‘So you want my take on it?’
‘If you’re willing to give it. You’ve got contacts in the black community who’d never talk to the police or the Bureau, who don’t appreciate we’re attempting to prevent further bloodshed.’
‘It hasn’t been capped so far.’
‘We’re doing our best, Reverend,’ Krista interjected. ‘I’m sure churchmen and politicians are doing the same.’
Azania wondered if the pair had fucked, whether it was on film. She was in good shape, had the self-assurance of a senior attorney, the tits and arse of the senior attorney’s youngest daughter. A clever girl, a pretty girl. There was warmth in the hazel eyes, humour in the mouth. Attractive package, for an adversary. Perhaps he would take her as war spoils.
He stayed in neutral statesmanlike pose. ‘People are looking for easy solutions.’
‘Easy solutions and scapegoats,’ Wood added.
‘Which raises expectations, fuels the atmosphere of mistrust and fury, breeds another spiral of violence.’
Which was there to be exploited by the preacher-politico, Krista brooded. ‘Catch-22. Makes our job harder.’
‘Okay.’ Azania shot clean white cuffs, adjusted their gold and ruby links. ‘My take? The murder of white supremacists, both in and outside jail, was pre-emptive, done for a reason, for defensive purposes. Afro-American elements suspected an assault by white racists was planned, so they acted to cut off the enemy’s head.’
Krista held his gaze. ‘Unsuccessfully, as Alabama proved.’
‘Also proved they were right to fear the scale and organization of what was coming.’
‘How does the cold-blooded murder of LAPD officers fit into this framework?’
‘Framework suggests logic, Special Agent Althouse.’ The angle of Azania’s body communicated mellow authority, a mastery of ease. ‘When a minority is scared, cornered and confused, it lashes out. Logic is the first thing to be lost.’
‘Along with lives.’
‘In a world where whites believe the solution lies in steel bars to keep the black man out or in, the peril is self-fulfilling. I have tried to calm and will continue to do so.’
‘The Million Clenched Fists rally?’ There was no overt criticism in Wood’s voice. He was treading carefully, speaking cautiously. Anything else would be interpreted as insinuation or cross-examination.
‘We owe it to the victims and their families. I will be there to draw the pain.’
‘Your critics would argue, Reverend, that you’re there to inflame the infection.’
Azania’s eyelids lowered. ‘It’s an accusation levelled at anyone who has ever focused on injustice and inequality, who has ever dared talk of civil rights, touched emotions.’ Or tapped wallets, thought Krista. ‘It’s what they said of Martin Luther King.’
‘His message wasn’t quite so militant.’
Krista returned to steer the conversation. It was a conversation. ‘We’re grateful for your insight, Reverend. I was wondering if you or your colleagues had any inclination, forewarning, of those attacks by white supremacists?’
‘None.’
‘Or what you’d call the spoiling tactics, executions, carried out by African-American elements.’
‘None.’
Wood cleared his throat. ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, sir, but it therefore means we’re dealing here with your unsupported hypothesis rather than fact-based theory.’
‘We’re dealing with a sustained, systematic campaign of hatred and violence against the black population of this country.’ A subtle froideur had developed between the two men. A boy thing, or a black thing, Krista decided. ‘It’s the twenty-first century. Our brothers and sisters are not going to walk unprotesting to Armageddon, they’re not going to ask meekly for forty acres and a mule.’
‘I wish everyone had moved on.’ Krista was casting for information, had gained a shadow impression that Azania was doing the same, was entertaining the Feds at home for that very purpose. She could not blame him. He was in the knowledge business, the power game. It was expected. Innocent enough, artful enough. ‘But someone out there has a vested interest in warming up old antagonisms.’ She dropped it in, ran it by. ‘Have you ever heard of the Forresters, Reverend?’
‘Should I?’
‘I suppose not. It’s only a name on a file.’ It was only a name mentioned to a woman called Mary by a tattooed terrorist in the Mississippi Delta. The FBI had narrowed the field to members of the Airborne expelled for neo-Nazi sympathies, to those who once served in the military alongside a racist thug in San Quentin. Fifteen were accounted for; six were not. Their capture was a priority.
Azania twisted a gold signet-ring ruminatively. ‘Forresters? You about to reveal it’s a bunch of Aryan rednecks?’
‘As I said, it’s only a name on a file.’
‘What else you got?’
She was not about to mention the details sent by Britain’s Security Service, its intelligence on Azania’s friends and property-interests in South Africa, the growing conviction that international sponsors were priming the parallel outbreaks of savagery on the streets of London and Los Angeles, Britain and America. A black Jamaican had routed through this city to Europe, was implicated in a home invasion and massacre of whites; a Caucasian suspect, possibly South African, had attempted to counter investigations into the smuggling of racist propaganda to the United Kingdom. Home-grown bigotry was definable, destructible – imports meant foreign threat, long-term strategy, a declaration of hostile intent. She and Fletch would be grateful for allies. Josh was due to fly out, would become fully initiated and integrated into the Bureau’s inquiries. Tying loose ends, weaving the threads. She and her ex-husband would make a tidy noose for someone, had done so before. What else you got?
Wood handed her the slim document case, watching as she extracted a large manila envelope. ‘You have transcontinental reach, world appeal, Reverend,’ he said. Azania dipped his chin in acknowledgement. ‘The opposition, whatever its colour, its creed, its make-up, its identity, also has a following, transcontinental reach. There has to be overlap, there have to be clues which will cross your desk.’
‘Why?’
Because you fish in the same putrid waters. Krista looked up. ‘Because you’re well informed, you take an interest.’
‘When I travel overseas, my main concern is disease, poverty and famine.’
‘And conflict,’ Wood added slowly. ‘It’s there, whether foreground or background, anywhere in Africa. We’re getting the overspill, the fall-out. We’re getting a taste.’
Krista drew a black-and-white photographic still from the envelope, flipped it round and passed it to Azania. He held it in both hands, twin-gripped between thumb and forefinger.
