CHAPTER TEN
Robert Harland inched
upwards from his chair in the café on 31st Street and waited for
the spasm to shoot from his lower back into his leg. He gritted his
teeth as the pain reached a point behind his knee in a pure molten
form. For a month now he had not been able to lie down, and had to
sit perched on one buttock, holding his leg out at a particular
angle. When he walked, he had first to stand, slowly stretching his
frame, then move off with his right side leaning down and his head
turned up to the left. The pain was unrelenting and lately, as he
dragged himself between specialists, he’d begun to wonder if it
would ever leave him.
He shuffled out of
the way of the people on the sidewalk and reached a gingko tree
where he fought for a space with a dog that scurried round him
before squirting the other side of the trunk. He breathed in. Eva
had once told him he could breathe into pain, but it didn’t help.
What did help was the neat whisky he had poured into the black
coffee. It blunted his senses, and he resorted to it increasingly
even though he had been warned not to mix it with the
anti-inflammatory drugs, pain-killers and sleeping
pills.
He started looking
out for a cab to take him just six blocks to the Empire State
building. A couple cruised by with their lights on but did not see
him flap his arm wanly from the kerb. Finally a waiter came out of
the café and asked if he could hail one for him, but Harland had
changed his mind. New York cabs were as much of a problem for him
as a convenience. The only way he could travel in one was by almost
lying across the back seat, exposing his spine to the full force of
the jolts as the cab surfed over the bumps and metal plates that
lay in Manhattan’s streets. That was his life today, a querulous,
narrow existence filled with obstacles. The pain had come to occupy
his whole being and it was now a matter of making small gestures of
resistance. He decided to walk, whatever it damn well cost him, and
moved off slowly, forcing himself to take notice of the early
summer sun pouring into Park Avenue. He summoned Benjamin Jaidi to
his thoughts.
The Secretary-General
had called him at home that morning from a plane somewhere over
North Africa and ordered him to phone Dr Sammi Loz. With a thousand
things on his mind and a Middle East crisis, he was apparently
worrying about Harland’s mysterious condition. True, the injury had
prevented Harland from carrying out a mission on the West Bank in
advance of Jaidi’s arrival in the Middle East and he had been
irritated. Still, it was thoughtful of him to have phoned and
elbowed a space in Loz’s schedule late that afternoon.
‘The appointments
with this man are like gold, you understand,’ said Jaidi. ‘He
will cure you, I have no doubt of that.
But in return I will expect you to look after my friend. I believe
he may be about to enter a difficult period. This is the deal,
Harland.’
It was typical of
Jaidi to leave the conversation without specifying the doctor’s
difficulties or how Harland could be expected to help. But Harland
had heard of Loz and dared to hope that, after the procession of
chiropractors, nerve specialists and bone doctors, this man would
do something for him.
He reached 5th Avenue
and turned right towards the Empire State building. Now the sun was
on his back and with the effort of walking like a clown he began to
sweat profusely, something that Harland, once so fit and trim,
loathed intensely. He paused and looked up at the building
thrusting into the brilliant, almost white sky above Manhattan and
remembered lines that Jaidi had pointed out to him. ‘This riddle in
steel and stone is at once the perfect target and the perfect
demonstration of non-violence, of racial brother-hood, this lofty
target scraping the skies and meeting the destroying planes
halfway.’
Jaidi had said,
looking out over the city from his suite in the UN tower, ‘That was
written in forty-eight by E.B. White, about the very building we’re
standing in now. “A single flight of planes no bigger than a wedge
of geese can quickly end this island fantasy.” A great artist must
be prescient, don’t you think, Harland? He must know things even
though he doesn’t understand where they come from. Troubled times,
Harland. Troubled times.’
Harland reached the
entrance where a line of doughty American tourists stretched round
the corner into 34th Street, passed through security and took the
elevator to the sixty-fourth floor. He was grateful to be in the
cool and when he got out of the elevator, he rested a while,
mopping his face and neck, regretting the whisky which he knew had
caused the sweating fit and made him smell. He looked around. The
corridor was quite silent, except for the gasp and whine of the
elevators as they rose and plunged through the 1,200 odd feet of
the Empire State. A door opened and a man in shirt-sleeves looked
out and examined Harland pointedly before turning back inside. At
the far end of the corridor another man in a suit and tie showed a
close interest in him. Harland called out to ask where Dr Loz’s
office was. The man gestured with a turn of the head. ‘Four down on
the right,’ he said and returned to his newspaper. As Harland crept
along the wall, he passed a third man, sitting just inside an open
door. This one was armed and wasn’t bothering to hide
it.
