The Bureau of Dreams to be Continued by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

The Bureau of Dreams to be Continued

Page 174

The Passenger

David Locke is a disaffected television journalist, currently working in northern Chad, looking to interview rebel fighters who are involved in the civil war. Struggling to find interviewees, he is further frustrated when his Land Rover gets stuck in a sand dune after being abandoned there by guides. After a long walk through the Sahara back to his hotel, an exhausted Locke discovers that a fellow guest (Robertson), an Englishman with whom he had struck up a casual friendship, died in his room of a heart attack that same night. Locke decides to switch identities with Robertson, whom he greatly resembled, and reports his own death at the front desk, the plan going off without a hitch. Locke collects Robertson's belongings, which include a pistol, an appointment book and passport. He alters the passport to carry his own photo.

In London, Locke's unfaithful wife Rachel becomes guilt-ridden when she learns of her husband's "death". She approaches his friend, a BBC producer named Knight, to track down Robertson and learn about Locke's purported last days. Locke, having flown to Munich, finds an airport locker which contains a folder with a price-list and several photocopied pages illustrating armaments. Acting on a whim, he follows a white horse and carriage to a wedding in a baroque chapel, where he waits at the back of the