Lee Child: Personal

I said, ‘He claims they’re reading your signals.’

She said, ‘We know.’

‘Are they?’

‘They think so.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘We built a new system, in secret. It’s hidden in routine data from weather satellites. That’s where we talk. But we kept the old system going. That’s what they’re reading. We fill it with all kinds of junk.’

I said nothing.

She said, ‘We don’t rule the world by being dumb.’

And she walked away, in her good shoes and her dark nylons, and her black skirt suit, with her briefcase swinging, and I watched her for thirty yards, which was no kind of a hardship, because it all worked well together, especially the nylons and the skirt, and then she stepped out of the last pool of light and the darkness swallowed her up. I heard her heels a minute more, and then Casey Nice pushed the red door open and stepped inside.

The buffet room was empty. No pastries, no coffee. All cleared away, at the end of the day, pending new deliveries in the morning. We walked upstairs, fast and easy on the standard dimensions. Shoemaker’s office was empty. The conference room was empty. But O’Day had his light on.

He was at his desk, in his blazer, with the sweater under it. He was leaning forward, on his elbows, reading. His head was down, and he looked up at us without moving it.

He said, ‘We’ll do the debrief in the morning.’

We waited.

He said, ‘I have one preliminary question, however. Why did you fly back with the RAF? Our own plane was standing by.’

I sat down, on the navy-issue chair. Casey Nice sat down next to me. I said, ‘Do we get to ask a preliminary question?’

‘I suppose a fair exchange is no robbery.’

‘We flew back with the RAF just for the fun of it. We wanted to see how the other half lives.’

‘Is that all?’

‘We wanted to make Bennett work for what he was getting.’

I saw him relax.

I said, ‘Our question is, why can’t either the NSA or GCHQ see the money?’

I saw him unrelax.

He didn’t answer.

I said, ‘It was a year of Kott’s rent, and his living expenses, and his fee, and the rifle itself, and all that practice ammunition, and the neighbour, and the private jet to Paris, and whatever the Vietnamese cost, and the two gangs in London, and presumably some kind of homeward transportation. That’s not tens of millions of dollars, but it’s more than nine-eleven cost. Therefore I’m sure their computers wouldn’t ignore it. And they’re smart people. And motivated, because whatever happens, they’ll get blamed too. Because everything starts with money. So why can’t they see it?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Because it was never there.’

‘It had to be there. No money, no operation.’

‘Exactly. There was no operation.’

‘Did you get hit in the head? You were just in the operation. You just found Kott three miles from the scene.’

I said, ‘The first bullet was supposed to break the glass. The second bullet was supposed to kill the guy. But there was no second bullet.’

‘Because the glass didn’t break.’

‘But that didn’t matter. You’re not thinking like the second bullet. The glass breaking or not breaking was a future event. You saw the video from Paris. How long was it between the bullet hitting the screen and the security guys getting to the president?’

O’Day said, ‘A couple of seconds. They were very good.’

‘Now think about the range. Three-quarters of a mile. The bullet is in the air three whole seconds. Which means you can’t wait. Because what happens if you do? You pull the trigger, you wait three whole seconds, and wow, the glass breaks, so you pull the trigger again, and you wait three more seconds, and the new bullet arrives. But by then the president is buried under secret service agents. You missed your chance. The only way to get the guy is to make the second bullet chase the first bullet through the air. It has to follow on, about half a second later. So both bullets are flying together, one after the other. In fact they travel together for more than two whole seconds before the first bullet even arrives at the glass. Whereupon the second bullet passes through the newly airborne debris and hits the president before anyone has time to react, including the president himself, who is after all closest.’

O’Day said nothing.

‘Or alternatively if the glass doesn’t break, then the second bullet hits it too, half a second later, and the scientists get two little chips to look at, not one.’

O’Day said nothing.

‘There never was a second bullet. There was never going to be a second bullet. Someone sent Kott to Paris to fire one single round. At a bulletproof shield. Which was pointless. The glass either breaks or it doesn’t, but if it does, then the bullet that breaks it will always shatter or deflect and be of no further use. You fire either two bullets or zero bullets. The only way you fire one bullet is if you know for sure the shield will work.’

O’Day said, ‘The manufacturer? Like an advertisement?’

I said, ‘Like a type of advertisement, I guess. But not for the manufacturer, necessarily. Who else benefited? You need to look back through your notes and check who came up with the audition idea.’

‘Does it matter who?’

‘Suppose you’re running an agency somewhere. You need a way to raise your profile. You happen to know for sure the new glass works. Right there you’ve got a cost-free method of putting yourself front and centre. Kott fires his single round, the glass holds, you start the audition stampede, and suddenly you’re the alpha dog in the world’s biggest manhunt, with world leaders kissing your ass. How many agency heads would go that far?’

‘Seriously? They’d all want to. But not many would trust themselves. A handful, perhaps, around the world.’

‘So let’s narrow it down. Who can move slush fund money for unacknowledged assets like Kott, without the NSA or GCHQ seeing it?’

‘That doesn’t narrow it down. Everyone can do that.’

‘Whose profile was most in need of a raise?’

‘By what objective measure? Wouldn’t that be a personal perception?’

‘Who knew the glass would work?’

‘Anyone who witnessed the tests.’

I said, ‘We’re not narrowing it down much, are we?’

He said, ‘Not much.’

‘Who knew John Kott?’

He paused a beat, and said, ‘He might have been on a number of radars.’

‘Sixteen years ago.’

He didn’t answer.

I asked, ‘How many agency heads are still in place sixteen years later?’

He didn’t answer.

I said, ‘Maybe we should add that in, as a dispositive factor. As another box to check. Which agency head still in place sixteen years later had a need to raise his profile and knew the glass would work and had a slush fund and knew John Kott?’

O’Day said nothing.

‘We could discuss it point by point, if you like. Your profile was so low they were sending you to watch glass get tested. The great O’Day, humiliated. It was a hint, obviously. They wanted you to retire. Everyone knew. Even Khenkin, in Moscow. The SVR had you down as an old warhorse, put out to pasture. But you saw a way back. You knew Kott was about to get out. You’d been watching him. Maybe he worked for you, sixteen years ago. Maybe you were just as pissed at me as he was. So you made him an offer. If he goes to Paris and fires a single pointless round, then you’ll promise him that sooner or later you’ll serve me up on a platter, somewhere in the open air, within range.’

O’Day said nothing.

I said, ‘I was the only target. Me personally. Not the G8 or the EU or the G20. That was all window dressing.’