Parker nodded. “I think that’s what he was telling me,” he said.
“Of course. We ultimately saw through him, naturally, and rejected him, but he seems intent on hanging around in hopes some profit will fall to him after all.”
“Like a dog under the table,” said the other one, who was sitting on the foot of Claire’s bed, the packages all in a jumble behind him.
“Yes,” Gonor said, turning toward him. “Mr Parker, this is Bara Formutesca, an assistant at the mission.”
Formutesca nodded at Parker with an ironic smile. He was a younger man than Gonor, possibly in his early twenties, and beneath the red robe he seemed to have a compactly muscular body. “A pleasure,” he said.
Parker nodded back at him, then looked at Gonor again. “So you went from Hoskins to Karns,” he said.
“Our searching in the underworld brought us to Mr Karns’s attention,” Gonor said. “He sent emissaries to question us, then met with me himself, and finally suggested you. He said we could trust you but that we might have difficulty persuading you to work for us. Particularly if you had worked recently and didn’t need the money.”
“I don’t need the money,” Parker said.
Gonor pursed his lips. “Unfortunate,” he said. “Still, we can only try to persuade you.”
Parker turned to Claire. “Do you want to hear this?”
“I don’t mind,” she said. “Mr Gonor’s different.”
He knew she meant that Gonor didn’t smell to her of violence. Violence was what frightened her, violence and the possibility of violence, which was why she didn’t want to be around when Parker was planning or working on a caper, didn’t want to hear about the details, didn’t want to know where Parker was going when he left on a job. Gonor wasn’t the kind of man Parker usually worked with so she didn’t think of him in connection with violence, but Parker knew she was wrong. Gonor might not be the right type for it, but now he was involved in something with the sharp metallic taste of violence all over it and he wanted Parker to get involved in it too.
But it wasn’t up to him to talk her into leaving. He shrugged and said to Gonor, “All right, go ahead.”
“Fine,” said Gonor. But then, instead of talking, he turned away and began to pace, looking down at his feet as they touched the carpet. Pacing, looking down, he said, “Have you ever heard of Dhaba?”
“No.”
Gonor nodded as he paced, as though it was the answer he’d expected. “Dhaba,” he said, “is a nation. On the continent of Africa. Thirty-four months old on the first of April.”
“I never heard of it,” Parker said.
Formutesca, with that sardonic smile on his face again, said, “The world is full of little countries, Mr Parker. Togo, for instance. Upper Volta. Mauritania. Gabon. Mali. You don’t hear of them unless they’re involved in a war or a revolution. Like Yemen, or Nigeria.”
Gonor said, “So far, Dhaba has had a peaceful life and has not appeared on the front pages of the world’s newspapers. Unfortunately, that is soon to change.”
Parker glanced at Claire, but she was watching Gonor with interest. So far it didn’t mean anything to her.
Gonor said, “I have the honor to represent my country at the United Nations. Mr Formutesca here, and the other two you met, are part of the mission staff. Our nation is led by Colonel Joseph Lubudi.”
“Uh huh,” said Parker.
Gonor glanced at him. “You have heard of the Colonel?”
Parker said, “Hoskins mentioned a colonel. He didn’t give the name.”
“What did he say about the Colonel?”
“That he wouldn’t leave with less than a million.”
Gonor looked displeased, but Formutesca laughed, saying, “Hoskins has an inflated view of our economy.”
Parker said, “Every once in a while I read in the paper where the head of some little country raids the country’s treasury and takes off to the Riviera. Is that what we’ve got here?”
“Unfortunately, yes.” Gonor nodded and started his pacing again. “The Colonel has already made his raid,” he said, “but he has not as yet joined his money overseas.”
“The money’s out of the country?”
Formutesca, his smile grim, said, “It’s in New York.”
“And where’s the Colonel?”
“Still in Tchidanga,” Gonor said, and explained, “our capital. He is not entirely trusted, and if he were to attempt abruptly to leave the country he would probably be hung from a handy lamppost.”
“We have lampposts in Tchidanga,” Formutesca said. “We’re very proud of them.”
Gonor said something to him in that other language, quick and quiet, and Formutesca suddenly looked sheepish. In English Gonor said, “Happily, we learned about our Colonel’s plans in time. Dhaba will be three years old on the first of June, and ostensibly in celebration of that fact Colonel Lubudi intends to travel to New York and address the United Nations.”
“They’ll let him out of the country then?”
“He won’t be traveling alone,” Gonor said dryly. “And you can be assured his luggage will be thoroughly searched, perhaps several times.”
