Retribution by Adrian Magson Page B

farce had gone far enough. She apologized and pleaded an important call from overseas, allowing Kleeman to bustle out. He may have been reckless in giving such a briefing, but it wouldn’t do to let the press think he’d been reined in like a runaway horse.
    Back in his office, Kleeman wished he dared light a cigarette, but the sensors in the ceiling would have reacted instantly. He gritted his teeth instead and waited for Walters to come in. He had no doubts his aide would be unhappy about the way he had thrust his head out in front of the press pack, but that was too bad. She was there to suit him, not the other way round.
    He felt rattled by the ferocity of the questioning. He had faced the media many times, often at moments of acute international tension, but this was the first time he had felt like a rabbit thrown to the hounds . . . even if he had put himself there in the first place. On the other hand, he was pleased with the way it had gone. He was sure he had come across as determined – uncompromising, even. And fair, too. People could relate to fair, no matter what the circumstances.
    He opened his diary to check the details of his forthcoming trips. Coming on the heels of this press conference, he would be able to use the meetings to press some flesh with the influential members of the Security Council outside the building rather than under the heavy umbrella and constant gaze of the UN administration.
    He had been an also-ran for long enough. The time had come to start the ball rolling and move up a few floors.
    â€˜We’ve got to kill this right now,’ Walters muttered, closing the door firmly behind her. She was flushed and angry, eyes glinting like a wild cat at bay. She was tall and slim, and dressed elegantly if clinically in a dark blue suit.
    Kleeman glanced at her legs and wondered how in spite of all the trips they’d shared on UN business, he’d never once found himself physically drawn to her. An absence of chemistry, perhaps. He wondered who was benefiting in that direction; it was bound to be someone in authority. Unless she was a dyke.
    â€˜What’s to kill?’ he asked. ‘As far as we know, it’s true, isn’t it?’ He waved a hand in the direction of the briefing room. ‘They seem to have some evidence – what’s the point of trying to deny it?’ His eyes glittered, a warning to his aide not to overstep the mark by questioning his decisions. As a Special Envoy, with the ear of people all the way to the top, he was not someone to fall foul of without incurring serious collateral career damage.
    Of mixed parentage – grandparents Swedish and Danish, father naturalized American, mother Swiss – he had managed to sweep into the diplomatic arena representing a broad range of flags. To some, this was his main strength. Educated at Harvard and the Goethe-Institut in Germany, and with sizeable investments in the Fortune 500 list of US corporations, he had the credentials and, more importantly, the money to take him wherever he wished to go. With friends in the highest places, cultivated over the years in college and business, he had the political clout to have bypassed a number of other well-placed candidates on the UN career ladder. Watchers in the know were even tipping him for Secretary-General in a few years’ time, and in spite of some voices in opposition, no one was betting entirely against him.
    â€˜They’ll pursue this now,’ Walters warned him. ‘We must advise everyone on the ground so they can be prepared.’
    He nodded. In spite of her subordinate position, experience told him that he would do well to keep this woman onside. Never forget the little people on the way up, his father had often said. Well, he wasn’t about to. Not yet, anyway.
    â€˜Send a note to Field Security,’ he advised. ‘I’m sure they’re already on to it, but it won’t harm to remind them that this