Gone Tomorrow By Lee Child Novel Narratives Audiobooks Part 1

this is [Music] audible soundings audio books presents an unabridged recording of gone tomorrow written by Lee Child read by Jeff Harding the moral right of the author has been asserted this performance is owned by soundings Whitley Bay ne26 2jt chapter 1 suicide bombers are easy to spot they give out all kinds of telltale signs mostly because they're nervous by definition they're all first timers Israeli counterintelligence wrote the defensive playbook they told us what to look for they used pragmatic observation and psychological sight and came up with a list of Behavioral indicators I learned the list from an Israeli Army Captain 20 years ago he swore by it therefore I swore by it too because at the time I was on 3 weeks detached Duty mostly about a yard from his shoulder in Israel itself in Jerusalem on the West Bank in the Lebanon sometimes in Syria sometimes in Jordan on buses in stores on crowded sidewalks I kept my my eyes moving and my mind running free down the bullet points 20 years later I still know the list and my eyes still move pure habit from another bunch of guys I learned another Mantra look don't see listen don't hear the more you engage the longer you survive the list is 12 points long if you're looking at a male suspect 11 if you're looking at a woman the difference is a fresh shave male bombers take off their beards it helps them blend in makes them less suspicious the result is paler skin on the lower half of the face no recent exposure to the Sun but I wasn't interested in shaves I was working on the 11o list I was looking at a woman I was riding the subway in New York City the six train the Lexington avue local heading up town 2:00 in the morning I'd gotten on at bleer street from the south end of the platform into a car that was empty except for five people subway cars feel small and intimate when they're full when they're empty they feel vast and cavernous and lonely at night their lights feel hotter and brighter even though they're the same lights they use in the day they're all the lights there are I was sprawled on a two-person bench north of the end doors on on the track side of the car the other five passengers were all south of me on the long bench seats in profile side on far from each other staring blankly across the width of the car three on the left and two on the right the car's number was 7622 I once rode eight stops on the six train next to a crazy person who talked about the car we were in with the same kind of enthusiasm that most men reserve for sports or women there before I knew that car number 7622 was an r142a model the newest on the New York system built by Kawasaki and coob Japan shipped over trucked to the 207th street yards craned onto the tracks towed down to 180th Street and tested I knew it could run 200,000 Mi without major attention I knew it's automated announcement system gave instructions in a man's voice and information in a woman's which was claimed to be a coincidence but was really because the transportation Chiefs believed such a division of labor was psychologically compelling I knew the voices came from Bloomberg TV but years before Mike became mayor I knew there were 600 r142 A's on the tracks and that each one was a fraction over 51 ft long and a little more than 8 ft wide I knew that the no cab unit like we'd been in then and I was in now had been designed to carry a maximum of of 40 people seated and up to 148 standing the crazy person had been clear on all that data I could see for myself that the car's seats were blue plastic the same shade as a late summer sky or a British Air Force uniform I could see that its wall panels were molded from graffiti resistant fiberglass I could see its twin strips of advertisements running away from me where the wall panels met the roof I could see small cheerful posters touting television shows language instruction and easy college degrees and major earning opportunities I could see a police notice advising me if you see something say something the nearest passenger to me was a Hispanic woman she was across the car from me on my left forward of the first set of doors all alone on a bench built for eight well off center she was small somewhere between 30 and 50 and she looked very hot and very tired she had a well warn Supermarket bag looped over her wrist and she was staring across at the empty Place opposite with eyes too weary to be seeing much next up was a man on the other side maybe 4T farther down the car he was all alone on his own eight person bench he could have been from the balans or the Black Sea dark hair lined skin he was seny worn down by work and weather he had his feet planted and he was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees not asleep but close to it suspended animation marking time rocking with the movements of the train he was about 50 dressed in clothes far too young for him baggy jeans that reached only his calves and an oversized NBA shirt with a player's name on it that I didn't recognize third up was a woman who might have been West African she was on the left south of the center doors tired inert her black skin and made Dusty and gray by fatigue and the lights she was wearing a colorful Boutique dress with a matching square of cloth tied over her hair her eyes were closed I know New York reasonably well I call myself a citizen of the world and New York the capital of the world so I can make sense of the city the same way a Brit knows London or a Frenchman knows Paris I'm familiar but not intimate with its habits but it was an easy guess that any three people like like these already seated on a late night Northbound 6 train south of bleer were office cleaners heading home from evening shifts around city hall or restaurant service workers from Chinatown or Little Italy they were probably set for Hunt's Point in the Bronx or maybe all the way up to pelm Bay ready for short fitful sleeps before more long days the fourth and fifth passengers were different the fifth was a man he was maybe my age wedged at 45 deg on the two-person bench diagonally opposite me all the way across and down the length of the car he was dressed casually but not cheaply chinos and a golf shirt he was awake his eyes were fixed somewhere in front of him their focus changed and narrowed constantly like he was alert and speculating they reminded me of a ball player's eyes they had a certain canny calculating shrewdness in them but it was passenger number four that I was looking at if you see something say something she was Seated on the right side of the car all alone on the farther eight person bench across from and about halfway between the exhausted West African woman and the guy with the ball player's eyes she was white and probably in her 40s it was plain she had black hair neatly but un stylishly cut and too uniformly dark to be natural she was dressed all in black I could see her fairly well the guy nearest to me on the right was still sitting forward and the v-shaped void between his bent back and the wall of the car made my line of sight uninterrupted except for a forest of stainless steel grab bars not a perfect view but good enough to ring every Bell on the 11-point list the bullet headings lit up like cherries on a Vegas machine according to Israeli Counter Intelligence I was looking at a suicide bomber chapter 2 I dismissed the thought immediately not because of racial profiling white women or as capable of craziness as anyone else I dismissed the thought because of tactical implausibility the timing was wrong the New York subway would make a fine Target for a suicide bombing the six train would be as good as any other and better than most it stops under Grand Central Terminal 8:00 in the morning 6:00 at night a crowded car 40 seated 148 standing wait until the doors open on packed platforms push the button 100 dead a couple of hundred grievously injured Panic infrastructure damage possibly fire a major Transportation Hub shut down for days or weeks and maybe never really trust it again a significant score for people whose head work in ways we can't quite understand but not at 2:00 in the morning not in a car holding just six people not when Grand Central Subway platforms would hold only drifting trash and empty cups and a couple of old homeless guys on benches the train stopped at Aster place the doors hissed open no one got on no one got off the doors thumped shut again and the motors wind and the train moved on the bullet points stayed lit up the first was the obvious no-brainer inappropriate clothing by now explosive belts are as evolved as baseball gloves take a 3ftx 2T sheet of heavy canvas fold once longitudinally and you have a continuous pocket a foot deep wrap the pocket around the bomber and sew it together in back zippers or snaps can lead to second thoughts insert a stockade of dynamite sticks into the pocket all the way around wire them up pack nails or ball bearings into the voids sew the top seam shut add crude shoulder straps to take the weight altogether effective but altogether bulky the only practical concealment an oversized garment like a padded winter parka never appropriate in the Middle East and plausible in New York maybe 3 months and 12 but this was September and it was as hot as summer and 10° hotter underground I was wearing a t-shirt passenger number four was wearing a North Face Down jacket black puffy shiny a little too large and zipped to her chin if you see something say something I took a pass on the second of the 11 points not immediately applicable the second point is a robotic walk significant at a checkpoint or in a crowded Marketplace or outside a church or a mosque but not relevant with the seated suspect on public transportation bombers walk robotically not because they're overcome with ecstasy at the thought of imminent martyrdom but because they're carrying 40 extra pounds of unaccustomed weight which is biting into their shoulders through crude suspender straps and because they're drugged martyrdoms appeal goes only so far most bombers are browbeaten simpletons with a slug of raw opium paste held between gum and cheek we know this because Dynamite belts explode with a characteristic donut-shaped pressure wave that rolls up the Torso in a fraction of a Nan and lifts the head clean off the shoulders the human head isn't bolted on it just rests there by gravity somewhat tied down by skin and muscles and tendons and ligaments but those in substantial bi ological anchors don't do much against the force of a violent chemical explosion my Israeli Mentor told me the easiest way to determine that an open Air Attack was caused by a suicide bomber rather than by a car bomb or a package bomb is to search on an 80 or 90 ft radius and look for a severed human head which is likely to be strangely intact and undamaged even down to the Opium plug in the cheek the train stopped at Union Square no one got on no one got off hot air billowed in from the platform and fought the interior air conditioning then the doors closed again and the train moved on points 3 through six are variations on a subjective theme irritability sweating ticks and nervous Behavior although in my opinion sweating is as likely to be caused by physical overheating as by nerves the inappropriate clothing and the dynamite dynamite is wood pul soaked with nitroglycerin and molded into Baton siiz sticks wood pulp is a good thermal insulator so sweating comes with the territory but the irritability and the ticks and the nervous Behavior are valuable indicators these people are in the last weird moments of their lives anxious scared of pain woozy with narcotics they are irrational by definition believing or half believing or not really believing at all in paradise and rivers of milk and honey and Lush pastures and virgins driven by ideological pressures or by the expectations of their peers and their families suddenly in too deep and unable to back out Brave talk and clandestin meetings is one thing action is another hence suppressed pic Panic with all its visible signs passenger number four was showing them all she looked exactly like a woman heading for the end of her life as surely and certainly as the train was heading for the end of the line therefore 7 breathing she was panting low and controlled in out in out like a technique to conquer the pain of childbirth or like the result of a ghastly shock or like a last desperate barrier against screaming with Dread and fear and Terror in out in out point8 suicide bombers about to go into action stare rigidly ahead no one knows why but video evidence and surviving eyewitnesses have been entirely consistent in their reports bombers stare straight ahead perhaps they've screwed their commitment up to the sticking point and fear intervention perhaps like dogs and children they feel that if they're not seeing anyone then no one is seeing them perhaps a last shred of conscience means they can't look at the people they're about to destroy no one knows why but they all do it passenger number four was doing it that was for sure she was staring across at the blank window opposite so hard she was almost burning a hole in the glass points 1 through 8 check I shifted my weight forward in my seat then I stopped the idea was tactically absurd the time was wrong then I looked again and moved again because points 9 10 and 11 were all present and correct too and they were the most important points of all chapter 3 point n mumbled prayers to date all known attacks have been