A Certain Kind of Power Read online

  Mike seized the reprieve and stood up. Finklestein’s seat was empty. He scanned the room. No Finklestein.

  “You in a rush, Mike?” asked Alex.

  “Just trying to find someone I need to speak to. Preferably before the speaker arrives.”

  “I’m only here because I can’t face the office today. I had Lloyd’s of London on the phone all yesterday about this bloody ship of theirs. In the diplomatic service, one hour of phone calls equals about four hours of paperwork. You private-sector guys have got no idea how lucky you are.”

  “What happened to their ship?” asked Mike, abandoning his attempt to locate Finklestein and turning back to Alex.

  “You’ve not heard about the infamous Polar Mist?”

  Mike had seen some headlines but not followed the story. It was all the invitation that Alex needed.

  “Last month a fishing boat left a port down south. For some reason, it isn’t carrying fish. It’s been loaded with gold bullion from one of the mines out of Santa Cruz. This boat hits a storm and the crew radio for help, the ship is sinking. They don life jackets and throw themselves into the sea, motors still running, all the hatches open. The Argentine Coast Guard sends a chopper. Everyone is rescued. But the ship doesn’t sink. Two days later a Chilean vessel finds it still turning circles in the middle of the ocean. The Chileans hook it up and begin towing it back to their coast.

  “The Argentines see what’s happening and order the Chileans to turn around and tow the ship back to the Argentine coast, which they begin to do. But before they make the Argentine coast the Polar Mist begins to sink, so they cut the old girl loose and down she goes.”

  “And is the gold recoverable?”

  “Was it even loaded? Is it at the bottom of the ocean? Lloyd’s suspect it was never on board. The mining company are asking for the insurance payout, Lloyd’s want to raise the ship.”

  “What’s your view on it?”

  “I’m not concerned with what happened. I am more concerned with the why and what happens next. A few things worry me; that it happened in the president’s home province and that the insurer is English. It looks too much like the government is laying groundwork for a media attack on all things British. Speaking of all things British, how goes it with MinEx?”

  Before Mike could answer the organizer returned to the lectern. She tapped on the microphone with a bent index finger, as if testing the shell of a meringue. Satisfied, she looked towards the back of the room. Mike slumped in his chair. There was no escaping now.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased and honored to welcome here with us today the ex-President of Argentina, Mr. Eduardo Camano.”

  The applause in the room was almost loud enough to cover Alex Harper’s exclamation of, “Shit.”

  Eduardo Camano had been President in 2001. A position he held for two full days. Mike applauded and glanced sideways. Alex lent in closer, reducing his voice to a more appropriate whisper, as Eduardo Camano made his way, every inch the president, in Mike’s opinion, to the lectern.

  “I’m not sure he can even use the title. He definitely won’t be getting a bloody statue out on the avenue,” said Alex as the applause died down.

  Mike returned his focus to the former President who assumed his position behind the lectern. President Camano charmed the audience with dry, English wit that he had picked up in his days at Oxford in the 1970s. Mike liked him against his better judgement.

  “They are born to it these buggers,” Alex whispered. “None of this self-deprecating bullshit that hamstrings us.”

  “He is a natural,” Mike conceded.

  “Politics. They’re made for it. Look at this smarmy bugger waltzing in here like he really was President, joking, smiling. And look around. Everyone enthralled. I’d vote for the bastard if I could. He’s taking me for a ride and I love it.”

  The speech lasted forty-five long minutes. To Mike, politics was the art of the intangible, producing nothing that could be pegged down, a shadow of the real and only objective; power.

  Camano wrapped up his speech and started doing the rounds of the room, shaking hands and smiling, ruthlessly gregarious in his manner. Mike retrieved his shoulder bag from under the seat, and without farewelling Alex, who had lined up to press the flesh, made his way to the back of the room where Finklestein had appeared as if by miracle at the coffee tables.

  “Tomas.”

  Finklestein turned and greeted Mike with a wet smile. “Mike, I didn’t expect to see you here. I thought you had given up on these events long ago.”

  “I wanted to catch you, Tomas. Do you have any news for me?”

  Finklestein dipped his head into his coffee, took a long sip and re-emerged with an apologetic look on his face. If it was meant to draw sympathy from Mike it had the opposite effect.

  “I am afraid not. It is proving a lot harder than I expected. My man is trying his best, but he is not getting any answers.”

  “Listen, Finklestein, I don’t want excuses. Two weeks maximum, you said. You’ve got your money, now I need this cleared up.”

  “It’s not just a question of money, Mike. If only it were. But that is not how these things work. I expected you of all people to know that by now. We have to find the right person inside the AFIP, build a relationship, bring him, or her, onside. This takes time.”

  “I don’t have time, Finklestein,” said Mike as loud as he dared without raising attention. He could feel the vein above his ear begin to throb. He was sure it was visible from across the room.

  “I am doing my best,” Finklestein offered in defense.

  “Well your best had better get a whole lot better or I might just start asking questions around here about where the esteemed Mr. Knight from the famous Finklestein and Knight is.”

  “Mike! I told you that in confidence,” Finklestein whispered. “I said I’ll do my best and I will. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” With that he sidled off without a goodbye, leaving Mike steaming by the coffee urn.

