The Middleman Read online

  FROM ACROSS the street, Rachel watched the lunch crowd of government employees entering and exiting Fogo de Chão, the Brazilian steakhouse only a block away from the Hoover Building. There were cameras, she knew, which was why she’d gone for a light disguise of sunglasses and a scarf she picked up during the four-hour drive from Montclair. She looked like an old woman.

  She had hoped that the report released by Headquarters would shed new light on their situation, but after hours in Bill and Gina’s house, all of them scouring each line, it became clear that the report was a careful construction built to support a particular narrative by choosing certain facts and ignoring lines of inquiry. There was no mention of the Brigade’s funding sources, and no established reasoning for the assassinations of July 4. The death of Bishop was firmly blamed on Ben Mittag, a move to take over the Brigade, while the deaths of Mittag and his Watertown comrades were blamed on gun-happy followers who gave the Bureau SWAT team no choice but to return fire. That this was patently untrue was something only Rachel and a handful of others knew, and she suspected those others had signed away their rights to speak. Perhaps some of them, like her, had refused to sign the draconian nondisclosure agreement; perhaps they, too, were running for their lives.

  It was just after one when Ashley arrived for lunch, a bounce in her step, but she wasn’t alone. A young man, probably from Erin Lynch’s department, walked with her, and they were holding hands. That surprised her—but what, really, did she know about Ashley? She’d never invested in a friendship with the accountant, and as a result she didn’t even know where she lived; too bad, because a meeting at her apartment would have been far safer than this.

  When they entered, Rachel deliberated, wondering if Ashley’s lover would be the type to report her presence later. Was Lynch’s department even aware that Owen Jakes was looking for her? Was anybody? Though she’d visited internet cafés and scoured the Seattle newspapers, there had been no mention of the dead man in her apartment with his anonymous clothes. Johnson and Vale, or someone who specialized in it, had cleaned the place up.

  She finally crossed the road and stepped into the restaurant that smelled of post-lunch Ashley. A rough-cheeked maître d’ asked if she had a reservation. She scanned the crowd and, finding no one familiar, removed her scarf and told him she was meeting a friend. With a smile she pushed on, through the assortment of tables and diners’ backs, past the huge food bar, and toward the rear, where Ashley, back toward her, sat with her young man drinking bottled water.

  “Ash?” she said, and the man looked up first, big eyes and crew cut. Ashley turned, looking up, and gaped.

  “Rachel? What are you doing here?” Then, to her date: “Tom, this is—”

  “Rachel Proulx,” he said, sticking out a hand and half rising. “I recognized you from your photo.”

  “Photo?”

  “In the paper. Some write-up this morning in the Post. About the report.”

  She suddenly felt very exposed; she’d had no idea her face was out there again. Who had approved it? Jakes? Of course—a famous face is hard to hide. But she gave them a smile. “I hope it was flattering.”

  “Sit down,” Tom said, looking around. “Let me find you a chair.”

  “No, thanks. I can’t stay.” She touched Ashley’s shoulder. “Can I borrow this one a moment?”

  Tom gave no sign of resistance, so Ashley got up and followed Rachel to the front of the restaurant, whispering, “Where have you been? They’ve been asking me about you.”

  “Who?”

  “Erin, Lou Barnes. Jakes. What are you doing off the grid? You can take off those sunglasses, you know.”

  Knowing now that her picture had been disseminated in the city’s largest paper, taking off her glasses didn’t feel like an option. “Did you read the report?”

  Ashley’s expression flatlined, but she arched a significant brow. They both knew it was a whitewash. “What do you need?” Ashley asked.

  Rachel took a Post-it note from her purse. On it was a phone number with a Wisconsin area code. This had been Kevin’s idea, and he’d called Janet Fordham to ask for the number he’d called her from last summer. Rachel said, “This is the number of the phone Mittag was using during his last days. Can you get records?”

  Ashley frowned at the number, then at Rachel. “How much trouble are you in?”

