Brendan DuBois - Dead of Night

Although Jean-Paul’s face was still wreathed in smiles, I could tell that there was something going on behind those merry eyes. ‘I’m sorry, my friends. Perhaps you have started drinking before me, because none of what you are saying is making the slightest sense. I think I will go now and bid you adieu, until tomorrow.’

Then, moving so fast and smoothly that it amazed me, Peter positioned himself in front of the door, muscular arms folded, his biceps pushing out the fabric of his sweater. ‘I’m afraid you’re here for a while, Jean-Paul. Like I said before, I don’t care what you were paid. I just want to know what you were getting in exchange for betraying your supposed friends.’

Miriam looked at me. ‘Samuel, what is this?’

‘What’s going on is a little follow-up from the work of those poor dead Aussies,’ I said. ‘They were doing a story, and part of the story was whether or not traitors were sprinkled throughout the UN investigative units, sabotaging their work. Units like our team. Right, Jean-Paul?’

He said nothing, still smiling. Miriam said, ‘Our team? What do you mean?’

Peter said, ‘What he means, missy, is that any idiot could see that we were compromised. Any fool could see that we were running around in circles, almost getting killed on a couple of occasions. And for what? Some dead cows—no offense, Samuel—and the dead Aussies, who practically fell into our laps. No Site A, not even a lead for Site A. Just us blundering around in the countryside while the clock ticked down for those war criminals at The Hague.’

Among other things, I thought. But I remembered my promise to Peter, to keep things secret.

Jean-Paul said, ‘It’s late at night. We’re all tired. And you’re not making sense.’

‘Oh?’ Peter demanded. ‘Who was the only one talking to regional headquarters? Who was supposedly talking to them and receiving leads about where to go next? Who was that person, Jean-Paul?’

Jean-Paul’s face was starting to redden. ‘All my work, I did in the open. You all heard me, every one of you.’

Peter shifted his weight from one foot to the other. ‘Correct. And all we heard was you talking. We never did hear what was coming in on the other side of your earpiece—never heard if, in fact, you were really talking to anyone at all. Maybe you were just talking to static. Who knows? All I know is that you were passing along awful directions to us, directions that didn’t help us find anything, except a chance to get killed. Like Sanjay was.’

Jean-Paul shook his head, looked at Miriam and then at me. But not at Peter. ‘My friends, surely you don’t believe this, do you? There’s no proof, is there?’

‘Sorry, Jean-Paul,’ I said. I went over to an open duffel bag on my bed and pulled out my little laptop. It had already been powered up and I punched up a file. Then I brought the laptop over to Jean-Paul and said, ‘See this?’

Miriam moved around so that she could see as well. Jean-Paul didn’t say anything, so it was up to Miriam. ‘It looks like a message log, or something.’

‘Sure does,’ I said. ‘Thing is, every time I sent along an information or photo packet to Geneva, there was a receipt mechanism to ensure that it got there and to the right person in time. Every photo packet I sent has a receipt listing, shown here with a time and date stamp. Every single one, except for the last set that was transmitted. The one that was transmitted over your laptop, Jean-Paul. The one showing those militiamen driving up to the farmhouse. I never got a receipt for that from Geneva, confirming that the photos had arrived,’

Now Jean-Paul’s bantering demeanor was gone. ‘Perhaps you erred, young one. Or perhaps the system didn’t send the receipt to you.’

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Good excuses—and that’s just what they are, Jean-Paul. Excuses. I gave the photo packets and information to you because you said you could send them quicker to Geneva. But they never arrived. I made a phone call a while ago, got the night desk at the information sector. They never arrived, Jean-Paul. You took them and probably dumped them, right? What were you doing? Helping out the locals, making sure that photos of their faces didn’t end up in a UN computer?’

Jean-Paul looked again at me and Miriam, and said, ‘Then there must have been some sort of technical error, something that—’

‘It’s finished, Jean-Paul,’ Peter said, taking a step towards him. ‘The Inspector-General’s been looking into your history all afternoon. You might have forgotten this, old friend, but radio traffic is carefully logged, and they’re going to match their log with my personal diary, and Charlie’s, to establish when you claimed you were talking to sector headquarters and getting instructions about what to do next. Your bank accounts are going to be searched, too, and if you think the UN can’t find any hidden accounts in Switzerland or the Cayman Islands or the British Virgin Islands then you’re sadly mistaken. So. Again: answer Samuel’s question. How much?’

Jean-Paul put the glasses and the cognac bottle down on a little night stand by the door. ‘Look, mes amis, I’m sure there is something we can work out here—’

Then Miriam walked right up to him and slapped him. Jean-Paul was temporarily stunned but his expression grew dark and angry, and he raised his arm to strike back. I was getting ready to jump in on the fray when Peter—still moving as quick as the wind — got Jean-Paul in some sort of complicated head- and arm-lock, opened the door and tossed him out into the hallway. Jean-Paul fell against the nearest wall, banging his head, bounced back, and then started running. I made to go after him but Peter held me back with a strong arm. ‘Let him go, Samuel. Let him go.’

Miriam was white-lipped. ‘After all that? After all that, you’re going to let him go?’

Peter closed the door. ‘Where is he going? Out there, beyond the compound, where the local militia will gun him down before he can confess that he’s one of them? No, don’t you worry. The IG has officers waiting at the stairwells and the elevator banks. In a few minutes he’ll be scooped up and put on the first plane back to Geneva.’

‘To face trial?’ Miriam asked.

Peter laughed. ‘Dear girl, you’ve been around this business long enough. You know what’s going to happen. The UN will complain to the French, and the French will complain that they’re being misunderstood, as always. Jean-Paul will be fined, maybe he’ll spend a few weekends in jail back in France, and then he’ll get a nice little job as a magistrate in some sleepy French village. The UN is a noble, peaceful organization. You know that. Which is why you hardly ever read any stories about UN peacekeepers running smuggling rings, skimming off oil-for-food contracts, patronizing teenage prostitutes, or—in this case -selling out their comrades for cash. Oldest story in the book, am I right?’

Miriam looked like she was preparing some sort of retort, and I said, ‘Yeah, Peter. Oldest story in the book.’

He picked up the bottle of cognac, tossed it over to me, and I caught it with one hand. Remarkable. Peter said, ‘It’s late at night, there’s a bottle of cognac and two glasses there. I’m going to leave and let the two of you get reunited. Or would you prefer me to join you with a glass from the washroom?’

Miriam smiled and came over to me. I said, ‘See you later, Peter.’

‘Of course you will,’ he said.

Later, lights off and blinds open, we lay in bed, the cognac bottle uncapped, the small glasses at our side. The blankets and sheets were crumpled at the bottom of the bed, and I felt tired and drained and sore and utterly alive. Miriam was cuddled up on my left, her chin pressing into my chest, an occasional finger tracing my lips. She said, ‘What next for you, Samuel?’