by Lee Child
I nodded. ‘Like a confession.’
‘Doesn’t matter. They know we’re going to kill them anyway. Doesn’t really matter what we kill them for.’
‘It matters to me.’
‘Wise up, Reacher. That was the whole point of sending you the package. They want to make you mad and suck you in. They can’t find you. So they want you to come find them.’
‘Which I will.’
‘Your future plans are your business. But you need to take care. You need to understand. Because this has been their tactic for two hundred years. That’s why their abuse was always within earshot of the front lines. They wanted to bring out the rescue parties. Or provoke revenge attacks. They wanted a never-ending supply of prisoners. Ask the British. Or the Russians.’
‘I’ll take plenty of care.’
‘I’m sure you’ll try. But you’re not going anywhere until we’ve finished with you, about the train.’
‘Your guy saw what I saw.’
‘It’s in your interests to help us.’
‘Not so far. All I have is promises.’
‘All charges will be dropped when we have the memory stick in our possession.’
‘Not good enough.’
‘You want it in writing?’
‘No, I want the charges dropped now. I need some freedom of action here. I can’t be looking out for cops the whole time.’
‘Freedom of action for what?’
‘You know what.’
‘OK, I’ll do what I can.’
‘Not good enough.’
‘I can’t give you guarantees. All I can do is try.’
‘What are the chances you can succeed?’
‘None at all. But Sansom can.’
‘Are you authorized to speak for him?’
‘I’ll have to call him.’
‘Tell him no more bullshit, OK? We’re past that stage now.’
‘OK.’
‘And talk to him about Theresa Lee and Jacob Mark, too. And Docherty. I want a clean slate for all of them.’
‘OK.’
‘And Jacob Mark is going to need counselling. Especially if he sees a copy of that DVD.’
‘He won’t.’
‘But I want him looked after. The ex-husband, as well. Molina.’
‘OK.’
‘Two more things,’ I said.
‘You drive a hard bargain, for a guy with nothing to offer.’
‘Homeland Security traced the Hoths coming in from Tajikistan with their crew. Three months ago. Some kind of a computer algorithm. I want to know how many people were in the party.’
‘To estimate the size of the opposing force?’
‘Exactly.’
‘And?’
‘I want to meet with Sansom again.’
‘Why?’
‘I want him to tell me what is on that memory stick.’
‘Not going to happen.’
‘Then he doesn’t get it back. I’ll keep it and take a look for myself.’
‘What?’
‘You heard me.’
‘You’ve actually got the stick?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘But I know where it is.’
SIXTY-FIVE
Springfield asked, ‘Where is it?’
I said, ‘I can’t volunteer information.’
‘You’re full of shit.’
I shook my head. ‘Not this time.’
‘You sure? You can take us there?’
‘I can get you within fifteen feet. The rest is up to you.’
‘Why? Is it buried? In a bank vault? In a house?’
‘None of the above.’
‘So where is it?’
‘Call Sansom,’ I said. ‘Set up a meeting.’
* * *
Springfield finished what was left of his water and a waiter came by with the check. Springfield paid with his platinum card, the same way he had for both of us at the Four Seasons. Which I had taken to be a good sign. It had indicated a positive dynamic. So I chose to push my luck a little farther.
‘Want to get me a room?’ I asked.
‘Why?’
Because it’s going to take time for Sansom to get me off the most-wanted list. And I’m tired. I was up all night. I want to take a nap.’
Ten minutes later we were on a high floor, in a room with a queen-size bed. A nice space, but tactically unsatisfactory. Like all high-floor hotel rooms it had a window that was no good to me and therefore only one way out. I could see that Springfield was thinking the same thing. He was thinking I was a lunatic to put myself in there.
I asked him, ‘Can I trust you?’
He said, ‘Yes.’
‘Prove it.’
‘How?’
‘Give me your gun.’
‘I’m not armed.’
‘Answers like that don’t help with the trust thing.’
‘Why do you want it?’
‘You know why. So if you bring the wrong people to my door I can defend myself.’
‘I won’t.’
‘Reassure me.’
He stood still for a long moment. I knew he would rather stick a needle in his eye than give up his weapon. But he ran some calculations in his head and reached around under his suit coat to the small of his back and came out with a nine-millimetre Steyr GB pistol. The Steyr GB had been the sidearm of choice for 1980s-era U.S. Special Forces. He reversed it and handed it to me butt first. It was a fine old piece, well worn but well maintained. It had eighteen rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber.
‘Thank you,’ I said.
He didn’t reply. Just walked out of the room. I double-locked the door after him, and put the chain on, and propped a chair tinder the handle. I emptied my pockets on the night stand. I put my clothes under the mattress to press. I took a long hot shower.
Then I lay down and went to sleep, with Springfield’s gun under the pillow.
* * *
I was woken up four hours later by a knock at the door. I don’t like to look through spy holes in hotel doors. Too vulnerable. All an assailant in the corridor has to do is wait until the lens darkens and then fire a gun straight through it. Even a silenced .22 would be completely lethal. There is nothing very substantial between the cornea and the brain stem. But there was a full-length mirror on the wall inside the door. For last-minute clothing checks, I guessed, before going out. I took a towel from the bathroom and wrapped it around my waist and collected the gun from under the pillow. I moved the chair and opened the door against the chain. Stood back on the hinge side and checked the view in the mirror.
