by Lee Child
‘You sure you know where that stick is?’
‘Certain.’
‘Because you sound like you don’t. You sound like you’re trying to console me, because you know it’s staying out there for the world to see.’
‘I know where it is. I’m just trying to get a handle on why you’re so uptight. People have survived worse.’
‘You ever used a computer?’
‘I used one today.’
‘What makes for the biggest files?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Take a guess.’
‘Long documents?’
‘Wrong. Large numbers of pixels make for the biggest files.’
‘Pixels?’ I said.
He didn’t answer.
‘OK,’ I said. ‘I see. It’s not a report. It’s a photograph.
SIXTY-SEVEN
The room went quiet again. The city sounds, the forced air. Sansom got up and used the bathroom. Springfield moved back to his former position by the TV cabinet. There were bottles of water on the cabinet, with paper collars that said if you drank the water you would be charged eight dollars.
Sansom came out of the bathroom.
‘Reagan wanted the photograph,’ he said. ‘Partly because he was a sentimental old geezer, and partly because he was a suspicious old man. He wanted to check we had followed his orders. The way I remember it, I’m standing next to bin Laden with the mother of all shit-eating grins on my face.’
Springfield said, ‘With me on the other side.’
Sansom said, ‘Bin Laden knocked down the Twin Towers. He attacked the Pentagon. He’s the world’s worst terrorist. He’s a very, very recognizable figure. He’s completely unmistakable. That photograph will kill me in politics. Stone dead. For ever.’
I asked, ‘Is that why the Hoths want it?’
He nodded. ‘So that al-Qaeda can humiliate me, and the United States along with me. Or vice-versa.’
I stepped over to the TV cabinet and took a bottle of water. Unscrewed the cap and took a long drink. The room was on Springfield’s card, which meant that Sansom was paying. And Sansom could afford eight bucks. Then I smiled, briefly.
‘Hence the photograph in your hook,’ I said. ‘And on your office wall. Donald Rumsfeld with Saddam Hussein, in Baghdad.’
‘Yes,’ Sansom said.
‘Just in case. To show that someone else had done the very same thing. Like a trump card, just lying there in the weeds. No one knew it was a trump. No one even knew it was a card.’
‘It’s not a trump,’ Sansom said. ‘It’s not even close. It’s like a lousy four of clubs. Because bin Laden is way worse than Saddam ever was. And Rumsfeld wasn’t looking to get elected to anything afterwards. He was appointed to everything he did after that, by his friends. He had to be. No sane person would have voted for him.’
‘You got friends?’
‘Not many.’
‘No one ever said much about Rumsfeld’s photograph.’
‘Because he wasn’t running for office. If he had ever gotten into an election campaign, that would have been the most famous photograph in the world.’
‘You’re a better man than Rumsfeld.’
‘You don’t know me.’
‘Educated guess.’
‘OK, maybe. But bin Laden is worse than Saddam. And the image is poison. It doesn’t even need a caption. There I am, grinning up at the world’s most evil man like a puppy dog. People fake pictures like that for attack ads. And this one is real.’
‘You’ll get it back.’
‘When?’
‘How are we doing with the felony charges?’
‘Slow.’
‘But sure?’
‘Not very. There’s good news and bad news.’
‘Give me the bad news first.’
‘It’s very unlikely that the FBI will want to play ball. And it’s certain the Department of Defense won’t.’
‘Those three guys?’
‘They’re off the case. Apparently they’re injured. One has a broken nose and one has a cut head. But they’ve been replaced. The DoD is still hot to trot.’
‘They should be grateful. They need all the help they can get.’
‘Doesn’t work like that. There are turf wars to be won.’
‘So what’s the good news?’
‘We think the NYPD is prepared to be relaxed about the subway.’
‘Terrific,’ I said. ‘That’s like cancelling a parking ticket for Charles Manson.’
Sansom didn’t reply.
I asked him, ‘What about Theresa Lee and Jacob Mark? And Docherty?’
‘They’re back at work. With federal paper on file commending them for helping Homeland Security with a sensitive investigation.’
‘So they’re OK and I’m not?’
‘They didn’t hit anybody. They didn’t bruise any egos.’
‘What are you going to do with the memory stick when you get it back?’
‘I’m going to check it’s right, then I’m going to smash it up, and burn the pieces, and grind the ash to dust, and flush it down about eight separate toilets.’
‘Suppose I asked you not to do that?’
‘Why would you?’
‘I’ll tell you later.’
* * *
Depending on your point of view it was either late in the afternoon or early in the evening. But I had just woken up, so I figured it was time for breakfast. I called down to room service and ordered a big tray. About fifty bucks’ worth, at Sheraton New York prices, with taxes and tips and charges and fees. Sansom didn’t bat an eye. He was sitting forward in his chair, seething with frustration and impatience. Springfield was much more relaxed. He had shared that mountain journey a quarter of a century earlier, and he had shared the ignominy. Sometimes our friends become our enemies, and sometimes our enemies become our friends. But Springfield had nothing riding on it. No aims, no plans, no ambitions. And it showed. He was still exactly what he had been back then, just a guy doing his job.