inspired or motivated or validated or invigilated by religion almost exclusively the Islamic religion and Islamic people are accustomed to praying in public surviving eyewitnesses report long formulaic incantations run through and repeated endlessly and more or less inaudibly but with visibly moving lips passenger number four was really going at it her lips were moving below her fixed stare in a long panting ritualistic recitation that seemed to repeat itself every 20 seconds or so maybe she was already introducing herself to whatever deity she expected to meet on the other side of the line maybe she was trying to convince herself that there really was a deity and a line the train stopped at 23rd Street the doors opened no one got off no one got on I saw the red exit signs above the platform 22nd in park northeast corner or 23rd in park Southeast Corner unremarkable lengths of Manhattan sidewalk but suddenly attractive I stayed in my seat the doors closed the train moved on point 10 a large bag Dynamite is a stable explosive as long as it's fresh it doesn't go off by accident it needs to be triggered by blasting caps blasting caps are wired with Detonator cord to an electricity Supply and a switch the big plungers and old western movies were both things together the first part of the handle's travel spun up a Dynamo like a field telephone and then a switch was tripped not practical for portable use for portable use you need a battery and for a linear yard of explosive you need some volts and amps tiny AA cells put out a weak volt and a half not enough according to prevailing rules of thumb a 9vt battery is better and for a decent kick you want one of the big Square soup can siiz cells sold for serious flashlights two big big and too heavy for a pocket H the bag the battery Nestles in the bottom of the bag wires come off it to the switch then they head on out through an unobtrusive slit in the back of the bag and then they Loop up under the Hem of the inappropriate garment passenger number four was wearing a black canvas messenger bag Urban style looped in front of one shoulder and behind the other and hauled around onto her lap the way the stiff fabric bulged and sagged made it look empty apart from a single heavy item the train stopped at 28th Street the doors open no one got on no one got off the doors closed and the train moved on 11 hands in the bag 20 years ago1 was a recent addition previously the list had ended at 10 but things evolve action and and reaction Israeli security forces and some Brave members of the public had adopted a new tactic if your suspicions were aroused you didn't run no point really you can't run faster than shrapnel what you did instead was grab the suspect in a desperate bear hug you pinned their arms to their sides you stopped them reaching the button several attacks were prevented that way many lives were saved but the bombers learned now they're taught to keep their thumbs on the button at all times to make the be hug irrelevant the button is in the bag next to the battery hence hands in the bag passenger number four had her hands in her bag the flap was bunched and creased between her wrists the train stopped at 33rd Street the doors opened no one got up off a lone passenger on the platform hesitated and then stepped to her right and entered the next car I turned and looked through the little window behind my head and saw her take a seat close to me two stainless bulkheads and the coupler space I wanted to wave her away she might survive at the other end of her car but I didn't wave we had no eye contact and she would have ignored me anyway I know New York y crazy gestures on Late Night trains carry no credibility the doors stayed open a beat longer than normal for a mad second I thought of trying to shepher everyone out but I didn't it would have been a comedy surprise incomprehension maybe language barriers I wasn't sure that I knew the Spanish word for bomb bomba maybe or was that light bulb a crazy guy ranting about light bulbs wasn't going to help anyone no light bulb was bombia I thought maybe possibly but certainly I didn't know any Balkan languages and I didn't know any West African dialects although maybe the woman in the dress spoke French some of West Africa's frankophone and I speak French in bomb La bbto the woman over there has a bomb under her coat the woman in the dress might understand or she might get the message some other way and simply follow us out if she woke up in time if she opened her eyes in the end I just stayed in my seat the doors closed the train moved on I stared at passenger number four pictured her slim pale thumb on the hidden button the button probably came from Radio Shack an innocent component for a hobby probably cost a buck and a half I pictured a tangle of wires red and black taped and crimped and clamped a thick Detonator cord exiting the bag tucked under her coat connecting 12 or 20 blasting caps and a long lethal parallel ladder electricity moves close to the speed of light Dynamite is unbelievably powerful in a closed environment like a subway car the pressure wave alone would crush us all to paste the nails and the ball bearings would be entirely gratuitous like bullets against ice cream very little of us would survive bone fragments maybe the size of grape pits possibly the Stirrup and the Anvil from the inner ear might survive intact they're the smallest bones in the human body and therefore statistically the most likely to be missed by the shrapnel Cloud I stared at the woman no way of approaching her I was 30 ft away her thumb was already on the button cheapap brass contacts were maybe an eighth of an inch apart that tiny Gap perhaps narrowing and widening fractionally and rhythmically as her heartbeat and her arm trembled she was good to go and I wasn't the train rocked onward with its characteristic Symphony of sounds the howl of rushing air in the tunnel the thump and clatter of the Expansion Joints under the iron rims the scrape of the current collector against the live rail the whine of the motors the sequential squeals as the cars lurched one after the other through curves and the wheel flanges bit down where was she going what did the six train pass under could a building be brought down by by a human bomb I thought not so what big crowds were still assembled after 2:00 in the morning not many nightclubs maybe but we'd already left most of them behind and she wouldn't get past a Velvet Rope anyway I stared on at her too hard she felt it she turned her head slowly smoothly like a pre-program red movement she stared right back at me our eyes met her face changed she knew I knew chapter 4 we looked straight at each other for the best part of 10 seconds then I got to my feet braced against the motion and took a step I would be killed 30 ft away no question I couldn't get any dead by being any closer I passed the Hispanic woman on my left passed the guy in the NBA shirt on my right pass the West African woman on my left her eyes were still closed I handed myself from one grab bar to the next left and right swaying passenger number four stared at me all the way frightened panting muttering her hands stayed in her bag I I stopped 6 ft from her I said I really want to be wrong about this she didn't reply her lips moved her hands moved under the thick black canvas the large object in her bag shifted slightly I said I need to see your hands she didn't reply I'm a cop I lied I can help you she didn't reply I said we can talk she didn't reply I let go of the grab bars and dropped my hands to my sides it made me smaller less threatening just a guy I stood as still as the moving train would let me I did nothing I had no option she would need a split second I would need more than that except that there was absolutely nothing I could do I could have grabbed her bag and tried to tear it away from her but it was looped around her body and its strap was a wide band of tightly woven cotton the same knit as a fire hose it was pre-washed and pre-aged and pre-distressed like new stuff is now but it would still be very strong I would have ended up jerking her up off her seat and dumping her down on the floor except that I wouldn't have gotten anywhere nearer she would have hit the button before my hand was halfway there I could have tried to jerk the bag upward and swipe behind it with my other hand to rip the Detonator cord out of its terminals except that for the sake of her easy movement there would be enough spare length in the cord that I would have needed to haul it through a giant twt Arc before I met any resistance by which time she would have hit the button if only an involuntary shock I could have grabbed in her jacket and tried to tear some other wires loose but there were fat pockets of goose feathers between me and the wires a slippery nylon shell no touch no feel no hope I could have tried to incapacitate her hit her hard in the head knock her out one punch instantaneous but as fast as I still am a decent swing from 6 ft away would have taken most of half a second she had to move the ball of her thumb an eighth of an inch she would have gotten there first I asked can I sit down next to you she said no stay away from me a neutral toneless voice no obvious accent American but she could have been from anywhere up close she didn't look really wild or deranged just resigned and Grave and scared and tired she was staring up at me with the same intensity she'd been using on the opposite window she looked completely alert and aware I felt completely scrutinized I couldn't move I couldn't do anything it's late I said you should wait for rush hour she didn't reply six more hours I said it will work much better then her hands moved inside her bag I said not now she said nothing just one I said show me one hand you don't need both of them in there the train slowed hard I staggered backward and stepped forward again and reached up to the grab bar close to the roof my hands were damp the steel felt hot Grand Central I thought but it wasn't I glanced out the window expecting lights and white tiles and saw the glow of a dim blue lamp instead we were stopping in the tunnel maintenance or signaling I turned back show me one hand I said again the woman didn't answer she was staring at my waist with my hands high my t-shirt had ridden up and the scar low on my stomach was visible above the waistband of my pants raised white skin hard and lumpy big crude stitches like a cartoon shrapnel from a truck bomb in Beirut a long time ago I'd been 100 yards from the explosion I was 98 yard closer to the woman on the bench she stared on most people ask how I'd gotten the scar I didn't want her to I didn't want to talk about bombs not with her I said show me one hand she asked why you don't need two in there then what good can it do you I don't know I said I had no real idea what I was doing I'm not a hostage negotiator I was just talking for the sake of it which is uncharacteristic mostly I'm a very silent person it would be statistically very likely for me to die halfway through a sentence maybe that's why I was talking the woman moved her hands I saw her take a solo grip inside her bag with her right and she brought out her left slowly small pale faintly bridged with veins and tendons middle-aged skin plain Nails trimmed short no rings not married not engaged to be she turned her hand over over to show me the other side empty Palm red because she was hot thank you I said she laid her hand palmed down on the seat next to her and left it there like it was nothing to do with the rest of her which it wasn't at that point the train stopped in the darkness I lowered my hands the Hem of my shirt fell back into place I said now show me what's in the bag why I just want to see it Whatever It Is she didn't reply she didn't move I said I won't try to take it away from you I promise I just want to see it I'm sure you can understand that the train moved on again slow acceleration no jerk low speed a gentle cruise into the station a slow roll Maybe 200 y I thought I said I think I'm entitled to at least see it wouldn't you agree she made a face like she didn't understand she said I don't see why you're entitled to see it you don't no because I'm involved here and maybe I can check it's fixed right but later because you need to do this later not now you said you were a cop we can work this out I said I can help you I glanced over my shoulder the train was creeping along white light up ahead I turned back the woman's right hand was moving she was juggling it into a firmer grip and slowly shaking it free of the bag all at once I watched the bag snagged on her wrist and she used her left hand to free it up her right hand came out not a battery no wires no switch no button no plunger something else entirely chapter 5 the woman had a gun in her hand she was pointing it straight at me low down dead center on a line between my groin and my Naval all kinds of necessary stuff in that region organs spine intestines various arteries and veins the gun was a Ruger Speed 6 a big old 357 Magnum revolver with a short 4-in barrel capable of blowing a hole in me big enough to see daylight through but overall I was a lot more cheerful than I had been a second before many reasons bombs kill people all at once guns kill one at a time bombs don't need aiming and guns do the speed 6 weighs north of 2 lb fully loaded a lot of mass for a slender wrist to control and Magnum rounds produce searing muzzle flash and punishing recoil if she had used the gun before she would know that