Sedition (A Political Conspiracy Book 1) Page 14

جئنا ، نحن رأينا ، نحن غزونا.

  Though not fluent, she’d learned to read bits of Arabic. It was the second most popular alphabet in the world behind Latin. Her supervisors had recommended a rudimentary ability to read and write at the very least.

  Her fluency in multiple romance languages did little to help with her study. But she managed. She looked at the script from right to left and slowly worked out the sounds in her head.

  “We came. We saw. We conquered,” she murmured.

  It was an adaptation and pluralizing of the Latin phrase “Veni, Vidi, Vici”. Julius Caesar was said to have announced his victory in the battle for Turkey in 47 BC by telling the Senate, “I came. I saw. I conquered.”

  She didn’t understand the meaning until she looked at the small white placard to the right of the work:

  Cannons of Iraq, 2010

  George Edwards

  Digital Sculpture, 36 x 36

  Matti got it. A lesser-known name for da Vinci’s popular ink drawing was Canon of Proportions. It was a simple but profound message.

  Brilliant.

  “Amazing, isn’t it?” The voice came from behind Matti’s right shoulder. She turned, not sure if the question was intended for her. Standing behind her was George Edwards. She pretended she didn’t recognize him.

  “Yes, it is. It’s very angry though.” She was still facing the wall but opened her stance toward his body.

  “Angry?” His eyes widened and eyebrows arched as he looked into her eyes. “How so?” he said, his tone flirtatious more than defensive.

  Matti considered her response before answering. She folded her arms and took a sip of the ginger ale then motioned toward the canvas by tipping her glass. “An amputated leg, a sarcastic salute, the sardonic homage to Caesar. It’s angry.” She was pleased with herself. “I’d say the artist has some serious issues.”

  “Hmmm.” He stepped back from Matti. “Quite the critic, aren’t you?”

  Edwards slipped his hands into his pockets. He was wearing chinos, a long-sleeve, sky blue linen shirt and a dark blue single-breasted blazer.

  “You asked.” Matti pulled the glass to her lips but didn’t drink. She hinted at a smile and blinked. “I answered.”

  “True.” He inched closer again, admiring the curve of her shoulders. They were covered only by the thin straps holding up the dress. Edwards liked black on her. Upon further inspection, he would have liked anything on her. Or not on her. “So what are the serious issues?”

  “Well, I’m no psychiatrist.”

  “But…?”

  “But,” she continued, laughing as she explained herself, “a lot of the pieces here are angry. They’re politically clever and insightful, but sometimes the brilliance is lost in the grievance. It’s too much.”

  “You know, I’m the artist.” She said nothing as he extended his hand. “I’m George Edwards.”

  “I know.” She shook his hand. He seemed so much more charming than she’d imagined from his dossier. But then again, she reminded herself, Bashar al-Assad had a cult of personality.

  “Oh,” he feigned offense, still holding her hand, “that makes it easier to take the criticism. Even if you aren’t a shrink.”

  “I’m sorry.” She wasn’t. “I do think you’re incredibly talented, and I understand why you are so successful.”

  “Buttering me up now?” He’d let go of her hand, still holding her gaze.

  Matti knew that her supervisor didn’t want her engaging the conspirators. But she also knew there was something he was keeping from her. The rules, as far as she was concerned, no longer applied.

  *

  Professor Thistlewood watched Edwards from across the room. He didn’t recognize the young woman with whom Edwards was talking. He couldn’t take his eyes off them, even with his girlfriend standing right next to him.

  The girlfriend, Laura Harrowby, had her arm looped around Thistlewood, but she was turned away from him, talking with another couple about wine. She lovingly popped him in the ribs with the back of her hand.

  “Art,” she asked, “what is that joke you always tell about the foreigners and their wine?” She looked up at him adoringly and then back at the couple. “This is so funny. Go ahead, honey. Tell them.”

  The professor obliged and shared his joke. The couple laughed politely, and after a few more minutes of small talk, they excused themselves. Once they’d left, Laura pressed her body into Thistlewood’s side and wrapped her arms around him, still holding her drink in one hand.

