the subliminal methodology and reasons behind it,’ Sam continued.
‘Perhaps we can stop it being included,’ Ben mused aloud.
‘Why can’t we just stop the book coming out?’ the President asked.
‘I don’t think that would work, sir. Imagine the public outcry. They’d tear the White House gates down,’ Ben said. ‘And you’d have to get every other country in the world to agree—that’s after you’ve managed to convince them that it’s possible. By then they’d have bootleg copies flooding the market. It would be too hard to do it, even unlawfully. Sorry sir …I didn’t mean.’
‘I know what you mean, Ben,’ the President said. ‘Your methods aren’t entirely unknown to me. But I know you act with people’s best interests at heart. That’s why you’re sitting here.’
The President looked around, bemused.
‘Well, sort of sitting here.’
‘Thanks you, sir,’ Ben said, ‘although I’m not sure if I’ll be quite so altruistic when I find that scar faced prick who seems to be popping up everywhere.’
Ben felt Sam’s foot collide with his ankle and winced.
‘Well aimed Sam,’ said the President. ‘Look I know there are scores to be settled, and I’m sure they will be. In the meantime—any suggestions?’
They all thought for while.
‘Can we access Redray Seven through your office, sir?’ Ben asked.
‘It’ll cost us a mil,’ the President said, ‘but yes. As you know, it’s privately owned by an IT consortium. Why?’
‘Maybe we can find a way that Redray can crunch literary data—you know the modern writers, co-writers, ghostwriters, bloggers, and see if there’s any similarity in styles. I don’t know—maybe it’s a long shot.’
The President turned to Sam. His next words surprised Ben a little.
‘You’ve got the literary doctorate, Sam. Does Ben’s idea make any sense?’
‘Literary doctorate?’ Ben muttered.
Sam was nodding enthusiastically.
‘It does, sir, although it may take a while even for a supercomputer. The data has to be programmed in. I know a team at Harvard who’d jump at the chance of doing research for the White House, if you’re happy to bring them in. They don’t have to know the reasons behind it and it’ll speed things up.’
She reached for her phone.
‘I’ll check the availability of Redray Seven now, if you’re OK with this.’
Nodding his approval, the President stood up, walked to the sideboard and poured a coffee.
‘Feels a bit rude not to offer you a cup, Ben.’
‘That’s OK, sir; I’ve got one right here.’
Ben glanced over to Sam who was still on the phone.
‘Mind if I ask you a question, sir?’
‘Go right ahead, Ben. If I can answer it, I will.’
‘Do you smoke?’
There was a numbing silence. And then the President chortled.
‘What do you think?’ he asked.
‘I’ve heard of the odd one, sir.’
‘I used to have around three a day. Enjoyed them too. It became an Oval Office ritual, and only there outside on the terrace. The service boys always used to have a pack handy even if they didn’t smoke. One day my wife came up to me and told me my daughter wouldn’t cuddle me anymore because I smelt like an ashtray. That was it. Never again. I …’
The President stopped and they looked at Sam. She was staring at them with a stunned expression.
‘What’s up?’ Ben asked.
‘The Redray people say they’ll give us the information for free—right now.’
‘Now?’ echoed the two men.
‘Yes, they say delighted to help the White House in what seems to be a popular subject. That exact research was completed about three weeks ago for another client. They say that for some obscure reason the premium for exclusive use of the research results wasn’t paid. Therefore Redray is at liberty to on-sell or give away the information.’
‘Who is the other client?’ Ben said, before the President could open his mouth to ask the same question.
‘Argon,’ she said, trying to keep the wide grin off her face.
*
As the service finished, Ben took one last look around. Someone in this crowd knew what was going on, he was absolutely sure of it.
*
The second funeral service, in Brooklyn, started twenty minutes later than Washington’s and was by no means as elaborately orchestrated. No fine clothes or representatives from government or academia, no well-considered eulogies or hymns. Here there were hardly any flowers to decorate the Spartan interdenominational chapel and the coffin was a simple pine job—stock standard for cash-strapped families wanting a no-frills cremation, it was said.
