Crisis Four ns-2

by Andy McNab

  There was the wailing of metal as it took the black ash. I got a grip on myself and decided it didn't change a thing. All I cared about was Josh's kids.

  Another thing Sarah had been right about: there was no one to turn to.

  Josh couldn't be trusted not to approach one of his superiors. Even if his kids didn't go to the ceremony, the others would still be at risk, and he'd want to do something about it.

  I watched the last bit of ash swirl down the hole, and turned off the tap and waste disposal. Only five minutes left to the RV I was going to be late, but it wasn't as if she had anywhere else to go.

  Fuck it, I'd have to get her into the White House without Josh knowing what we were up to. I didn't know quite how I was going to do it. Once again, I felt more bonehead than Bond.

  I walked into the bookshop after clearing the area. The coffee shop was to the rear, and I spotted Sarah at one of the tables, nursing a tall latte. She was dressed much smarter than when I'd last seen her. The baseball cap was gone, and in its place was a gray trouser suit and designer loafers that must have sent her credit card into meltdown. Her facial appearance had been totally changed by a pair of black, rectangular, thick-rimmed glasses.

  As I approached she smiled and gave me the hello-sonicetosee-you RV-drill look. I looked surprised and delighted--not that I had to fake it-and she stood up for the lovey-lovey kiss on the cheeks.

  "How are you?

  It's so good to see you." She voiced her pleasure for the benefit of the people around us.

  We sat down and I put my nylon bag beside her new leather one and matching briefcase. She noticed my raised eyebrow and said, "Well, I should be looking the part. I am a lawyer, remember?" I smiled, and she gazed at me for several seconds before taking a studied sip of her coffee.

  Then she gave me the smallest of smiles.

  "Well?"

  What could I do but nod.

  "Yep, let's get on with it. But we do it the way I need it to be done,

  OK?"

  She nodded back, her smile slowly widening into a victory grin.

  "I was right, wasn't I?"

  We left the bookshop and walked along the main street. I told her everything, from what Lynn and Elizabeth had said to the attack on the house. I just left the T104 out of the story, and kept the return to the U.K.

  in its place. She never asked. I also told her about Kelly, the events that made me her guardian and where Josh stood in all of this. It would undoubtedly come into any conversation once we met up.

  "We met when we did, OK? The dates and everything will work. You used to work for us as a secretary." She nodded. I said, "We didn't see each other because it was all too complicated. Then we met up again. How long ago was the Syria job?"

  "Late 'ninety-five about three and a half years ago."

  "OK, we met again four weeks ago, in London, in a pub in Cambridge Street, and we sort of got back together, saw each other, nothing big time.

  And this is our first trip together. We've come here because you've never been before and I like Washington, so we thought, Fuck it, let's do it."

  She cut in, "But I told the kid I'm a lawyer and I'm working."

  I didn't like her calling Kelly that, but she was right about the story.

  "OK, you're in the States to meet a client, in New York, and I wanted to show you D.C. The rest you can busk."

  "Fine. There's only one problem, Nick."

  "What's that?"

  "What's your name? Who are you?"

  "I'm Nick Stone."

  She laughed.

  "You mean that's your real name?"

  "Yeah, of course."

  And then it dawned on me, after all the years that we'd known each other, I didn't know her name, either. I'd only ever known her as Greenwood.

  "I've shown you mine, you show me yours."

  She was suddenly a bit sheepish.

  "Sarah JarvisCockley."

  It was my turn to laugh. I'd never known anyone with such a fucked-up name.

  "Jarvis-Cockley?" It was pure Monty Python.

  "It's a Yorkshire name," she said.

  "My father was born in York."

  Stopping at a call booth, I tried Josh's number. It would be pointless traveling there if he hadn't got home yet. He was in, and sounded excited about seeing us both.

  We got a cab, crossed back over the river and followed the Jefferson Davis Highway southwest, away from D.C." toward the Pentagon. We didn't talk.

