David Ignatius: Bloodmoney

Sophie demanded an explanation. Why had he been freed, after so much thunder and rage? Had he bribed the prime minister, or just the home secretary?

“I frightened your friends at the CIA,” Perkins answered. “They thought I was going to tell the truth, and they panicked. They contacted the British government last night, and they negotiated all morning. Hush-hush, the warden told me. By the time the meetings were over, they had decided they wouldn’t bring any charges. Terrible misunderstanding, they told my lawyer, frightfully sorry.”

“What are you going to do now? Go back to being a billionaire?”

“I’m not a billionaire anymore, sweet girl. Not even a tiny fraction of one. The run on my firm was like a fire sale. I’ll be lucky to avoid bankruptcy.”

Sophie took his hand. She wanted to be supportive, but she wasn’t sure how. She had never been very good at relationships.

“You can build it all back up, if you want.”

“That sounds boring. I’ve done that. I want to try something new. I want to see what’s on the other side of all those things that we’re supposed to want.”

Sophie thought of the dreams she’d had as a young intelligence officer, the places she had been and the risks she had taken. What had all of this produced?

A string of lies, near as she could tell: colleagues who lied and cheated and only got upset if it seemed that someone was about to blow the whistle. They had been dropping bombs on people for so long, it had begun to seem natural. That was the corrosive part: If you killed someone at close range with a knife, at least you knew what it felt like to have blood on your hands. But if you did it from ten thousand feet, looking at a picture on a television screen, you forgot that there were real people down below. It wasn’t that the cause was wrong, but that it wasn’t an honest fight.

“I want to see what’s on the other side, too,” said Sophie. “I’ve had enough dishonesty to last a lifetime. I want to see what it’s like to tell the truth.”

“Want some company?” asked Perkins.

She nodded and took his hand. They finished their beers, and had another round, and eventually they caught a taxi on Caledonian Road and went off to find a restaurant in Camden Town where, Perkins assured Sophie, there would be nobody that either of them knew.