Sam Bourne - The Final Reckoning

‘I admit, I am taking an enormous risk here. Some think I'm being reckless.’ He gestured in the vague direction of the door, which Tom took to indicate the clutch of young aides milling about in the other room. ‘People say that I have been cautious throughout my career. “Cautious” is the kind word. One of my biographers preferred “cowardly”. “The boldness of his rhetoric has always been in inverse proportion to the courage of his actions. In a nation of warriors, his great misfortune was to have been born a coward.” That's the full quote.’

Tom looked over at Rebecca, hoping that she might be able to make sense of this bizarre scene. But she was simply staring intently at the President, as if waiting for him to explain himself.

And then he remembered it, Munchau's list, the list Tom had asked him to compile of all visitors to this week's UN General Assembly over the age of seventy. Tom had waved aside the mention of the Chinese interpreter and the foreign minister of the Ivory Coast. And he had not given it a second thought when Henning had said, ‘Well, the President of the State of Israel is here. He's eighty-four.’

Henning. Tom brought his hand to his head, a flush of shame passing through him. He had succumbed to the crudest of stereotypes, blaming his old friend – the man who had given Tom second, third and fourth chances when he had cracked up and when the rest of his colleagues had written him off – and he had been just as crudely wrong. Henning was German so Tom had decided he must be doing the work of the Nazis, even if that meant sending thugs to bug and burgle their way across London. He would never be able to look Henning Munchau in the eye again.

The President had come forward now, away from the picture window. He stepped past the couch and pulled over a plain, straight-backed wooden chair, its cushion covered in chintzy red and white stripes. Once he was seated, Tom drew breath: it was an image familiar from a hundred photographs on the foreign news pages. All that was missing was a matching chair directly opposite, seating an American secretary of state or pro-Western Arab leader. Tom was all but waiting for the old man to reach across and perform a sustained handshake for the cameras.

‘But people misjudge me. I was always cautious in that I always made a calculation. Before every move I ever made. Sometimes the calculation called for boldness or bravery. Even recklessness. This meeting comes into that category.’

‘You keep calling this a meeting.’ It was, to Tom's delight and relief, his own voice. The fury that had been coursing through his bloodstream had, with no decision on his part, finally burst out. He was glad of it. ‘But you abducted us to bring us here. You drugged us and restrained us with force. This is not a meeting. This is a crime.’

‘As I said, Mr Byrne. It is high risk. But I hope you'll soon see why I had to take it. Like a lot of actions taken by my country, and misunderstood by the rest of the world, this is a case where we have performed one regrettable deed in order to avoid having to do much worse.’

‘Regrettable? Regrettable? What you've done-’

‘Mr Byrne,’ the President said, deploying a single index finger pointed upward. Somehow, Tom could not have explained why, it worked; it silenced him, the way a politician's raised palm can silence a hostile interviewer. ‘Please let me explain. There is something I need to know. To be more precise, there's something I need to know if you know. The simplest method – and there are people who would have done this without hesitation – would have been to send in men who could have asked you in a fashion designed to make you tell them. Do I make myself clear?’ He did not wait for an answer. ‘“Coercive interrogation” the Americans call it. I've no idea what term of art our intelligence use these days. I've been away from such things, from the front line so to speak, for too long. This is a ceremonial post I have now. Lighting the Chanukah candles, handing out prizes, funerals of world leaders younger than I am.’ That wistful look again. ‘I had to call in a favour just to get this operation done. They did it for old times’ sake.

‘Anyway, the point is there were shortcuts that could have been taken to find out what you know. We could have asked directly and not in a nice way. But I wouldn't do that. Not to a daughter of the Shoah.’ And for the first time he looked properly at Rebecca.

Tom could see that she was meeting his gaze and holding it. Was it possible that she knew what the old man was talking about?

She spoke. ‘You did this to be kind? Is that what you're saying?’

‘I apologize, Dr Merton. To you especially. Of course I don't expect you to see what I have done as a kindness. Just as no one credits Israel with gentleness when our soldiers go into some vipers’ nest looking for terrorists on foot, searching house to house, opening one booby-trapped door after another and losing dozens of our boys in the process – when the Americans, or the Brits for that matter, Mr Byrne, prefer to drop bombs from fifteen thousand feet. That's how it's done in Iraq or Afghanistan, isn't it? So much cleaner than our way.

‘So, no, Dr Merton. I don't expect thanks. But I want you to know that the distress you've experienced these last few days was because I refused even to consider the alternative. I chose the lesser of two evils.’

‘You killed a man. You killed one of my father's friends. Henry Goldman is dead because of you.’

The President dipped his head. ‘I have to apologize to you again. This was never meant to happen. It was a terrible accident. You're a doctor. I hear you came across the body. I hope you examined it. I hope you saw that Henry Goldman died of natural causes. From heart failure.’

‘Caused by you!’

‘He had a weak heart and he suffered a great fright. But he was not meant to die. He too, remember, was a son of the Shoah. I never meant him to come to harm.’

Tom wondered if this was just politician's theatrics. If it was, it was very good. But he had seen his fair share of diplomatic and high-level bullshit and this seemed different. In the President's eyes he believed he saw something different: an old man's sadness.

‘I don't know how I can make amends for this tragedy. But I want to. And it was after his death that I decided enough was enough. It was time for me to be candid. No more games. We would have to meet face to face.’

Tom's blood began to bubble once more. ‘So you thought you'd drug us-’

The President raised his voice. ‘What else was I meant to do? There was no way to make contact without exposing myself. No other way of ensuring we met face to face. And this is how it had to be done. You'll soon see. You'll understand the calculation I made.’

‘But we'll go straight out of this room and tell any reporter who'll listen what you've done. You'll be finished.’

‘Of course I weighed up that risk. I concluded that it was not as great as you suggest. You see, what evidence would you have?’

Tom hesitated, his mind scrolling back through the events of the last – he didn't even know how many hours. He thought back to Starbucks, the meeting with Richard. Any witnesses would only have seen Rebecca and him leave voluntarily, still standing. The drug Richard had slipped into their drinks had made them pliable and obedient. There had been no scene: they had got into his car of their own free will.

And then what? Tom had nothing to show for the events that followed. Not the surgical scrubs, not so much as a tag from the hospital. How would he prove he had been there?

Which is when it struck him. With excitement, his voice rising, he all but exclaimed it. ‘But we're in New York! And there'll be no record of how we got here! How will you explain that? No boarding pass, no stamp on our passports?’ He was aware of speaking too loudly.