't supposed to; more than that, it never mattered, not really. From the beginning, I'd chased that very idea up and down the lists of possibilities-maybe whoever had put us on the investigation of the woman didn't give a damn about what happened to her. Sohn was smart. He was also a son of a bitch. No wonder someone broke his neck. I backed away from loathing Sohn for a moment. "How did Mun know Ahmet was going to try to kill me?" This was a fair question; the answer wasn't obvious.

"Ahmet, of the lovely daughter?"

"You know who I mean."

"Mun knew. What difference does it make how he found out? Maybe he was tipped off." Sure, maybe he was playing chess on the lakeside in Coppet smoking a French cigarette. "However it came to pass, your three-fingered friend surprised Ahmet, deflected the shot, and then who knows what happened next? Ahmet was pretty strong for an old man. You saw him. When he got mad, he was like a bull. He also carried that knife with him everywhere he went. Maybe he sliced off Mun's cheek."

"M. Beret told me Mun had a broken neck."

"That, too."

"You don't sound so sure."

"You want me to swear an oath?"

"Why me? What did Ahmet have against me?" Other than the fact that for a few weeks, I lusted after his daughter. Ahmet's radars must have been overloaded with what I was thinking every time I saw her.

"It wasn't because of your interest in his daughter." Jeno nudged me. I would have slugged him, but it had turned cold again, a cold wind out of the north, and I knew my hand would hurt for days afterward. "Well, that wasn't the only reason. It wasn't just personal. Someone needed those missile talks to break up in confusion. They got to Ahmet. How I don't know."

"I think I can figure out the rest."

"I'm sure you can. I'd be shocked if you hadn't done it already."

"Where's Ahmet now?"

"Good question. I wish I could give you an answer."

It was such an outrageous lie, I waited to see what his eyebrows would do. They sat out the dance.

"Just out of curiosity, because it doesn't make any difference anymore and I know you're not likely to tell me anyway, how do you know so much about Sohn?"

"You might be very surprised how I know what I know, Inspector." His mind was spinning through the possibilities. I'd seen people do that, try to pick apart one of my questions at the speed of light, slam shut drawers and doors and windows in their minds before I could get there.

That might have worked on me a few months ago in the mountain hut, in the howling wind and bitter cold. Not now, not after everything that had happened. "Nice try, Jeno. But I don't think so. Sohn told people what he wanted them to know. A lot of it wasn't true, or not completely true. You believed him. You had no way to check what he told you, so you believed it. That saved a lot of trouble on your part. Belief is easy. It's doubting that causes difficulties." Jeno didn't want to say anything. He wanted to leave it at that. So did I. "Have a good flight," I said. "A driver will take you to the airport in the morning."

"One last thing. I have a present for you from a mutual friend." He reached into the pocket of his coat and handed me a soft green leather pouch.

"Shall I look inside?"

"As you wish."

"I'll wait."

"Then it's good-bye." He became very formal. "The next time we meet, Inspector, I hope it will be friendlier. Warmer."

"My regards to Margrit."

"And Dilara?"

Wonderful eyes, that girl. "Go ahead, give her my regards if you see her."

"I might." He smiled briefly. "Don't turn your back on your brother."

"Thank you."

"The enemy of my enemy… don't forget."

"Same to you," I said. His eyebrows didn't seem to notice.

"I smell smoke. What are you doing, Inspector, burning the secret papers?"

From down the hall, I heard Pak's chair creak. It did that whenever the seasons changed, as if the wood hadn't forgotten. Burning the papers-it was a joke we'd shared for years. "Imagine," Pak would say, "at the moment of the attack, when the final battle begins, we'll be caught in the middle of it, burning piles of documents of no possible use to anyone." The instructions were very firmly worded. They were circulated twice a year, and we were supposed to sign them each time they passed over our desks. No matter what, all documents were to be destroyed. There was to be no-and this was underlined or, in the years red ink was still available, marked in red-absolutely no repetition of the last time, nearly fifty years ago, when truckloads of documents fell into enemy hands.

"No, not paper," I said.

Pak stuck his head into my office. "What then? Are we installing gas grills in the desks and opening a restaurant?"

I had emptied the leather pouch Jeno had given me onto my desk. There were five pieces of wood, each one cut to show off the grain. They were all different, all perfectly sanded, perfectly stained. Each had a small, perfect initial on it-J, A, D, S, B.

"What kind of wood is sweet Dilara?" he asked.

"Tree of Heaven." I held it up for him to see. "Very pretty tree, but it can give you a headache."

I fed them slowly into the fire, one after the other. Each piece of wood burned differently, each according to its nature, but in the end, they all turned to ash. Pak watched the small flames without speaking. The last piece, I supposed, was M. Beret. His was a beautiful oval scrap of horse chestnut, the huge tree that sheltered the bench where we'd first met. I hesitated, gave M. Beret a swirl, and then committed him to the flames.

"No." I looked up at Pak. "Not papers. Bridges, that's all. I'm burning my bridges. You ever burn a bridge, Pak?"

He seemed surprised and thoughtful all at once, though his face was now so thin it was hard to be sure. "The gingko trees in the courtyard are thinking about spring," he said, filling the space around that moment when everything hangs in the balance. "I can always tell. Something about the way they reach for the light."

Lausanne

October 2007

May 24, 1998

To: The Files

From: Jeno M.

Subject: Operation Quince

I admit that these things rarely work out as planned. In this case, though, there is an argument to be made that we salvaged something, or that we may have salvaged something. In the end, it might not all have been a total waste of resources, though that will be the judgment of many. Much depends on how you do the tally.

On the negative side, we have lost Sohn. That is a terrible blow. He was a man of conscience, but in the end, conscience was fatal. It made him impatient. In truth, it is difficult to know how much longer we would have been able to work together. My instincts tell me that the cooperation could have continued if events had not gone so badly awry.

Less negatively, Mun is again under our protection. His knowledge is admittedly limited, but the psychological lessons we might learn through careful handling may prove valuable. My advice is not to leave him to the normal interrogators. He was never utilized fully in the first go-around, though his chess game improved considerably. What to do with him once the questioning is over cannot be settled yet. Perhaps we can send him to Canada or Japan. The story that he died under suspicious and embarrassing circumstances took hold quickly enough, so there was never an effort to press for an explanation. Whatever the Swiss know they will keep to themselves.