she would have what Shooters call Magnum Flinch a split second before pulling the trigger her arm would clench and her eyes would close and her head would turn away she had a decent chance of missing even from 6 ft most handguns Miss maybe not on the range with ear Defenders and eye protection and time and calm and nothing at stake but in the real world with panic and stress and the shakes and a thumping heart hand guns are all about luck good or bad mine and hers if she missed she wouldn't get a second shot I said take it easy just to be making sounds her finger was bone white on the trigger but she hadn't moved it yet the speed six is a double action revolver which means that the first half of the trigger's pull moves the Hammer back and rotates the cylinder the second half drops the hammer and fires the gun complex mechanics which take time not much but some I stared at her finger since the guy with the ball player's eyes watching I guessed my back was blocking the view from farther out the car I said you've got no beef with me lady you don't even know me Put the gun down and talk she didn't reply maybe something passed across her face but I wasn't watching her face I was watching her finger it was the only part of her that interested me and I was concentrating on the vibrations coming up through the floor waiting for the car to stop my crazy fellow passenger had told me that the r142a weigh 35 tons each they can do 62 m an hour therefore their brakes are very powerful too powerful for finesse at low speeds no Feathering is possible they clamp and jerk and grind trains often skid the last yard on locked Wheels hence the characteristic Yelp as they stop I figured the same would apply even after our slow crawl maybe more so relatively speaking the gun was essentially a weight on the end of a pendulum a long thin arm 2 lb of Steel when the brakes bit down momentum would carry the gun onward Uptown Newton's law of motion I was ready to fight my own momentum and push off the bars the other way and jump downtown if the gun jerk just 5 in north and I jerk just 5 in South I'd be in the clear maybe 4 in would do it or four and a half for safety's sake the woman asked where did you get your scar I didn't answer were you gutshot bomb I said she moved the muzzle to her left and my right she aimed at where the scar was hidden by the Hem of my shirt the train rolled on into the station infinitely slow barely walking pace Grand Central's platforms along the lead car was heading all the way to the end I waited for the brakes to bite I figured there'd be a nice little Lurch we never got there the gun barrel moved back to my Center Mass then it moved vertical for a split second I thought the woman was surrendering but the barrel kept on moving the woman raised her chin high like a proud obstinate gesture she tucked the muzzle into the soft flesh beneath it squeez the trigger halfway the cylinder turned and the hammer scraped back across the nylon of her coat then she pulled the trigger the rest of the way and blew her own head off chapter 6 the doors didn't open for a long time maybe someone had used the emergency intercom or maybe the conductor had heard the shot but whatever the system went into full-on lockdown mode it was undoubtedly something they rehearsed and the procedure made a lot of sense better that a crazed gunman was contained in a single car rather than being allowed to run around all over town but the waiting wasn't pleasant the 357 Magnum round was invented in 1935 Magnum is Latin for big heavier bullet and a lot more propellant charge technically the propellant charge does not explode it defrates which is a chemical process halfway between burning and exploding the idea is to create a huge bubble of hot gas that accelerates the bullet down the barrel like a pent up Spring normally the gas follows the bullet out of the muzzle and sets fire to the oxygen in the air close by and muzzle flash but with a hard contact shot to the head like passenger number four had chosen the bullet makes a hole in the skin and the gas pumps itself straight in after it it expands violently Under the Skin and either rips itself a huge star-shaped exit wound or it blows all the Flesh and skin right off the bone and unra CS the skull completely like peeling a banana upside down that was what had happened in this case the woman's face was reduced to rags and tatters of bloody flesh hanging off shattered bone the bullet had traveled vertically through her mouth and had dumped its massive kinetic energy in her brain Pan and the sudden huge pressure had sought relief and found it where the plates of her skull had sealed themselves way back in childhood Hood they had burst open again and the pressure had pasted three or four large fragments of bone all over the wall above and behind her one way or the other her head was basically gone but the graffiti resistant fiberglass was doing its job white bone and dark blood and gray tissue were running down the Slick surface not sticking leaving thin snail Trails behind the woman's body had collapsed into a slumped position on the bench her right index finger was still hooked through the trigger guard the gun had bounced off her thigh and was resting on the seat next to her the sound of the shot was still ringing in my ears behind me I could hear muted sounds I could smell the woman's blood I ducked forward and checked her bag empty I unzipped her jacket and opened it up nothing there just a white cotton blouse and the stink of voided bowel and bladder I found the emergency panel and called through to the conductor myself I said suicide by gunshot last but one car it's all over now we're secure no further threat I didn't want to wait until the NYPD assembled SWAT teams and body armor and rifles and came in all stealthy that could take a long time I didn't get a reply from the conductor but a minute later his voice came through the train PA he said passengers are advised that the doors will remain closed for a few minutes due to an evolving incident he spoke slowly he was probably reading from a card his voice was shaky not at all like the smooth tones of the Bloomberg anchors I took a last look around the car and sat down 3 ft from The Headless corpse and waited whole episodes of TV cop shows could have run before the real life cops even arrived DNA could have been extracted and analyzed matches could have been made perpetrators could have been hunted and caught and tried and sentenced but eventually six officers came down the stairs they were in caps and vests and they had drawn their weapons NYPD patrolman on the night shift probably out of the 14th precinct on West 35th Street the famous Midtown South they ran along the platform and started checking the train from the front I got up again and watched Through the Windows above the couplers down the whole length of the train like peering into a long lit up stainless steel tunnel The View got murky farther down due to dirt and green impurities in the layers of glass but I could see the cops opening doors car by car checking clearing turning the passengers out and hustling them upstairs to the street it was a lightly loaded Night Train and it didn't take long for them to reach us they checked Through the Windows and saw the body and the gun and tensed up the doors hissed open and they swarmed on board two through each set of doors we all raised our hands like a reflex One Cop blocked each of the doorways and the other three moved straight towards the dead woman they stopped and stood off about 6 ft didn't check for a pulse or any other sign of Life didn't hold a mirror under her nose to check for breathing partly because it was obvious she wasn't breathing and partly because she didn't have a nose the cartilage had torn away leaving Jagged splinters of bone between where the internal pressure had popped her eyeballs out a big cop with sergeant stripes turned around he'd gone a little pale but was otherwise well into a pretty good impersonation of just another night's work he asked who saw what happened here there was silence at the front of the car the Hispanic woman the man in the NBA shirt and the African lady they were all sitting tight and saying nothing point8 a rigid stare ahead they were all doing it if I can't see you you can't see me the guy in the golf shirt said nothing so I said she took the gun out of her bag and shot herself just like that more or less why how would I know where and when on the Run end of the station whenever that was the guy processed the information suicide by gunshot the subway was the nypd's responsibility the deceleration zone between 41st and 42nd was the 14th precincts turf his case no question he nodded said okay please all of you exit the car and wait on the platform we'll need names and addresses and statements from you then he keyed his caller microphone and was answered by a loud blast of static he answered that in turn with a long stream of codes and numbers I guessed he was calling for paramedics and an ambulance after that it would be up to the transport people to get the car unhooked and cleaned and the schedule back on track not difficult I thought there was plenty of time before the morning rush hour we got out into a gathering crowd on the platform transport cops more regular cops arriving Subway workers clustering all around Grand Central Personnel showing up 5 minutes later an FDNY paramedic crew clattered down the stairs with a gurnie they came through the barrier and stepped on the train and the First Response cops stepped off I didn't see what happened after that because the cops started moving through the crowd looking around making ready to find a passenger each and walk them away for further inquiries the big Sergeant came for me I had answered his questions on the train therefore he made me first in line he led me deep into the station and put me in a hot stale white tiled room that could have been part of to the transport police facility he sat me down alone in a wooden chair and asked me for my name Jack Reacher I said he wrote it down and didn't speak again just hung around in the doorway and watched me and waited for a detective to show up I guessed chapter 7 the detective who showed up was a woman and she came alone she was wearing pants and a gray short sleeve shirt maybe silk maybe man-made shiny anyway it was untucked and I guessed the Tails were hiding her gun and her cuffs and whatever else she was carrying inside the shirt she was small and slim above the shirt she had dark hair tied back and a small oval face no jewelry not even a wedding band she was somewhere in her late 30s maybe 40 an attractive woman I liked her immediately she looked relaxed and friendly she showed me her gold shield and handed me her business card it had numbers on it for her office and her cell it had an NYPD email address she said the name on it out loud for me the name was Thea Lee with the T and the H pronounced together like theme or therapy Thea she was an Asian Maybe maybe the Lee came from an old marriage or was an Ellis Island version of IG GH or some other longer and more complicated name maybe she was descended from Robert E she said can you tell me exactly what happened she spoke softly with raised eyebrows and in a breathy voice brimming with care and consideration like her primary concern was my own post-traumatic stress can you tell tell me can you like can you bear to relive it I smiled briefly Midtown South was down to low single-digit homicides per year and even if she had dealt with all of them by herself since the first day she came on the job I'd still seen more corpses than she had by a big multiple the woman on the train hadn't been the most Pleasant of them but she'd been a very long way from the worst so I told her exactly what had happened all the way up from bleer Street all the way through the 11-point list my tentative approach the fractured conversation the gun the suicide Thea Lee wanted to talk about the list we have a copy she said it's supposed to be confidential it's been out in the world for 20 years I said everyone has a copy it's hardly confidential where did you see it in Israel I said just after it was written wow so I ran through my resume for her The Abridged version the US Army 13 years of military policeman the elite 110th investigative unit service all over the world plus detached Duty here and there as and when ordered then the Soviet collapse the peace dividend the smaller defense budget suddenly getting cut loose officer or enlisted man she asked final rank of major I said and now I'm retired you're young to be retired I figure I should enjoy it while I can and are you never better what were you doing tonight down there in the village music I said those blues clubs on bleer and where were you headed on the six train I was going to get a room somewhere or head over to the port authority to get a bus us to where wherever short visit the best kind where do you live nowhere my year is one short visit after another where's your luggage I don't have any most people asked follow-up questions after that but Thea Lee didn't instead her eyes changed Focus again and she said I'm not happy that the list was wrong I thought it was supposed to be definitive she spoke inclusively cop to cop as if my old job made a difference to her it was only half wrong I said the suicide part was right I suppose so she said the signs would be the same I guess but it was still a false positive better than a false negative I suppose so she said again I asked do we know