Springfield, and Sansom.
It was a narrow crack and the image was reversed by the mirror and the corridor lighting was dim, but I recognized them easily enough. They were alone, as far as I could tell. And they were going to stay alone, unless they had brought more than nineteen people with them. No safety catch on the Steyr. Just a hefty double-action pull for the first shot, and then eighteen more. I took the slack out of the trigger and the chain off the door.
They were alone.
They came in, Sansom first, and then Springfield. Sansom looked the same as the morning I first saw him. Tanned, rich, powerful, full of energy and charisma. He was in a navy suit with a white shirt and a red tie and he looked as fresh as a daisy. He took the chair I had been using under the door handle and carried it back to the table near the window and sat down. Springfield closed the door and put the chain back on. I kept hold of the gun. I nudged the mattress off the box spring with my knee and pulled my clothes out one-handed.
‘Two minutes,’ I said. ‘Talk among yourselves.’
I dressed in the bathroom and came back out and Sansom asked, ‘Do you really know where that memory stick is?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I really do.’
‘Why do you want to know what’s on it?’
‘Because I want to know how embarrassing it is.’
‘You don’t want me in the Senate?’
‘I d
on’t care how you spend your time. I’m curious, that’s all.’
He asked, ‘Why won’t you tell me where it is right now?’
‘Because I have something else to do first. And I need you to keep the cops out of my hair while I’m doing it. So I need a way of keeping your mind on the job.’
‘You could be conning me.’
‘I could be, but I’m not.’ He said nothing back.
I asked, ‘Why do you want to be in the Senate anyway?’
‘Why wouldn’t I?’
‘You were a good soldier and now you’re richer than God. Why not go live on the beach?’
‘These things are a way of keeping score. I’m sure you have your own way of keeping score.’
I nodded. ‘I compare the number of answers I get to the number of questions I ask.’
‘And how are you doing with that?’
‘Lifetime average close to a hundred per cent.’
‘Why ask at all? If you know where the stick is, just go get it.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s going to take more resources than I could mobilize.’
‘Where is it?’ I didn’t answer.
‘Is it here in New York?’
I didn’t answer.
He asked, ‘Is it secure?’
I said, ‘It’s safe enough.’
‘Can I trust you?’
‘Plenty of people have.’
‘And?’
‘I think most of them would be willing to give me a character reference.’
‘And the others?’
‘There’s no pleasing some folks.’
He said, ‘I saw your service record.’
I said, ‘You told me that.’
‘It was mixed.’
‘I tried my best. But I had a mind of my own.’
‘Why did you quit?’
‘I got bored. You?’
‘I got old.’
‘What is on that stick?’
He didn’t answer. Springfield was standing mute, in the lee of the TV cabinet, closer to the door than the window. Pure habit, I guessed. Simple reflex. He was invisible to a potential external sniper and close enough to the corridor to be all over an intruder the second the door swung open. Training stays with a person. Especially Delta training. I stepped over and gave him his gun back. He took it without a word and put it in his waistband.
Sansom said, ‘Tell me what you know so far.’
I said, ‘You were airlifted from Bragg to Turkey, and then Oman. Then India, probably. Then Pakistan, and the North West Frontier.’
He nodded and said nothing. He had a faraway look in his eyes. I guessed he was reliving the journey in his mind. Transport planes, helicopters, trucks, long miles on foot.
All long ago.
‘Then Afghanistan,’ I said.
‘Go on,’ he said.
‘Probably you stayed on the flank of the Abas Ghar and headed south and west, following the line of the Korengal Valley, maybe a thousand feet from the floor.’
‘Go on.’
‘You stumbled over Grigori Hoth and took his rifle and let him wander away.’
‘Go on.’
‘Then you kept on walking, to wherever it was you had been ordered to go.’
He nodded.
I said, ‘That’s all I know so far.’
He asked, ‘Where were you in March of 1983?’
‘West Point.’
‘What was the big news?’
‘The Red Army was trying to stop the bleeding.’
He nodded again. ‘It was an insane campaign. No one has ever beaten the tribesmen in the North West Frontier. Not in the whole of history. And they had our own experience in Vietnam to study. Some things just can’t be done. It was a slow-motion meat grinder. Like getting pecked to death by birds. We were very happy about it, obviously.’
‘We helped,’ I said.
‘We sure did. We gave the mujahideen everything they wanted. For free.’
‘Like Lend-Lease.’
‘Worse,’ Sansom said. ‘Lend-Lease was about helping friends that happened to be bankrupt at the time. The mujahideen were not bankrupt. Quite the reverse. There were all kinds of weird tribal alliances that stretched all the way to Saudi. The mujahideen had more money than we did, practically.’
‘And?’
‘When you’re in the habit of giving people everything they want, it’s very hard to stop.’
‘What more did they want?’
‘Recognition,’ he said. ‘Tribute. Acknowledgement. Courtesy. Face time. It’s hard to know exactly how to characterize it.’
