Lee Child - Personal

Our rooms were on different floors, but we headed together to Nice’s first, for a safety check, and because I felt she should have a box of ammunition with her. A lone last stand in a hotel room was highly unlikely, but highly unlikely things can happen, in which case a hundred and sixteen would be a much more interesting number than plain old sixteen straight.

Her room was empty and unthreatening. It had the same basic architecture as a thousand motel rooms I had seen, but it was prettied up to a far higher standard, including literally, in that it was twenty floors from the ground with a view of the park. I put her box of a hundred Parabellums on her nightstand, and glanced around one more time, and headed back towards the door.

She said, ‘I’ve still got two left. I feel good now.’

I said, ‘Tell me about when Bennett got in the car.’

‘That’s what he did. He just got in the car. I saw him on the opposite sidewalk, dialling his phone, and then listening, like people do, and at that point he was just some guy, but then my phone started ringing, so I answered, and it was him. He crossed the street and got in right behind me. He told me General O’Day had given him my number, and that General Shoemaker had confirmed it, and that we should move off the kerb and drive around the block because we were in a no-parking zone and there was a traffic cop behind us.’

‘So you moved off?’

‘He was clearly legitimate. I thought to know the names of both generals showed he was on our side.’

‘What do you think now?’

‘Not entirely legitimate, but still on our side.’

I nodded. ‘That’s what I thought, too. Did you believe the things he said?’

‘I think there were some exaggerations. Unless he was being suicidally candid about a programme that must still be deeply classified. On the British side, certainly. Who would react, surely, if their biggest secrets were being talked about in the open.’

‘Some guys can be suicidally candid. They grow to hate the bullshit. There’s no reaction because it doesn’t really matter anyway. People like that are not security risks. Having everything out there is the exact same thing as having nothing out there. The Brits are hacking our signals. The Brits are not hacking our signals. Both things are up there under the spotlight. Which doesn’t help us know which one is true.’

‘So are they hacking our signals?’

‘Think about the things he didn’t exaggerate.’

‘Which were what?’

‘He came right out and said they were getting nowhere with the activity at Little Joey’s house, and nowhere with tracking down the paymasters on-line.’

‘So?’

‘Poor performance.’

‘No one bats a thousand.’

‘But the Brits are very good at this. They invented most of it. I’m not buying the big gap between them and the NSA, but they’re at least equal. We have to admit that. Maybe a little better. They’re a subtle people, deep down. In the best sense of the word. Good card players, generally. And they’re tough, when they need to be. Ultimately they always do what it takes. But they’re getting nowhere.’

‘It’s a tough case.’

‘Tough enough that neither the NSA or GCHQ can get a foot in the door?’

‘I guess.’

‘So how likely is it a rookie analyst and a retired military cop are going to provide the vital breakthrough? What are we going to see that they haven’t seen?’

‘There might be something.’

‘There’s nothing. Because Bennett is now thinking the same way O’Day was thinking. A few days late. Bennett was in Paris. He knows Kott was aiming at me. Now he knows Kott is in London. He thinks he can shake something loose by pushing us out there, front and centre. As targets. It’s a Hail Mary pass. And it’s all about him. He doesn’t care what happens to us. He’s watching for the muzzle flash. That’s all he wants. Before the politicians panic.’

‘I’m sure you planned to be front and centre all along.’

‘Not as a target.’

‘Does it matter what someone else calls you?’

‘Exactly. We have to do it anyway. We don’t get a choice. Same with the phones. We have to update O’Day. Bennett gets what he wants, both ways.’

‘Only because we get what we want, too. First, in fact. So it doesn’t really matter.’

‘It makes a total of two governments thinking of us as nothing but bait. Which is one government too many. We’re depending on them in a lot of ways. What they feed us depends on what they think of us. Subconsciously, I mean. They can develop a bias. We have to be ready to recognize it.’

‘And do what?’

‘We need to think strictly for ourselves. There may be orders we need to ignore.’

She looked away and said nothing, but then eventually she nodded, in a way that could have been deeply contemplative, or ruefully determined, or somewhere in between. It was hard to tell.

I said, ‘Still feeling good?’

She said, ‘We have to do it anyway.’

‘Not what I asked.’

‘Should I still be feeling good?’

‘No need to feel anxious, anyway. Not about which agency will betray you, and which won’t. Because they all will, sooner or later.’

‘That’s really going to cheer me up.’

‘I’m not trying to cheer you up. I’m trying to get us on the same wavelength. Which is where we need to be.’

‘No one is going to betray us.’

‘You would bet your life on them?’

‘Some of the people I know, yes.’

‘But not all of them.’

‘No.’

‘Same thing.’

She said, ‘Which bothers you.’

I said, ‘Which bothers you more.’

‘Shouldn’t it?’

‘You know what your biggest mistake was?’

‘I’m sure you’re going to tell me.’

‘You should have joined the army, not the CIA.’

‘Why?’

‘Because this whole stress thing you’ve got going on is because you think national security is on your shoulders alone. Which is an unreasonable burden. But you think it because you don’t trust your colleagues. Not all of them. You don’t believe in them. Which leaves you isolated. It’s all down to you. But the army is different. Whatever else is wrong with it, you can trust your brother soldiers. And believe in them. That’s all there is. You’d have been much happier.’

She was quiet for a beat, and then she said, ‘I went to Yale.’

‘You could switch right now. I’ll take you to the recruiting office.’

‘Right now we’re in London. Waiting for a text from Mr Bennett.’

‘When we get back. You should think about it.’

She said, ‘Maybe I will.’

The text from Bennett came through two hours later. I was alone in my own room, which was the same as Nice’s, but on a higher floor, and facing in the opposite direction. My view was of Mayfair’s prosperous rooftops, all grey slate and red tile and ornate chimneys. The American Embassy was close by, somewhere just north of me, but I couldn’t see it. I was on the bed, and my phone was charging on the night stand, and it buzzed once and the screen lit up: Lobby 10 minutes . I called Nice on the house phone, and she said she had gotten the same message, so I lay back down for five more minutes, and then I put my reloaded Glock in my coat pocket, and I headed out to the elevator.

Nice was already in the lobby, and Bennett was already in a car at the door. The car was a local General Motors product, called a Vauxhall, new and washed, midnight blue, so completely anonymous it could only be a law enforcement car. I guessed the Skoda had already been wiped and dumped, or set on fire. It was early in the evening, and the sun was very low over the park.

I got in the back seat, and Nice sat up front next to Bennett, who hit the gas and launched out into the traffic. I asked him, ‘Where are we going?’