who she was not yet but we'll find out they tell me they found keys in a wallet at the scene they'll probably be definitive but what was up with the winter jacket I said I have no idea she went quiet like she was profoundly disappointed I said these things are always works in progress personally I think we should add a 12 point to the women's list too if a woman bomber takes off her head scarf there's going to be a suntan clue the same as the men good point she said and I read a book that figured the part about the virgins is a mistranslation the word is ambiguous it comes in a passage full of food imagery milk and honey it probably means raisins plump and possibly candied or sugared they kill themselves for raisins I'd love to see their faces are you a linguist I speak English I said and French and why would a woman bomber want virgins anyway a lot of sacred texts are mistranslated especially where virgins are concerned even the New Testament probably some people say Mary was a firsttime mother that's all from the Hebrew word not a virgin the original writers was laugh seeing what we made of it all Thea Lee didn't comment on that instead she asked are you okay I took it to be an inquiry as to whether I was shaken up as to whether I should be offered counseling maybe because she took me for a taciturn man who was talking too much but I was wrong I said I'm fine and she looked a little surprised and said I would be regretting the approach myself on the train I think you tipped her over the edge another couple of stops and she might have gotten over whatever was upsetting her we sat in silence for a minute after that and then the big Sergeant stuck his head in and nodded Lee out to the corridor I heard a short- whispered conversation and then Lee came back in and asked me to head over to West 35th Street with her to the precinct house I I asked why she hesitated formality she said to get your statement typed up to close the file do I get a choice in the matter don't go there she said the Israeli list is involved we could call this whole thing a matter of National Security you're a material witness we could keep you until you grew old and died better just to play ball like a good citizen so I Shrugged and followed her out of the Grand Central Labyrinth to Vanderbilt Avenue where her car was parked it was an unmarked Ford Crown Victoria battered and grimy but it worked okay it got us over to West 35th just fine we went in through the Grand Old portal and she led me upstairs to an interview room she stepped back and waited in the corridor and let me go in ahead of her then she stayed in the corridor and closed the door behind me and locked it from the outside chapter 8 Thea Lee came back 20 minutes later with the beginnings of an official file and another guy she put the file on the table and introduced the other guy as her partner she said his name was doerty she said he'd come up with a bunch of questions that maybe should have been asked and answered at the outset what questions I asked first she offered me coffee in the bathroom I said yes to both dockerty escorted me down the corridor and when we got back there were three foam cups on the table next to the file two coffees one tea I took a coffee and tried it it was okay Lee took the tea doery took the second coffee and said run through it all again so I did concisely Bare Bones and Docker D fussed a bit about how the Israeli list had produc a false positive the same way that Lee had I answered him the same way I had answered her that a false positive was better than a false negative and that looking at it from the dead woman's point of view whether she was heading for a solo exit or planning to take a crowd with her might not alter the personal symptom she'd be displaying for 5 minutes we had a Collegiate atmosphere going three reasonable people discussing an interesting phenomenon then the tone changed dockerty asked how did you feel I asked about what well she was killing herself I'm glad that she wasn't killing me dockerty said we're homicide detectives we have to look at all violent deaths you understand that right just in case I said just in case of what just in case there's more than meets the eye there isn't she shot herself says you no one can say different because that's what happened dockerty said there are always alternative scenarios you think maybe you shot her Theresa Lee gave me a sympathetic look I said I didn't Dockery said maybe it was your gun I said it wasn't was a 2B piece I don't have a bag you're a big guy big pants big Pockets Thea Lee gave me another sympathetic look like she was saying I'm sorry I said what is this good cop dumb cop Dockery said you think I'm dumb well you just proved it if I shot her with a 357 Magnum I'd have residue on me up to my elbow but you just stood out outside the men's room while I washed my hands you're full of [ __ ] you haven't fingerprinted me and you haven't mirandized me you're blowing smoke we're obliged to make certain what does the medical examiner say we don't know yet there were Witnesses Lee shook her head no use they didn't see anything they must have their view was blocked by your back plus they weren't looking Plus plus they were half asleep and plus they don't speak much English they had nothing to offer basically I think they wanted to get going before we started checking green cards what about the other guy he was in front of me he was wide awake and he looked like a citizen and an English speaker what other guy the fifth passenger Chinos in a golf shirt Lee opened the file shook her head there were only four passengers plus the woman chapter nine Lee took a sheet of paper out of the file and reversed it and slid it halfway across the table it was a handwritten list of witnesses four names mine plus a Rodriguez a fof and an nil four passengers she said again I said I was on the train I can count I know how many passengers there were then I reran the scene in my head stepping off the train waiting among the small milling crowd the arrival of the paramedic crew the cops stepping off the train in turn moving through the throng taking an elbow each leading the witnesses away to separate rooms I had gotten grabbed first by the big Sergeant impossible to say whether four cops had followed behind us or only three three I said he must have slipped away doery asked who was he just a guy alert but nothing special about him my age not poor did he interact in anyway with the woman not that I saw did he shoot her she shot herself doy Shrugged so he's just a reluctant witness doesn't want paperwork showing was out and about at 2:00 in the morning probably cheating on his wife happens all the time he ran but you're giving him a free pass and looking at me instead you just testified that he wasn't involved I wasn't involved either says you you believe me about the other guy but not about myself why would you lie about the other guy I said this is a waste of time and it was it was such an extreme clumsy waste of time that I suddenly realized it wasn't for real it was stage managed I realized that in fact in their own peculiar way Lee and dockerty were doing me a small favor is more than meets the eye I said who was she doery said why should she be someone because you made the ID and the compter computers lit up like Christmas trees someone called you and told you to hold on to me until they get here you didn't want to put an arrest on my record so you're stalling me with all this [ __ ] we didn't particularly care about your record we just didn't want to do the paperwork so who was she apparently she worked for the government a federal agency is on its way to question you we're not allowed to say which one they left me locked in the room it was an okay space grimy hot battered no windows out ofate crime prevention posters on the walls and the smell of sweat and anxiety and burnt coffee in the air the table and three chairs two for the detectives one for the suspect back in the day maybe the suspect got smacked around and tumbled out of the chair maybe he still did it's hard to say exactly what happens in a room with no windows I timed the delay in my head the clock had already been running about an hour since th Alise whispered talk in the Grand Central Corridor so I knew it wasn't the FBI coming for me their New York field office is the largest in the nation based down in Federal Plaza near city hall 10 minutes to react 10 minutes to assemble a team 10 minutes to drive up town with lights and Sirens the FBI would have arrived long long ago but that left a whole bunch of other three-letter agencies I made a bet with myself that whoever was heading my way would have IIA as the last two letters on their badges CIA Dia Central Intelligence Agency defense intelligence agency maybe others recently invented and hitherto unpublicized the middle of the night panics were very much their style after a second hour attacked on to the first I figured they must be coming all the way from DC which implied a small specialist outfit anyone else would have a field office closer to hand I gave up speculating and tipped my chair back and put my feet on the table and went to sleep I didn't find out exactly who they were not then they wouldn't tell me at 5: in the morning three men in suits came in and woke me up they were polite and businesslike their suits were mid-priced and clean and pressed their shoes were polished Their Eyes Were bright their haircuts were fresh and short their faces were pink and Ruddy their bodies were stocky but toned they looked like they could run half marathons without much trouble but without much enjoyment either my first impression was recent ex-military gung-ho staff officers had hunted into some Limestone Building inside inside the Beltway True Believers doing important work I asked to C ID in Badges and credentials but they quoted the Patriot Act at me and said they weren't obliged to identify themselves probably true and they certainly enjoyed saying so I considered clamming up in retaliation but they saw me considering and quoted some more of the act at me which left me in no doubt at all that a world of trouble lay at the end of that particular Road I am afraid of very little but hassle with today's security apparatus is always best avoided friends Kafka and George Orwell would have given me the same advice so I Shrugged and told them to go ahead and ask their questions they started by saying that they were aware of my military service and very respectful of it which was either a [ __ ] boilerplate platitude or meant that they'd been recruited out of the MPS themselves nobody respects an MP except another MP then they said that they would be observing me very closely and would know whether I was telling the truth or lying which was total [ __ ] because only the best of us can do that and these guys weren't the best of us otherwise they would have been in very senior positions meaning that right then they would have been home in asleep in a Virginia suburb rather than running up and down 995 in the middle of the night but I didn't have anything to hide so I told him again to go ahead they had three areas of concern the first did I know the woman who had killed herself on the train had I ever seen her before I said no short and sweet quiet but firm they didn't follow up with supplementaries which told me roughly who they were and exactly what they were doing they were somebody's B Team sent North to dead end an open investigation they were Walling it off burying it drawing a line under something somebody had been only half suspicious about to begin with they wanted a negative answer to every question so that the file could be closed and the matter put to bed they wanted a positive absence of loose ends and they didn't want to draw attention to the issue by making it a big drama they wanted to get back on the road with the whole thing forgotten the second question was did I know a woman called Leela ho I said no because I didn't not then the third question was more of a sustained dialogue the lead agent opened it the main man he was a little older and a little smaller than the other two maybe a little smarter too he said you approached the woman on the train I didn't reply I was there to answer questions not to comment on statements the guy asked how close did you get 6 ft I said give or take close enough to touch her no if you had extended your arm and she had extended hers could you have touched hands maybe I said is that a yes or a no it's aaz B I know how long my arms are I don't know how long hers were did she pass anything to you no did you accept anything from her no did you take anything from her after she was dead no did anyone else not that I saw did you see anything fall from her hand or her bag or her clothing no did she tell you anything nothing of substance did she speak to anyone else no the guy asked would you mind turning out your pockets I Shrugged I had nothing to hide I went through each pocket in turn and dumped the contents on The Battered table a folded W of cash money and a few coins my old passport my ATM card my clip together toothbrush the metro card that had got me into the subway in the first place and thees Lee's business card the guy stirred through my stuff with a single extended finger and nodded to one of his underlings who stepped up close to Pat me down he did a semi-expert job and found nothing more and shook his head the main guy said Thank you Mr Reacher and then they left all three of them as quickly as they had come in I was a