by Lee Child
The sixty minute deadline came and went and I got no staffers and no campaign workers, neither young nor old. Instead I got Sansom’s wife, and his head of security. Ten minutes after the hour was up, I saw a mismatched couple climb out of a Town Car and pause at the foot of the steps and look around. I recognized the woman from the pictures in Sansom’s hook. In person she looked exactly like a millionaire’s wife should. She had expensive salon hair and good bones and a lot of tone and was probably two inches taller than her husband. Four, in heels. The guy with her looked like a Delta veteran in a suit. He was small, but hard and wiry and tough. The same physical type as Sansom himself, hut rougher than Sansom had looked in his photographs. His suit was conservatively tailored out of good material, but he had it all hunched and creased like well-worn battledress.
The two of them stood together and glanced around at the people in the vicinity and eliminated one possibility after another. When I was all that was left I raised a hand in greeting. I didn’t stand. I figured they would walk up and stop below me, so if I stood I would be looking about three feet over their heads. Less threatening to stay seated. More conducive to conversation. And more practical, in terms of energy expenditure. I was tired.
They came up towards me, Mrs Sansom in good shoes, taking precise delicate steps, and the Delta guy pacing himself alongside her. They stopped two levels below me and introduced themselves. Mrs Sansom called herself Elspeth, and the guy called himself Browning, and said it was spelled like the automatic rifle, which I guessed was supposed to put it in some kind of a menacing context. He was news to me. He wasn’t in Sansom’s book. He went on to list his whole pedigree, which started out with military service at Sansom’s side, and went on to include civilian service as head of security during Sansom’s business years, and then head of security during Sansom’s House terms, and was projected to include the same kind of duty during Sansom’s Senate terms and beyond. The whole presentation was about loyalty. The wife, and the faithful retainer. I guessed I was supposed to be in no doubt at all about where their interests lay. Overkill, possibly. Although I felt that sending the wife from the get-go was a smart move, politically. Most scandals go sour when a guy is dealing with something his wife doesn’t know about. Putting her in the loop from the start was a statement.
She said, ‘We’ve won plenty of elections so far and we’re going to win plenty more. People have tried what you’re trying a dozen times. They didn’t succeed and you won’t, either.’
I said, ‘I’m not trying anything. And I don’t care about who wins elections. A woman died, that’s all, and I want to know why.’
‘What woman?’
‘A Pentagon clerk. She shot herself in the head, last night, on the New York subway.’
Elspeth Sansom glanced at Browning and Browning nodded and said, ‘I saw it on line. The New York Times and the Washington Post. It happened too late for the printed papers.’
‘A little after two o’clock in the morning,’ I said.
Elspeth Sansom looked back at me and asked, ‘What was your involvement?’
‘Witness,’ I said.
‘And she mentioned my husband’s name?’
‘That’s something I’ll need to discuss with him. Or with the New York Times or the Washington Post.’
‘Is that a threat?’ Browning asked.
‘I guess it is,’ I said. ‘What are you going to do about it?’
‘Always remember,’ he said. ‘You don’t do what John Sansom has done in his life if you’re soft. And I’m not soft either. And neither is Mrs Sansom.’
‘Terrific,’ I said. ‘We’ve established that none of us is soft. In fact we’re all as hard as rocks. Now let’s move on. When do I get to see your boss?’
‘What were you in the service?’
‘The kind of guy even you should have been scared of. Although you probably weren’t. Not that it matters. I’m not looking to hurt anyone. Unless someone needs to get hurt, that is.’
Elspeth Sansom said, ‘Seven o’clock, this evening.’ She named what I guessed was a restaurant, on Dupont Circle. ‘My husband will give you five minutes.’ Then she looked at me again and said, ‘Don’t come dressed like that, or you won’t get in.’
* * *
They got back in the Town Car and drove away. I had three hours to kill. I caught a cab to the corner of 18th Street and Mass Avenue and found a store and bought a pair of plain blue pants and a blue checked shirt with a collar. Then I walked on down to a hotel I saw two blocks south on 18th. It was a big place, and quite grand, but big grand places are usually the best for a little off-the-books convenience. I nodded my way past the lobby staff and took an elevator tip to a random floor and walked the corridor until I found a maid servicing an empty room. It was past four o’clock in the afternoon. Check-in time was two. Therefore the room was going to stay empty that night. Maybe the next night, too. Big hotels are rarely a hundred per cent full. And big hotels never treat their maids very well. Therefore the woman was happy to take thirty bucks in cash and a thirty-minute break. I guessed she would move on to the next room on her list and come back later.
She hadn’t gotten to the bathroom yet, but there were two clean towels still on the rack. Nobody could possibly use all the towels that a big hotel provides. There was a cake of soap still wrapped next to the sink and half a bottle of shampoo in the stall. I brushed my teeth and took a long shower. I dried off and put on my new pants and shirt. I swapped my pocket contents over and left my old garments in the bathroom trash. Thirty bucks for the room. Cheaper than a spa. And faster. I was back on the street inside twenty-eight minutes.