  There was nothing left to talk about; she'd told me what the two players looked like while we waited for a cab. It was hardly worth the wait. Neither appeared to have any special features that were likely to make them stick out. From the sound of things, we'd be looking for Bill Gates and Al Gore, only with darker skin.

  We were both too tired to say any more. It was easier for us to leave each other with our own thoughts, and mine centered on how the fuck I was going to do this. She put her arm in mine and squeezed my hand. She knew what I was thinking. I had a feeling she usually did, and somehow that felt good.

  We approached Arlington National Cemetery: I could see aircraft emerging above the trees on the opposite side of the road, as they took off from the National Airport by the river. At least the sun was trying to come out, even if it was in patches through the cloud.

  I gazed at the row upon row of white tombstones standing in immaculate lines on the impossibly green grass to our right. Heroism in the face of idiocy was an everyday job for me, but it was difficult not to be affected by the sheer scale of death in this place.

  I knew the Pentagon was just around the corner as the highway gently turned right. The traffic wasn't that bad now; it would be much worse in a few hours, as the staff of the world's biggest office complex headed home.

  The car parks each side of us were the size of Disneyland

  The Pentagon came into view. It looked just like the Fayetteville mall, except that the stone was a more depressing color. We lost sight of it momentarily as we went under a road bridge. One of the supports still bore a crudely painted white swastika. Josh had seen it as a sign of democracy.

  "The day they clean it off," he once said to me, "is the day no one can speak out." I just saw it as the halfway marker between his house and

  D.C.

  "About another twenty minutes," I said. Sarah nodded and kept on staring at the massive stone building. A Chinook helicopter was lifting from the rear of it, the tailgate just closing. I always liked it once the gate closed; it kept the cold out.

  I'd been to Josh's house many times before while we sorted out Kelly's future. They lived in a suburb called New Alexandria, which was south of Alexandria proper and quite a way southwest of D.C." but people who lived there called it Belle View, after the district next door. That way it didn't sound as if they wanted to live in Alexandria but had been forced to buy a little farther away. The nearer your house was to D.C." the bigger your bank balance had to be.

  Josh's house was on the Belle View road, overlooking the golf course.

  As we turned onto it I gave the taxi driver directions.

  "Halfway down, mate, on the right."

  Sarah moved closer to me and leaned to whisper in my ear.

  "Thank you for believing me, Nick. I'm glad you're here."

  I knew how lonely she felt. I put my fingers between hers.

  The golf course was to the left, and facing it were rows of three-story, brick-built homes that in the U.K. would be called town houses. The whole area was green and leafy, and probably a wonderful place for kids to grow up in. I half expected snowflakes to start falling and James Stewart to appear around the corner.

  "Just behind that black pickup." The Asian driver grunted and pulled in. Parked on the drive outside Josh's was a double-cab bed Dodge truck with large chrome bumpers and kids' mountain bikes stashed on a rack at the back. A big For Sale sign was hanging outside the house.

  A middle-aged Mexican woman in a cream raincoat emerged from the front door, w
hich was about ten very worn stone steps above pavement level. She looked at us and smiled, then just carried on past. I looked at Sarah.

  "That must be my new friend."

  Josh appeared at the door, all smiles, his head and glasses shining as brightly as his teeth. He was wearing a gray sweatshirt tucked into belted gray cargo fatigue trousers and a pair of walking boots. As he came down toward us he was still grinning away, but concentrating more on getting a good view of Sarah through the sun bouncing off the taxi windows.

  He opened the door for me, and I stepped out after paying off the driver, who took my money with another grunt. We shook hands and he reminded me that he had the strongest grip of anyone I knew. He said, "Great to see you, man. I didn't think we'd link up again so soon." He lowered his voice.

  "How did the job go?"

  "Not too bad, mate. It took a day, that was all." It was good to see him.

  He released my hand and I pumped it, trying to get some blood back.

  Sarah came around the front of the taxi, between the two vehicles. I held my hand out toward her.