  “Do you know that girl talking to George Edwards?” Thistlewood motioned with his head and spun so that Laura could get a better look through her glasses.

  “No.” She squinted. “Should I?”

  “Probably not.” He placed his hand on the small of her back and kissed her on top of her head. “I’m going to walk over and introduce myself.” Thistlewood now was suspicious of everyone and everything.

  Laura released her hold on Thistlewood, but grabbed his hand and followed him over to Edwards and the mystery girl. They sidestepped through the still-growing crowd and reached the artist. His back was turned to them, but Thistlewood and Laura could tell he was laughing.

  The woman looked at them, momentarily directing her attention away from Edwards. She caught Thistlewood’s eye, and it seemed to him as though she recognized him. It was just for an instant. As quickly as the perceived recognition bloomed in her eyes, it vanished.

  Thistlewood reached out with his right hand and put it on Edwards’s shoulder, still holding Laura’s hand with his left as Edwards spun around.

  “George!” Thistlewood smiled. “This is wonderful.” He held out his hand to congratulate him.

  “Art,” Edwards said. He reciprocated and shook his friend’s hand. “Thanks for coming.”

  “George, I’m sure you remember Laura Harrowby.” Thistlewood looked at his girlfriend and grinned as he introduced her.

  “Yes.” Edwards nodded. “Nice to see you.” There was an awkward moment as the two couples stood smiling at each other.

  “I’m Matti Harrold.” She thought about waiting for George Edwards to introduce her, but then she realized she’d not yet told him her name.

  “Oh! Sorry about that.” Edwards snapped to attention, suddenly realizing his faux pas. “I wasn’t trying to be rude. I just met Matti here and didn’t know her name until now.”

  “I’m Art Thistlewood.” The professor offered his name but not his hand. “Matti, is it?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what do you do?” Thistlewood didn’t trust her. A beautiful woman sporting up Edwards on the eve of their plot just didn’t fall within his idea of normal.

  It wasn’t that Edwards didn’t occasionally date attractive women. Edwards, Thistlewood had learned, could be particularly successful in carnal matters on the night of an opening. But it was always with the same women: hemp-wearing, patchouli-basted freethinkers.

  This woman, this Matti, seemed too corporate. She seemed out of Edwards’s league. Something was off.

  “She’s an art critic,” Edwards answered for her. “I’ve found in our very short time together here, that she has an eye. It’s a destructive, soul-crushing eye, but it’s an eye nonetheless.”

  “I’m not a critic,” she admitted. “I just answered Mr. Edwards’s questions when asked.”

  “So you’re not a critic.” The professor was not amused. “What do you do?”

  “Art,” scolded Laura, “don’t be rude. You’ve just met her.” She squeezed his hand tightly.

  “It’s fine.” Matti looked at Laura and then at Thistlewood. “I’m a translator. What do you do?”

  “I’m a professor at American University.” He lifted his chin so that he could look down his nose at the translator.

  “He teaches political science,” added Laura, who’d had too much wine. “He’s a brilliant teacher. Was tenured very young.”

  “What are your politics, then?” Matti said,
knowing she was pushing a button.

  “Excuse me?”

  “What do you think of the current state of affairs? What do you think of your friend’s work?”

  Matti was feeling bold; she thought it might have been the high heels. Not only was she disobeying a direct order by talking to these men, but she was baiting them.

  Thistlewood, for all of his suspicions about this woman, was not about to pass up an opportunity to preach. By the time he’d finished his first sentence, she was already tuning out.

  *

  Over Thistlewood’s shoulder, Matti noticed a woman with a large leopard-print handbag. She looked to be in her late thirties to early forties and was dressed in a taupe pantsuit. Her mouse brown hair was short and parted to the left. The woman was relatively unremarkable. What made Matti notice her was the way she held the handbag.

  It was off her shoulder and cocked at an angle almost perpendicular to the woman’s side. To Matti, it appeared as though the woman was aiming the bag. And then it hit her.

