Diplomatic Immunity by Grant Sutherland Read Free Book Online

one sleeve of her blazer.
    Mike makes a sound. I drop my head into my hand. Finally Mike nods to her and says “Rache,” then with an apologetic glance in my direction he tells me that he’ll be in Toshio’s office. He quickly withdraws.
    Rachel turns to me, her mouth open. “Hatanaka, Dad?”
    “You didn’t hear that.”
    “Toshio Hatanaka?”
    Moving smartly around the desk, I close the door. “Okay, so now you’ve heard. In a couple of hours it’ll be out anyway.” My finger rises in warning. “But I don’t want you telling anyone. Not Juan. Not anyone.”
    “How? What did he have, a heart attack?”
    “Look, I haven’t got time to discuss it, Rache. And for the time being, you forget that you heard. Okay?”
    She glances at the file on my desk. “Is that why you needed the diplomatic rights thing?”
    “Rachel,” I say sharply.
    Maybe too sharply. Startled, she jerks her head back.
    “I’ll bring your stuff tonight, okay? Any questions, ask me then.” I toss my head toward the door. “Now go.”
    She sees at once that I am not kidding. She shrugs her shoulders into her blazer, comes around the desk, and pecks me on the cheek. Her look of curious astonishment lingers on me a moment longer, then she leaves without a word. Teenage daughters. Quantum physics could not be more unfathomable.

5
    “Z ERO POINTS FOR FUCKING SECURITY, ” MIKE MUTTERS WHEN I join him in Toshio’s office. He gestures to the door behind me. “Wasn’t even locked.”
    “Does Patrick know you’re up here?”
    Mike shrugs; the answer, I presume, is no. Then he starts apologizing for accidentally spilling the beans to Rachel, but I wave that off, explaining that I’ve told her to keep it quiet. Mike accepts that with a rueful nod, then we stand a moment, contemplating our surroundings.
    “I’ve already had a quick look around,” I admit, lifting my chin toward the desk and shelves.
    “Yeah? For what?”
    “Suicide note.”
    “No joy?”
    When I turn my head, Mike’s eyes sweep the room. “Don’t tell me. Suicide’s Patrick’s theory, right?”
    When I concede that it is, Mike grunts. Between him and Patrick the chemistry has always been bad, any contact between them abrasive. And Mike does not seem in the least inclined to put whatever differences they have aside in order to deal more effectively with this disaster.
    “Patrick tell you to leave the door unlocked?”
    “I left it like I found it, Mike. It was unlocked when I came in, I left it like that when I went out. Nothing to do with Patrick.”
    He steps a little farther into the room. In size the office isn’t much different from mine, and the same shelves are stacked with books and files. But there are no family photos on the desk and there isn’t even a poster to break those blank expanses of white wall that aren’t covered by shelving. There are no windows either; that more than anything gives the room a cramped, somewhat claustrophobic feel. This isn’t, frankly, the kind of place in which you would expect a UN special envoy to spend his working day. And in truth, though Toshio has had this office for at least five years, it was never more than a convenient base to him; unlike everyone else on this floor, he has never spent much time at his desk. My own impression of this room when I first saw it some years back was that it was ostentatiously austere for someone so senior. Over the years, however, I have come to see that Toshio’s indifference to the trappings of power was absolutely sincere and not, as more than one resident cynic believed, a calculated front that concealed a vaulting ambition.
    Mike’s eyes run over the piles of paper, the notebooks, and the other everyday jumble on the desktop.
    “So whadda we seeing here?” he asks me.
    Nothing out of the ordinary, I tell him. It looks just like always: Toshio’s innate tidiness and sense of order fighting a losing battle against the workload overflowing his optimistically small in