  "Josh, meet Sarah."

  "Hi, Sarah." He shook her hand and I saw her reaction to his grip.

  "Nice to meet you, Josh. Nick has told me a lot about you." She must have been reading too many books; whoever says that in real life? Josh just gave her his biggest smile.

  "I don't know what he's said, but when we get inside I'll tell you the truth." He ushered us up the steps and through his front door.

  The first thing Sarah asked for was the bathroom. Josh pointed up the stairs, "First on the left." As an afterthought he called after her, "We're going into the living room, so you make as much noise as you want." That was something I'd forgotten to warn her about; Josh didn't change his sense of humor for anybody. I wondered if that was one of the reasons his wife had eloped with a tree-hugging yoga teacher.

  The holiday cases were still in the hallway.

  "Where are the kids?" I asked as we walked past them.

  "Jet lag is not an option with kids. It's rehearsal time in D.C." man. The big day is tomorrow."

  I wasn't going to pursue the subject. It made me feel too much of a lowlife, and besides, it was too early to hit him with the real reason I was here.

  "Of course. I hope they have a good time."

  The house hadn't changed at all. The flowery three-piece suite and thick green shag-pile carpet were still in place. The pictures were the same, and you couldn't move for them: Josh as a soldier, Josh becoming a member of Special Forces, Josh and the kids, Josh and Geri, the kids, all that sort of stuff, plus all those horrible school photographs, rows of gappy-toothed kids in uniform, with that really stupid grin that they only do when there's a camera pointing at them.

  He closed the door and said, "So, my friend, how does it all square with Sarah? What does she know?"

  I stepped closer to him.

  "All she knows is that Kelly's family were killed and I'm now her guardian. She knows what Kev did, and how I knew him. You're the other executor of the will. That's how we became friends. She thinks I work for a private security firm. We haven't got down to details yet."

  He nodded. That was more or less all he knew about me anyway.

  "Cool.

  Now a couple of details to get out of the way, mate. Do I get Maria to make up one bed or two?" It had always sounded really funny to me when Americans said "mate," because of the accent; the word sounds like it should only come out of Antipodeans or Brits, but Josh had got into the Brit way of speaking with me. Either that, or he'd been taking the piss all this time.

  It was a good question, and I had to make the answer sound convincing.

  I smiled.

  "One, of course."

  "All rightttt!" A big, conspiratorial grin lit up his face. We both sat down, him on a chair, me on the settee.

  "Next important question, how is Kelly? She get to her grandparents

  OK?"

  "She's fine. Yes, everything went OK. I spoke to her today; she's missing you and the crew. I think you'll be getting a thank-you card from her soon."

  The small talk was already killing me. Normally I would chat happily about that sort of shit; it was what our relationship was all about. But at the moment all I could think about was the fact that I was about to fuck him over big time even though I knew it was the right thing.

  The door opened and Sarah came in. Josh stood up.

  "Anyone for a brew?"

  I laughed. To Americans, a brew means a beer; I'd once been with Josh and had said, "Do you fancy a brew?" He'd looked at me as if I should be certified. One, we were driving; two, we were looking after kids, and three, it was nine o'clock in the morning. It had been a bit of a standing joke ever since.

  Sarah was out of this one. She sort of smiled to look as though she got it, but she probably wasn't used to being offered a brew at embassy cocktail parties, and it certainly wasn't going to be a big thing in her social circle.

  He turned to Sarah.

  "Coffee good for you?"

  "Thank you."

  He turned and walked toward the door, talking as he went.

  "The kids will be back from singing practice soon and all hell will break loose. It'll be so cool for them to find you here."

  We listened to him pottering around in the kitchen. Sarah went and sat on one of the chairs only a short distance from me, but significant in the circumstances. I said, "Sarah, we're sharing a room tonight."

  She got it immediately, stood up and came and sat next to me.

  "What now?"

  It was pointless bullshitting her.

  "I don't know, switch on and take my lead. It's far too early yet."