  “Excuse me, please,” she interrupted Thistlewood, who had already bashed both Presidents Bush and Obama. “I’ll be right back.”

  Thistlewood was stunned, his mouth still forming the end of the word he’d last uttered when Matti crossed the room with purpose. As she neared the pantsuited woman, the woman saw her coming and began to walk away.

  Matti caught her near the bar and lightly touched her arm. “Excuse me,” Matti began almost breathlessly, “I don’t mean to upset you, but could you tell me what kind of purse that is? I just love it.” She exacted a fake smile and lightly rubbed her fingers on the bag’s material.

  “Uh,” the woman said, caught off guard, “I’m not sure. It was a gift.” The woman’s lips curled up, not quite forming a smile. She pulled away from Matti and quickly moved into the crowd, and Matti saw her leave the building.

  Any minutiae of doubt that Matti had about her boss’s secretive intentions were evaporating. He was tailing her, watching her. That woman was snapping photographs or shooting video with that bag, and Matti was certain of it.

  As fashion-challenged as Matti thought herself to be, she knew that bag. It was a large Coach brand Ocelot Haircalf Brooke bag. It cost fourteen hundred dollars. Matti loved Coach and had several of the brand’s briefcases. She knew any woman who spent that much money on a bag would know the designer.

  Matti walked toward the floor-to-ceiling glass window that looked out onto the sidewalk. She saw the woman on a phone, standing next to two men in dark suits, who were also on phones. A black Chevy Suburban pulled up to the curb and the three got inside. It was NSA, no question. Her agency was spying on her.

  She was watching the SUV speed off when George Edwards stepped up next to her. He looked out the window with her, though he didn’t know what she was watching.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Fine.” She stared outside before turning to look at Edwards. “I’m sorry for interrupting your friend like that.” She looked back to the spot in the room where they’d been talking and saw Thistlewood still standing there with his girlfriend. They were looking at the da Vinci knockoff on the wall.

  “I should go back and apologize to him.” She started toward Thistlewood when Edwards stopped her.

  “Don’t worry about it. I have someone else I’d like you to meet.”

  There was something kind about Edwards. She didn’t understand what it was, but he was charming and chivalrous.

  Underneath it all, however, she could sense that something was off. He was definitely angry. Whatever he repressed in conversation and personal interaction was evident in his art. She wasn’t kidding when she suggested that he had issues.

  Thistlewood, she reasoned, was a poser, an academic who thought he was smarter than those around him. She could see it in the way he looked at her and the way he related to his girlfriend. His body language reeked of superiority.

  Compensation for insecurity. She recalled H. L. Mencken: “Those who can—do. Those who can’t—teach.” Matti thought that comic notion applied specifically to a man like Thistlewood. As attractive as she’d found him in the file, she found him repulsive in person.

  She and Edwards reached the bar. Standing there, whiskey in hand, was a tall, impeccably dressed man. Matti recognized him from the file. It was Sir Spencer Thomas, the Daturans’ leader. She suddenly felt flush.

  “Sir Spencer Thomas.” He genuflected and offered his hand as he bowed his head to the vision in front of him.

  “Matti Harrold.” She took the knight’s hand. It was thick and cold.

  “Lovely.” The knight brought her hand to his lips and gently kissed it. “Absolutely smashing.”

  Matti studied his face as he looked up at her. His lips were thin and looked to her as though two worms were pushed together. His eyes were not warm. There was a distance in them, a darkness Matti could not reconcile.

  “George,” he said, keeping his eyes on Matti, “who is this beautiful creature?”

  “We just met, Sir Spencer,” Edwards said, sounding proud of himself. “I thought you’d like to meet her.”

  Sir Spencer leaned on the bar and took a sip of his whiskey. Looking at Matti, he was pleased he’d decided to attend. He’d considered the potential consequences of the Daturans all appearing in public at the same place; then he’d reasonably convinced himself that they were invisible. There were no indications that the government even knew they existed, let alone that they were plotting something spectacular. He’d come to the conclusion that if the government did know about the group, and they were under any sort of surveillance, changing their habits would only bring more attention to them.

