The Ghost

leather armchairs as they lifted off from some red-dusted military airstrip near the Afghan border, bound for the pine forests of eastern Poland. The plane seemed to spring into the air, and I watched over the edge of my glass as the lights of Manhattan spread to fill the window, then slid and tilted, and finally flickered into darkness as we rose into the low cloud. It felt as though we were climbing blindly for a long time in our vulnerable metal tube, but then the gauze fell away and we came up into a bright night. The clouds were as massive and solid as alps, and the moon appeared occasionally from behind the peaks, lighting valleys and glaciers and ravines.
    Some time after the plane leveled off, Amelia rose and came down the aisle toward me. Her hips swayed, involuntarily seductive, with the motion of the cabin.
    “All right,” she said, “he’s ready to have a word. But go easy on him, okay? He’s had a hell of a couple of days.”
    He and I both, I thought.
    “Will do,” I said.
    I fished out my shoulder bag from beside my seat and began to squeeze past her. She caught my arm.
    “You haven’t got long,” she warned. “This flight’s only a hop. We’ll be starting to descend any minute.”

    IT CERTAINLY WAS A hop. I checked afterward. Only two hundred and sixty miles separate New York City and Martha’s Vineyard, and the cruising speed of a Gulfstream G450 is five hundred and twenty-eight miles per hour. The conjunction of these two facts explains why the tape of my conversation with Lang lasts a mere eleven minutes. We were probably already losing altitude even as I approached him.
    His eyes were closed, his glass still held in his outstretched hand. He had removed his jacket and tie and eased off his shoes, and was sprawled back in his seat like a starfish, as if someone had pushed him into it. At first I thought he’d fallen asleep, but then I realized his eyes were narrowed to slits and he was watching me closely. He gestured vaguely with his drink toward the seat opposite him.
    “Hi, man,” he said. “Join me.” He opened his eyes fully, yawned, and put the back of his hand to his mouth. “Sorry.”
    “Hello, Adam.”
    I sat down. I had my bag in my lap. I fumbled to pull out my notebook, the minirecorder, and a spare disk. Wasn’t this what Rycart wanted? Tapes? Nervousness made me clumsy, and if Lang had so much as raised an eyebrow, I would have put the recorder away again. But he didn’t appear to notice. He must have gone through this ritual so many times at the end of some official visit the journalist conducted into his presence for a few minutes’ exclusive access, the tape machine nervously examined to make sure it works, the illusion of informality over the relaxing prime ministerial drink. In the recording you can hear the exhaustion in his voice.
    “So,” he said, “how’s it going?”
    “It’s going,” I said. “It’s certainly going.”
    When I listen to the disk, my register’s so high from the anxiety, it sounds as I’ve been sucking helium.
    “Found out anything interesting?”
    There was a gleam of something in his eyes. Contempt? Amusement? I sensed he was playing with me.
    “This and that. How was Washington?”
    “Washington was great, actually.” There’s a rustling noise as he straightens slightly in his chair, drawing himself up to give one last performance before the theater closes for the night. “I got the most terrific support everywhere—on the Hill, of course, as you probably saw, but also the vice president and the secretary of state. They’re going to help me in every way they can.”
    “And is the bottom line that you’ll be able to settle in America?”
    “Oh, yes. If worst comes to worst, they’ll offer me asylum, certainly. Maybe even a job of some kind, as long as it doesn’t involve overseas travel. But it won’t get that far. They’re going to supply something much more valuable.”
    “Really?”
    Lang nodded. “Evidence.”
    “Right.” I hadn’t a clue what he was talking about.
    “Is that thing working?” he asked.
    There is a deafening clunk as I pick up the recorder.
    “Yes, I think so. Is that okay?”
    With a thump, I replace it.
    “Sure,” said Lang. “I just want to make sure you get this down, because I definitely think we can use this. This is important. We should keep it as an exclusive for the memoirs. It will do wonders for the serialization deal.” He leaned forward to emphasize his words.