I asked, ‘Could you have killed him?’
‘He had bodyguards,’ Sansom said. ‘Like an inner circle. Loyalties over there are fanatical. Think of the Marines, or the Teamsters, and multiply by a thousand. We were disarmed a hundred yards from the camp. We were never alone with him. There were always people milling about. Plus kids and animals. They lived like the Stone Age.’
‘He was a long lanky streak of piss,’ Springfield said. ‘I could have reached up and snapped his scrawny neck any old time I wanted to.’
‘Did you want to?’
‘You bet I did. Because I knew. Right from the start. Maybe I should have done it right when the flashbulb went off. Like a breadstick in an Italian restaurant. That would have made a better picture.’
I said, ‘Suicide mission.’
‘But it would have saved a lot of lives later.’
I nodded. ‘Just like if Rumsfeld had stuck a shiv in Saddam.’
* * *
The room service guy brought my meal and I moved Sansom out of his chair and ate at the table. Sansom took a cell phone call and confirmed that as of that moment I was off the hook for the subway transgression. I was no longer a person of interest as far as the NYPD was concerned. But then he made a second call and told me the jury was still out on the FBI, and the signs did not look good at all. Then he made a third call and confirmed that the DoD brass definitely would not let go. They were like dogs with a bone. I was in all kinds of trouble at the federal level. Obstruction of justice, assault and battery, wounding with a deadly weapon.
‘End of story,’ Sansom said. ‘I would have to go to the Secretary direct.’
‘Or the President,’ I said.
‘I can’t do either. On the face of it the DoD is currently in hot pursuit of an active al-Qaeda cell. Can’t argue against that, in today’s climate.’
Politics is a minefield. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
‘OK,’ I said. ‘Just as long
as I know the shape of the battlefield.’
‘It’s not your battle, strictly speaking.’
‘Jacob Mark will feel better with a little closure.’
‘You’re doing this for Jacob Mark? The feds can give him all the closure he needs.’
‘You think? The feds are nowhere. How long do you want to drag this out?’
‘So are you doing it for Jacob Mark or for me?’
‘I’m doing it for myself.’
‘You’re not involved.’
‘I like a challenge.’
‘There are lots of other challenges in the world.’
‘They made it personal. They sent me that DVD.’
‘Which was tactical. If you react, they win.’
‘No, if I react, they lose.’
‘This isn’t the Wild West.’
‘You got that right. This is the timid West. We need to roll the clock back.’
‘Do you even know where they are?’
Springfield glanced at me.
I said, ‘I’m working on a couple of ideas.’
‘Do you still have an open channel of communication?’
‘She hasn’t called me since the DVD.’
‘Since she set you up, you mean.’
‘I think she’s going to call again.’
‘Why?’
‘Because she wants to.’
‘She might win. One false step, and you’re her prisoner. You’ll end up telling her what she wants to know.’
I asked him, ‘How many times have you flown commercial since September eleventh?’
He said, ‘Hundreds.’
‘And I bet every single time some small corner of your mind was hoping there were hijackers on board. So you could see them marching up the aisle, so you could jump up and beat the shit out of them. Or die trying.’
Sansom inclined his head and his mouth turned down in a rueful little smile. The first I had seen from him for a long time.
‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘Every single time.’
‘Why?’
‘I would want to protect the airplane.’
‘And you would want to unload your frustrations. And burn off your hate. I know I would. I liked the Twin Towers. I liked the way the world used to be. You know, before. I have no political skills. I’m not a diplomat or a strategist. I know my weaknesses, and I know my strengths. So all in all for a guy like me the chance to meet an active al-Qaeda cell scents pretty much like all my birthdays and Christmases rolled into one.’
‘You’re crazy. This is not a thing to be done alone.’
‘What’s the alternative?’
‘Homeland Security will find them eventually. Then they’ll put something together. NYPD, FBI, SWAT teams, equipment, hundreds of guys.’
‘A huge operation with lots of disparate components.’
‘But carefully planned.’
‘You been on operations like that before?’
‘Couple of times.’
‘How did they work out for you?’
Sansom didn’t answer.
I said, ‘Alone is always better.’
‘Maybe not,’ Springfield said. ‘We checked on Homeland Security’s computer algorithm. The Hoths brought a large party with them.’
‘How many?’
‘Nineteen men.’
SIXTY-EIGHT
I finished my breakfast. The coffee pot was empty. So I finished my eight-dollar bottle of water and lobbed it end over end towards the trash can. It struck the rim with a hollow plastic sound and bounced out and rolled away across the carpet. Not a good sign, if I were superstitious. But I’m not.
‘Total of nineteen men,’ I said. ‘Four left the country already and two are walking wounded with broken jaws and elbows. That leaves thirteen on active service.’
Sansom said, ‘Broken jaws and elbows? How did that happen?’
‘They were out looking for me. They might be hot shit in the hills with grenade launchers, but scuffling on the streets seems not to be their main strength.’
‘Did you write on their foreheads?’
‘One of them. Why?’