  “Hard to say. But if you could make sure Tom…”

  “He won’t say a word,” Ashley assured her, raising a pinkie. “He’s firmly wrapped around this.”

  “Thanks.”

  Then Ashley brightened. “Wait—you remember Magellan Holdings?”

  “Tell me.”

  “When you asked me about it the other day, I started thinking about a different approach. I’d been focused on the direct route, not the indirect one.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I went back to Magellan’s original paperwork. Though it was registered in the Bahamas, the paperwork was faxed in from a number in Bilbao, Spain.”

  “Spain?” said Rachel, not wanting to admit what she already knew about Spain. Because the next question would be: Who told you that? “Great work,” she said.

  “You think that’s good?” said Ashley. “How much would you like to know the name of the lawyer who filed the papers?”

  Rachel returned her smile. “Very. That’s how much.”

  3

  IT WAS nearly one in the afternoon when he drove slowly down Lückhoffstraße, a tree-lined, cobblestoned street in a neighborhood called Nikolassee. He passed ivy-plagued houses that looked old enough to have survived Allied bombs. There was a chill in the air because he was near Wannsee, a large lake to the west of Berlin, off the road to Potsdam. Clean Mercedes-Benzes sat in the driveways of overgrown yards.

  Because the weather was so mild, he parked at a corner and walked the rest of the way, but soon felt conspicuous—a black American walking through the white German suburbs was something to remember. The feeling only intensified when he knocked on the door of number 54, a flat-faced stuccoed monstrosity, and faced a very pregnant woman whose face was full of undisguised surprise. “Elli Uhrig?” he asked.

  “Ja.”

  “Sorry, I don’t know German. Do you mind—”

  “What do you want?” she asked in a clotted accent.

  Unlike in her years-old photograph, her cheeks were full and healthy looking, and her once-dreaded hair had been parted down the middle and tied tightly back. He took out his FBI ID and said, “Do you mind if I ask a few questions about Martin Bishop?”

  He saw it in her face, how with the mention of that name she closed down, doors slamming shut. But the physical door between them remained open.

  “Please,” he said. “There are questions we need answers to.”

  “Does any of this have to do with David Parker?” she asked.

  He wasn’t sure what to say. How did she know David? Yes, he was semifamous these days, making hay of his connection, via Ingrid, to the Massive Brigade—but why would Elli Uhrig start with him? He said, “David’s a friend of mine, in fact. He and his wife, Ingrid.” She tilted her head, seeming to soften, so he added, “Actually, they’re the ones I’m trying to help. That’s why I need to ask about Bishop and the Kommando Rosa Luxemburg.”

  Her smile went away, as if she didn’t know quite what to think of all this. Then: “Do you know what my life became after my sister blew herself up? The police, the Verfassungsschutz, the press?” She shook her head. “Why do you think I ran away to … to here?”

  Following her gaze, he looked up the street and saw an old man walking a dog. The man gave a “Hallo” to Elli before noticing Kevin and falling suspiciously quiet.

  “Just come in, okay?” she said.

  In the entryway he was surprised to find a painting of Jesus Christ on the wall, an amateur work, maybe by Elli herself.

  “Take off your shoes.”

  He did so, then followed her across a jigsaw of rugs to a claus
trophobic sitting room with large glass doors looking onto a tree-filled backyard.

  She said, “I’m not going to offer you anything to drink.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “Because you’re not staying long.”

  “I have no plans to,” he assured her as he sat on the old striped couch. She took an upholstered chair on the opposite side of the coffee table and put her hands between her knees. She was waiting, so he said, “Your sister, Anika. She was a member of the KRL, correct?”

  “For a year, maybe two. Then she fell in love with this American boy—that was Martin Bishop.”

  “And you? Were you … involved with the KRL?”

  She shook her head. “I wasn’t educated enough for them. I knew things, but if you didn’t speak the right language they couldn’t hear you. At first I’d visit them with Anika, but it wasn’t my scene. I had my music. I met Martin, of course. He was nicer than most of them.”