  “Trouble with the AFIP still?”

  Mike turned at the sound of Alex Harper’s voice. How long had he been there? Long enough.

  “We have a guy at the AFIP that we deal with. It would be irregular, but I could ask him to look at your situation. As a favor.”

  Mike considered the proposal. “I wouldn’t want to trouble you, Alex.”

  “Would be no trouble at all.” He smiled as if happy to help.

  “Let me see how it goes with him,” he said, nodding to where Finklestein hovered on the edge of a group that refused to open to let him in.

  “As you wish. If you need me, just say the word. How are things going with MinEx?”

  “All done. It was just a small piece of work they needed. Don’t worry, I impressed on Simon the need to act with probity as you asked. It all went well.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Mike Costello squinted his eyes against the morning sun that reflected off the bleached concrete sidewalk. He kept his head down, a half-opened eye on the holes and crumbling edges that served the sole purpose of tripping up distracted pedestrians.

  The walk to Chinatown was a Saturday-morning ritual—a few purchases then walk back to the barrio of Las Canitas for lunch. He was enjoying these habits that he had acquired over the last decade, knowing that he would soon leave them behind. Mike had spent the previous evening on a website inspecting the houses that were available in Sicily. A two-storey villa with an ocean view had caught his eye. The pictures from inside suggested it needed some work but there would be spectacular views while he renovated.

  Among the Korean immigrants, for Chinatown consisted mainly of Koreans, Mike hunted the ingredients that mainstream Argentina had shunned. An excess of premium-quality meat meant that there was little need, or desire, to embellish meals with flavor-masking additions. For a man of spice, Buenos Aires could be a frustrating place to eat. Though salt was standard, black pepper was as spicy as it ever got. Until Mike discovered Chinatown, he had had to forego any atte
mpts at culinary adventure. The tastes and flavors of the far east, which he had come to love since his time in Peru, were relegated to memory.

  At this hour of the day the streets were all but empty. The small groups that were out were more likely returning home from Friday night than going out on Saturday morning. Mike stepped off the sidewalk and into one of the larger supermarkets that occupied the main strip of Chinatown. He was hit by the familiar smell of all Asian supermarkets. It was a smell he had once associated with pet shops—dry, musty, invasive. Now, he associated it with those hard-to-get ingredients that he would combine in his wok at home on the original four-burner gas stove.

  Years ago, when still dating, he had invited a lady over for dinner. He had spent the afternoon measuring, grinding, and combining his own spice mix. By the time his date arrived his creation, a fish curry, had been simmering away, filling the house with the aromatics of Goa. He had gotten it just right.

  His guest took one smell as she stepped through the doorway, ran to the sliding doors on his balcony, threw them open and jumped outside, gasping for air and swearing not to return until “that stink” had been expunged from the house. Mike had turned off the stove, grabbed his coat and gone out for steak. She wasn’t the one, and these days he preferred to eat alone.

  He strolled past the dried-fish section, a little too exotic, stopped and checked out the prices of the egg noodles and grabbed two packets, which he placed in his red, plastic hand basket. He moved to the sauce section that carried a variety of Indian and Thai flavors. He had run out of chili sauce during the week and needed to restock. He searched the shelves and couldn’t locate it in its usual place. He backtracked down the aisle and started his search afresh. Curry pastes, mango chutneys, oyster sauce, soy sauce, hoisin sauce. No chili sauce.

  He called to the young attendant who was slouched over the counter at the front of the shop. She came towards him with a shuffling of feet.

  “Good morning, I can’t find the chili sauce. It’s usually right here,” said Mike, pointing at a space now occupied by an ordered row of mirin bottles.

  The girl turned without a word and walked towards the back of the shop. She yelled something in Korean. Mike wondered if she had understood his Spanish. A small man appeared, a father or uncle Mike guessed by his age.

  “Good morning, sir,” the man said in accented Spanish. “Can I help you?”

  “I was asking about the chili sauce. I can’t find it.”

  “No more chili sauce. No more.”

  For fuck’s sake, thought Mike, but instead asked, “When will you have it in again?”

  “No more, no order any more. Government don’t allow. They make now in Mendoza.” The shopkeeper threw his hands up in disgust as if to ask, What would Mendoza know about making chili sauce?

  “You can’t import it anymore?”

  “No, no more. Regulation.”

  “Fuck,” said Mike. “They’re killing me. Bit by fucking bit they are killing me.”

  “Lots of other good products,” said the man, trying to guide Mike’s eyes to the rest of his wares.

  Mike thanked him, picked up a few more things, and made his way to the counter. He paid the languid girl who had returned to her post and exited.

  He walked back down the length of Chinatown, under the lucky red arches, a non-believer that knew better than to tempt fate, turned onto Virrey Vertiz and headed towards Luis Maria Ocampo.

  The walk would take forty minutes, maybe a little longer carrying his bag of shopping. The morning was still warm and some overhead cloud had taken the glare off the street. He made a mental note to buy some sunglasses. He remembered a shop near his apartment that sold knockoff Ray Bans.