  She looked anxiously at the carpet.

  "I'm worried, Nick. This has got to work."

  "Trust me. Look over there," I nodded toward the books to the right of the fireplace.

  "Second shelf down." What had caught my eye was Designing Camelot the Kennedy White House Restoration. I looked at her through her glasses.

  "That's got to be a good omen." I hoped I sounded more confident than I felt.

  She saw it, and her expression gained a new determination. Josh came back with the coffee pot, mugs and biscuits as she was pulling it from the shelf. He started to pour.

  "Flat white?" he asked. We nodded.

  He saw Sarah flicking the pages, admiring the pictures of the White House interior.

  She looked up and caught his eye.

  "Now there's a classy lady." She turned the book around so we could see the picture of Jackie 0.

  "Yes, ma'am, she certainly turned this town upside down. That's her in the State Dining Room. She was our Princess Diana, I guess you could say. Geri loved her. I bought her that book for her birthday, just before she left."

  He started to open the packet of biscuits.

  "I have to hide these from the kids, otherwise there'd be none left.

  "You know what?" he said through a mouthful of biscuit, "I didn't realize all the things you have to do when you're looking after kids singlehanded.

  I've had to learn so much."

  Sarah looked surprised.

  Josh looked over at me, quite happily, "You didn't explain?"

  "I thought I'd leave it to you," I said, trying to turn it into a joke.

  "Yeah, leave it to you, then I'd tell her the truth later on."

  He looked at Sarah.

  "Geri had gotten more and more involved in local projects and classes, that sorta thing, so that she could"--he pulled a face to underline the words--"better herself." He passed a mug of coffee to her.

  "One of them was yoga. You know, I guess I was too busy working and stuff to see what was going on. I just didn't notice the classes were lasting longer as the months passed."

  I smiled in sympathy as he passed me my mug, and we had eye-to-eye.

  "In fact, she got to like the classes so much she never really wanted to come home." I could see him looking at Sarah for her re
action. He'd managed to make it sound like a joke, but I knew that deep down he was devastated.

  I felt guilty as hell as I listened to Sarah doing a number on him, but I knew it was the only way.

  Nodding toward the pictures above the gas log fire, Sarah continued to reel him in.

  "What about the children? They're such beautiful kids; whatever got into her to make her leave them?"

  He picked up his coffee and sat back.

  "The yoga teacher, that's what got into her." He tried a laugh, but it was starting to really hurt him now.

  Sarah took a second or two to get that one, but I could see from her eyes that she'd picked up on Josh's sadness.

  "She calls once a week," Josh said.

  "The kids miss her real bad."

  "How long has it been?" she asked quietly.

  "Must be about nine months or so." He looked over at me. I nodded;

  the timing was about right. Not that he didn't know; I bet he'd counted every single day. He took a sip from his mug, deep in thought.

  We all sat in silence for a while, until Sarah asked a couple of polite, ice-breaking questions about the children, and Josh told her what she already knew. She was good; they were bonding. He was almost enjoying having a woman listen to the story and appear to understand his point of view.

  There came a sound of crashing and slamming, and shouting in heavily accented English. Maria was back with the kids and telling them to slow down. She put her head through the door.

  "Hold!"

  A second or two later, the kids came surging past her to see their dad.

  At that moment they spotted me.

  "Nick! Nick! Is Kelly here?"

  Then they stopped and got embarrassed because they saw somebody they didn't know.

  "Hiya," I beamed.

  "No, Kelly's at school. Did you enjoy your time in London?"

  "Yeah, it was cool. It's a shame Kelly can't be here, though." They were all excited. They went over to their dad, kissing and cuddling him until he was buried.

  "You guys, this is Sarah, Nick's friend. Say hello to Sarah."

  All together they shouted, "Hello, Sarah."

  "Hello, everybody, very nice to meet you." She shook each of them by the hand.

  Formalities over, it all changed. It was straight into, Dad, can I do this?