He pushed on the door
that announced Dr Sammi Loz DO FAAO and found a slender man in a
smoke-blue tunic buttoned to the neck, standing behind the
reception desk. He moved out to greet him.
‘You must be Robert
Harland. Forgive me, I’ve sent my assistant off to organise the
clinic at the hospital this evening.’ He stood still for a moment,
his eyes running over Harland. ‘Yes, you are in a lot of pain.’ Loz was in his mid-thirties,
with a high forehead, wavy, well-groomed hair, a thin, slightly
aquiline nose and a generous mouth that spread easily into a smile.
Harland guessed he was Iranian or Armenian, though he spoke with an
unimpeachable English accent and his voice was modulated with
concern as his eyes made easy contact with Harland’s. ‘Yes, we’re
going to have to do something about this immediately. Come,’ he
said, gesturing to a room. ‘Come in here and take the weight off
your feet.’
Harland perched on a
raised bed, now nauseous with the pain. Loz began to take down his
medical history, but seeing that Harland could no longer really
concentrate, helped him off with his trousers and shirt and told
him to stand facing the wall. After examining him from behind for a
minute or two, Loz moved round to his front and looked at his
patient with a gaze directed about five inches to the right of him,
in order, Harland assumed, to see his whole. He placed one hand on
Harland’s sternum and the other in the middle of his back and
exerted a tiny amount of pressure for about five minutes. His hands
began to dart around his torso, pausing lightly on his upper and
middle chest, neck, spine and the top of his pelvis. He was like a
Braille reader finding meaning in every bump and depression, and
once or twice he paused and repeated the movement to make sure he
had not misunderstood. Then his hands came to rest on the marks and
scars on Harland’s contorted body and he peered up into his face to
seek confirmation of what he suspected. ‘You’ve had a rough, tough
old life, Mr Harland. The Secretary-General told me you were the
only survivor of that plane crash eighteen months ago at La
Guardia. I remember seeing your picture on the television news.
That was something. ’
Harland
nodded.
‘And these burn marks
on your wrist and ankles, the scars on your back. These are older,
aren’t they? What caused them?’
Harland was
embarrassed. He didn’t like to use the word torture - it shocked
people and tended to evoke a sympathy that he had no use
for.
‘It’s a long story. I
was held prisoner for a while back in the nineties.’
‘I see,’ said Loz
gently. He told him to sit on the couch then lifted Harland’s legs
up so he was able to lie on his back.
‘I don’t think I can
take much manipulation,’ Harland said, at the same time noting that
the pain had subsided a little.
‘Nor do I,’ said Loz.
His hands moved to Harland’s feet. He bent first one leg then the
other, holding the kneecap in the palm of his hand.
‘What are the men
doing in the hallway?’ Harland asked.
‘That’s a long
story.’ Loz’s attention was elsewhere.
Harland’s eyes came
to rest on an Arabic inscription hung in a simple frame. ‘What’s it
say?’ he asked.
‘Oh, that. It’s a
warning against pride and arrogance. It was written by a man named
al-Jazir two hundred years after the Prophet died. It says, “A man
who is noble does not pretend to be noble, any more than a man who
is eloquent feigns eloquence. When a man exaggerates his qualities
it is because of something lacking in himself; the bully gives
himself airs because he is conscious of his weakness.”
’
‘Very true,’
commented Harland.
Loz had moved behind
him and, after holding his head and working his neck very gently,
slipped his hands down to the middle of his back, his fingers
moving with the whole of Harland’s weight pressing down on them.
Although the pain still lurked beneath the surface, the heat had
been taken out of it and for the first time in four weeks Harland
felt free to think.
‘The air crash,’ said
Loz suddenly. ‘This has caused your pain. The trauma you
experienced has come to the surface.’
‘After all that
time?’
‘Yes. You’ve kept
that shock at the centre. You are a very strong and controlled
individual Mr Harland - impressively so. But it was going to happen
some day. The body has to get rid of it.’ He paused. ‘And the other
things in you. These too will have to come out.’
Harland ignored this.
‘You can treat it then?’
‘Oh yes, I
am treating it. You will recover and
you’ll be able to sleep tonight without the use of alcohol.’ He
peered at him with an expression of deep understanding that
unsettled Harland. ‘We’ll need to work on this over the next few
months. It’s a very serious matter. You will feel not quite
yourself for twenty-four hours, as though you have a mild case of
’flu. Rest up and get as much sleep as you can.’
