An Absence of Light

In reviewing his plans there was nothing he regretted. Well, perhaps walking away from the house in Bogota. And leaving forever the dusky loins of Colombia’s remarkable women. That he truly would regret But as for the rest of it, he gave nothing else a second thought He had done it often enough for it to be almost familiar. In fact, all those Spartan vanishments over the years-those times when he had built a full life and then one day, because of a telephone call or a three-word note slipped under his door or a notice in the personals column of the newspaper, he closed the door behind him and walked away into another life leaving the alarm clock still set for the next morning-all of those Spartan disappearances when he left a life with only the clothes on his back to accompany him were like dress rehearsals for this final one in which he was taking as much of the world with him as he could possibly manage. His new life would be his last life. He did not intend to disappear ever again, nor did he intend to start all over with nothing, as he had every time before. This final time he would have millions, scattered over the globe in a dozen caches protected by codes and ciphers and shielded accounts. The plan was elaborate, extensive, with dozens of people needed to bring it to its conclusion, but in the end, after a lengthy unfolding, there would be only himself, walking through a doorway alone, to a new life. For the last time.

Chapter 65

Colin Faeber put down the telephone in his office and was immediately aware of a clammy dampness around his mouth. He knew that a condensation of perspiration was forming on his upper lip. The woman had said that Gilbert Hormann had died of a heart attack in the suite adjacent to his office sometime during the night His personal secretary had found his body herself, when she came into the office that morning. She was sorry, she said, but she couldn’t talk anymore. There was so much confusion there now. They had just taken away the body. Everyone was very upset It was tragic, so tragic.

Faeber sat immobile in his chair and counted them off: Tisler, suicide. Besom, heart attack. Burtell, probably in the explosion. He couldn’t find Sheck. Possibly in the explosion with Burtell, since that was their primary meeting location. Hormann, heart attack.

And now he could not raise Kalatis on their code line. Had something happened to him as well? What the hell was happening? He put his hands on the edge of the desk in front of him as if he were steadying himself against the gunnel of a boat, as if he were fighting the nausea of too many hours at sea. Was there something going on here that he should see, something obvious that in retrospect he would see all too clearly and wonder why he hadn’t detected it in the first place? His stomach tumbled at the thought of it But since he couldn’t “see” it, what should he do? Should he take the extreme step of contacting Strasser? He had been told never to do that Strasser was “out of the picture” except financially. He was completely removed, and it was clearly his intention to remain that way. The idea was only fleeting, for if Faeber was intimidated by Kalatis, he was petrified by Brod Strasser whom he had met on only four occasions during the three and a half years since he had bought controlling interest in DataPrint.

He looked around his office which was modern in style as befitted his profession, chrome and glass and copolymer furniture, decorated in primary colors with touches here and there of Italian moderne furnishings, the coffee server, the cocktail pitchers in the liquor cabinets. He stood up from his desk. He didn’t know why. He wasn’t going anywhere. He didn’t know what to do. But he couldn’t sit still, either. There was no contingency plan for this kind of thing, everyone dying, nobody to contact What the hell was going on? Was this thing coming to an end? Was he in danger? Christ! What would make him think he wasn’t? Why wouldn’t he be?

He started toward the door of his office, hesitated, turned back and stood at the window behind his desk. From the western edge of downtown he looked westward, over a sweep of the green canopies of trees toward the satellite commercial centers whose office towers punched up out of the carpet of thick woods like futuristic cities on a jungle-covered planet. Though he had stood at these windows and daydreamed over this view countless times, just now it seemed alien, as though he had awakened in an unfamiliar world. He felt only an unmistakable anxiety.

Turning away from the window again he walked to the door and opened it.

“Connie,” he said. That was all he had to say. She was typing at her computer screen and stopped immediately, though without hurrying, and in one or two moments she was in his office. “Close the door,” he said.

She looked at him as he turned around midway to his desk.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.