The Last Testament Part 2

'I did it for you, Maggie. That world is not your world any more. It's moved on without you. You've got to do the same. You need to adjust to your life now, as it is. Our life.'

So that's why he had been so keen to get her locked away in the consulting room this morning. And she thought he just wanted her to get a punctual start to the day. She had even thanked him! The truth was that he just wanted the garbage men in and out before she had a chance to stop them. For the first time, she met his gaze. Quietly, as if unable to believe her own words, she said, 'You want to destroy who I am.'

He looked back at her blankly, before finally nodding towards the other end of the apartment. In a voice that was ice cold, he said, 'I think someone's waiting for you.'

She almost staggered out of the room, unable to absorb what had happened. How could he have done such a thing, without her permission, without even talking to her? Did he really hate the Maggie Costello he had once known so much that he wanted to erase every last trace of her, replacing her with someone, different, bland and subservient?

She stood in the landing that served as the waiting area, her head spinning. The man in blue was still there, now turning the pages of Atlantic Monthly Atlantic Monthly.

'Bad time? I'm sorry.'

'No, no,' Maggie said, barely out loud. On auto-pilot, she added. 'Is your wife coming?'

He made a curious smirk. 'She should be along soon.'

Maggie gestured him into the consulting room. 'You said it was some kind of emergency.' She was struggling to remember his case, to remember if he was one of the handful of clients she said could contact her out of hours.

'Yes. My problem is that I'm finding it hard to adjust.'

'To what?'

'To life here. Normality.'

'Where were you before?'

'I was all over. Travelling from one screwed-up place to another. Always meant to be doing good, always trying to make the world a better place and all that bulls.h.i.+t.'

'Are you a doctor?'

'You could say that. I try to save lives.'

Maggie could feel her muscles tensing. 'And now you're finding it hard to adjust to being back home.'

'Home! That's a joke. I don't know what home is any more. I'm not from DC; I haven't lived in my hometown for nearly twenty years. Always on the road, on planes, in hotel rooms, sleeping in dumps.'

'But that's not why you're finding it hard to adjust.'

'No. It's the adrenaline I miss, I guess. The drama. Sounds terrible, doesn't it?'

'Go on.' Maggie was remembering everything that was in those boxes. A handwritten letter of thanks she had received from the British prime minister, following the talks over Kosovo. A treasured photo with the man she had loved through her mid-twenties.

'Before, everything I did seemed to matter so much. The stakes were high. Now nothing even comes close. It's all so ba.n.a.l.'

Maggie stared hard at the man. The words were coming out of him but his eyes were flat and cold. She began to feel uneasy at his presence here. 'Can you say more about the work you were doing?'

'I started with an aid organization in Africa, working with people there during a particularly vicious civil war. Somehowit was a fluke reallyI ended up being one of the few people who could talk to both sides. The UN started using me as a go-between. And I got results.'

Maggie s.h.i.+vered. Her mind was racing, wondering whether she should call for Edward, though that was truly the last thing she wanted to do.

'Eventually I became known as a sort of un-official diplomat, a professional mediator. The US government hired me for a peace process that had stalled. And one thing led to another. Eventually they were sending me around the world, to peace talks that had hit the buffers. They called me "the Closer". I was the one who could close the deal.'

Could she make a run for it? But something told her not even to glance at the door: she did not want to provoke this man. 'Then what happened?' Her voice betrayed nothing: years of practice.

'I was the best in my field. Sent everywhere. Belgrade, Baghdad. Back to Africa.'

Maggie swallowed hard.

'And then I made a mistake.'

'Where?'

'In Africa.'

Maggie's voice stayed low, even as she said, 'Who the h.e.l.l are you?'

'I think you know who I am.'

'No, I don't. So tell me, who are you and what are you playing at? Tell me now or I'll call the police.'

'You know who I am, Maggie. You know very well. I'm you.'

CHAPTER THREE.

WAs.h.i.+NGTON, SUNDAY, 10.43AM.

It wasn't a surprise. She had known that much the moment he had mentioned Africa and the UN. He had been telling her own life story back to her, pretending it was his own. It was a nasty little trick.

Still, that wasn't why she had grown agitated: she was used to dealing with creeps. This man seemed to know everything about her. Including herwhat had he called it?'mistake'.

'I'm not here to taunt you.'

'But you're not here for b.l.o.o.d.y divorce mediation either, are you?'

'There's no wife for me to divorce. I'm like you used to be. Married to the job.'

'And what job is that exactly?'

'I work for the same people you used to work for. The United States government. My name is Judd Bonham.' He extended a hand.

Maggie ignored it, heading slowly backwards towards her chair. She was reeling. First Edward and the boxes and now this. Initially, she had him down as some psycho stalker, a jilted husband who blamed her for his divorce. It wouldn't be too difficult to Google her whole life story, then trick his way in to scare her, to freak her out. But she had read him wrong. He was here on official business. But what on earth could it be? She hadn't done anything for the Agency or State Department since...then. That had been well over a year ago and she had cut all her ties instantly. Not a phone call, not a letter. Nothing. If she had had it her way, she wouldn't even be living in b.l.o.o.d.y America. She couldn't have gone back to Ireland, couldn't face that; but she had thought about following Liz to London. Instead she had ended up in sodding Was.h.i.+ngton, inside the belly of the beast. To be with Edward.

'Gotta hand it to you though. You haven't lost your touch.'

She looked up at him.

'You're still good. The old jet-on-the-runway trick. Engines revving up, ready to fly any moment. Love it.'

'What?'