  “Why did you mention David Parker?”

  A curious smile broke her features. “We were friendly for a while.”

  She didn’t seem to want to say more, or maybe she was trying to provoke him into more questions. But that wasn’t why he’d come. He said, “After the explosion, Martin came to you. Is that right?”

  “I lived on the same street. He said he wanted to make sure I was okay, but he was in shock. He didn’t know what to do. Me, too,” she said, picking at the hem of her shirt. “But we both knew that the bomb hadn’t been theirs.”

  “You were sure of that.”

  “I was. Now…” She hesitated, then pushed a tear out of her eye and smiled pitifully. “Now I’m not sure. You know how many articles have been written about that night? I’ve read them all. They all agree that the KRL did it to themselves. How can so many journalists get it wrong?”

  “Did Martin have a theory?”

  “Not at first. First, we both cried and watched the cops and fire trucks from my window. We were so confused. He slept on my floor and woke early. He was … agitated? Yes. He told me they’d gotten a new television. He said that must have been it. A bomb in the television.” As she spoke, her fingers found loose threads in her shirtsleeve and unwound them. She kept licking her lips.

  “Who did he blame?”

  She let go of her sleeve. “He blamed the FBI. He blamed you.”

  Kevin tried not to react to the accusation. “And what happened afterward?”

  “Well, the story came out the next day, that they had been planning a terror attack on the Hauptbahnhof. Martin knew he had to leave. He called this Spanish guy Anika had introduced him to. Part of some radical group in Bilbao. This man had seen the news already, of course, and he was excited that he’d been asked to help.”

  “Can I get his name?” Kevin asked.

  She shook her head. “I don’t want to get him in trouble.”

  “You won’t,” he assured her. “If I can talk to him, he might be able to help me … and David.”

  “What is it,” she asked, “that you want to do?”

  He thought about that a moment. “I want to bring the facts to light.”

  She furrowed her brow. “Does this have to do with that report on the Massive Brigade?”

  He nodded.

  “I thought that was cleared up.”

  “I wish,” he said.

  4

  AFTER THAT second sleepless night, poring over the FBI’s report and listening to the others put together a puzzle that was still missing too many pieces, David had returned to his apartment overcome by the feeling that nothing around him was real. It was all simulation, a false surface covering a world that was too horrifying to be looked at directly, and as he forced himself to stay awake, making his way to his Thursday afternoon class, he thought that this was why fiction existed, as a way to look at the world without being broken by it. The thought was intriguing enough for him to squeeze it into his lecture.

  As he spoke, though, a part of his exhausted mind disconnected from the words, and that part surveyed the auditorium, all those rapt pairs of eyes on him, the hands taking notes on his precious words. That part of him, the part that needed adoration to survive, was the same part that had years ago decided that it wasn’t enough to write good books in semiobscurity; what mattered was the trappings of fame. That part had convinced him to take Ingrid out of Berlin and bring her to Manhattan; to attend cocktail parties and sit on panels; to pay close attention to the reading trends of Average Americans and try to turn their eyes toward him. The irony was that all the effort he’d put into building himself up into a “brand” had done nothing for him. In fact, it had cost him his productivity, whatever style he’d once had, and it had destroyed his family. It had been a five-year exercise in self-immolation.

  Yet here he was, at the head of a class that had filled within hours of registration; when prepublication chapters from his forthcoming book came out in People magazine, they were subjects of discussion in the papers of middle America, where the Average American lived. The irony was that he hadn’t found fame; fame had found him through Martin Bishop and the Massive Brigade. If Bishop hadn’t talked to Ingrid, and Ingrid hadn’t walked out on him, then his life would be where it had been at the beginning of last summer—a miserable marriage and a book that would never get done. Instead, he spoke on television to interested journalists—he’d once been on CNN as an “expert” on the Massive Brigade—the magazines asked for his words, and his agent had negotiated a wildly unrealistic advance for his book. His sex life had improved considerably.

