Michael Robotham - The Wreckage

“You want me to spot you?” asks Ruiz.

“I’m good.”

“Suit yourself.”

Vorland does another four reps and drops the weight bar into the cradle.

“You didn’t return my call.”

“So you came looking.”

“I couldn’t wait.”

Vorland wipes sweat from his eyes. “How did you find me?”

“You’re a creature of habit.”

“Maybe I didn’t want to get back to you.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“That number you wanted me to run-the dark blue Audi-drew a blank.”

“It’s unregistered?”

“No.”

“I don’t understand.”

“There’s a lock on the information. I don’t have the security clearance.”

“There’s hardly anyone above you.”

“There’s always someone with a higher clearance.”

Vorland drapes the towel around his neck. “So I rang a mate of mine who works for Special Branch. I asked him if they were running an op in Hammersmith this morning.”

“What did he say?”

“He told me he couldn’t talk. Then he told me not to call him again. About an hour later I had a visit from a grey suit. Said he was from the police complaints commission. He wanted to know why I was accessing the DVLA computer. I said I was following up a tip-off. He wanted to know the details.”

“What did you tell him?”

“The truth. I told him your house got broken into and you wanted to know if it was a special ops-MI5 or MI6.”

“Did he react?”

“No.”

“So what do you think?”

“I think you should tread softly on this one.”

“I’m very light on my feet.”

“I’m being serious, Vincent. Don’t cross these people. I’ve seen how they operate. In South Africa, during the independence struggle, they simply made people disappear-and I’m not talking about the blacks. They were targeting the white journalists, sympathetic judges, social workers, doctors… You don’t just lose a career if you cross these guys.”

“That was South Africa.”

“You remember Nick Maher?”

“Yeah.”

“He worked undercover for SOCA investigating people-smuggling. He arrested one of the ringleaders, had him bang to rights, but MI5 came in and said the guy was one of their informants, so this guy walked. Maher decided to leak the story. Big spread in the Sunday Times, an Insight Team investigation.”

“What happened?”

“A month later someone found a kilo of heroin in Maher’s garden shed and sixty grand in his wife’s bank account. Nick denied any knowledge. Two weeks later he jumped in front of a train at Clapham Junction.”

Ruiz and Vorland look at each other, something knowing and sad in both their eyes.

“Don’t contact me again,” says Vorland. “Not for a long while…”

From an office overlooking Tower Bridge, above the grey, grey river, the only signs of vegetation are smudges of green between the buildings. Brendan Sobel looks at his wristwatch and then at the row of whisky glasses gleaming on the shelf above the drinks cabinet.

It’s too late for lunch, too early for sundowners. In Washington it is mid-morning. They’ll have finished their egg white omelets and skinny lattes, ready to make decisions about current wars and future conflicts, discussing “ops,” “intel” and “assets.”

They must be drinking somewhere in the world, thinks Sobel. What time is it in Australia? Aussies like a drink. He pours two fingers of bourbon and drops in a handful of melting ice. Why can’t the Brits make a decent ice-cube? How difficult is it to freeze water? Their pipes freeze all the time.

His secretary appears in the doorway, head to the side, noticing the glass in his hand. Sobel feels a pulse of embarrassment. Anita is twenty-four, fresh out of training, too young for him, but keen to learn the ropes.

“Mr. Chalcott is on line two.”

“Thank you, Anita.”

Sobel watches her calves as she leaves, wondering if she’s wearing tights. Women don’t wear stockings any more-not unless they’re hookers or getting married.

“Artie.”

“How’s Blighty?”

“Small and soggy.”

Arthur Chalcott chuckles with all the sincerity of a salesman. “Andy tells me we’re close.”

“There have been a few small complications.”

“Complications?”

“We tried to pick up the girl, but we missed her.”

“That sounds like a fuck-up, not a complication.”

“We’re searching for her.”

“You’ve lost contact.”

“For the moment.”

Chalcott grinds his teeth. “Who did you send to get her?”

“A freelance team.”

“Limeys.”

“They’ve done the job before.”

Sobel takes a sip of bourbon and pictures Chalcott in the bunker, sitting on his inflatable ball. The two of them were interns together. Old buddies. One was promoted faster than the other. Understood the politics.

Chalcott was a desk jockey who talked like a veteran despite serving only six months in the field-South America; a summer in La Paz, sipping sangrias and sleeping with cheap whores. Agents like him prefer to refashion their own history, making it sound like they served in Iraq or Afghanistan.

“OK, so let’s be clear on this-you’ve lost Richard North and now you’ve lost the girl. Does she know anything?”

“Ibrahim believes so.”

“How are you playing it?”

“I need clearance to pay twenty-five thousand.”

“Dollars or pounds?”

“Pounds.”

“Recoverable?”

“That’s the plan.”

Chalcott is silent for a time. Sobel thinks the line has gone dead.

“You there, Artie?”

“I’m here.”

“We might have to involve MI6 on this one. You want me to liaise?”

“Say nothing about the main game.”

“What do I tell them?”

“Tell them the girl has compromised one of our people-a married man. Stolen something of value. We’re trying to be discreet.”

Sobel thinks about the three men who stormed the house in Hammersmith. It was hardly discreet.

The call ends and he pours himself another drink, thinking about Kansas. Home has never seemed further away or felt less like home. He has been away too long, moving from one conflict to the next. The true America has become harder to identify.

He remembers a rendition prison in Afghanistan. A Taliban leader he interrogated for three days-sensory deprivation, waterboarding, stress positions-until he broke. Cried. Scratched at his face in shame.

“I weep for my land,” he said, “but mostly I weep for yours.”

Rowan has stopped crying. His injured finger, wrapped in a sticking plaster, is held aloft so that everyone at the bus stop can see how brave he is. Then he imagines that his bandage is a new top secret Spiderman weapon. He aims it at an elderly gentleman who is crossing the road.

“Pchoong!”

Then he mows down a group of pre-school children who are walking in single file along the pavement.

“Perhaps you shouldn’t shoot any more people,” says Elizabeth. “It’s not very polite.”

“What should I do?”

“Say hello.”

Rowan looks at his bandaged finger and back to his mother. Then he turns to different people at the bus stop and says hello. They smile at him, wondering about the odd little boy dressed as Spiderman.

Elizabeth has a dozen messages on her mobile, none of them from her husband. Family and friends have rallied around her since North disappeared, which is why the fridge is full of casseroles and cakes. Why do people assume she wants to eat?

The bus pulls up. Elizabeth makes no attempt to get on. Rowan tugs at her hand. “Come on, Mummy.”