Lee Child - Personal

I nodded. I pictured the eight people in my mind, milling around. Presumably they would come out of some kind of a patio door, all of them faking bewilderment at the way they had so suddenly to pivot between high-minded seriousness and the sordid demands of the press. Gosh, really? We have to do this now? Well, let’s be quick about it and get back to work . So there would be plenty of faux-sheepish grins, and plenty of good-natured jostling for the back of the line. Which would all take place within a very tight little group, I guessed, because of the demands of collegiality and equality and reflected glory. Certainly none of them would want to get separated. A leaked picture with a group of seven on one side of the frame and a lone figure on the other wouldn’t look good. The headlines back home would write themselves. Out of touch, ignored, shunned , aloof, doesn’t play well with others .

So they would stay tight, and then when they figured the news outlets had enough goofy stuff in the can, they would line up on the steps, and they would puff out their chests, and they would stand absolutely still.

With no blindfolds.

Across the street the black panel van was still there.

I said, ‘How are you doing with the pills?’

She said, ‘I still have five.’

‘So you’re feeling OK?’

She nodded. ‘Pretty good.’

‘Because the brief is mastered, and our initial execution has been satisfactory?’

‘Because I can see a way through this now. I feel like the problem is narrowing itself down. Kott and Carson will want to see the back patio, and the back lawn, maybe. Which takes about sixty per cent of the buildings right out of the picture. We know where we’ll find them. Roughly, I mean. Ballpark, at least.’

Across the street the black panel van was still there.

I said, ‘Suppose we hit a roadblock along the way?’

She said, ‘What kind?’

‘Something unexpected. Will you be OK?’

‘I think that would depend.’

‘On what?’

She was quiet for a long moment. She was giving the question her serious attention. She said, ‘I would be OK if it didn’t knock us off our stride.’

‘You mean, if we get a problem, we should deal with it fast and decisively?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘If it’s a roadblock, we have to get through it and keep on going. We can’t afford to get sidetracked. I can see a way through now, and I don’t want it to close up again.’

The black panel van was still there.

‘OK,’ I said. ‘Let’s go back to the hotel.’

THE VAN AT the kerb was facing away from us as we walked towards it. It was about the size of a small SUV, and about the same shape, but it was all sheet metal at the back. A windshield, and a driver’s window, and a passenger’s window, and nothing else. It was painted black, with no writing on it, as far as I could see. And it was very clean. It was waxed and polished, like a mirror. Like the SEAL car in Seattle. Which was a good question, right there. Who uses large black vehicles and keeps them immaculately clean? Only two answers. Limousine companies, and law enforcement. And limousine companies didn’t use panel vans. Small buses, maybe, but passengers like windows.

Except this was London, and what did I know? Maybe a cultural revolution was under way, involving a sudden new enthusiasm for automotive cleanliness. Maybe it would hit America six months later, like Beatlemania. Although every other vehicle I had seen was filthy.

Casey Nice said, ‘Are they cops?’

I said, ‘I’m sure they’ll make it clear, one way or the other.’

We crossed the street and we walked on, towards the van, all the way, and the front doors opened, both together, fast and smooth, unlatched when we were close, and then opened when we were closer still. Two guys climbed out. The one on the sidewalk pivoted slowly, while his partner hustled around the hood. Same sweep, different speeds. Some kind of a synchronized move, no doubt perfected by long practice.

Both guys were in dark suits under black raincoats. Both were white. Or pink, to be accurate. Chapped, like they’d had a long hard winter. Both were shorter than me, but not much lighter. Both had big knuckly hands, and cords of muscle in their necks.

They blocked our way.

‘Help you?’ I said, like the neighbour in Arkansas.

The guy who had taken the shorter pivot said, ‘I’m going to put my hand in my pocket very slowly and show you a government identification document. Do you understand?’

Which was a neat trick, potentially, in that we would be staring at the guy’s moving hand, inching its way into his pocket, pausing there, inching back out, and meanwhile the other guy could have been doing anything at all. He could have been assembling a brand-new Heckler and Koch from a kit of parts.

But then, if they thought they needed weapons, they would have come out the van holding them.

I said, ‘I understand.’

The guy glanced at Casey Nice and said, ‘Miss?’

She said, ‘Go ahead.’

So he did, slowly, and he came out with a leather ID wallet. It was black, and it looked old and worn. He opened it, finger and thumb. It had two plastic windows, a little yellowed, face to face. Behind one was a version of the Metropolitan Police badge. Sculpted and shiny and very impressive on their pointed helmets, not so much when printed on paper. Behind the other plastic window was an ID card.

The guy held out the wallet.

His thumb was over the picture.

I said, ‘Your thumb is over the picture.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

He moved his thumb off the picture. The picture was him.

Above his face was printed Metropolitan Police .

He said, ‘We need to ask you some questions.’

I said, ‘What questions?’

‘We need you to get in the van.’

‘Where will you sit?’

The guy missed a beat, and said, ‘We need you to get in the back of the van.’

I said, ‘I don’t like the dark.’

‘There’s a wire screen at the front. You’ll get plenty of light.’

‘OK,’ I said.

Which seemed to surprise him a little. He missed another beat. Then he nodded and stepped forward, and his partner came with him, and we stepped backward, and half turned, and stepped off the kerb into the road, and then we hung back and waited politely for one of them to open the doors.

The one who had hustled around the hood did it, first by turning the handle, then by pulling the right-hand panel, and propping it, then by pulling the left-hand panel, and propping it too, both doors standing open more than ninety degrees, so that together they made a chute. The load area inside was completely empty, and completely unmarked, and every bit as clean as the outside. All bare metal, all painted black, all waxed and polished. The interior walls were stamped and pressed for strength. The floor was ribbed. And as promised there was a thick wire grille welded full-width and full-height behind the passenger compartment.

There were no handles on the inside of the doors.

The guy turned back from the left-hand door, coming up a little, because he had stooped to operate the prop, and I launched off my back foot and jerked at the waist and smashed my elbow into the bridge of his nose, a clubbing blow, slightly downward. His knees crumpled and his head snapped back and bounced off the door with a metallic boom, but I didn’t see what happened to him next, because by that point I had already twisted counterclockwise and knocked Casey Nice out the way and launched the same elbow at the first guy, who was a big strong man, but clearly not much of a fighter. Maybe he had gotten too comfortable with getting by on appearance and reputation alone. Maybe it was years since he had been involved in an actual scuffle. The only way to deal with a sudden incoming elbow was to twist and drive forward and take it on the meat of the upper arm, which is always painful and sometimes numbing, but generally you stay on your feet. But the guy went the other way. He chose the wrong option. He reared up and back, chin high, hoping to dodge the blow, which didn’t work at all, and never really could. The elbow caught him full in the throat, perfectly horizontal, like an iron bar moving close to thirty miles an hour. Speed matters, like in baseball and busting down doors. And the human throat is full of all kinds of vulnerable gristle and small bones. I felt my elbow crush a lot of it, and then I whipped back to the other guy, but he didn’t need a follow-up question. He was sitting on his ass, propped against the open door, blood streaming from his nose, out for an eight count. So I turned back again and saw the guy I had hit in the throat flat on his back in the gutter. He was whooping and wheezing and pawing at his windpipe.