“Maybe I just prefer to see the better side of people.”
“In Bangkok you asked if I still wanted to save the world. I hate the world. I only want to save myself. It’s you who can’t resist helping the damsel in distress.”
“Is that why you made sure your father asked me to help Rafa?”
“That was Rafa’s doing. He always looked up to you so. Simon this, Simon that. Simon for sainthood. Still, even you couldn’t save him.”
Simon adjusted his napkin as the server brought his drink. He squeezed the lime and took a sip. Had Bangkok been only six weeks ago? So much had happened since.
Luca Borgia’s death remained unsolved, his involvement with the attempted attack shrouded in mystery. Hints, rumors, nothing more. Sometimes silence told one more than a thousand words. The right people knew. That was all that mattered.
Despite an abundance of CCTV cameras in and around the Palais des Festivals, none had captured an image of the culprit who had stabbed him to death. Secretly, Simon thought that such images existed but certain powers had made sure they remained hidden from public scrutiny. Then again, what did he know? What had Samson Sun called him?“A glorified mechanic”? Simon liked the title. He was thinking it would look nice on his business card.
London Li had published her exposé about Harrington-Weiss, PetroSaud, and the sovereign wealth funds that had defrauded investors of billions. The story had made her a worldwide celebrity. A day didn’t go by when she couldn’t be found on at least one cable channel somewhere around the world. Simon hadn’t been to Singapore in the interim. And London hadn’t come to London. Ah well…they’d always have forty thousand feet.
He looked across the table at Delphine. She’d never looked better: sharply turned out, sophisticated, radiantly intelligent. It was easy to see why he’d fallen in love with her, his first true love. It was only now, years later, that he was able to see the other side of her. The cynicism, the distrust of human nature, the congenital pessimism. Maybe he’d loved her because she possessed so many qualities alien to him. She was his dark side, albeit with a nice ass and a great pair of legs.
“Did you know?” he asked.
“What?”
“That your lover was a terrorist.”
A gasp. A look of horror. “You can’t think that I knew Luca was going to use my screenplay as a means to mount some kind of large-scale attack. That I’d say nothing if I had.”
Simon looked away. The restaurant was bustling, and he enjoyed the efficient orchestration of food and service and ambience united in pursuit of a common goal. Not unlike a perfectly tuned motor.
“When did you meet him?” he asked.
“Years ago. I was on one of my fundraising jaunts for Chatham House. Working at a think tank is more about raising money than anything else. He had a humanitarian foundation in Rome. I pitched him the story of theMedusaas a documentary film Chatham House could make. We’d put his name on it as executive producer. Buff up his image. He turned me down on the spot.”
“You thought he’d turned you down. In fact, he’d passed you along to Samson Sun via Sun’s aunt, Nadya Sukarno. He owed Sun a favor. It was Samson Sun who’d come up with the idea of how to use PetroSaud to steal billions.”
“How could he know that I’d write the screenplay?”
“You probably talked him into it after you had sex.”
“I ought to slap you.”
Simon wanted to ask her if she knew about Prato Bornum, but he knew she’d say no and he wasn’t in the mood to listen to any more lies.
Delphine went on: “The film will do more good than all the articles I’ve ever written put together.”
“If you still believe those things, how could you be with a man like him?”
“You think I’m some kind of Eva Braun.”
“Not ‘some kind.’”
“You really are being a prick today.”
Simon smiled. Maybe he was. If so, he was enjoying it. “Did Rafa know?”
Delphine’s eyes flared. Her cheeks colored, and for a moment Simon thought she really was going to slap him. As quickly, she calmed. After all, it was just Simon, and she’d known him forever.
“He suspected. He’s not dumb.”
“So you rubbed his face in it. What was he supposed to do, especially after your father put some of his money into the hotel?”