little surprised but happy enough I put my stuff back in my pockets and waited for them to clear the corridor and then I wandered [Music] out the place was quiet I saw Theresa Lee doing nothing at a desk and her partner Doherty walking a guy across the squad room to a cubicle at the back the guy was a worn out midsized 40 something something he had on a creased gray t-shirt and a pair of red sweatpants he had left home without combing his hair that was clear it was gray and sticking up all over the place Thea Lee saw me looking and said family member the woman's Lee nodded she had contact details in her wallet that's her brother he's a cop himself small town in New Jersey he drove straight over poor guy I know we didn't ask him to make the formal ID she's too messed up we told him that a closed casket is the way to go he got the message so are you sure it's her Lee nodded again fingerprints who was she I'm not allowed to say am I done here the fed's finished with you apparently then beat it you're done I made it to the top of the stairs and she called after me she said I didn't mean it about tipping her over the edge yes you did I said and you might have been right I stepped out to the dawn cool and turned left on 35th Street and headed east you're done but I wasn't right there on the corner were four more guys waiting to talk to me similar types as before but not federal agents their suits were too expensive chapter 10 the world is the same jungle all over but New York is its purest distillation what is useful elsewhere is vital in the big city you see four guys bunched on a corner weight for you you either run like hell in the opposite direction without hesitation or You Keep On Walking without slowing down or speeding up or breaking stride you look ahead with studied neutrality you check their faces you look away like you're saying is that all you got truth is it's smarter to run the best fight is the one you don't have but I've never claimed to be smart just obstinate and occasionally bad-tempered some guys kick cats I keep walking the suits were all midnight blue and looked like they came from the kind of store that has a foreign person's name above the door the men inside the suits looked capable like ncos wise to the ways of the world proud of their ability to get the job done they were certainly exmilitary or ex law enforcement or X both they were the kinds of guys who had taken a step up in salary and a step away from rules and regulations and regarded both moves as equally valuable they separated into two pairs when I was still four Paces away left me room to pass if I wanted to but the front guy on the left raised both Palms a little and paded the air in a kind of Dual Purpose please stop and we're no threat gesture I spent the next step deciding you can't let yourself get caught in the middle of four guys eyes either you stop early or you barge on through at that point my options were still open easy to stop easy to keep going if they closed ranks while I was still moving they'd go down like nine pins I wait 250 and was moving at 4 M an hour they didn't and weren't two steps out the lead guy said can we talk I stopped walking said about what you're the witness right but who are you the guy answered by peeling back the flap of his suit coat slow and unthreatening showing me nothing except a red satin lining and a shirt no gun no holster no belt he put his right fingers into his left inside pocket and came out with a business card leaned forward and handed it to me it was a cheap product the first line said sure and certain ink the second line said protection investigation intervention the third line had a telephone number with a 212 area code [Music] Manhattan Kinkos is a wonderful place I said isn't it maybe I'll get some cards that say John Smith king of the world the cart is legit the guy said and we're legit who are you working for we can't say then I can't help you better better that you talk to us than our principal we can keep things civilized oo now I'm really scared just a couple of questions that's all help us out we're just working stiffs trying to get paid like you I'm not a working stiff I'm a Gentleman of Leisure then look down on us from your lofty perch and take pity what questions did she give anything to you who you know who did you take anything from her and what's the next question did she say anything said plenty she was talking all the way from bleer to Grand Central saying what I didn't hear very much of it information I didn't hear did she mention names she might have did she say the name name Leela ho not that I heard did she say John Sansom I didn't answer the guy asked what I said I heard that name somewhere from her no did she give you anything what kind of a thing anything at all tell me what difference it would make our principal wants to know tell him to come ask me himself better to talk to us I smiled and walked on Through the Alley they had created but one of the guys on the right side stepped and tried to push me back I caught him shoulder to chest and spun him out of my way he came after me again and I stopped and started and fainted left and right and slid in behind him and shoved him hard in the back so that he stumbled on AE of me his jacket had a single Center vent French tailoring British suits favor Twin Side Vents and Italian suits favor none at all I leaned down and caught a coat tail in each hand and heaved and tore the seam all the way up the back then I shoved him again he stumbled ahead and veered right his coat was hanging off him by the collar unbuttoned at the front open at the back like a hospital gown then I ran three steps and stopped and turned around it would have been much more stylish to just keep on walking slowly but also much Dumber inuence is good but being ready is better the four of them were caught in a moment of real indecision they wanted to come get me that was for sure but they were on West 35th Street at dawn at that hour virtually all the traffic had be cops so in the end they just gave me hard looks and moved away away they crossed 35th in a single file and headed south at the corner you're done but I wasn't I turned to move away and a guy came out of the precinct house and ran after me creased gray t-shirt red sweatpants gray hair sticking up all over the place the family member the brother the small town cop from Jersey he caught up with me and grabbed my elbow in a wiry grip and told me he' seen me inside and guessed I was the witness then he told me his sister hadn't committed suicide chapter 11 I took the guy to a coffee shop on 8th Avenue a long time ago I was sent on a 1-day MP seminar at Fort Rucker to learn sensitivity around the recently bereaved sometimes MPS had to deliver bad news to relatives we called them death messages my skills were widely held to be deficient I used to walk in and just tell them I thought that was the nature of a message but apparently I was wrong so I was sent to Rucker I learned good stuff there I learned to take emotions seriously above all I learned that cafes and diners and coffee shops were good environments for bad news the public atmosphere limits the likelihood have fallen apart and the process of ordering and waiting and sipping punctuates the flow of information in a way that makes it easier to absorb we took a booth next to a mirror that helps too you can look at each other in the glass face to face but not really the place was about half full cops from the precinct taxi drivers on their way to the Westside garages we ordered coffee I wanted food too but I wasn't going to eat if he didn't not respectful he said he wasn't hungry I sat quiet and waited let them talk first the Rucker psychologists had said he told me that his name was Jacob Mark originally maracus and his grandfather's day back when a Greek name was no good to anyone except if you were in the deli business which his grandfather wasn't his grandfather was in the construction business hence the change he said I could call him Jake I said he could call me Reacher he told me he was a cop I told him I had been one once in the military he told me he wasn't married and lived alone I said the same went for me establish Common Ground the teachers at Rucker had said up close and looking past his physical disarray he was a squared away guy he had any cop's weary gloss but under it lay a normal Suburban man with a different guidance counselor he might have become a science teacher or a dentist or an auto parts manager he was in his 40s already very gray but his face was youthful and unlined his eyes were dark and wide and staring but that was temporary some hours ago when he went to bed he must have been a handsome man I liked him on site and I felt sorry for his situation he took a breath and told me his sister's name name was Susan Mark at one time Susan Molina but many years divorced and reverted now living alone he talked about her in the present tense he was a long way from acceptance he said she can't have killed herself it's just not possible I said Jake I was there the waitress brought our coffee and we sipped in silence for a moment passing time letting reality sink in just a little more the Rucker psychologists had been explicit the suddenly bereaved had the IQ of labradors indelicate because they were Army but accurate because they were psychologists Jake said so tell me what happened I asked him where are you from he named a small town in northern New Jersey well inside the New York metro area full of commuters and soer loer moms prosperous safe contented he said the police department was well funded well equipped and generally underst stretched I asked him if his Department had a copy of the Israeli list he said that after the Twin Towers every Police Department in the country had been buried under paper and every officer had been required to learn every point on every list I said your sister was behaving strangely Jake she rang every Bell she looked like a suicide bomber [ __ ] he said like a good brother should obviously she wasn't I said but you would have thought the same thing you would have had to with your training so the list is more about suicide than bombing apparently she wasn't an unhappy person she must have been he didn't reply we sipped a little more people came and went checks were paid tips were left traffic built up on eth I said tell me about her he asked what gun did she use an old Ruger Speed 6 huh my dad's gun she inherited it where did she live here in the city he shook his head anadale Virginia did you know she was up here he shook his head again why would she come I don't know why would she be wearing a winter coat I don't know I said some federal agents came and asked me questions then some private guys found me just before you did they were all talking about a woman named Leela ho you ever hear that name from your sister no what about John Sansom oh he's a congressman from North Carolina wants to be a senator some kind of hard ass I nodded I remembered vaguely election season was gearing up I'd seen newspaper stories and television coverage Sansom had been a late entrance to politics and was a rising star he was seen as tough and uncompromising and ambitious he had done well in business for a spell and before that he'd done well in the Army he hinted at a glamorous Special Forces career without supplying details special forces's careers are good for that kind of thing most of what they do is secret or can be claimed to be I asked did your sister ever mention Sansom he said I don't think so did she know him I can't see how I asked what she do for a living he wouldn't tell me chapter 12 he didn't need to tell me I already knew enough for a ballpark guas her fingerprints were on file and three shiny pink ex staff officers had hustled up the highway but had left again within minutes which put Susan Mark somewhere in the defense business but not in an elevated position and she lived in anandale Virginia Southwest of Arlington as I recall probably changed since I was last there but probably still a decent place to live and still an easy commute to the world's largest office building route 244 one end of the other she worked at the Pentagon I said Jake said she wasn't supposed to talk about a job I shook my head if it was really a secret she would have told you she worked at Walmart he didn't answer I said I had an office in the Pentagon once I'm familiar with the place try me he paused a beat and then he Shrugged and said she was a civilian clerk but she made it sound exciting she worked for an outfit called CG usah HRC she never told me much about it she made it sound like a hush hush thing people can't talk so much now after the Twin Towers it's not an outfit I said it's a guy CG usah HRC means Commanding General United States Army Human Resources command and it's not very exciting it's a Personnel Department paperwork and Records Jake didn't reply I thought I had offended him by belittling his sister's career maybe the Rucker seminar hadn't taught me enough maybe I should have paid more attention the silence went on a beat too long and grew awkward I asked did she tell you anything about it at all not really maybe there wasn't much to tell he said it with a hint of bitterness as if his sister had been caught in a lie I said people dress things up Jake it's human nature and usually there's no harm in it maybe she just wanted to compete with you being a cop we went close he was still family I guess did she enjoy her job she seemed to and it must have suited her she had the right