He continued working
for another twenty minutes on the hips and pubic bone. Harland’s
eyes drifted to the slightly tinted glass of the window and the
glistening silver helmet of the Chrysler building. ‘The Empire
State is an unusual place to have your practice,’ he
said.
‘Yes, but I am
disinclined to go to the Upper East Side where many of my patients
are. It’s an arid part of the city, don’t you think? No heart. Too
much money. Besides, I love this building. You know they began it
just before the Crash, continued building it through the Depression
and finished it forty-five days ahead of schedule. It’s a lucky
building with a strong personality, and not a little
mystery.’
‘A riddle of steel
and concrete.’
‘Ah, you’ve been
talking to Benjamin Jaidi. He told me he had found that passage
when I visited him the other day.’
He left Harland’s
side and went to a small glass and steel table to write something
down. He returned and placed a note in Harland’s hand. ‘This is the
time of our next appointment.’
Harland read it to
himself. ‘Sevastapol - 8.30 p.m. tomorrow. Table in the name of
Keane.’ He looked up at Loz, who had put his finger to his lips and
was pointing to the ceiling with his other hand.
‘Right, we will see
each other in a week’s time. But now I must go to the hospital.
Rest here for ten minutes then turn off the lights and pull the
door to. It will lock automatically.’ He smiled and left Harland in
the cool solitude of the room, watching the light slip across the
buildings outside. He looked round the room again, noticing five
battered postcards of the Empire State lined up along a shelf,
copies of the Koran and the Bible and a fragment of stone, which
looked like an ancient spearhead.
He left after about
half an hour and went to the apartment in Brooklyn Heights, where
he ordered in a Chinese meal and settled down with a book about
Isaac Newton.
The Sevastapol was
much more than a restaurant of the moment. The same writers, film
and money people and city politicians had been haunting the same
tables for decades. It was above fashion. Harland had been twice
with Eva, who was fascinated by the place and its noisy owner, a
Ukrainian named Limoshencko, a pet brigand of the downtown
crowd.
Harland passed
through the tables outside, consciously putting Eva from his mind,
and asked for Mr Keane. He was pointed in the direction of a table
that was obscured by the bar and by a tall young woman who was
gesticulating in a manner designed for public consumption. Loz was
seated with his hands folded on the table, looking up at her with
an unwavering if rather formal politeness. He rose to greet Harland
but did not introduce the woman, who then left rather
resentfully.
‘It’s good to see
you,’ he said. ‘You’re looking a different man.’
‘Thanks to you. I’m a
bit fragile, but a lot better. Look, call me Robert or Bobby,
please.’
‘You know, I prefer
Harland. It’s a good name.’ They sat down. ‘It’s a good dependable
name.’ He moved closer. ‘I’m afraid we had to come here because the
FBI couldn’t get a table in a thousand years.’
‘The men in the
hallway were FBI?’
‘Yes, they’ve been
with me since the first postcard arrived. Did you look at them when
I left?’
‘The postcards of the
Empire State? Of course not.’
‘That’s interesting,
an investigator with principles.’
‘I’m not an
investigator, Dr Loz. I do research work for the UN. Most of my
time is spent on clean water issues. It’s pretty
unexciting.’
‘Jaidi told me you
were due to go to the Middle East to talk to Hamas. That isn’t just
research, surely?’
Harland ignored the
remark. ‘He was rather oblique about you, Doctor. He said you were
about to have some problems. I will certainly help if I
can.’
Loz flashed a
discreet, slightly awkward smile at him. ‘You see them out there?
The black van down the street by the mailbox? I know that vehicle
as if it was my own. It’s the FBI. They follow me everywhere.
They’re making my life very difficult indeed and I think it’s quite
possible that I will be arrested. I’ve seen a lawyer - a patient of
mine - and he told me to be utterly open in all my dealings, but I
couldn’t be more open. I live a very simple and uncomplicated life.
Apparently there’s nothing I can do to fight this kind of
harassment. America is no longer the land of the free, Mr Harland.
People like me with Muslim backgrounds can disappear into jail and
never be heard of again.’
‘I think they’d have
to have strong grounds for arresting someone like you. You’re very
well connected.’
‘Oh believe me,
that’s not true. How many innocent people have they detained
without charge or trial? Here in the United States of America
people are disappearing as though it’s a police state in
Latin America. I love this country
beyond any in the world. I believe in it. That’s why I became a US
citizen. I sometimes think I was born to be an American and to work
in the Empire State building.’ For a moment his eyes flared with
hurt and indignation. The waiter who had been hovering to take
their orders beat a retreat.
