Lee Child: Personal

O’Day said, ‘Bullshit.’

I said, ‘To keep him horny you feed him the bad parts of my file. He gets in quite a state. Good for the local economy. Whoever had the Xerox franchise had a pretty good year. Then finally you fly him out. He does the deed. You ramp up the audition talk. You’re the big dog now. You tell Kott to hang tight. You tell him the ad is in the paper. And you find me fast. Kott is very pleased about that. You send me to Paris. You know for sure I’ll be on that balcony, and you know approximately when. You called ahead. You set up the visit. You agreed the itinerary. So Kott gets his shot, but he misses.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘So the circus rolls on to London. My phone has GPS in it. You know where I am. You’re going to lead Kott to me. You’re talking to him all the time. He has a phone just like mine. You know we’ll check Wallace Court. But Ms Nice doesn’t tell you beforehand. Suddenly you see my GPS right there, but you can’t move Kott in time. Insufficient warning. But never mind. Tomorrow is another day. And meanwhile you’re king of the world. The politicians are panicking. They’ll do anything for you. You have IOUs everywhere. All kinds of inconveniences are disappearing, all around the world. Even the London cops love you. Now they won’t let you retire. Because you win both ways. If Kott gets me, you instantly sell him out to Bennett, and you’ve saved the world from behind the scenes. If I get Kott, you’ve saved the world by audacious use of unacknowledged assets. Either way you’re a star again. You’re back in the textbooks.’

O’Day said nothing.

I said, ‘You gave the money to the neighbour. How else would you know he’s missing a tooth?’

No response.

‘Someone else knows,’ I said. ‘The three most dangerous words in the secrecy business. But there it is. I know, and Ms Nice knows. Which is why we came back with the RAF. Because where would your plane have landed? Guantanamo, maybe. But it didn’t, and we’re back in America, free and clear. And we know. I’m sure you could crush Ms Nice’s career, but you’ll never find me. I’ll always be out there. And you know me, general. You’ve known me a long time. I don’t forgive, and I don’t forget. And I won’t have to do much. Talking might be enough. Suppose the SVR found out it was you who got Khenkin killed? Some of those IOUs might get cancelled. And they might retaliate. Rumours might start, about poor old Tom O’Day, who got so desperate he came up with a cockamamie scheme. Think of all those rookies laughing up their sleeves. All around the world. The whole community. That could be your legacy. It’s a possibility, anyway. You’ll have to live with it, I’m afraid. Or not. But don’t think about ignoring it. It’s you and me now, general. This thing won’t have a happy ending.’

I got up and put the Browning that Charlie White was going to kill me with on O’Day’s desk, and then I followed Casey Nice out of the room, and down the stairs, and through the red door, and out into the night.

She drove me in the hideous Bronco, three miles to a crossroads, where I could get a night bus. We didn’t talk. She stopped but couldn’t get out, because she had to keep her foot on the brake, so we repeated the same chaste hug we had in London. I asked her to say goodbye for me, to Shoemaker, and I got out and walked to the concrete bench, and watched her wave and drive away, and then I lay down and watched the stars, until I heard the bus come close.

I went places I don’t remember, but I know a month later I was in Texas, on a bus passing close to Fort Hood, where a man in uniform left an Army Times behind. O’Day’s face was on the front. His obituary was inside. It contained corrections to earlier reports. The discharge had been accidental. He had been examining an unfamiliar weapon captured in Europe. Possibly the late hour explained the mistake. There was no truth in the rumour that a Royal Air Force plane had landed minutes earlier. O’Day was to be awarded three more medals posthumously, and a bridge was to be named after him, on a North Carolina state route, over a narrow stream that most of the year was dry.

Lee Childis one of the world’s leading thriller writers. It is said that one of his novels featuring his hero Jack Reacher is sold somewhere in the world every twenty seconds. His books consistently achieve the number-one slot in hardback and paperback on bestseller lists on both sides of the Atlantic, and are translated into over forty languages. He is the recipient of many prizes, most recently the CWA’s Diamond Dagger for a writer of an outstanding body of crime fiction.

All his thrillers have been optioned for major motion pictures, the first of which, Jack Reacher , was based on the novel One Shot.

He was born in Coventry, brought up in Birmingham, and now lives in New York.

KILLING FLOOR

DIE TRYING

TRIPWIRE

THE VISITOR

ECHO BURNING

WITHOUT FAIL

PERSUADER

THE ENEMY

ONE SHOT

THE HARD WAY

BAD LUCK AND TROUBLE

NOTHING TO LOSE

GONE TOMORROW

61 HOURS

WORTH DYING FOR

THE AFFAIR

A WANTED MAN

NEVER GO BACK

For more information on Lee Child and his books, see his website at www.leechild.com

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PERSONAL

A BANTAM PRESS BOOK: 9780593073827

Version 1.0 Epub ISBN: 9781473508774

First publication in Great Britain

Bantam Press edition published 2014

Copyright © Lee Child 2014

Lee Child has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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