* * *
I walked up to Dupont and spied out the restaurant. Afghan cuisine, outside tables in a front courtyard, inside tables behind a wooden door. It looked like the kind of place that would fill up with power players willing to drop twenty bucks for an appetizer worth twenty cents on the streets of Kabul. I was OK with the food but not with the prices. I figured I would talk to Sansom and then go eat somewhere else.
I walked on P Street west to Rock Creek Park, and clambered down close to the water. I sat on a broad flat stone and listened to the stream below me and the traffic above. Over time the traffic got louder and the water got quieter. When the clock in my head hit five to seven I scrambled back up and headed for the restaurant.
TWENTY-TWO
At seven in the evening D.C. was going dark and all the Dupont establishments had their lights on. The Afghan place had paper lanterns strung out all over the courtyard. The kerb was clogged with limousines. Most of the courtyard tables were already full. But not with Sansom and his party. All I saw were young men in suits and young women in skirts. They were gathered in pairs and trios and quartets, talking, making calls from their cells, reading e-mails on handheld devices, taking papers from briefcases and stuffing them back. I guessed Sansom was inside, behind the wooden door.
There was a hostess podium close to the sidewalk but before I got to it Browning pushed through a knot of people and stepped in front of me. He nodded towards a black Town Car twenty yards away and said, ‘Let’s go.’
I said, ‘Where? I thought Sansom was here.’
‘Think again. He wouldn’t eat in a place like this. And we wouldn’t let him even if he wanted to. Wrong demographic, too insecure.’
‘Then why bring me here?’
‘We had to bring you somewhere.’ He stood there like it meant absolutely nothing to him whether I went along or walked away. I said, ‘So where is he?’
‘Close by. He’s got a meeting. He can give you five minutes before it starts.’
‘OK,’ I said. ‘Let’s go.’
There was a driver sitting in the Town Car. The engine was already running. Browning and I climbed in the back and the driver pulled out and drove most of the way around the circle and then peeled off south and west down New Hampshire Avenue. We passed the Historical Society. As I recalled New Hampshire Avenue there wasn’t much ahead of
us except for a string of hotels and then George Washington University.
We didn’t stop at any of the hotels. We didn’t stop at George Washington University. Instead we swept a fast right on to Virginia Avenue and drove a couple hundred yards and pulled into the Watergate. The famous old complex, the scene of the crime. Hotel rooms, apartments, offices, the Potomac dark and slow beyond them. The driver stopped outside an office building. Browning stayed in his seat. He said, ‘These are the ground rules. I’ll take you up. You’ll go in alone. But I’ll be right outside the door. Are we clear?’
I nodded. We were clear. We got out. There was a security guy in a uniform at a desk inside the door, but he paid us no attention. We got in the elevator. Browning hit four. We rode up in silence. We got out of the elevator and walked twenty feet across grey carpet to a door marked Universal Research. A bland title and an unremarkable slab of wood. Browning opened it and ushered me inside. I saw a waiting room, medium budget. An unoccupied reception desk, four low leather chairs, inner offices to the left and the right. Browning pointed me left and said, ‘Knock and enter. I’ll wait for you here.’
I stepped over to the left hand door and knocked and entered.
There were three men waiting for me in the inner office.
None of them was Sansom.
TWENTY-THREE
The room was a plain spare space mostly empty of furniture. The three guys were the three federal agents who had made the trip up to the 14th Precinct in New York City. They didn’t seem pleased to see me again. They didn’t speak at first. Instead their leader took a small silver object out of his pocket. A voice recorder. Digital. Office equipment, made by Olympus. He pressed a button and there was a short pause and then I heard his voice ask, ‘Did she tell you anything?’ The words were fuzzy with distortion and clouded by echo, but I recognized them. From the interview, at five o’clock that morning, me in the chair, sleepy, them alert and standing, the smell of sweat and anxiety and burnt coffee in the air.
I heard myself reply, ‘Nothing of substance.’
The guy clicked another button and the recorded sound died away. He put the device back in his pocket and pulled a folded sheet of paper from another. I recognized it. It was the House notepaper the Capitol guard had given me at the door of the Cannon Building. The guy unfolded it and read out loud, ‘Early this morning I saw a woman die with your name on her lips.’
He held the paper out towards me so I that I could see my own handwriting.
He said, ‘She told you something of substance. You lied to federal investigators. People go to prison for that.’
‘But not me,’ I said.
‘You think? What makes you special?’
‘Nothing makes me special. But what makes you federal investigators?’
The guy didn’t answer.
I said, ‘You can’t have it both ways around. You want to play all cloak and dagger and refuse to show ID, then how should I know who you are? Maybe you were NYPD file clerks, showing up early for work, looking to pass the time. And there’s no law about lying to civilians. Or your bosses would all be in jail.’
‘We told you who we were.’
‘People claim all kinds of things.’
‘Do we look like file clerks?’
‘Pretty much. And maybe I didn’t lie to you, anyway. Maybe I lied to Sansom.’
‘So which was it?’
‘That’s my business. I still haven’t seen ID.’
‘What exactly are you doing here in Washington? With Sansom?’
‘That’s my business too.’
‘You want to ask him questions?’
‘You got a law against asking people questions?’
‘You were a witness. Now you’re investigating?’