‘When did this
start?’ asked Harland.
‘When the first
postcard arrived, at the end of last year. I guess some mailman
with a keen eye thought it was odd for a postcard of the Empire
State to be sent to the Empire State with a foreign postmark. They
read my name and saw the signature Karim Khan and came up with a
plot. Who knows what they think these days.’
‘Who is Karim
Khan?’
‘A
friend.’
‘What was written on
it?’
‘In essence each one
told me of my friend Karim’s progress from Pakistan to the West.
The first one was from Pakistan, then there was one from Mashhad, a
town in Iran, another from Tehran, one from Diyarbakir in Turkey,
and the last came from Albania.’
‘But why pictures of
the building? It does look odd. Is there any
significance?
‘No, I just kept a
stack of cards of the building. I have done since I first visited
New York in the eighties. And when Karim went off to Afghanistan I
gave them to him with my address written on because I knew that
while I might move apartment I would never move my
practice.’
‘Do the FBI know your
friend was in Afghanistan?’
‘Maybe. They have
lists of these things. I am certain.’
‘You’re telling me he
fought with the Taleban?’
‘Yes, but he used a
nomme de guerre. He had one before he
left.’
‘You must expect this
kind of trouble. To all intents and purposes he may be regarded as
a very likely enemy of the state.’
‘No,’ Loz said with
finality. He smiled at Harland once, a brief piece of punctuation
that closed the issue. He turned and ordered for them both -
caviar, blinis and Kobi beef with spinach. ‘Will you have some
wine? I don’t drink.’
Harland shook his
head.
‘Good, I’m glad to
hear you’re giving your system a rest.’ He paused. ‘What if I told
you I was going to be arrested tonight?’
‘I would be very
surprised if you had advance notice of that.’
‘It’s a feeling. The
pressure has been increasing over the last few days. I cannot be
arrested and I cannot submit to confinement. I want your help to
avoid it.’
‘Tell me about your
friend,’ said Harland, noticing now that nearly every woman in the
restaurant had either waved to or was stealing looks in Loz’s
direction.
‘We were both sent to
Westminster School in London to gain qualifications to go to
college in England. Karim was from an affluent family in Lahore -
very old, very pukka. I was brought up in Lebanon, though my father
was Iranian; my mother had a Druze background. We were outsiders in
an English public school so it was natural that we became friends,
despite being unlike each other in practically every way. He was
wilder, more gregarious, more daring and I suppose more fun. I
think we relied on each other’s strengths.’
‘Tell me about these
postcards.’
Loz took five
postcards from his pocket and laid them out in their order of
arrival. Harland examined the images then turned them over. On each
there was a short message in an educated hand. The first
said:
Greetings, my old friend. I am in Pakistan and hope very soon to be in London. I may need a little help from you. I have good news. I am returning to complete my medical studies, as you always said I should.
The next two were
less upbeat and gave only details of where Khan was in Iran. The
card from Turkey told how much of his money had been stolen. He
still had $400 that his mother had given him and he hoped to use
this to get to London. But there were unspecified visa and passport
problems.
Harland read them
again. ‘They seem harmless enough,’ he said eventually.‘But these
days intelligence services are likely to look at them with an eye
for codes and hidden messages.’
Loz wasn’t listening.
‘Karim needs my help,’ he said, looking straight past Harland into
the mêlée of diners and table-hoppers. ‘The last postcard, from
Albania, was followed by this letter. I assume they read this as
well, but there were no signs of the envelope having been opened.’
He withdrew a single sheet of lined paper from his jacket. The
letter was signed by a Mr Skender. It told of Karim Khan’s arrest
and imprisonment and his transfer to the state security centre in
Tirana. The letter mentioned that Khan had made the local TV news
in the context of a massacre in Macedonia.
‘I know something
about this incident,’ said Harland. ‘The UN has been asked to
investigate by the Albanian minority in Macedonia.’
Loz turned to him. ‘I
had a friend go through the Balkan news websites - it’s clear those
men were murdered. They had come from Turkey. Karim must have been
travelling with them.’
‘Then why wasn’t he
killed?’
‘Because he knows
what to do in such situations.’ He produced a printout of a web
page from a Greek newspaper and pointed to a photograph of a
bedraggled man, dwarfed between two policemen. ‘That is Karim,
though he is barely recognisable. You can see that he is very thin
and has been hurt.’ A troubled look swept his face and he reached
for the bottle of water. Neither of them had eaten much of the
first course, and when he had drained his glass he pushed his plate
aside and waved to the waiter.
