poured water into the urn and scooped coffee into the basket. “So how was Nairobi?”
“Nairobi was Nairobi.”
“Thought you might have patched things up with Diana while you were there.”
“I don’t use company time for personal business. I had dinner with Hassan. We discussed the meeting you had with him last month. On the sixth, wasn’t it?”
Douglas stood with his shoulder to the wall, legs crossed at the ankles, thumb hooked into the handle of his mug.
“I would like to hear why you lied to me,” Fitzhugh said. “I believe I am owed an explanation.”
Nimble as ever, Douglas replied, “All right, I did what you thought I’d do. Chickened out. I told him we were going to get smeared as war profiteers on CNN. Man, I’m sorry.” Fitzhugh shrank away as Douglas reached out to touch him. “You never let me down, but I let you down. Didn’t have the balls. But—I don’t mean to sound callous—it doesn’t make any difference now.”
“A moot point.”
“Yeah.”
Fitzhugh reached under his desk for the water jug. “Would you recognize this, Douglas?”
“Are you going flaky on me? What the fuck are you talking about?”
“You were the one with the fresh idea,” Fitzhugh said, with a confidence produced by his anger. “Or perhaps you would call it a cool idea. The thing that surprises me is that you thought of it all on your own and carried it out all on your own, with considerable help from Tony. I was sure Adid was behind it.”
The red light on the urn winked. Douglas pressed the spigot and stood blowing across his mug. “Man, you are in a state.”
“Tony had a reason to sabotage Dare’s plane—he hated them both. He had the opportunity—it was just a matter of sneaking in there when it was dark with dirty water and a few plastic bags. He would know what do to—a trained flight mechanic.”
“Whoa!” Douglas said with a wild laugh at the absurdity of it all. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! What did you smoke when you were in Nairobi?”
“Only a few cigarettes. When I was at the bank. I suppose I could talk to you about embezzling company funds, but that’s rather a misdemeanor compared with this.”
“Get the fuck out of here before I—”
“Before you what? You’re going to listen to this. Tony could have found out that Wesley was flying Phyllis on Monday from only five people. Three had no reason to tell him. The fourth, me, never spoke to him. Which leaves you. You had a discussion with him before you went to see Hassan. Yes, you told him to cancel the arms flights, but you had some other things to say. When was the last time you were at Jomo Kenyatta?”
“You can’t talk to me like we’re in a police interrogation room.”
“When was the last time you were at Jomo?”
A smile broke across the clean American face, that guileless, beguiling smile. “Five years ago, when I landed in this country.”
“Thank you. Thank you, for once, for the truth. And here is the lie that proves the truth.”
Fitzhugh stepped across the room to hand him the flight plan. He felt, in the still, elongated seconds it took Douglas to read it, like a cuckold presenting his wife with proof of her infidelity. Douglas raised his eyes, the gray irises steady and concentrated.
“I know what a false flight plan looks like,” Fitzhugh said. “It doesn’t take eight hours to fly from Wilson to Jomo and back.”
“You’ve been busy.”
“You too, a busy beaver. In case Tony’s midnight mechanics didn’t work, or if they did, in case a pilot like Dare overcame the problems and lived through it—and he damned near did—you flew yourself to the Nuba mountains with a backup plan. You had a talk with the Archangel. I can guess what you said to him—If this story gets out, I’m screwed and so are you. Your troops will be back to throwing spears at gunships. You convinced him that under no circumstances must that plane be allowed to complete its journey. So just in case Dare shows up, Lieutenant Colonel Goraende, shoot down the Hawker and blame it on the Sudanese army. You hadn’t counted on a last-minute change of planes and pilots, and I don’t suppose the thugs Michael sent to do the dirty work knew a Cessna from a Hawker. All they knew was to shoot down a plane coming in on Monday morning. I guess we can say Tara was collateral damage. Convenient, though, that she’s out of