Sam Bourne - The Final Reckoning

Instantly, Rebecca hammered out a reply: Of my father's?

It took perhaps thirty seconds but then Facebook announced a new message had landed. She clicked it open. I never had the privilege of knowing your father. But I knew his work.

She turned to Tom. ‘What the hell does that mean, his “work”? My father was a dry cleaner.’ She pounded the keyboard. What ‘work’ do you have in mind?

The reply came back in a matter of seconds. I am an admirer of DIN. Rebecca looked back at Tom, hesitating. ‘What do you think we should do, Tom?’

Again, that ‘we’ sent a thrill through him. He wanted to hold her, to stroke her, to spend hour after hour meeting the gaze that seemed to see him so clearly. It required a great effort to bring himself back. ‘I think we should meet him,’ he said. ‘Somewhere public, somewhere safe.’ Tom glanced over at the man at the end of the row, squinting to make out what was on his screen: he appeared to be immersed in some kind of gothic video game.

Rebecca was typing again, breaking off for a moment to check her watch. I'll be in Starbucks, Portland Place at 6pm.

‘Say you'll be with me. As protection.’

We'll be in Starbucks, Portland Place at 6pm.

‘Here.’ Tom leaned over and started pressing the keys himself. Rebecca did not pull back. Tom had the sense she was breathing in the smell of him. ‘Best not be subtle.’

I'll be with a friend: he's helping me.

Then, as an afterthought, Rebecca typed five more words: How will I recognize you?

The reply took only a few seconds to come back.

Don't worry about that: I'll recognize you.

It was Tom's idea to be early. You always had an advantage in any negotiation if you owned the room: that's why, back at the UN, there was such an elaborate protocol over where colleagues would meet, even for the most mundane exchange. Standard practice was for the official on the lower grade to travel, as if in supplication, to his superior. If you were in the latter position you got to rock back on your own swivel chair, to fiddle with your own pencils and rubber bands and act like the wolf in his lair. Meanwhile the other guy had to operate from a stiff-backed chair, ideally one that had been chosen precisely because it was lower than yours.

This was neutral territory, a café in the middle of a busy street. But by being here ten minutes early, Rebecca and he could simulate the office politics of UN Plaza, if only a little bit. Tom scanned the place looking for the cosy armchairs that had originally made Starbucks' name, back in those distant days of the early 1990s when the hand-written blackboard signage and pierced noses of the baristas deluded people into thinking the cafés were vaguely alternative, even grungy – what with the Seattle connection and all – rather than a corporate chain bent on global domination. The Tom of the last couple of years would doubtless admire the capitalist ingenuity of it all. But today he couldn't help but lament the sardine economics that provided only a couple of soft chairs, using the rest of the floor space to cram in ever more punters.

‘There,’ he said pointing at a round wooden table which could just about accommodate three people. It would be awkwardly intimate, even claustrophobic, but it did have the advantage of ensuring that they could talk with this ‘Richard’ quietly. If they were being followed, any eavesdropper would struggle to hear the conversation. That the place was so full had its advantages.

Now that the territory was marked as theirs – jackets hooked over backs of chairs, Rebecca's bag firmly planted on the table – Tom dug into his pockets for some change. ‘So what will it be, mademoiselle?’

Rebecca managed a taut smile. She clearly dreaded what they were about to hear. Speculation was one thing. But to hear finally and irrevocably the nature of the quagmire they had waded into, to hear spelled out exactly what her father had done – as ‘Richard’ had promised they would – well, that that was much more frightening. It suggested finality.

Tom went over to the counter to order a cappuccino and a latte, hesitating when asked whether he wanted venti or grande. He handed over the money to the button-nosed, blue-eyed blonde: Polish or Lithuanian or Slovenian, he couldn't tell; maybe even Latvian.

While he waited for them to pour, scoop, froth and steam the concoctions, he looked over at Rebecca, now gazing into middle distance. If he had found these last few days inflicting a fatigue he had not experienced outside a war zone, how much more exhausted must she have been. She had lost her father, in every sense. Each day, each hour, she had had to assimilate some new, more astonishing aspect of his story. The latest addition had been her own father's readiness to commit mass murder, to take the lives of God knows how many hundreds of thousands of Germans without discrimination, at random. And yet, as he gazed at Rebecca now – on the phone, no doubt checking in once again with the hospital – he had to marvel at her resilience, marching forward as if there was no time to rest, as if she would bind her wounds only later when the battle was over. He realized that he felt for her a sentiment that, painful to admit, he had rarely felt for a woman. Not just desire or affection or even love, but deep admiration.

Maybe she sensed his eyes on her. She came over to the counter, even though she didn't need to, and he was about to open his arms to her, or smile, when the girl announced that his drinks were ready, gesturing him towards the elliptical side table where they placed the coffees once brewed. He picked up the two oversized mugs and had turned back to Rebecca when he saw a man standing directly in front of her, his eyes wide in greeting.

‘Rebecca Merton?’ He stuck out a hand. ‘It's Richard.’

He was, Tom would have guessed, a couple of years older than her and several years younger than him. His brown hair was longish, almost tousled, even though he was wearing a suit. He looked healthy, as if he worked out.

He turned to Tom. ‘Where are you sitting?’

Tom paused, uncertain what tone to adopt. Eventually, and with his hands full with coffee, he used his head to indicate, twisting a look over his right shoulder and saying ‘Just there.’

‘Great. I'll just get a drink and join you.’

They took their seats, Tom furrowing his forehead into a question for Rebecca. She shrugged, as if to say, ‘I don't know. Not what I expected.’ They sipped their coffee and waited, the hot liquid that slid down Tom's throat a comfort.

‘Thanks for meeting me here,’ the man said once he had come back with a mug of his own, tucking his chair tight under the table to ensure no one had to shout to be heard. ‘And at such short notice.’

Rebecca said nothing. She brought the mug up to her lips and drank her coffee. Tom could see it was a stalling tactic: force this man to talk.

‘And I'm sorry about the whole Facebook thing. I just couldn't see any other way to get in touch with you.’

‘That's OK.’ She smiled. Tom was surprised by that; it seemed oddly eager to please. Don't reward him too early: he hasn't given us anything yet.

Tom extended a hand. ‘Tom Byrne.’ He shot a look over at Rebecca, checking that she was not about to take a lead. She seemed happy for him to do it. Hadn't this, after all, been their deal, that he would navigate through what was, for her, the alien territory of negotiations and information trading?

‘So you say you know what's going on with all this mess?’ He had vowed not to sound aggressive and he was pleased with the result: the question had come out casual rather than rude.