‘The FBI got a call from the Bellevue Emergency room. Two unidentified foreigners were dumped there a beating. One of them had writing on his forehead.
‘Punishment,’ I said. ‘The Hoths must have been displeased with their performance. So they gave them up, to encourage the others.’
‘Ruthless people.’
‘Where are they now?’
‘Secure rooms in the hospital. Because one of them was there before. Some previous emergency at Penn Station. He’s not saying anything. The FBI is trying to work out who the hell he is.’
‘What’s taking them so long? I wrote Lila’s name on his head. I wrote Lila, call me. How many people named Lila is the Bureau interested in right now?’
Sansom shook his head. ‘Give them some credit. The part with the name had been skinned off with a knife.’
* * *
I stepped over and opened the second bottle of eight-dollar water. Took a sip. It tasted good. But no better than two-dollar water. Or free water, from the tap.
‘Thirteen people,’ I said.
‘Plus the Hoths themselves,’ Springfield said.
‘OK, fifteen.’
‘Suicide mission.’
‘We’re all going to die,’ I said. ‘The only questions are how and when.’
‘We can’t actively help you,’ Sansom said. ‘You understand that, right? This is going to end with a minimum of one and a maximum of fifteen homicides on the streets of New York City. We can’t be a part of that. We can’t be within a million miles of it.’
‘Because of politics?’
‘Because of a lot of reasons.’
‘I’m not asking for help.’
‘You’re a maniac.’
‘They’re going to think so.’
‘You got a schedule in mind?’
‘Soon. No sense in waiting.’
‘The minimum one homicide would be you, of course. In which case I wouldn’t know where to look for my photograph.’
‘So keep your fingers crossed for me.’
‘The responsible thing would be for you to tell me now.’
‘No, the responsible thing would be for me to get a job as a school bus driver.’
‘Can I trust you?’
‘To survive?’
‘To keep your word.’
‘What did you learn in Officer Candidate School?’
‘That brother officers are to be trusted. Especially brother officers of equal rank.’
‘There you go, then.’
‘But we weren’t really brothers. We were in very different branches of the service.’
‘You got that right. I was working hard while you were flying all over the world kissing terrorist ass. You didn’t even get a Purple Heart.’
He didn’t answer.
‘Just kidding,’ I said. ‘But you better hope I’m not the first homicide, or you might be hearing that kind of thing all the time.’
‘So tell me now.’
‘I need you watching my back.’
He said, ‘I read your record.’
‘You told me that.’
‘You got your Purple Heart for being blown up by that truck bomb in Beirut. The Marine barracks.’
‘I remember it well.’
‘You got a disfiguring scar.’
‘Want to see it?’
‘No. But you need to remember, that wasn’t the Hoths.’
‘What are you, my therapist?’
‘No. But that doesn’t make my statement any the less true.’
‘I don’t know who it was in Beirut. Nobody does, for sure. But, whoever, they were the Hoths’ brother officers.
‘You’re motivated by revenge. And you still feel guilty about Susan Mark.’
‘So?
‘So you might not be operating at peak efficiency.’
‘Worried about me?’
>
‘About myself, mainly. I want my photograph back.’
‘You’ll get it.’
‘At least give me a clue where it is.’
‘You know what I know. I figured it out. So you’ll figure it out.’
‘You were a cop. Different skill set.’
‘So you’ll be slower. But it ain’t rocket science.’
‘So what kind of science is it?’
‘Think like a regular person for once. Not like a soldier or a politician.’
He tried. He failed. He said, ‘At least tell me why I shouldn’t destroy it.’
‘You know what I know.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Or maybe you don’t know what I know. Because you’re too close to yourself. Me, I’m just a member of the public.’
‘So?’
‘I’m sure you’re a hell of a guy, Sansom. I’m sure you’d be a great senator. But at the end of the day any senator is just one out of a hundred. They’re all fairly interchangeable. Can you give me a name? Of one individual senator who truly made a difference to anything?’
Sansom didn’t answer.
‘Can you tell me how you personally are going to screw al-Qaeda?’
He started to talk about the Armed Services Committee, and Foreign Relations, and Intelligence, and budgets, and oversight. Like a boilerplate speech. Like he was out on the stump. I asked him, ‘What part of all that wouldn’t be done by whoever else might get the job, assuming you don’t?’
He didn’t answer. I asked him, ‘Imagine a cave in the northwest of Pakistan. Imagine the al-Qaeda brass sitting there, right now. Are they tearing their hair out and saying, holy shit, we better not let John Sansom make it to the U.S. Senate? Are you top of their agenda?’
He said, ‘Probably not.’
‘So why do they want the photograph?’
‘Small victories,’ he said. ‘Better than nothing.’
‘It’s a lot of work for a small victory, don’t you think? Two agents plus nineteen men plus three months?’
‘The United States would be embarrassed.’
‘But not very. Look at the Rumsfeld photograph. Nobody cared. Times change, things move on. People understand that, if they even notice at all. Americans are either very mature and sensible, or very oblivious. I’m never quite sure which. But either way, that picture would be a damp squib. It might destroy you personally, but destroying one American at a time isn’t how al-Qaeda operates.’