Sam Bourne - The Final Reckoning

‘What happened? Where am I?’

‘It's a long story, Tom. Put it this way. We were in London, we needed you to take a little trip. And so we took it.’

The smugness of this man, his smooth, chatty manner and his studiedly relaxed hair, sent the rage thudding through Tom's arterial network; the veins on his neck began to throb. Without planning it, and despite the sluggishness of his limbs, he brought back his right arm and curled his fingers into a fist.

He got within six inches of Richard's face but no closer. The bodyguard, or whoever the other man was, simply lifted up a hand and caught Tom's arm as if it were a stray twig. He didn't merely block the punch, but pushed Tom's arm back, twisting it in its socket. Tom let out a yelp of pain.

‘No need for any of that, Tom. Now as it happens, we-’

‘What have you done with Rebecca? Where's Rebecca?’

‘Let me finish.’ The bodyguard was still holding onto Tom's arm, keeping it in a half-nelson behind his back. ‘As it happens, I was going to come and wake you anyway.’

‘Where's REBECCA?’

‘She's here. In this same city.’

Tom gasped his relief. Then: ‘What city? Where am I?’

‘Don't you know? I'd have thought you'd have worked it out. You've been fast asleep in the city that never sleeps.’ He paused. ‘No? You're in New York, Tom.’

New York? It made no sense. How could he have been in Starbucks in the West End and now be in New York? He didn't remember flying anywhere.

‘Who are you?’

Richard ignored the question. ‘I'm sorry we had to do it this way, Tom. But the boss will explain everything soon enough. And look.’ He lifted the travel bag he had been holding at his side and placed it on the bed. ‘I even have your clothes.’

A few minutes later, Tom was in a wheelchair, watching as nurses and orderlies busied past him. Any risk of him crying out was tempered by the presence at the wheelchair's handlebars of the bodyguard: Tom did not doubt that, were he to cry out, he would soon be silenced, by a fist if not by some stray item of medical equipment.

Richard hadn't been lying. All the voices and accents he heard confirmed this was, indeed, the United States.

He was wheeled into an elevator. Richard pressed the button for the basement. It took them to a service area, the plush carpets and furnishings now replaced by steel doors and grey concrete. He wondered, for the first time, if they were planning to do away with him here, to crush his body in some industrial waste machine.

In silence they wheeled him out through a pair of double doors; he felt a change of temperature. He was in a car park.

They went into a side bay, one marked by a disabled badge. There was the electronic squawk of car doors opened by remote control.

The meathead pushing the chair now tucked his hands into Tom's armpits and lifted him. In a single movement that was more efficient than brutal, Tom was loaded onto the back seat of an empty car. Richard stepped into the passenger seat, the bodyguard took the wheel and fired up the ignition, letting the engine idle. Richard turned around and with a smile that renewed in Tom the urge to punch his lights out, he said, ‘We're just waiting for one more and we'll be on our way.’

How had he let himself get into this position? Somehow he had been so careless, so lacking in basic vigilance that he had allowed himself to become a helpless prisoner in the hands of… whoever the fuck these people were. That was the worst of it: he had no idea who was holding him or why. All those years detailing the human rights abuses of this regime or that tinpot dictator, compiling reports on ‘the disappeared’ of Latin America or Africa and look at him: he had learned nothing. He had made himself a victim.

Now there was a clunk and the opening of the passenger door opposite. He looked up and felt his heart squeeze.

He studied her face closely. In the dull twilight of a locked car in an underground car park, it was almost impossible to discern anything but an outline. To make sure she was really there he touched her, running his fingers gently over her skin, her cheekbones, her chin.

‘Are you, OK? Did they hurt you?’ ‘I'm fine,’ Rebecca said. ‘Woozy, bit nauseous, exhausted. Like being a junior doctor really.’ She smiled weakly, sending a stab of pain through him that felt very close to love.

Now the car took off, emerging up an exit ramp and into the daylight. Their captors had not been lying. They were in New York. It took him a while to realize it, but Tom was back on the very street he had driven down hours before he had left for London. There was the Bellevue Medical Center and there, still open for business, was the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, where – how long ago? – he had gazed upon the staring, blue-eyed corpse of Gershon Matzkin.

They were driving in the opposite direction from his last journey, heading north up First Avenue. A sensation that was part bafflement, part dread began to rise inside him. They were travelling towards the United Nations.

A picture of Henning Munchau floated into Tom's head. Could this really be his handiwork? What terrible secret could he, or those he served, harbour that he would do this – and to one of his oldest friends? It seemed so idiotic. Didn't Henning realize that he would simply have had to say the word – ordering rather than suggesting Tom's return – and Tom would have jumped on a plane back to New York? Instead he had gone to these extreme lengths. Tom looked over at Rebecca, absorbing the sight of her in profile, a corkscrew curl of hair tucked behind one ear. Unless, it was not Tom that Henning had needed to get to New York…

They were descending again, down another slope into an underground car park. Damn. He hadn't been paying attention at the crucial moment: he didn't know precisely where they were.

Once more they parked up by an elevator shaft. This time there were no wheelchairs. Richard and the bodyguard simply guided Tom and Rebecca into the lift, flanking them to prevent escape. Saying nothing, Richard pressed the button. The top floor, Tom noticed.

The lift doors opened and now he understood: they were in a hotel, on what, he guessed, was the penthouse level. They walked down a corridor until they reached a door where two young men in dark blue suits, curled wires in their ears, stood as sentries on either side. Richard gave each of them a nod and the door was opened.

Inside was the sitting room of a suite, clearly one of the best in the building. Tom had seen hotel rooms like this only a couple of times, travelling with the UN high command. In his memory, they were always strewn with piles of paper, the odd, hastily installed fax machine and several uncleared trays of room service food. These quarters, he noted, had much less clutter.

He and Rebecca were invited to sit down and they did so in silence. Rebellion was wholly pointless, he reasoned: they would soon meet the ‘boss’ Richard had mentioned.

Finally, another young man entered the room, darting only a quick glance in their direction: Tom guessed he saw something in his expression, a reluctance, perhaps even an embarrassment. Richard and this man exchanged a few words. Tom strained to hear what they were saying, even to hear what language they were speaking. He couldn't make it out; he wasn't sure he recognized it at all.

The minutes went past, Rebecca occasionally turning out her palms as if to say ‘What the hell is going on?’ All he could do was shrug.

And then there was the sound of shuffling on the other side of the dark wood door. Someone had arrived. The flurry of activity, the pulse of adrenalin passing through the room, told Tom it was someone important. The boss.