skills for a record's Department great memory meticulous very organized she was good with computers the silence came back I started to think about anandale again a pleasant but unremarkable Community a dormatory basically under the present circumstances it had just one significant characteristic it was a very long way from New York City she wasn't an unhappy person Jake said what I said nothing none of my business but what just thinking about what there's more than meets the eye I asked how long have you been a cop 18 years all in the same place I trained with the state troopers then I moved over like a farm system have you seen many suicides in Jersey one or two a year maybe anyone see any of them coming not really they're usually a big surprise like this one H you got that right but behind each one of them there must have been a reason always Financial sexual some kind of [ __ ] about to hit the fan so your sister must have had a reason I don't know what I went quiet again Jake said just say it tell me not my place you were a toop he said you're seeing something I nodded said my guess is that out of the suicides you've seen maybe 7 out of 10 happened at home and three out of 10 they drove to some local Lane and hitched up the hose pipe more or less but always somewhere familiar somewhere quiet and alone always at some kind of a destination you get there you compose yourself you do it what are you saying I'm saying that I never heard of a suicide where the person travels hundreds of miles from home and does it while a journey is still in progress I told you you told me she didn't kill herself but she did I saw her do it but I'm saying she did it in a very unconventional manner in fact I don't think I ever heard of a suicide inside a subway car before under one maybe but not inside did did you ever hear of a suicide on public transportation during the ride so so nothing I'm just asking that's all why because think like a cop Jake not like a brother what do you do when something's way out of line you dig deeper so do it it won't bring it back but understanding a thing helps a lot which was also a concept they taught at Fort Rucker but not in the psychology class I got a refill of coffee and Jacob Mark picked up a packet of sugar and turned it over and over in his fingers so that the powder fell from one end of the paper rectangle to the other repeatedly like an hourglass I could see his head working like a cop and his heart working like a brother it was all right there in his face dig deeper it won't bring her back he asked what else there was a passenger who took off before the NYPD got to him oh and just a guy the cops figured he didn't want his name in the system they figured he was maybe cheating on his wife possible yes I said possible and both the feds and the private guys asked me if your sister had handed me anything what kind of anything they didn't specify I'm guessing something small or were the feds they wouldn't say or were the private guys I hitched up off the bench and took the business card out of my back pocket cheap stock already creased and already rubbed a little blue from my jeans new pants fresh dye I put it on the table and reversed it and slid SP it across Jake read it slowly maybe twice sure and certain Inc protection investigation intervention the telephone number he took out a cell and dialed I heard a delay in a chirpy little three note ding-dong tone and a recorded message Jake closed his phone and said not in service phony number chapter 13 I took a second refill of coffee Jake just stared at the waitress like he'd never heard of the concept eventually she lost interest and moved away Jake slid the business card back to me I picked it up and put it in my pocket and he said I don't like this I said I wouldn't like it either we should go back and talk to the NYPD she killed herself Jake that's the bottom line that's all they need to know they don't care how or where or why they should maybe so but they don't would you probably not he said I saw his eyes go blank maybe he was rerunning old cases in his head big houses leafy roads lawyers living the high life on their client escr money unable to make good ducking out ahead of Shame and Scandal and disbarment or teachers with pregnant students or family men with boyfriends in Chelsea or the West Village the local Cops full of Tack and rough sympathy large and intrusive in the neat quiet dwellings checking the scenes establishing the facts typing reports closing files forgetting moving on to the next thing not caring how or where or why he said you got a theory I said it's too early for a theory all we got so far is facts what facts the Pentagon didn't entirely trust your sister that's a hell of a thing to say she was on a watch list Jake she must have been as soon as her name hit the wires those feds saddled up three of them that was a procedure they didn't stay long I nodded which means they weren't very suspicious they were being cautious that's all maybe they had some small thing on their minds but they didn't really believe it they came up here to rule it out what kind of thing information I said that's all the human resources command has got they thought she was passing information they wanted to rule it out which means at some point they must have rolled it in I nodded again maybe she was was seen in the wrong office opening the wrong file cabinet maybe they figured there was an innocent explanation but they wanted to be sure or maybe something went missing and they didn't know who to watch so they were watching them all what kind of information I have no idea but like a copied file smaller I said a folded node A computer memory something that could be passed from hand toand in a subway car she was a patriot she to Country she wouldn't do that and she didn't do that she didn't pass anything to anyone so we got nothing we've got your sister hundreds of miles from home with a loaded gun and Afraid Jake said wearing a winter jacket in 90° weather with two names floating around he said John Sansom and Leela ho whoever the hell she is and ho sounds fun Maron so did maracus Once Upon a Time he went quiet again and I sipped coffee traffic was getting slower on 8th the morning Rush was building the sun was up a little south of East its rays were not aligned with the street grid they came in at a low angle and threw long diagonal Shadows Jake said give me somewhere to start I said we don't know enough speculate I can't I could make up a story but it'd be full of holes and it might be completely the wrong story to begin with try it give me something like like brainstorming I Shrugged you ever met any ex Special Forces guys not two or three maybe four or five counting the Troopers I knew you probably didn't most special forces careers never happened it's like people who claim to have been at Woods stock believe him all the crowd must have been 10 million strong or like New Yorkers who saw the planes hit the towers they all did to listen to them no one was looking the wrong way at the time people who say there were special forces are usually bullshitting most of them never made it out of the Infantry some of them were never in the Army at all people dress things up like my assistant it's human nature well what's your point I'm working with what we've got we got two random names an election season starting up and your sister in HRC well you think John Sansom is lying about his past probably not I said but it's a common area of exaggeration and politics is a dirty business you can bet that right now someone is checking on the guy who did sanson's dry cleaning 20 years ago wanting to know if he had a green card so it's it's a no-brainer to assume that people are factchecking his actual biography it's a national sport so maybe Leela Hol is a journalist or a researcher cable news or something a talk radio maybe she's Sansom opponent not with a name like that not in North Carolina okay let's say she's a journalist or a Searcher maybe she put the squeeze on an HRC clerk for Sansom service record maybe she picked your sister where was a leverage I said that's the first big hole in the story which it was Susan Mark had been desperate and terrified it was hard to imagine a journalist finding that kind of Leverage journalists can be manipulative and persuasive but no one is particularly afraid of them was Susan political I asked why well maybe she didn't like sansen didn't like what he stood for maybe she was cooperating or volunteering then why would she be so scared because she was breaking the law I said her heart would have been in her mouth and why was she carrying the gun didn't she normally carry it never it was an heirloom she kept it in her sock drawer like people do I Shrugged the gun was the second big hole in the story people take their guns out of their sock drawers for a variet iy of reasons protection aggression but never just in case they feel a Spur the- moment impulse to off themselves far from home Jake said Susan wasn't very political okay therefore there can't be a connection with Sansom then why did his name come up I don't know I said Susan must have driven up can't take a gun on a plane her car was probably getting and towed right now she must have come through the Holland Tunnel and parked way downtown Jake didn't reply my coffee was cold the waitress had given up on refills we were an unprofitable table the rest of the clientele had changed twice over working people moving fast fueling up getting ready for a busy day I pictured Susan Mark 12 hours earlier getting ready for a busy night dressing finding her father's gun loading it packing it into the black bag climbing into her car taking 236 to the Beltway going clockwise maybe getting gas hitting 95 heading north eyes wide and desperate drilling the darkness ahead speculate Jacob said but suddenly I didn't want to because I could hear Theresa Lee in my head the detective you tipped her over the edge Jake saw me thinking and asked what let's assume the leverage I said let's assume it was totally compelling so let's assume Susan was on her way to deliver whatever information she was told to get and let's assume these were bad people she didn't trust them to release whatever hold they had over probably she thought they were going to up the stakes and ask for more she was in and she didn't see a way of getting out and above all she was very afraid of them so she was desperate so she took the gun possibly she thought she could fight her way out but she wasn't optimistic about her chances all in all she didn't think things were going to end well so she had business to attend to she was almost there she never intended to shoot herself but what about the list the behaviors same difference I said she was on the way to where she expected someone else to end her life maybe some other way either literally or figuratively chapter 14 Jacob Mark said it doesn't explain the coat but I thought he was wrong I thought it explained the coat pretty well and it explained the fact that she parked downtown and rode up on the subway I figured she was looking to come upon whoever she was meeting from an unexpected angle out of a hole in the ground armed dressed all in black ready for some conflict in the dark maybe the winter Parker was the only black coat she owned and it explained everything else too the dread the sense of Doom maybe the mumbling had been her way of rehearsing pleas or exculpation or arguments or maybe even threats maybe repeating them over and over again had made them more convincing to her more plausible more reassuring Jake said she can't have been on her way to deliver something because she didn't have anything with her she might have had something I said in her head you told me she had a great memory units dates timelines whatever they needed he paused and tried to find a reason to disagree he failed classified information he said Army Secrets Jesus I can't believe it she was under pressure Jake what kind of Secrets does a Personnel Department have anyway that are worth getting killed for I didn't answer because I had no idea in my day HRC had been called purcom Personnel Command Not Human Resources command I had served 13 years without ever thinking about it not even once paperwork and Records all the interesting information had been somewhere else Jake moved in his seat he ran his fingers through his unwashed hair and clamped his palms on his ears and moved his head through a complete oval like he was easing stiffness in his neck or acting out some kind of inner turmoil that was bringing him full circle back to his most basic question he said so why why did she just up and kill herself before she got where she was going I paused a beat Cafe noises went on all around us squeak of sneakers on lolium the clinking scrape of Crockery sound of TV news from sets high on the walls the ding of the short order bell she was breaking the law I said she was in breach of all kinds of trusts and professional obl ation and she must have suspected some kind of surveillance maybe she'd even been warned so she was tense right from the moment she got in her car all the way up she was watching for red lights in her mirror every cop at every toll was a potential danger every guy she saw in a suit could have been a federal agent and on the train any one of us could have been getting ready to bust her for for for for for for Jake didn't reply I said and then I approached her and she flipped she thought I was about to arrest her right then and there the game was over she was at