Part 20 (1/2)
”Salvo. You have personally interrupted my choir practice.”
I had my speech ready. It invoked my esteem for him, my respect for his high principles, and it recalled the many times he had told me I should bring my worries to him rather than keep them bottled up inside me. But this was not the moment to deliver it.
”It's about the coup, sir. My a.s.signment at the weekend. It's not in the national interest at all. It's about plundering the Congo.”
The green-tiled corridor was hung with student artwork. The first two doors were locked. The third opened. At the other end of the cla.s.sroom two desks faced each other, with my worst subject, algebra, on the blackboard behind them.
Mr. Anderson has heard me out.
I have made my story brief which, as a talking man himself, is what he likes. He has kept his elbows on his desk and his hands clasped beneath his formidable chin and has never taken his eyes off me, not even when I approached the p.r.i.c.kly moral labyrinth that is his own preserve: Individual Conscience versus Higher Cause. My copy ofJ'Accuse! lies before him. He puts on his reading spectacles and reaches inside his jacket for his silver propelling pencil.
And this is your own t.i.tle, is it, Salvo? You're accusing me.”
”Not you, Mr. Anderson. Them. Lord Brinkley, Philip, Tabizi, the Syndicate. The people who are using the Mw.a.n.gaza for their personal enrichment and sparking a war in Kivu to do it.”
”And it's all in here, is it? Written down. By you.”
”For your eyes only, sir. There's no copy.”
The tip of the silver pencil began its ponderous overflight.
”They tortured Haj,” I added, needing to get this part off my chest straight away. ”They used a cattle prod. Spider made it.”
Without interrupting his reading, Mr. Anderson felt constrained to correct me. ”Torture is a very emotive word, Salvo. I suggest you use it with caution. The word, I mean.”
After that, I willed myself to calm down while he read and frowned, or read and scribbled himself a marginal comment, or tut-tutted at an imprecision in my prose. Once he flipped back a few pages, comparing what he was reading with something that had gone before, and shook his head. And when he had reached the last page, he returned to the first one, starting with the t.i.tle. Then, licking his thumb, he examined the end once more, as if making sure he hadn't missed anything out, or been unfair in some way, before awarding his examiner's mark.
And what do you propose to do with this doc.u.ment, may I enquire, Salvo?”
”I've done it. It's for you, Mr. Anderson.”
And what do you propose I do with it?”
”You take it right to the top, sir. The Foreign Secretary, Number 10 if necessary. Everybody knows you're a man of conscience. Ethical borders are your speciality, you once told me.” And when he said nothing: ”All they have to do is stop. We're not asking for heads to roll. We're not pointing fingers. Just stop?
”We?” he repeated. ”Who's we suddenly?”
”You and I, sir,” I replied, although I'd had a different 'we' in mind. ”And all of us who didn't realise that this project was rotten from top to bottom. We'll be saving lives, Mr. Anderson. Hundreds, perhaps thousands. Children too.” Now it was Noah I was thinking of.
Mr. Anderson spread his palms flat over J'Accuse! much as if he thought I might s.n.a.t.c.h it back from him, which was the last thing I had in mind. He took a deep breath, which for my taste sounded too much like a sigh.
”You've been very diligent, Salvo. Very conscientious, if I may say so, which is no less than I would have expected of you.”
”I felt I owed it to you, Mr. Anderson.”
”You have an excellent memory, as all who know your work are well aware.”
”Thank you, Mr. Anderson.”
”There are extensive verbatims here. Are they also from memory?”
”Well, not entirely.”
”Would you mind in that case advising me what other sources you are drawing upon for this accusation?”
”The raw material, Mr. Anderson.”
”And how raw would that be?”
”The tapes. Not all. Just the key ones.”
”Of what exactly?”
”The plot. The People's Portion. Haj being tortured. Haj indicting Kinshasa. Haj doing his dirty deal. Philip spilling the beans over the satcom to London.”
”So how many tapes would we be talking about here, Salvo? In the aggregate, please?”
”Well, they're not all full. Spider does Chat Room rules. It's one intercept one tape, basically.”
”Just say how many, please, Salvo.”
”Seven.”
”Are we also talking of doc.u.mentary evidence?”
”Just my notepads.”
”And how many of your notepads would there be?”
”Four. Three full. One half full. In my Babylonian cuneiform,” I added, for shared humour.
”So where would they all be, Salvo, tell me. At this moment in time? Now?”
I pretended not to understand him. ”The mercenaries? Maxie's private army? Still sitting around, I suppose. Oiling their weapons, or whatever they do. The attack isn't due for another ten days, so they've got a bit of time to kill.”
But he was not to be diverted, which I might have guessed. ”I think you know what I'm talking about, Salvo. Those tapes and notepads and whatever else you have feloniously obtained. What have you done with them?”
”Hidden them.”
”Where?”
”In a safe place.”
”That's a rather silly answer, Salvo, thank you. Where is the safe place in which they are hidden?”
My lips had closed, so I let them stay closed, not pressed tightly together in refusal but not activated either, apart from the electric current that was pa.s.sing through them and making them tingle.
”Salvo.”