Lee Child - Personal

‘Why don’t they cancel it?’

‘That would be even more embarrassing.’

I said, ‘How many viable locations did you count near Wallace Court?’

‘Your thing in Paris changed our thinking a little bit. That was sixteen hundred yards, and dead-on, apart from the gust of wind. So if we look at the back patio and the back lawn and a radius of sixteen hundred yards, then we figure about six hundred places.’

Nice said, ‘Which means you’d have to search a hundred and twenty a day to be sure of finding them there. Can you do that?’

Bennett said, ‘Not a hope in hell. Plus we’re worried about the M25. That would be the ultimate just-in-time delivery, wouldn’t it? Imagine a high-sided commercial vehicle pulling over on the shoulder, with some kind of elevated shooting platform constructed in the interior, and an unobtrusive hole in the siding. And big scopes on the rifles. They could cover the whole of the patio and the whole of the lawn.’

I said, ‘Can’t you close the motorway?’

‘The M25? Unacceptable. The whole southeast of England would be jammed solid. We’re talking about closing the shoulder and the inside lane, for phoney road repairs, but even that’s a big ask. Traffic dynamics are very weird on that road. Like chaos theory. A butterfly flaps its wings in Dartford, two hundred people miss their flights at Heathrow, forty miles away.’

I sat back from the binoculars. ‘So all in all you’re saying we should nail them before they leave Joey’s house.’

‘I think that would be a very favourable outcome.’

‘And according to your various closely held beliefs, they’re going to be in there at least the next several days.’

‘That’s only a best guess. Always better to strike while the iron is hot.’

Beside me I heard Casey Nice breathe in.

‘Not tonight,’ I said.

Bennett said, ‘Too soon?’

‘Do it once, and do it right.’

‘When, then?’

‘We’ll text you. We’ve got your number.’

Bennett locked up the bowling club’s door, and put the key back under the stone, and we walked back the way we had come, out of the small grit clearing into the narrow straight path, and then onward through the silent streets, and back to the pub, and around behind it, where the Vauxhall was waiting patiently, exactly where we had left it, untouched, and not even boxed in.

‘Where to?’ Bennett asked.

I said, ‘An all-night pharmacy.’

‘Why?’

‘We want to buy toothbrushes.’

‘And then?’

‘The hotel.’

‘I thought Americans had a work ethic.’

‘First light,’ I said. ‘Be ready and waiting. You’re going to drive us.’

‘Where?’

‘Wallace Court.’

‘Why?’

‘I want to stand on the back patio.’

Bennett said, ‘Wallace Court doesn’t matter. Not if we nail them before they leave the house.’

‘Hope for the best, plan for the worst. Could be the endgame is all in the last five minutes, just before they pull the triggers. We need to know the lie of the land. We need to triage those six hundred places. I’d like a top ten. At least a top fifty.’

‘Those streets are full of Romford Boys.’

‘I certainly hope so. I want to be seen, still here, still poking around. I want that message to get back to John Kott, double quick.’

‘Wouldn’t the opposite be better? You could take them by surprise.’

I nodded. ‘Surprise is good. But sometimes it’s better to unsettle them.’

‘They’re not the kind of people who get unsettled.’

‘Doesn’t take much to miss at sixteen hundred yards. A couple of beats per minute, maybe. He hates me because I sent him away. He hates himself because he let me break him down. There’s a couple of beats per minute in either one of those. Both of them together, then two and two make five. I want him to know I’m coming, because that’s the only way I’ll survive long enough to get there.’

He let us out in the Hilton’s carriage circle, and we went in, and he drove away, and we arranged to meet in the famous top-floor restaurant, twenty minutes from then. A late dinner, just the two of us. I knew she wanted to shower, so I did too, and we got to the maître d’ lectern about a yard apart. She looked good, which I figured was partly being resolute, and partly being twenty-eight years old, and therefore still full of energy and resilience and even a certain amount of optimism.

We got a square table near a window, where we got a spectacular high-floor view of the twinkling city, interrupted only by the black of the park. The window glass was also reflective enough to let us see most of the room behind us. Both picturesque and safe, all at once. A two-for-one deal. We ordered drinks, bottled water for her, black coffee for me. There was candlelight, and crystal, and a piano tinkling somewhere. She said, ‘This is very glamorous. It’s just like the movies.’

I said, ‘I guess it is.’

‘This is the scene where you try to get rid of me, isn’t it?’

‘Why would I do that?’

‘Because now it gets hard.’

‘Which would argue for maintaining numbers, not reducing them.’

‘But you’ll worry about me. You’ll look at me and you’ll see Dominique Kohl. That’s worth two beats a minute.’

‘Suppose I say I won’t worry about you?’

‘Then I’ll say you should. The only way to do this is to go through Little Joey first. Who will be difficult to go through. Who likes rough sex with new hookers. If you get captured, you’ll get a bullet in the head. If I get captured, I’ll be begging for one.’

‘Suppose neither one of us gets captured. That’s the more likely outcome. Joey needn’t be difficult to go through. He’s a big target. Lots of centre mass.’

‘With a driver and four guards in a Jaguar, everywhere he goes.’

‘Until we make them all unemployed. Then they’ll disappear. They won’t fight on for free.’

‘You really want me there?’

I didn’t answer. Dominique Kohl had asked: Will you let me make the arrest? Which was a question I wish I had answered differently. A waiter came over and took our order. I got a rib-eye steak. Nice got duck, and when the waiter left she asked again, ‘You really want me there?’

‘Not my decision,’ I said. ‘You’re the boss. Joan Scarangello told me so.’

‘I think the strategy is sound.’

‘Me too.’

‘But the execution will be complex.’

‘I’ll take all the help I can get.’

She said, ‘Suppose you had never picked up that newspaper? Where would you be now?’

‘Seattle, probably. Or the next place.’

‘And all of this would be happening without you. Do you think about that?’

‘Not really. Because I picked up the paper.’

‘Why did you call? Were you curious?’

‘Not really,’ I said again. ‘I knew O’Day would be involved. And I prefer not to be curious about his line of work.’

‘So why did you call?’

‘I owed Shoemaker a favour.’

‘From when?’

‘About twenty years ago.’

‘What kind of favour?’

‘He kept his mouth shut about something.’

‘Want to tell me?’

I said, ‘Personally, no.’

‘But?’

‘It could be argued the nature of the incident has a bearing on the mission. In which case you’re entitled to the information.’

‘Which is what?’

‘Long story short, I shot a guy trying to escape.’

‘Is that a bad thing?’

‘The trying to escape part was invented for the record. It was a routine execution. National security is a tricky thing. It’s all about public image. Therefore sometimes retribution is public, and sometimes it isn’t. Some traitors get arrests and trials, and some don’t. Some end up as tragic accidents, maybe shot to death by muggers, on street corners in weird parts of town.’