the end of the road she was damned if she did and damned if she didn't she couldn't go forward couldn't go back she was trapped whatever threats they were using against her were going to come to pass and she was going to jail why would you think you were going to arrest her she must have thought I was a cop why would she think you were a cop I'm a cop I had said I can help you we can talk she was paranoid I said understandably you don't look like a cop you look like a bum she would more likely have thought you were hustling her for spare change maybe she thought I was undercover she was a records Clerk according to you she wouldn't have known what undercover cops look like Jake I'm sorry but I told her I was a cop why I thought she was a bomber I was just trying to get through the next 3 seconds without her pushing the button I was ready to say anything he asked what exactly did you say so I told him and he said Jesus that even sounds like Internal Affairs [ __ ] I think you tipped her over the edge I'm sorry I said again for the next few minutes I was getting it from all sides Jacob Mark was glaring at me because I'd killed his sister the waitress was angry because she could have sold about eight breakfasts in the time we had lingered over two cups of coffee I took out a $20 bill and trapped it on under my saucer she saw me do it ate breakfast's worth of tips right there that solved the waitress problem the Jacob Mark problem was tougher he was still and silent and bristling I saw him glance away twice getting ready to disengage eventually he said I got to go I got things to do I have to find a way to tell her family I said family Molina the ex-husband and they have a son Peter my nephew Susan had a son what's it to you the IQ of labradors I said Jake we've been sitting here talking about leverage and you didn't think to mention that Susan had a kid he went blank for a second said he's not a kid he's 22 years old he's a senior at USC plays football he's bigger than you are and he's not close with his mother he lived with his father after the divorce I said call him it's 4:00 in the morning in California call him now I'll wake him up I sure hope you will he needs to be prepared for this first he needs to be answering his phone so Jake took out his cell again and beeped through his address book and hit the green button against the name pretty low down on the list alphabetical order I guessed P for Peter Jake held the phone against his ear and looked one kind of worried through the first five rings and then another kind after the sixth he kept the phone up a little while longer and then lowered it slowly and said voicemail chapter 15 I said go to work call the LAPD or the USC campus cops and ask for some favors blue to Blue get someone ahead over and check whether he's home they'll laugh at me it's a college jock not answering his phone at 4 in the morning I said just do it Jake said come with me I shook my head I'm staying here I want to talk to those private guys again you'll never find them they'll find me I never answered their question about whether Susan gave me anything I think they'll want to ask it again we arranged to meet in 5 hours time in the same coffee shop I watched him get back in his car and then I walked South on Eighth slowly like I had nowhere special to go which I didn't I was tired from not sleeping much but Wired from all the coffee so overall I figured it was a wash in terms of alertness and energy and I figured the private guys would be in the same boat we had all been up all night which fact got me thinking about time just as 2: in the morning was the wrong time for a suicide bombing it was also a weird time for Susan Mark to be heading for a rendevu and delivering information so I stood for a spell at a newspaper rack outside of deli and leaf through the tabloids I found what I was half expecting buried deep inside the Daily News the New Jersey Turnpike had been closed northbound for 4 hours the previous evening a tanker wreck and fog an acid spill multiple fatalities I pictured Susan Mark trapped on the road between exits a 4-Hour Jam a 4-Hour delay disbelief mounting tension No Way Forward no way back a rock in a hard place time ticking away a deadline approaching a deadline missed threats and sanctions and penalties now presumed live and operation operational the six train had seemed fast to me it must have felt awful slow to her you tipped her over the edge maybe so but she hadn't needed a whole lot of tipping I buted the newspapers back into sailable condition and set off strolling again I figured the guy with a torn jacket would have gone home to change but the other three would be close by they would have watched me enter the Cofe shop and they would have picked me up when I came out I couldn't see them on the street but I wasn't really looking for them no point in looking for something when you know for sure it's there back in the day 8th Avenue had been a dangerous thoroughfare broken street lights vacant Lots shuttered stores crack hookers muggers I'd seen all kinds of things here i' never been attacked personally which was no big surprise to make me a potential victim the world's population would have to be reduced all the way down to two me and a Mugger and I would have won now eth was as safe as anywhere else it bustled with commercial activity and there were people all over the place so I didn't care exactly where the three guys approached me I made no attempt to channel them to a place of my choosing I just walked their call the day was on its way from warm to hot hot and sidewalk smells were rising up all around me like a crude calendar garbage stinks in the summer and doesn't in the winter they approached me a block south of Madison Square Garden and the big old post office construction on a corner lot shunted pedestrians along a narrow fenced off Lane in the gutter I got a yard into it and one guy stepped ahead of me and one fell in behind and the leader came alongside IDE me neat moves the leader said we're prepared to forget the thing with the coat that's good I said because I already did but we need to know if you have something that belongs to us to you to our principal who are you guys I gave you our card yeah and at first I was very impressed by it it looked like a work of art arithmetically there are more than 3 million impossible combinations for a 7-digit phone number but you didn't choose randomly you picked one you knew was disconnected I imagine that's tough to do so I was impressed but then I figured in fact that's impossible to do given Manhattan's population someone dies or moves away their number gets recycled pretty fast so then I guessed you had access to a list of numbers that never work phone companies keep a few for when a number shows up in the movies or on TV can't use real numbers for that because customers might get harassed so then I guessed you know people in the movie and TV business probably because most of the week you rent out as sidewalk security when there's a show in town therefore the closest you get to action is fending off autograph Hunters which must be a disappointment to guys like you I'm sure you had something better in mind when you set up in business and worse it implies a certain erosion of abilities through lack of practice but now I'm I'm even less worried about you than I was before so all in all I'd say the card was a mistake in terms of image management the guy said can we buy you a cup of coffee I never say no to a cup of coffee but I was all done with sitting down so I agreed to go cups only we could Sip and talk as we walked we stopped in at the next Starbucks we saw which as in most cities was half a block away away I ignored the fancy bruise and got a tall house Bland black no room for cream my standard order at Starbucks a fine Bean in my opinion not that I really care it's all about the caffeine for me not the taste we came out and carried on down eighth but four people made an awkward group for mobile conversation and the traffic was loud so we ended up 10 yards into the mouth of a cross street static with me in the shade leaning on a railing and the other three in the sun in front of me and leaning towards me like they had points to make at our feet a burst garbage bag leaked cheerful sections of the Sunday newspaper on the sidewalk the guy who did all the Talking said you're seriously underestimating us not that we want to get into a pissing contest okay I said your ex military right right Army I said you've still got the look you too special forces no we didn't get that far I smiled an honest man the guy said we got hired as the local end for a temporary operation the dead woman was carrying an item of value it's up to us to recover it what item what value information I said I can't help you our principal was expecting digital data on a computer chip like a USB flash memory stick we said no that's too hard to get out of the Pentagon we said it would be verbal like read and memorized I said nothing thought back to Susan mark on the train the mumbling maybe she wasn't rehearsing pleas or exculpation or threats or argu arents maybe she was running through the details she was supposed to deliver over and over again so she wouldn't forget them or get them confused in her stress and her Panic learning by rot and saying to herself I'm obeying I'm obeying I'm obeying reassuring herself hoping that it would all turn out right I asked who is your principal we can't say what was his leverage we we don't know we don't want to know I sipped my coffee said nothing the guy said the woman spoke to you on the train yes I said she did so now the operational assumption is that whatever she knew you know possible I said our principal is convinced of it which gives you a problem data on a computer chip no big deal we could hit you over the head and turn out out your pockets but something in your head would need to be extracted some other way I said nothing the guy said so you really need to tell us what you know so you'll look competent the guy shook his head so you'll stay whole I took another sip of coffee and the guy said I'm appealing to you man to man Soldier to Soldier this is not about us we go back empty sure we'll get fired but Monday morning we'll be working again for someone else but if we're out of the picture you're exposed our principal brought a whole crew right now they're on a leash because they don't fit in here but if we're gone they're off the leash no alternative and you really don't want them talking to you I don't want anyone talking to me not them not you I don't like talking this is not a joke got that right a woman died suicide is not a crime but whatever drove her to it might be the woman worked at the Pentagon that's National Security right there you need to get out in front of this you should talk to the NYPD the guy shook his head huh I'd go to jail before I cross these people you hear what I'm saying I hear you I said you've got un comfortable with your autograph Hunters we're the kid gloves here you should take advantage you're no kind of gloves at all what were you in the service MPS I said then you're a dead man you never saw anything like this who is he the guy just shook his head how many the guy shook his head again give me something you're not listening if I won't talk to the NYPD why the hell would I talk to you I Shrugged and drained my cup and pushed off the railing took three steps and tossed the cup into a trash basket I said call your principal and tell him he was right and you were wrong tell him the woman's information was all on a memory stick which is right now in my pocket then resign by phone and go home and stay the hell out of my way I crossed the street between two moving cars and headed for eth the leader called after me loud he said my name I turned and saw him holding his cell phone at arms length it was pointing at me and he was staring at its screen then he lowered it and all three guys moved away and a white truck passed between us and they were out of sight before I realized I'd been photographed chapter 16 Radio Shacks are about a tenth as common as Starbucks but they're never more than a few blocks away and they open early I stopped in at the next one I saw and a guy from the Indian subcontinent stepped forward to help me he seemed Keen maybe I was the first customer of the day I asked him about cell phones with cameras he said practically all of them had cameras some of them even had video I told him I wanted to see how good the still pictures came out he picked up a random phone and I stood at the back of the store and he snapped me from the register the resulting image was small and lacked definition my features were indistinct but my overall size and shape and posture were captured fairly well well enough to be a problem anyway truth is my face is plain and ordinary very forgettable my guess is most people recognize me by my Silhouette which is not ordinary I told the guy I didn't want the phone he tried to sell me a digital camera instead it was full of megapixels it would take a better picture I said I didn't want a camera either but I bought a memory stick from him a USB device for computer data smallest capacity he had lowest price it was for window dressing only and I didn't want to spend a fortune it was a tiny thing and a big package made of tough plastic I had the guy open it up with scissors you can ruin your teeth on stuff like that the stick came with a choice of two soft neoprene sleeves blue or pink I used the pink Susan Mark hadn't