  At a small kiosk adorned with a cross section of magazines and newspapers, the majority carrying headlines about local football, he picked up that day’s edition of La Nacion. While he often read the Buenos Aires Herald, reading La Nacion made him feel less an outsider and more in touch with the local pulse. And the reporting was good. La Nacion was evidence that a country needed much more than a strong press to be a functioning democracy. If La Nacion was labelled anti-government, it was because the current government was anti-governance.

  La Nacion was embroiled in overt conflict with the government and Mike followed the tactical battles as a loyal partisan. The first shot was the government withdrawing its advertising spend. This had minimal effect on the wealthy media group behind the paper and, if anything, increased circulation among the more educated classes. The Ministry of News and Public Affairs then tried manipulating the content. This approach also met with limited results. Having attacked the news element of the newspaper they then went after the paper stock, buying up the largest newsprint supplier and then refusing to sell to La Nacion until they changed their editorial tune.

  Mike had thought this a cunning tactic until he heard that it was a rehash of what Menem had done in the 1990s when he engaged in his own conflict with the paper. Wrongfooted for a week or two, the paper located a supplier of newsprint out of Finland. The additional production costs were offset by the increased circulation, which had continued to rise.

  Mike arrived at the Las Cholas restaurant located on the corner of Arce and Arevalo. The shaded streets in the heart of the Las Canitas area were a favorite haunt, cozy in winter and refreshing in summer. Less touristy than Palermo or Recoleta there was an eclectic selection of traditional establishments dotted throughout Las Canitas.

  The restaurant staff were opening the doors, unhurried and making rudimentary preparations for the lunch rush that would soon hit. A full two hours out and Mike could see that they would not be ready.

  He settled into a corner chair and organized his paper into its proper reading order. Front page, politics, business, and sport. He didn’t bother to call the waiter. When they were ready they would approach him.

  He gripped the paper in both hands, extended his arms, and shook out the crinkles in the Finnish newsprint. The front page proclaimed that the incoming minister for economy had vowed to tackle inflation. Mike checked the date at the top of the paper. He had the feeling of having read the same announcement a few months earlier, from the then-incoming Eduardo Roncelli.

  A separate headline read “AFIP Takes Action”. The accompanying photo montage showed various houses from Buenos Aires’ wealthier suburbs. All had been repossessed the day before, all belonged to prominent businessmen who had been vocal critics of the government’s economic management. Fuck Finklestein, he was taking too long. He considered calling Alex. There would be a cost, there always was, but it was better than placing all his faith in Finklestein. If it got him out of here, then it would be worth it. He could regret it later, on a beach in Sicily.

  Mike took out his phone and dialed. “Alex? About the AFIP. I’d like to take you up on your offer.”

  Alex’s voice came down the line and into his ear like warm water. “Happy to help. Just send me through the details and I’ll get on it.”

  “Thanks. It really is appreciated.”

  “Happy to help you out. There is something that you might be able to do in return.”

  That was quick, thought Mike.

  “I need you to keep Simon Quinn on the straight and narrow. But I need you to do it, Mike.” The warmth was gone from his voice.

  “I already told you, Alex, there is nothing to worry about. I made it to clear to Simon that he needed to keep a low profile.”

  “You obviously haven’t read today’s papers.”

  “There’s one right here in front of me, Alex.”

  Mike opened up the business section. A half-page headline jolted him: “MinEx Suspend Tender Process Over Inflation Fears”.

  “I’ll save you the trouble of reading it. Quinn has suspended the tender process indefinitely. Because of inflation! He says he is hopeful that the government will put in place the right measures to tackle inflation that would benefit the MinEx project along with all Argentines.”

  Mike skim
med the article, matching the words he saw with those that Alex spoke down the line. If Quinn had set out to ruffle government feathers, Mike could think of no better way.

  “Mike, this is going to draw international media attention. I need you to get Quinn to pull his fucking head in. And stay close to him this time.”

  It wasn’t just the international attention. To blame inflation, which the government continued to report as running at 0.4 percent, would not go down well within the corridors of power. They had already jailed one pollster who had dared publish alternate inflation figures of eight percent. For Quinn to say that the government should fix inflation was akin to blaming them for it in the first place. All true facts and not ones that should be stated if Quinn wanted to continue working in Argentina. The government would be plotting a rebuttal that would hit hard at MinEx.

  “Leave it with me,” Mike said and hung up.

  CHAPTER 13

  On Monday morning Mike waited for Simon at the front of the MinEx offices. As Simon hurried towards him, head buried in his phone, Mike stepped out in front of him.

  “Just a few questions if you don’t mind, Mr. Quinn.” Simon’s head snapped up and Mike saw the anger in his eyes. “Sorry, I misjudged that,” he apologized.

  Simon relaxed. “I’m a bit on edge.”

  “Coffee? There’s a place around the corner.”

  “Tea and I’m in. I can’t drink the shit they’re passing off as coffee down here.”

  Mike led the way to a small café tucked away on a side street. They took a seat at the back of the room at a white metal table.

  “What are you having?”

  Quinn swiveled in his chair to look at the front counter that held an array of small pastries.

  “Just a tea and a croissant.”