to Max, Philippe brought him up to date during a secret meeting in a park in Boston. When Max mentioned the business of the election campaign, Philippe cut him off.
“That’s ancient history. What’s done is done.”
“Why El Salvador?”
Philippe shrugged: he didn’t want to talk about it anymore. Why bother getting together just to avoid all the subjects they had in common? Philippe knew what his brother was thinking.
“I want you to look out for David … at arm’s length. I don’t want him to know.”
This came as a surprise to Max. He’d rightly guessed since the election catastrophe that his nephew hated him.
“Please do it for me,” Philippe insisted.
Max agreed. He couldn’t say no to his brother, could he?
Philippe’s face darkened. “If anything happens to me down there, if I don’t make it back, promise me you’ll always keep an eye on him.”
“What do you think could happen to you? Diplomats usually die in their beds, don’t they?”
Philippe smiled. “Just promise me.”
Max agreed once more. “I’ll be there always.”
They left the park and walked into town without saying anything. Much later on, Max was to remember this day as especially radiant. Workers from nearby offices were out having their lunch, but paying no attention to the two brothers strolling side by side. Then they crossed Quincy Market, went under the John F. Fitzgerald Expressway, and took Atlantic Avenue near the docks.
For no particular reason, Philippe turned to his brother and held him tight, which Max found surprising. They didn’t normally do this kind of thing, especially given the practically illicit meetings they were forced to have. Philippe drew back and looked Max straight in the eye.
“Thanks, Max, for David.”
Then he left before his brother had time to answer. A car awaited Philippe not far off. Max could have kicked himself for not noticing it before this. It had followed them discreetly the whole time. Max watched it disappear with a feeling of infinite sadness. The solemnity, the silences, the show of affection, the bizarre thanks, none of it customary, gave him the feeling of having unwillingly taken part in a farewell ceremony.
And it was. Max would never see his brother alive again.
“Jayesh Srinivasan speaking. Mercedes, Lexus, Alfa Romeo … what will it be, sir?
“Very funny, Jayesh, very funny.” Max’s partner had stayed in the heart of the turbulence in Srinagar. He’d spent the time since Max had left going through the files belonging to Ahmed Zaheer at The Srinagar Reporter, looking for a trail or at least a hint of a clue, something that could tie the journalist to the murdered diplomat.
“It’s chaos here,” he continued. “It’s all going to hell: Kashmir, Punjab, the north … and the Line of Control isn’t controlled at all.”
“What about Rashidabad?”
“Eh?”
Max explained what he’d found out. Any mention of Stewart-Cooper in Zaheer’s old files? Jayesh hadn’t seen any, but he’d look again.
The Queen Elizabeth Way, then an industrial zone that went on forever, with fields of factories bounded on one side by Lake Ontario and the first suburbs of Hamilton on the other. Chimneys, cranes, a grey haze. Leaving Jordan Harbour minutes earlier, Max was now driving through a lifeless zone straight out of a documentary about the delinquency of heavy industry. The choice of motel seemed to make more sense in light of all this. Zaheer had chosen it not for the isolated location. He could reach the industrial zone, and thus the headquarters of SCI, in mere minutes. What, though, was the connection with the attack on David? Max hadn’t the slightest idea, but before leaving the motel, he’d called Juliette in Montreal to tell her what he’d found out, and also to ask her to check the archives.
“Esplanade Avenue, corner of Mount Royal, a branch of the National Library, where they keep the old newspapers, like the last five years’ of the Globe and Mail. You need to search for Stewart-Cooper and India.”
Then he set out.
Terry Hoberman, wearing a dark blue suit with the SCI logo on his lapel, held out his hand to Max, who got up and gave him his business card, freshly made that morning at CopyKat. “Thanks for seeing me so quickly. I don’t normally just arrive unannounced in a company’s offices like this.”
Hoberman cut him off: “You know, I just love your articles, but I had no idea you were in Toronto. Otherwise, I’d have …”
“Oh well, I’m afraid BusinessWeek is a circus. Things get decided as you’re walking down the hall. On Monday, I hardly know where I’ll be on Friday.”
Hoberman laughed. “Same here, don’t worry!” He led Max to the elevator, and the communications director at SCI was still laughing when they got out a few seconds later. Max realized right away the kind of dipstick he was dealing with and how to handle him. Tanned and probably just back from vacation, in his fifties, thought Max, trying to look younger with a discreet dye job in his curly hair. Hoberman was a bit chubby, the jovial type who could have a laugh even reading a press release. His department had been functioning on auto-pilot for ages. With rising profits, sustained growth, and steady development, Stewart-Cooper International was one of those massive but reliable ocean liners that sloughed off minor turbulence. It was immense, profitable, and worry-free, so hardly known to the media, and this in turn made Hoberman’s job a breeze. Max figured he probably spent the day leafing through trade magazines and planning his weekend golf tournament. Actually, no, he enjoyed sailing, hence the deep tan.
Hoberman sat Max in one of the leather armchairs facing his huge desk. On the right-hand wall hung a genuine James Wilson Morrice, not a reproduction. He wasn’t often visited by the press. The previous day, Max had downloaded a list of BusinessWeek correspondents from the Internet and called them one by one until he reached the voicemail of Tim Harrington: “I’ll be away from my office for a couple of days, etc.” That way, if Hoberman had doubts and called their editorial offices at Penn Plaza … but SCI’s communications director wasn’t the suspicious type. Max didn’t even need to explain his visit before the man began talking about their international activities in the present context of globalization, the company’s results on foreign markets, or even their local hiring policies and respect for national culture.
“There’s no reason to exploit them — on the contrary — nor to impose our vision of the world.” The company was careful to examine the activities of its suppliers, something that companies of this size often neglected, “to the detriment of the stockholders, I might add.”
Bit by bit, Max manoeuvred the conversation around to the hydroelectric plant at Jhelum, which had been built in collaboration with the Indian government. Despite huge obstacles, it was a success, exemplary in every respect.
“Obstacles?”
Hoberman sighed. “Well, the same you’d expect in most developing countries: petty bureaucracy, shortage of qualified manpower, unforeseen delays with subcontractors, and so on.” Then he added, “It almost cost Mrs. Griffith her health. When she came through Hamilton …”
“Susan