Lying in his coffin, Jeremiah Alphonse Baker, known in the projects as “Bambi”, wasn’t alone though. A small group of hooded teenagers, all black males, huddled near the only white woman in the congregation. Another group, mother, aunts, uncles and extended family took up the first three rows and were united in their grief. Some were dry eyed and wore resigned expressions. Another death—there would be more. Drugs and the police had evolved into an unhealthy cocktail over the last two years and the battlegrounds that places like Brownsville had always been had changed dramatically for the worse. It was now a dirtier war. The children were recruited and trained under the direction and guidance of officers of the law, the money they generated gravitating up the chain and beyond the precinct captain.
Feeling terribly sad, Sarah Marsden looked around. After the police left her that day a week ago, she hurried to the toilet to vomit her heart up. In between bouts of retching she flung the twist into bowl and watched it swirl away. Although she was desperate to lie down, she grabbed a bucket of hot water and sponged her carpet clean of the ash dropped by that filthy cop, using the rest of the water to sluice down the tiles outside her door. Then she ran the shower, not moving from under its scalding rain until her skin was stinging and glowing red. Dressed in a thick fluffy dressing gown and holding a tumbler full of neat whiskey she worked the phone. She watched her fingers still trembling.
‘Yes?’ the young female voice answered. She recognized an uncertainty in that one word.
‘Who is that?’ she asked.
‘Askin’ the same question, me,’ came the reply.
‘I’m a friend of Bambi’s,’ she said.
‘Bambi gone to a better place, lady.’
Sarah fought back her tears. It was true then. The bastards had killed him.
‘How? Please tell me how.’
‘You Sarah?’
‘What?’ suddenly she was terrified. Her brief encounter with Bambi and interfering with the food chain in the projects had cost him his life. Here she was stupidly sticking her nose back in. The cops had warned her.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘I shouldn’t have called.’
She was about to hang up.
‘Don’t go. It weren’t your fault.’
Sarah hesitated.
‘True, Sarah. Bambi was cool but he’s gettin’ too smart. He had it comin’. That night he start mouthin’ off about gettin’ outa the projects, so they beat him. He wouldn’t take it. Not this time an’ kept laying shit on them until they kilt him.’
Sarah heard the distress in the girl’s voice.
‘Are you a friend of his?’
‘Sorta, I’m his girl. We gonna have a baby, that’s why he wanted out. This ain’t no place for a family, he tell me.’
As she heard the girl sob, Sarah’s despair plummeted to new depths. She remembered those dark pig-like eyes and the foul breath of the brute as he fingered her vagina and the woman looking on, finding it amusing. It was becoming a world without rules. The Brownsville she’d left was bad, but she could escape it. With hard work and a bit of luck anyone might.
‘Bastards!’
‘What?’
‘Nothing,’ Sarah said. ‘What’s your
name?’
‘Melinda.’
‘Is that Betsy Head playground on Dumont still there, Melinda?’
‘It sure is, me and Bambi had our first kiss there.’
Sarah smiled.
‘I think everyone in Brownsville does, Melinda. I’ll meet you there at eight, OK?’
The girl hesitated.
‘I want to give you some money to tide you over. It’s not a lot for now but it might help. You OK with that?’
‘Sure, I’ll be there. You drivin’ an Explorer?’
‘Shit, how’d you know?’ Sarah asked.
There was the trace of a laugh.
‘Bambi was sure taken wit you. He got your car picture on his phone.’
*
In the chapel, Sarah turned to look at the girl sitting on her left, radiant in her pregnancy. She was holding it together and Sarah felt proud of her.
They’d met outside the park a week ago and, with the Explorer well out of sight, sat down to talk. Sarah had heard about life in Brownsville now and the dangerous merry-go-round of drug dealing and the law. She decided to go ahead with her plan to help Melinda as much as she could. There were risks and they would have to be careful, she explained, giving the girl every detail of her visit from the police.
