Lee Child: Personal

‘I’m sorry he died. But he did speak well of you.’

‘If Joe was here he’d tell me to run away from this thing as far and as fast as I can. There’s a clue in the title. Military, and intelligence. He knew Tom O’Day too.’

‘You don’t like O’Day, do you?’

‘I think someone should give him a medal and a bullet in the head and name a bridge after him.’

‘Maybe this wasn’t a good idea.’

‘I’m surprised he’s still in business.’

‘This kind of thing keeps him in business. Now more than ever. He’s front and centre.’

I said nothing.

Scarangello said, ‘We can’t make you stay.’

I shrugged.

‘I owe Rick Shoemaker a favour,’ I said. ‘I’ll stick around.’

Predictable.

SCARANGELLO LEFT AFTER that, leaving a faint perfumed scent in the air, and I took my shower and went to bed. O’Day liked to start every morning with a conference, and I planned to be there, right after breakfast. Which I couldn’t find. The dawn light showed we were stuck in a remote corner of Pope Field, which was vast. I figured I was a mile or more from the nearest mess hall. Maybe five miles. And my movements were restricted. Walking around Fort Bragg unauthorized wasn’t the smartest thing to do. Not under the current circumstances. Not under any circumstances, really.

So I headed back to the red door and found Casey Nice in a room with a table. The table was loaded with muffins and pastries on plates, and big catering boxes of coffee. Dunkin’ Donuts, not army issue. Private catering. Reforms. Anything to save a buck.

Casey Nice said, ‘Comfortable quarters?’

I said, ‘Better than sleeping in a hollow log.’

‘Is that what you normally do?’

‘Figure of speech,’ I said.

‘But you slept well?’

‘Terrific.’

‘Did you meet anyone last night?’

‘I met a woman named Joan Scarangello.’

‘Good.’

‘Who is she exactly?’

‘A deputy to the deputy director of operations.’

Which sounded junior, but wasn’t. In CIA-speak a D-DDO was part of a tiny circle at the very top. One of the three or four most plugged-in people on the planet. Her natural habitat would be a Langley office about eight times the size of my shipping container, probably with more phones on the desk than I had seen in my entire life. I said, ‘They’re really taking this seriously, aren’t they?’

‘They have to, don’t you think?’

I didn’t answer that, and then Scarangello herself came in. She nodded a greeting and took a muffin and a cup of coffee. Then she left again. I took two muffins and an empty cup and a whole box of coffee. I figured I could prop it on the edge of the conference table with the spigot facing towards me. Refills as and when required. Like an alcoholic behind a bar.

The morning conference was in a room next to O’Day’s upstairs office. Nothing fancy. Just four plain tables pushed together in a square, and eight chairs for the five of us. Shoemaker and O’Day and Scarangello were already in their places. Casey Nice sat down next to Scarangello and I chose a spot with an empty chair either side. I got the coffee set up and bit the head off a muffin.

Shoemaker went first. He was in fatigues again, with his star, which was not surprising, but his opening analysis was informed enough to suggest he might have been worth it, which was. He said, ‘The Polish government looks set to announce a snap election, and the Greeks too, probably. Which looks like democracy in action, but if you drill down into the European Union constitution you find a provision that allows heads-ofstate pow-wows to be postponed if two or more member states are at the polls. In other words, they’re running for the hills. The EU meeting ain’t going to happen. Which moves us on to the G8 in three weeks. Those plans are still intact. Which gives us both the time and the target.’

I took a breath to speak but O’Day shot out a lengthy arm, with his palm towards me, like he was telling a dog to stay, and he said, ‘You’re about to warn us we’re making a massive assumption here, and that the real target could be anything. Which is correct, but please understand we don’t care about any other target. If something else gets hit, we’ll be dancing jigs and reels. Until then, for operational purposes, we’re assuming an assassination attempt against a world leader is already a proven fact.’

I said, ‘I was going to ask who’s in the G8.’

Which must have been a dumb question, because they all started fidgeting and no one answered. Eventually Casey Nice said, ‘Ourselves and Canada, the UK and France, Germany and Italy, and Japan and Russia.’

I said, ‘Those aren’t the eight largest economies.’

‘They were once,’ Joan Scarangello said. ‘Some things get set in stone.’

‘So if this is personal or nationalist it could be any one of them. But if it’s some big terrorist statement, then with all due respect, it’s probably not Italy. I mean, who would notice? Those guys change every three weeks anyway. Or Canada. You wouldn’t recognize the guy if you saw him in the grocery store. Japan, the same. And France. The UK, too. Some posh boy goes face down, it’s not going to destabilize the world. Germany is possibly a slight problem.’

Scarangello nodded. ‘Europe’s largest economy, the region’s only fiscal grown-up, and a whole new psyche that absolutely depends on politicians not getting shot. Things could unravel. And rock bottom is a long way down in Germany.’

‘So it’s ourselves and Russia and Germany. Which is easy. Just keep those three guys under wraps. No fresh air for them. Let the other five walk about. Or send the vice presidents too, for the photo ops. Which could be spun. We’re so ballsy we’ll send both of them.’

O’Day nodded. ‘That’s Plan B, and it’s already drafted. Plan A is to find John Kott. And to hope that London and Moscow and Tel Aviv meet with similar success.’

‘Do we know anything about their guys?’

‘We know all about them. The Brit is an ex-SAS operator named Carson. In uniform he had more than fifty kills around the world, not that anyone will admit it, one of them at two thousand yards, documented and verified. The Russian is a guy called Datsev. His first instructor was at Stalingrad, which was a hard school. The Israeli is called Rozan. Best they ever saw with a fifty-calibre Barrett, which is really saying something, for the IDF.’

‘They all sound better than Kott.’

‘No, they sound about as good as. Fourteen hundred yards was nothing to Kott. Pure routine. Until you busted him, that is.’

‘You sound like you think I shouldn’t have.’

‘He was worth more to us than the grunt he killed.’

I said, ‘Where is the G8 meeting?’

‘London,’ O’Day said. ‘Technically just outside. A stately home, or an old castle. Something like that.’

‘Does it have a moat?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘Maybe they should start digging one.’

‘The idea is not to let it get that far.’

‘I can’t help you there anyway. My passport is expired.’

O’Day said, ‘You should speak to the State Department about that.’ Then he looked up, and Casey Nice put her hand under her jacket again, the same way she had when she showed me the embassy report, and she came out with a slim blue booklet, which she slid across to me. It was warm, like before.

It was a passport, with my name and my face in it, dated yesterday, good for ten years.

AFTER THE CONFERENCE ended, I was asked to go to Rick Shoemaker’s office, where he asked me to start detailed tactical planning for a trip to Arkansas. Which was ridiculous. Arkansas didn’t need detailed tactical planning. And it was the wrong direction. I said, ‘He’ll have stayed in Europe, surely. He’s probably already in London. If it’s him at all.’