‘Free country,’ I said.
‘Sansom can’t afford to tell you anything.’
‘Maybe so,’ I said. ‘Maybe not.’
The guy paused a beat and said, ‘You like tennis?’
I said, ‘No.’
‘You heard of Jimmy Connors? Bjorn Borg? John McEnroe?’
I said, ‘Tennis players, from way back.’
‘What would happen if they played the U.S. Open next year?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘They would get their asses kicked all over the court. They would get their heads handed to them on a plate. Even the women would beat them. Great champions in their day, but they’re old men now and they come from a whole different era. Time moves on. The game changes. You understand what I’m telling you?’
I said, ‘No.’
‘We’ve seen your record. You were hot shit back in prehistory. But this is a new world now. You’re out of your depth.’
I turned and glanced at the door. ‘Is Browning still out there? Or did he dump me?’
‘Who is Browning?’
‘The guy who delivered me here. Sansom’s guy.’
‘He’s gone. And his name isn’t Browning. You’re a babe in the woods.’
I said nothing, just heard the word babe and thought about Jacob Mark, arid his nephew Peter. A girl from a bar. A total babe. Peter left with her.
One of the other two guys in the room said, ‘We need you to forget all about being an investigator, OK? We need you to stick to being a witness. We need to know how Sansom’s name is linked with the dead woman. You’re not going to leave this room until we find out.’
I said, ‘I’ll leave this room exactly when I decide to. It will take more than three file clerks to keep me somewhere I don’t want to be.’
‘Big talk.’
I said, ‘Sansom’s name is already way out there, anyway. I heard it from four private investigators in New York City.’
‘Who were they?’
‘Four guys in suits with a phony business card.’
‘Is that the best you can do? That’s a pretty thin story. I think you heard it from Susan Mark herself.’
‘Why do you even care? What could an HRC clerk know that would hurt a guy like Sansom?’
Nobody spoke, but the silence was very strange. It seemed to carry in it an unstated answer that spiralled and ballooned crazily upward and out ward, like: It’s not just Sansom we’re worried about, it’s the army, it’s the military, it’s the past, it’s the future, it’s the government, it’s the country, it’s the whole wide world, it’s the entire damn universe.
I asked, ‘Who are you guys?’ No answer.
I said, ‘What the hell did Sansom do back then?’
‘Back when?’
‘During his seventeen years.’
‘What do you think he did?’
‘Four secret missions.’ The room went quiet.
The lead agent asked, ‘How do you know about Sansom’s missions?’
I said, ‘I read his book.’
‘They’re not in his book.’
‘But his promotions and his medals are. With no clear explanation of where else they came from.’
Nobody spoke.
I said, ‘Susan Mark didn’t know anything. She can’t have. It’s just not possible. She could have turned HRC upside down for a year without finding the slightest mention.’
‘But someone asked her.’
‘So what? No harm, no foul.’
‘We want to know who it was, that’s all. We like to keep track of things like that.’
‘I don’t know who it was.’
‘But clearly you want to know. Otherwise why would you be here?’
‘I saw her shoot herself. It wasn’t pretty.’
‘It never is. But that’s no reason to get sentimental. Or in trouble.’
‘You worried about me?’ No one answered.
‘Or are you worried I’ll find something out?’
The third guy said, ‘What makes you think the two worries are different? Maybe they’re the same thing. You find something out, you’ll be locked up for life. Or caught in the crossfire.’
I said nothing. The room went quiet again.
‘No,’ I said. ‘She didn’t.’
‘But his name is out there anyway.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It is.’
‘And you don’t know who’s asking.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t.’
‘OK,’ the guy said. ‘Now forget all about us and move on. We have no desire to complicate your life.’
‘But?’
‘We will if we have to. Remember the trouble you could make for people, back in the 110th? It’s much worse now. A hundred times worse. So do the smart thing. If you want to play, stick to the senior circuit. Stay away from this. The game has changed.’
* * *
They let me go. I went down in the elevator and walked past the guy at the door and stood on a broad paved area and looked at the river flowing slowly by. Reflected lights moved with the current. I thought about Elspeth Sansom. She impressed me. Don’t come dressed like that, or you won’t get in. Perfect misdirection. She had suckered me completely. I had bought a shirt I didn’t need or want.
Not soft.
That was for damn sure.
The night was warm. The air was heavy and full of waterborne smells. I headed back towards Dupont Circle. A mile and a quarter, I figured. Twenty minutes on foot, maybe less.
TWENTY-FOUR
Restaurant meals in D.C. rarely run shorter than an hour or longer than two. That had been my experience. So I expected to find Sansom finishing up his entrée or ordering his dessert. Maybe already drinking coffee and thinking about a cigar.
Back at the restaurant about half the courtyard tables had turned over their clientele. There were new boys in suits, and new girls in skirts. More pairs now than threesomes or quartets, and more romance than work. More bright chatter designed to impress, and less scanning of electronic devices. I walked past the hostess station and the woman there called after me and I said, ‘I’m with the Congressman.’ I pushed through the wooden door and scanned the inside room. It was a low rectangular space full of dim light and spicy smells and loud conversation and occasional laughter.