  He’d told all of the Daturans to make an appearance. Edwards was there, of course. Thistlewood and his piece-du-jour were there. Sir Spencer had seen Jimmy Ings come and go. The only one he’d not seen was Bill Davidson.

  Davidson’s misgivings about the plot were weighing on Sir Spencer. Having Matti Harrold standing in front of him in her well-fitting black dress was a nice distraction.

  “Matti had some interesting things to say about my work,” continued Edwards. “She seems to think I have a lot of anger. She likes my take on politics but worries that I have ‘issues’.”

  “I didn’t say I liked your politics,” Matti corrected. “I said that I thought you were talented. I essentially agreed that the iconography in your work is powerful. I didn’t say I agree with your point of view. There’s a difference between admiration and agreement.”

  “Quite the spunky one, isn’t she?” the knight observed. She appeared genuine to Sir Spencer. He was oblivious to the fact that her beauty was clouding his judgment. A man of his experience and expertise should have seen what Thistlewood had. An alarm should have sounded. This woman was not the kind to like George Edwards.

  *

  Thistlewood saw the woman with the large purse before Matti noticed her. He could tell there was something odd about the way she held the bag. He’d also noticed two other men who seemed out of place.

  They were wearing dark business suits and seemed disconnected from the party. They stood alone and were observing people more than they were admiring art. Thistlewood imagined they were government agents.

  When the suspicious translator abruptly left their conversation to approach the woman with the bag, he was certain that something was afoot. This wasn’t paranoia, he assured himself. They were being watched.

  “We need to go see Sir Spencer and George,” he told Laura. He grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the bar. “I need to talk to them.”

  When they joined the group, Laura let go of her boyfriend’s hand and got the bartender’s attention. She wanted to take advantage of the open bar.

  “I am sorry for being rude a few minutes ago,” Matti said, reaching out to touch Thistlewood on the wrist. “I have been looking for that handbag everywhere! I am a huge Coach fan, and I can’t find that purse anywhere.”

  “Was the woman helpful?” T
histlewood pulled his wrist away from her hand.

  “No. She’d gotten it as a gift and didn’t know where it was purchased.”

  “How unfortunate.” His tone was polite; the sarcasm was on his face. He looked up at the knight. “Sir Spencer, could I have a moment?”

  “Of course.” Sir Spencer slapped Edwards’s shoulder and bowed to Matti as he moved toward Thistlewood. The two walked away, leaving Edwards, Matti, and Laura at the bar.

  “What is it, Art?”

  “I think we’re blown.”

  “Really?” The knight was unmoved. “What makes you think that?” He knew that Thistlewood wanted his approval, but he didn’t think the man would try so hard.

  “First”—Thistlewood was counting on his fingers—“I am sure I was being followed earlier. When I left the pub this morning, someone was tailing me. I think they were watching me in my office too.”

  “Second?” The knight remained impassive.

  “Second,” parroted the professor, “I think there were at least three people here tonight who were watching us. They may have been snapping photographs of us.”

  The knight knew himself to be a perceptive man. He’d seen nothing. He said nothing.

  “Third”—Thistlewood held up three fingers on his right hand—“there’s something unusual about that woman with George.”

  “The only thing unusual about her is her beauty.”

  “Look, Sir Spencer, I’m telling you there’s a leak. Someone in our group is playing both sides.”

  The knight considered it and studied Thistlewood’s face. He saw desperation and fear. Even if the professor was paranoid, Sir Spencer could tell Thistlewood thoroughly believed what he was saying.

  The knight looked over at the beauty and George Edwards. Edwards was talking to her and, at first blush, she appeared to be paying attention to him. However, the closer he paid attention, the more he could see she was disinterested. Her eyes darted around the room. She was surveying the crowd. She wasn’t looking at something in the crowds, Sir Spencer concluded, she was looking for something.