Melinda was shocked.
‘You ain’t safe even outta here,’ she said quietly.
‘It seems like it, for now,’ Sarah agreed, ‘but things will change one day, I really believe that. We’ve just got to hang in and keep off the cops’ radar.’
*
In the unheated chapel, Sarah shivered. Melinda glanced at her, giving her a gentle smile, and then frowned. She was staring along the row of empty chairs as she nudged Sarah’s arm.
‘There’s a honkey here,’ she said, ‘lookin’ at you, and he don’t look like no cop.’
Sarah slowly turned her gaze to her right and froze. Anger seethed through her.
‘Wait here, please Melinda,’ she said, moving along through the chairs.
‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ she hissed.
Two of the hoodies a couple of rows in front turned her way. She nodded to them, letting them know she was OK and lowered her voice.
‘Are you stalking me, Ethan?’
Ethan Cross smiled, continuing to peruse a dog-eared order of service in his hand.
‘You don’t return your calls.’
‘Jesus, Ethan, that’s no reason to hunt me down. How did you know I was here—the truth if you don’t mind?’
Cross looked at her sharply, the smile gone from his face.
‘I believe I’ve been truthful with you all along, Sarah. Why shouldn’t I be?’
Sarah looked to the front of the chapel where the service was about to start. She felt she had nothing to lose by confronting Ethan now. She looked over at the girl sitting alone and remembered what had brought her here.
‘You see that young woman over there?’ she said, nodding towards Melinda.
Ethan looked across, his face impassive. He nodded.
‘I’m going to look after her Ethan, as best I can. She’s pregnant with that dead boy’s child. He was going to take her out of Brownsville’s shit heap one day and make a better life for them both. Now he’s gone and I’m going to make sure she gets her chance.’
‘That’s nice,’ Ethan said.
Sarah felt her anger surge and looked at Ethan. He was staring straight ahead, his face serious.
‘Why did you lie about Expendable?’
‘Lie?’
‘You told me that my client for that book let you know I’d written it. I know that man, Ethan, and I know that wouldn’t happen in a million years.’
‘I didn’t say that Sarah. We didn’t talk to him, unlike the other people you’ve written for. The fact is I didn’t want to tell you that we’d used some pretty underhand means to get the information we needed. Did you know that your client died in, shall we say, dubious circumstances?’
‘That’s crap,’ Sarah said. ‘He died of a heart attack at home, that’s public knowledge.’
‘That’s the official version,’ he said, ‘the family kept the real one very quiet,’ Ethan continued with a trace of a smile on his lips. ‘Apparently he had a slight aortic malfunction while researching his next book with a hooker. Instead of doing what any normal person would do with a heart attack, and head for the hospital, he decided to keep going and get his money’s worth. It took a fair amount of cash and a long-term friendship with the local coroner to hush that one up. We just mentioned that the literary world would be devastated not to hear the real version of his death and, bingo, we had access to his private diaries. He quite fancied you, did you know?’
Sarah nodded, feeling relieved.
‘Yes, he was all over me until I developed a sub-plot that he hated.’
She took a deep breath and felt strangely relieved.
‘I’m sorry, Ethan. You may be a conniving, manipulating bastard, but I’m pleased you’re not a liar.’
Sarah heard him chuckle faintly and felt herself smile.
‘You know, Sarah, it doesn’t have to be like this.’
Sarah was moving back to be with Melinda.
‘Like what?’
‘This,’ Ethan said, gesturing towards the coffin. ‘If some real money was invested in these people, and the police force cleaned up, a lot of lives could be helped. It would take time, it would take a lot of money, and it would have to be long-term, but it could happen.’
Sarah stopped.
‘What are you trying to say?’
Ethan moved towards her and lowered his voice.