‘I had the caption
beneath the picture translated.’ He handed Harland a piece of white
card.
TERRORIST SNARED AFTER GUN BATTLE IN MACEDONIA. Jasur al-Jahez, the man who escaped from Macedonian security forces in a raging gun battle has been found to be a Palestinian terrorist wanted in connection with outrages by the Israeli authorities and also by Syria, Egypt and Lebanon. Jasur al-Jahez, also known as The Electrician, was believed to have died of natural causes eighteen months ago and has not been heard of since. Israel, Syria and Egypt are now seeking his extradition.
Loz took back the
card. ‘This is Karim, but for reasons I
cannot comprehend they believe he is Jasur. Jasur has killed many,
many people. Apparently he split with Hamas in the early nineties
and formed a group that assassinated moderate clerics and
politicians all over the Middle East.’
‘I have heard of
him,’ said Harland. ‘Your friend is in a lot of trouble if they
think he’s Jasur.’
‘Now you see why I
cannot be arrested,’ he said, placing his hand lightly on
Harland’s. ‘I must help him.’
Whether or not
something was transmitted in the touch Harland could not say, but
he was aware that a part of him submitted very easily with the
pressure of Loz’s hands, and something made him try to resist.
‘What can you do?’
‘I don’t know, but I
must try. Now I think we should go. There’s a letter on your desk
from the Secretary-General. He wrote it before he left and asked me
to let him know when it should be released to you. In that letter
you will find his instructions.’
‘Does he know about
Khan?’
‘Some of it, but he
left before I discovered the business about the mistaken
identity.’
‘And this letter,
what does it say?’
‘I don’t
know.’
‘Right, I’ll pick it
up tomorrow,’ said Harland.
‘Why not this
evening? You are feeling better, are you not? We should go now. I
have a small bag at the back of the restaurant and we will leave
through the kitchens. It has been arranged. I will go first and
wait for you at the rear entrance. The bill has already been
settled.’
With this he got up.
On his way to Sevastapol’s kitchens he paused at two tables,
shaking hands and saying hello. Harland noticed how he made contact
with each person, drawing a palm across a shoulder, touching a bare
forearm or clasping a hand for just a second or two longer than was
usual. This casual laying on of hands over, he moved without haste
to the kitchens and vanished through the swing doors.
Harland got up a
little stiffly and walked through the kitchens to find Loz waiting
with small black bag at the rear door. He worked the double lock,
moved out into the warm evening and indicated to a car across the
street. Just then a man hurried to them clutching one of his
pockets.
‘Mr Loz. Federal
Bureau of Investigation. Agent Morris. I need you to come with me,
sir.’
Harland stepped
forward. ‘I’m afraid that’s not possible. This man is in my
custody. I’m taking him to the headquarters of the United Nations
under the explicit instructions of the Secretary-General.’ He
showed him the UN police badge that Jaidi had issued him during an
internal investigation six months before.
‘I’ll check this out
sir,’ he said, pulling the microphone on his lapel towards his
mouth.
‘You do that Agent
Morris,’ Harland replied, knowing it would be a matter of seconds
before his colleagues at the front of the restaurant came on the
scene to seize Loz legitimately. ‘But I have to take this man with
me now. It’s a matter of the greatest urgency.’ The agent, who was
saying something and pressing his hand against his ear at the same
time, put himself between Harland and Loz. ‘Back off, sir,’ he said
to Harland. ‘This is a Federal matter.’
‘Go to the car,’
Harland told Loz.
‘No, you stay right
where you are, sir,’ the FBI man replied, moving for his gun.
Harland clamped his hand round the holster and moved his forearm up
against the man’s Adam’s apple, forcing him back to Sevastapol’s
door. He held him there and wrenched the gun from its holster.
‘This is one occasion the United Nations takes precedence over the
United States - okay!’ He ran over to the car and scrambled in, but
as he reached round to pull the door closed he felt his back go,
and fell in agony across the seat. ‘Take us to the UN building,’ he
shouted to the driver.
The Ukrainian
chauffeur supplied by Limoshencko warmed to the task of out-driving
the FBI and shot up 6th, running lights on Houston and West Four,
then crossed to the East Side along the top of Washington Square
Park. In less than five minutes they were on 1st Avenue, speeding
towards the sanctuary of the United Nations. No car
followed.