  Even with the constant attention, an enormous part of his life had gone into lockdown the moment that he’d returned home in December to find a black man waiting in his living room with a notepad, on which he’d written I don’t know if anyone’s listening, so stay quiet. Ingrid and your daughter need your help.

  Before heading to Florida, Bill had entrusted him with the keys to the house, and now he visited weekly with groceries and baby supplies bought with cash. He didn’t know how Ingrid could survive during those seven-day stretches, but she’d returned a different person than the one he’d known and loved. She was harder, and there was no ambiguity in her opinions. She was also a survivor.

  And then there was Clare. Had it not been for that child, he doubted he would have risked his new life with any of this. Clare’s beautiful fragility was mind-numbing, and for the first time—even he could admit this to himself—he’d discovered something more important than David Parker.

  He was packing up his notes, giving quick replies to some eager students, looking forward to getting home and crashing, when he noticed two familiar faces, the FBI agents who had questioned him about Ingrid and Rachel. Lyle Johnson stood with his hands crossed over his groin, staring at him, while Sarah Vale, hands on her lower back, stretched and eyeballed the students heading off to find their next classes. Eventually, David’s students dissipated, and Johnson and Vale approached the podium.

  “Quite a crowd,” said Vale.

  “Five o’clock class, an easy A,” he said, then slipped on his shoulder bag. Johnson, though, stood in his way.

  “You look tired, David.”

  “I’m too old for the college lifestyle.”

  Johnson smiled as Vale swiped at her phone and held it up to display a studio portrait of Kevin Moore, a flag in the background, staring back at him. “You know this guy?” she asked.

  David shook his head.

  “Thing is,” she said, “he flew out of JFK yesterday and walked into our Berlin embassy earlier today.”

  “Is that weird?” he asked.

  “Well, he lives in Colorado. Wasn’t even supposed to be on the East Coast.”

  David looked at each of them, unsure where to take this. Finally, he said, “Who is he?”

  “One of us,” said Johnson. “FBI.”

  “He knew Ingrid,” Vale added.

  David nodded, taking this in. “Do you think he would come to me?”

  “Maybe,” s
aid Vale.

  “Why?”

  Johnson opened his mouth, then closed it. He said, “We don’t know. But maybe that’s why he was in New York.”

  “How about Rachel Proulx?” Vale asked. “Any sign of her?”

  “No. Nothing.” He shrugged, trying to come across as nonchalant, but he felt as if all he was doing was throwing tells at them. And he was so fucking tired. There was sweat under his collar, but he resisted the urge to wipe at it. “Does this mean you’re closer to finding Ingrid?” he asked.

  Neither answered. They just stared, as if waiting for him to break. He thought about how good that would feel, to just break. They were FBI, after all. What if all this paranoia was wrong? What if Rachel and Kevin and Ingrid had misjudged everything?

  “Afraid not,” Vale finally said. “Sorry.”

  Johnson handed over his card. “In case you lost it.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’ll let us know if you hear anything.”

  “Sure,” David said, then added, “And I hope you’ll let me know if you hear anything.”

  “Of course,” said Johnson, scratching at his cheek.

  He watched them until they had exited the auditorium and he was alone. A sudden queasiness latched on to him until he left the building and walked east to the Astor Place Theatre, where, he knew, he could find a pay phone. His stomach settled down as he pulled out a quarter and tried to remember the phone number Rachel had given him.

  5

  RACHEL GOT back from DC a little after five with a new, unfamiliar feeling. It wasn’t quite optimism, but something like it, and it was buoyed by the sense that things were finally in motion. Ashley was going to find out what numbers Benjamin Mittag had called before he died. Kevin was tracking Bishop’s European connections, now armed with the name Alexandra Primakov, the lawyer who had worked for Magellan Holdings. She’d put that name into a draft email in their shared Hushmail account, and in that same unsent message Kevin had given her the name of Bishop’s Spanish contact in Bilbao, 2009: Sebastián Vivas. Things were moving—but to where?