‘Sarah, my CEO is a Corsfield nut. It’s pathetic. He’s got nothing better to do all day than read thrillers, play virtual golf and count his millions. But one of the things he’s good at is tax minimization …’
‘Avoidance you mean?’
Ethan shrugged.
‘We don’t call it that exactly, but yes. He really wants to see this thing through and wants me to suggest that some first-class tax gains could be made if Argon started a philanthropic arm in Brownsville—a win-win for everyone.’
Sarah’s eyes were glued to his face. This was crazy.
‘Run by you people—you’re kidding me?’
‘No, Sarah, run by you, or whoever you nominate. Think what could be done with fifty million dollars a year for the next ten years. And that’s on top of your earnings for writing the book.’
As the service started, Sarah made her way back to stand beside Melinda, reaching for her hand. When she looked round to Ethan five minutes later, remembering that he hadn’t told her how he’d known she was here, she saw that his seat was empty.
The Boy
‘He doesn’t look like a cop, does he?’ Kralinsky said, squinting in the bright sunlight and mopping at his face.
The boy laughed.
‘I don’t suppose he’s meant to,’ he said, watching the man and his female companion relaxing under a large poolside shade umbrella. They both had a pile of books and magazines piled around their recliners and appeared to be set for the day. ‘How he affords to come to a place like this for a quick vacation might be the question.’
He and Kralinsky had arrived in Grand Cayman that morning and the boy had immediately reveled in the Caribbean island’s delicious warmth. However, his friend and former teacher was suffering. Years of fine dining, interspersed with marathon stints in his labs had bestowed a rotund appearance to the man and he constantly struggled with his weight.
Waiting for Kralinsky to find his shades, the boy ordered drinks from a hovering waiter and opened a file.
‘You once told me that one day all this paperwork would be a thing of the past.’
His friend, mumbling something about the inefficiency of travel bags, finally found his shades and sighed.
‘That’s better. Now, mark my words young man,’ he proclaimed, warming to his favorite subject, ‘the way technology is going, very soon we’ll b
e toting just about everything on our mobile phones—full internet access, emails—the lot. It won’t be long before we’re carrying 10,000 books rolled up in our pockets, and here watching news videos in real time and chat face-to-face via the internet. It’s all about to happen, believe me.’
The boy looked at Kralinsky and trusted his every word. So far he’d been ahead of the technology boom at every turn, making them both billionaires in the process. Already cell phones had become smaller and cheaper and, with the work his friend was doing, new generations of affordable computers and cheaper laptops were pouring onto the market. His intuition about the value of search engines had been right on the mark and their association with an embryonic Google very, very profitable.
Kralinsky had set up the arrangements. The couple they were now quietly observing took regular breaks at the five star resort. Everyone agreed that it would be simple to strike up a casual holiday acquaintance, giving them the opportunity to talk privately.
The boy looked at their tanned and healthy bodies, admiring the way they both moved when, after a languid stretch, they took to the water for a smooth twenty lengths of the pool. He was itching to get in the water himself.
‘You could work up to that,’ the boy told his friend.
Kralinsky looked at him over his shades and tapped his forehead with his middle finger. His message was quite clear.
The boy laughed. Over the last five years they had developed an indomitable friendship and, as the boy acquired a raft of degrees, they’d spent time together whenever his hard, self-imposed schedule of study permitted. Within a short space of time, with their assets going stellar, the boy’s developing business acumen and increasing list of valuable contacts became invaluable. But, until now, on one point Kralinsky was adamant—the boy’s studies came before profitability.
Now that he’d completed them, it was time to bring his head out of the academic depths. Over the last twelve months they’d nudged their carefully made plans into place—one of them being this accidental meeting in the sunny Caribbean. It had taken all of that year for Kralinsky, with his fingers deeply immersed in the law enforcement’s burgeoning technology, to come up with the right name. They were searching for someone they could not only trust implicitly, but a man who was really going somewhere.
The Last Book. A Thriller Page 14