'Your last appointment, Kathy and Brett. Threatening to walk out on the parties: they should teach that at negotiator school. Didn't Clinton do it at Camp David? Get the chopper all fired up, blades spinning. The mediator says heor shewill walk and the parties get scared. Realize how much they need you and how much they need the talks. They suddenly see that any deal they'd make outside the room would be worse. And it brings them together, both sides desperate to keep the talks going. You mediation guys call it a "shared project", don't you? Something like that. Even unites them against a common enemy: you. Genius.'

'You were listening.'

'It's the training, what can I say?'

'You a.r.s.ehole.'

'I like how you say that. Ahhhrse Ahhhrse-hole. Sounds s.e.xy in your accent.'

'Get out.'

'Though I see you don't really do s.e.xy so much these days. No more of the hair-tumbling-down-in-front-of-the-eyes routine. Is that Edward's influence?'

'Go.'

'Oh, I'll go. But first I have a little proposal to make.'

Maggie stared at him.

'Don't worry, not that kind of proposal. Not that I couldn't be tempted, should you ever get tired of Edward-'

'I'm going to call the police.' She reached for the phone.

'No you're not. And we both know why.'

That stopped her; she put the phone down. He knew about her 'mistake'. And he would tell. The Was.h.i.+ngton Post Was.h.i.+ngton Post, some blog, it didn't matter. The true reason for her exile, currently known only to a few diplomatic insiders, would become public. What was left of her reputation would be ruined.

'What do you want?' Almost a whisper.

'We want you to come out of retirement.'

'No.'

'Come on, first rule of any negotiation: you have to listen.'

'I am not having a negotiation with you. I want you to p.i.s.s off.'

'The people I work for tend not to take no for an answer.'

'And who is it you work for exactly? "The United States government" is a bit vague.'

'Let's say this has come from as close to the top as you can get in this town. You have a reputation, you know. Miss Costello.'

'Well,' you can tell them I'm flattered. But the answer is no.

'You're not even curious?'

'No, I am not. I don't do that work any more. I work here now. I mediate between husbands and wives. And I don't take emergency cases. Which means you have about one minute to get up and leave.'

'I won't insult your intelligence, Maggie. You read the papers. You know what's happening in Jerusalem. We're this close to a deal.' He held his thumb and forefinger half an inch apart. 'We've never been so close before.'

Maggie ignored him.

'And you also know what happened yesterday. An attack on the Israeli Prime Minister. Or what looked like an attack. Israeli security ended up killing some internal critic of the peace process. Could screw the whole thing.'

'The answer's no.'

'The powers that be have decided that this is too important an opportunity to be lost. They need you to go in there and do your thing. Work your magic. Come on, you've still got it. I could hear that just now. And this is something that really matters. Middle East peace, for Christ's sake. How could you pa.s.s that up? This is the World Series of peacemaking!'

'I don't play baseball.'

'No. OK.' He was talking more quietly now and in a different tone. She recognized it for what it was, a change in tactics. 'What I mean is, you're a mediator. It's your calling. It's what you were born to do. You're good at it and you love doing it. This is the chance to return to the work you love. At the highest possible level.'

She thought of the pictures she had seen on TV that morning, and the feeling she had had, but not admitted, even to herself. Envy. She had envied the men and women sitting at the head of the negotiating table in Jerusalem, the people charged with that weightiest and most thrilling of tasks, brokering peace. She had pictured them the instant she saw the news item. Like fishermen, reeling in a rare and prized specimen, they would be exerting both enormous strength and great gentleness. Pulling with all their might one moment, then backing off, letting out some more line the next. Knowing when the rod could bend, and knowing what would make it break. It was skilled, demanding work. But it was also the most exhilarating activity she had ever known.

Bonham read her face. 'You must miss it. You wouldn't be human if you didn't. I mean counselling couples is valuable, no question. But the stakes are never as high, are they? You're never going to feel the thrill you did at Dayton or Geneva. Not here. Are you?'

Maggie wanted to shake her head in agreement. This man seemed to know her own mind better than she did. But she resisted, turning her head to stare out of the window.

'Not that this is some kind of sport to you, I know that. It never was. Sure, you like the professional challenge. But that came second. To the goal goal. The pursuit of peace. You're one of the few people on the planet who knows how much these efforts matter. What can happen if things go wrong.' Her mistake.

'And few matter more than this one, Maggie. Thousands of Israelis and Palestinians have died in this conflict. It's gone on and on and on. Our whole adult lifetimes. And it will keep going. You'll turn on your TV set in ten years' time and there'll still be Palestinian kids sh.e.l.led in playgrounds and Israeli teenagers blown to pieces on buses.'

'And you think you can stop it?'

'Me? I I can't stop it. I can't stop anything. But you can.' can't stop it. I can't stop anything. But you can.'

'I don't believe that. Not any more.'

'Come on. You haven't changed that much.'

'Look, I didn't suddenly forget that people are dying there and everywhere else. I know only too well how much death and killing goes on in every f.u.c.king corner of this planet. But I happen to have realized there is nothing I can do about it. So it's better I stay out of it.'

'The White House doesn't agree.'

'Well, the White House can just shove it, can't it?'

Bonham sat back, as if a.s.sessing his prey. After a pause he said, 'This is because of...what happened, isn't it?'

Maggie stared out of the window, willing her eyes to stay dry.

'Look, Maggie. We know what went on there. You fouled up very badly. But it was one black mark on an otherwise exceptional record. The White House view is that you've done your penance. And you don't help anyone by staying in exile like this. You're not saving any lives here. It's time you came back.'