‘So what was the mission?’
‘Can we trust you?’
‘You want to get the file back?’
‘Yes.’
‘So what was the mission?’
‘We went to see the mujahideen’s top boy. Bearing gifts. All kinds of gaudy trinkets, from Ronald Reagan himself. We were his personal envoys. We had a White House briefing. We were told to pucker up and kiss ass at every possible opportunity.’
‘And did you?’
‘You bet.’
‘It was twenty-five years ago.’
‘So?’
‘So who cares any more? It’s a detail of history. And it worked, anyway. It was the end of communism.’
‘But it wasn’t the end of the mujahideen. They stayed in business.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘They became the Taliban and al-Qaeda. But that’s a detail, too. Voters in North Carolina aren’t going to remember the history. Most voters can’t remember what they had for breakfast.’
‘Depends,’ Sansom said.
‘On what?’
‘Name recognition.’
‘What name?’
‘The Korengal was where the action was. Just a small salient, but that was where the Red Army met its end. The mujahideen there were doing a really fine job. Therefore the local mujahideen leader there was a really big deal. He was a rising star. He was the one we were sent to meet. And we did. We met with him.’
‘And you kissed his ass?’
‘Every which way we could.’
‘Who was he?’
‘He was a fairly impressive guy, initially. Young, tall, good looking, very intelligent, very committed. And very rich, by the way. Very connected. He came from a billionaire family in Saudi. His father was a friend of Reagan’s Vice President. But the guy himself was a revolutionary. He quit the easy life for the cause.’
‘Who was he?’
‘Osama bin Laden.’
SIXTY-SIX
The room stayed quiet for a long moment. Just muted city sounds from the window, and the hiss of air from a vent above the bathroom. Springfield moved away from his position by the TV cabinet and sat down on the bed.
I said, ‘Name recognition.’
Sansom said, ‘It’s a bitch.’
‘You got that right.’
‘Tell me about it.’
‘But it’s a big file,’ I said.
‘So?’
‘So it’s a long report. And we’ve all read army reports.’
‘And?’
‘They’re very dry.’ Which they were. Take Springfield’s Steyr GB, for instance. The army had tested it. It was a miracle of modern engineering. Not only did it work exactly like it should, it also worked exactly like it shouldn’t. It had a complex gas-delayed blowback system that meant it could be loaded with substandard or elderly or badly assembled rounds and still fire. Most guns have problems with variable gas pressures. Either they blow up with too much or fail to cycle with too little. But the Steyr could handle anything. Which was why Special Forces loved it. They were often far from home with no logistics, forced to rely on whatever they could scrounge up locally. The Steyr GB was a metal marvel.
The army report called it technically acceptable.
I said, ‘Maybe they didn’t mention you by name. Maybe they didn’t mention him by name. Maybe it was al
l acronyms, for Delta leader and local commander, all buried in three hundred pages of map references.’
Sansom said nothing.
Springfield looked away.
I asked, ‘What was he like?’
Sansom said, ‘See? This is exactly what I’m talking about. My whole life counts for nothing now, except I’m the guy who kissed Osama bin Laden’s ass. That’s all anyone will ever remember.’
‘But what was he like?’
‘He was a creep. He was clearly committed to killing Russians, which we were happy about at first, but pretty soon we realized he was committed to killing everyone who wasn’t exactly the same as him. He was weird. He was a psychopath. He smelled bad. It was a very uncomfortable weekend. My skin was crawling the whole time.’
‘You were there a whole weekend?’
‘Honoured guests. Except not really. He was an arrogant son of a bitch. He lorded it over us the whole time. He lectured us on tactics and strategy. Told us how he would have won in Vietnam. We had to pretend to be impressed.’
‘What gifts did you give him?’
‘I don’t know what they were. They were wrapped. He didn’t open them. Just tossed them in a corner. He didn’t care. Like they say at weddings, our presence was present enough. He thought he was proving something to the world. The Great Satan was bending its knee before him. I nearly puked a dozen times. And not just because of the food.’
‘You ate with him?’
‘We were staying in his tent.’
‘Which will be called their HQ in the report. The language will be very neutral. The ass-kissing won’t be mentioned. It will be three hundred tedious pages about a rendezvous attempted and a rendezvous kept. People will die of boredom before you’re halfway over the Atlantic. Why are you so worried?’
‘The politics is awful. The Lend-Lease thing. In as much as bin Laden wasn’t dipping into his own personal fortune, it’s like we were subsidizing him. Paying him, almost.’
‘Not your fault. That’s White House stuff. Did any sea captain get it in the neck for delivering Lend-Lease stuff to the Soviets during World War Two? They didn’t stay our friends either.’
Sansom said nothing.
I said, ‘It’s just words on a page. They won’t resonate. People don’t read.’
Sansom said, ‘It’s a big file.’
‘The bigger the better. The bigger it is, the more buried the bad parts will be. And it will be very dated. I think we used to spell his name differently back then. With a U. It was Usama. Or UBL. Maybe people won’t even notice. Or you could say it was someone else entirely.’