an important message, and we had quite a discussion among ourselves as to whether we could trust you with it. In the end, there wasn’t much choice. Someone suggested that we pass it to your brother, but we have reason to believe that he and Sohn don’t get along.” A broad smile.
“And?” No question about it, they had good sources.
“And so you got the lamb dinner.”
“I’m not authorized to pass messages to Sohn from you, and having disappeared for I don’t know how long, I doubt if anyone in my mission will listen to anything I have to say once I get back. In fact, they probably already think I’ve defected.” I stopped to give a short laugh, but it came out more like a bark. I should have gone to dinner with the wolves.
“Amazing, you sound just like Sohn, Inspector,” said the man with the napkin. By now he had fashioned it into a hand puppet, though I didn’t recognize the shape. “It’s a dog,” he said when he saw my questioning look, “though it appears to have lost a leg. You’ve never seen a three-legged dog? They seem to adapt rather well, though they can be painful to watch.” I glanced around the table, but none of the others gave anything away.
“Adaptation has never been my best quality,” I said. “If you want me to pass a message to Sohn, you’d damn well better have a convincing explanation for why I disappeared.” I didn’t need authorization to carry a message to Sohn. They knew that perfectly well.
“So, you agree to pass the message?”
“I imagine that is the only way I’ll get out of here.”
“Goodness, no, Inspector. We’re not going to carry you away wrapped in a rug.” The man to my left snorted.
“Let’s get on with it.” A short, bald man walked in and sat down. The others nodded at him. “I ask only that you listen closely, Inspector.” He turned his full attention to me. “When I’m finished, if you have any questions about what I have said, you should ask them then. Understood?”
It wasn’t an order or a threat, nothing peremptory about it. He seemed like a man under a lot of pressure and in need of a good night’s sleep. “I’m listening,” I said.
“Good. Sohn must have told you we have been meeting with him, or with people attached to him, for quite a while. We’ve been dancing around each other, but there isn’t time to dance anymore.” I put aside the mental picture of Sohn’s little ears dancing in the desert at dusk. “Let me be blunt. We don’t want our neighbors buying missiles from you.” I assumed he didn’t mean me personally. “You, of course, don’t care what the buyers do with the missiles, as long as you are paid. You need the money from those sales, and if the sales stop, Sohn has made it very clear to us, you must have something to fill the vacuum. It’s not a difficult equation to solve. We do our part, you do yours.” He poured me a glass of wine, and then one for himself. “There is a little complication, however—the negotiations you are currently holding in Geneva.” He took an orange from the fruit bowl, examined it closely, then put it back. “A decent orange cannot be such a difficult thing to find in this country,” he said to the others in English. “Or am I wrong?” Nobody said a word.
“So far,” I said when it seemed that if I didn’t break the silence, we would be sitting all night contemplating fruit, “I haven’t heard a message.”
“That’s because I’m not quite there, Inspector.” The bald man rummaged through the bowl and emerged with a plum. He polished it. He held it up to the light. “Do you like plums, Inspector? Do you know what happens to a plum when it is dried? It becomes a prune. Same thing happens with countries. When they dry up, they are only good for shit.”
Ahmet smiled absently into the fireplace. The others watched me with interest. I may have flushed, but I was determined not to let him win the point. “Maybe that sort of thing works with Arabs,” I said evenly, “or with what’s left of the Ottoman Empire. Don’t try it with me.” Ahmet’s smile dimmed slightly, but I could tell it didn’t break his concentration on which of my body parts to add to next week’s lamb sausage.
The bald man bit into the plum.