looked particularly like a pink type of woman but people see what they want to see a pink sleeve equals a woman's property I put the stick in my pocket next to my toothbrush and thank the guy for his help and left him to ditch the trash I walked 2 and 1 half blocks East on 28th Street plenty of people were behind me all the way but I didn't know any of them and none of them seemed to know me I went down into the Subway at Broadway and swiped my card then I missed the next Nine downtown trains I just sat in the heat on a wooden bench and let them all go partly to take a break partly to kill time until the rest of the city's businesses opened up and partly to check I hadn't been followed nine sets of passengers came and went and nine times I was all alone on the platform for a second or two no one showed the slightest interest in me when I was done with watching for people I started watching for rats and dead I like rats there are a lot of myths about them sightings are rarer than people think rats are shy visible rats are usually young or sick or starving they don't bite sleeping babies faces for the fun of it they're tempted by traces of food that's all wash your kid's mouth before you put it to bed and it'll be okay and there are no giant rats as big as cats all Rats of the same size size I saw no rats at all and eventually I got restless I stood up and turned my back on the track and looked at the posters on the wall one of them was a map of the whole subway system two were advertisements for Broadway musicals one was an official notice prohibiting something called Subway suring there was a black and white illustration of a guy clamped like a starfish on the outside of a Subway car's door apparent apparently the older stock on the New York System had toe boards under the doors designed to bridge part of the gap between the car and the platform and small rain gutters above the doors designed to stop dripping water getting in I knew the new r142a had neither feature my crazy co- Rider had told me so but with the older cars it was possible to wait on the platform until the door is closed and then Jam your toes on the toe board and hook your fingertips in the Rain Gutter and hug the car and get carried through the tunnels on the outside subway surfing a lot of fun for some maybe but now illegal I turned back to the track and got on the 10th train to pull in it was an R train it had toe boards and rain gutters but I rode inside two stops to the big station at Union Square I came up in the northwest corner of Union Square and headed for a huge bookstore I remembered on 17th Street campaigning politicians usually publish biographies ahead of election season and news magazines are always full of coverage I could have looked for an internet cafe instead but I'm not proficient with the technology and anyway internet cafes are much rarer than they were now everyone carries small electronic devices named after fruits or trees internet cafes are going the same way as phone boo s killed by new wireless inventions the bookstore had tables at the front of the ground floor they were piled high with new titles I found the non-fiction releases and came up empty history biography economics but no politics I moved on and found what I wanted on the back side of the second table commentary and opinion from the left and the right plus ghosted candidate autobiographies with shiny jackets and glossy airbrushed photographs gra s John sanson's book was about a/ in thick and was called Always on a mission I took it with me and rode up on the escalator to the third floor where the store directory told me the magazines were I picked out all the news weeklys and carried them with the book to the military history shelves I spent a moment there with some non-fiction Publications and confirmed what I had suspected which was that the Army's Human Resources command didn't do anything that the the Personnel Command hadn't done before it it was a change of name only a rebranding no new functions paperwork and Records like always then I sat on a window sill and settled in to read the stuff I'd picked up my back was hot from the Sun coming in through the glass and my front was cold from an air conditioning vent directly above me I used to feel bad about reading stuff in stores with no intention to buy but the stores themselves seem happy enough about it they even encourage it some of them provide armchairs for the purpose a new business model apparently and everyone does it the store was only just open but already the whole place looked like a refugee Center there were people everywhere sitting or sprawled on the floor surrounded by piles of merchandise much bigger than mine the news weeklys all had campaign reports squeezed in between advertisements and stories about medical breakthroughs and technology updates most of the coverage was top ticket stuff but the House and Senate contests got a few lines each we were four months ahead of the first primaries and 14 months ahead of the elections themselves and some candidates were already lame Ducks but Sansom was still solidly in his race he was polling well throughout his State he was Raising lots of money his blunt manner was seen as refreshing and his military background was held to qualify him for just about everything although in my opinion that's like saying a sanitation worker could be mayor maybe so maybe not there's no logic in the assumption but clearly most journalists liked the guy and clearly they had earmarked him for bigger things he was seen as a potential presidential candidate either four or eight years down the line one writer even hinted he could be airlifted out of his Senate race to become his party's Vice Presidential nominee this time around he was already some kind of a celebrity his book cover was stylish it was made up of his name and the title and two photographs the larger was a blurred and grainy action picture blown up big enough to form a background to the whole thing it showed a young man in worn an unbuttoned battle dress and full camouflage face paint under a beanie hat laid over it was a newer Studio portrait of the same guy many years farther down the road in a business suit Sansom obviously then and now his whole pitch in a single visual the recent picture was well lit and perfectly focused and artfully posed and showed him to be a small lean guy maybe 59 and 150 lbs a whiet or a terrier rather than a pitbull full of endurance and wiry stamina like the best Special Forces soldiers always are although the older picture was probably from an earlier time in a regular unit the Rangers maybe in my experience Delta guys of his vintage favored beards and sunglasses and CA scarves pulled down to their throats partly because of where they were likely to serve and partly because they like to appear disguised and Anonymous which in itself was part necessity and part dramatic fantasy but probably his campaign manager had selected the photograph himself accepting the junior unit in exchange for a picture that was recognizable and recognizably American maybe people who look like weird Palestinian hippies wouldn't go down well in North Carolina the stuff inside the cover flap featured his full name and military rank written out with a degree of formality Major John T Sansom US Army retired then it said he was the winner of the distinguished service cross the distinguished service medal and two silver stars then it said he'd been a successful CEO of something called Sansom Consulting again his whole pitch right there I wondered what the rest of the book was for I skimmed it and found it fell into five main sections his early life his time in the service his subsequent marriage and family his time in business and his political vision for the future the early stuff was conventional for the genre Hard Scrabble local youth no money no frills his mom a Pillar of Strength his dad working two jobs to make ends meet almost certainly exaggerated if you take political candidates as a population sample then the United States is a third world country everyone grows up poor running water is a luxury shoes are rare a square meal is cause for jubilant celebration I skipped ahead to where he met his wife and found more of the same platitudes she was wonderful their kids were great end of story I didn't understand much of the business part Sansome Consulting had been a bunch of Consultants which made sense but I couldn't work out exactly what they had done they had made suggestions basically and then bought into the corporations they were advising and then sold their stakes and gotten Rich Sansum himself had made what he described as a fortune I wasn't sure how much he meant I feel pretty good with a couple hundred bucks in my pocket I suspected Sansom came out with more than that but he didn't specify how much more another four zeros five six I looked at the part part about his political vision for the future and didn't find much I hadn't already gleaned from the news magazines it boiled down to giving the voters everything they wanted low taxes you got it public services have had it it made no sense to me but all in all Sansom came across as a decent guy I felt he'd try to do the right thing as much as any of them can I felt he was in it for all the right reasons there were photographs in the middle of the book all except one were Bland snapshots tracing sanson's life from the age of 3 months to the present day they were the kind of things that I imagine most guys could dig out of a shoe box in the back of a closet parents Childhood school days his service years his bride to be their kids business portraits normal stuff probably interchangeable with the pictures and all the other candidate biographies but the photograph that was different was bizarre chapter 17 the photograph that was different was a news picture I'd seen before it was of an American politician called Donald Rumsfeld in Baghdad shaking hands with Saddam Hussein the Iraqi dictator back in 1983 Donald Rumsfeld had twice been Secretary of Defense but at the time of the picture he had been a special presidential Envoy for Ronald Reagan he had gone to Baghdad to kiss saddam's ass and Pat him on the back and give him a pair of solid gold Spurs as a gift and a symbol of America's Everlasting gratitude 8 years later we'd been kicking saddam's ass not kissing it 15 years after that we killed him Sansom had captioned the picture sometimes our friends become our enemies and sometimes our enemies become our friends political commentary I supposed or a business homy although I could find no mention of the actual episode in the text itself I turned back to his service career and prepared to read about it carefully that was my area of expertise after all Sansom joined the army in 1975 and left in 1992 a 17-year window four years longer than mine by virtue of Starting 9 years earlier and quitting 5 years earlier a good ERA basically compared to most the Vietnam paroxismo and the new professional all volunteer army was well established and still well funded it looked like Sansom had enjoyed it his narrative was coherent he described basic training accurately described officer candid at school well was entertaining about his early infantry service he was open about being ambitious he picked up every qualification available to him and moved to the Rangers and then the nent Delta Force as usual he dramatized Delta's induction process the hell weeks the attrition the endurance the exhaustion as usual he didn't criticize its incompleteness Delta is full of guys who can stay awake for a week and walk a 100 miles and shoot the balls off a tisy fly but it's relatively empty of guys who can do all that and then tell you the difference between a Shiite and a trip to the latrine but overall I felt Sansom was pretty honest truth is most Delta missions are aborted before they even start and most that do start fail some guys never see action s some didn't dress it up he was straightforward about the patchy excitement and Frank about the failures above all he didn't mention goat herds not even once most special forces after action reports blame Mission failures on itinerant goat tenders guys are infiltrated into what they claim are inhospitable and virtually uninhabited regions and are immediately discovered by local peasants with large herds of goats statistically unlikely nutritionally unlikely given the barren terrain goats have to eat something maybe it was true one time but since then it has become a code much more paliative to say we were hunkered down in a goat herd stumbled over us than to say we screwed up but Sansom never mentioned either the ruminant animals or their attendant agricultural personnel which was a big point in his favor in fact he didn't mention much of anything certainly not a whole lot in the success column there was what must have been fairly routine stuff in West Africa plus Panama plus some scud hunting in Iraq during the first Gulf War in 1991 apart from that nothing just a lot of training and standing by which was always followed by standing down and then more training his was maybe the first unexaggerated Special Forces Memoir that I had ever seen more than that even not just unexaggerated it was downplayed minimized and deemphasized dressed down not up which was interesting chapter 18 I took a lot of care getting back to the coffee shop on eth our our principal brought a whole crew and by now they all knew roughly what I looked like the Radio Shack guy had told me how pictures and video could be phoned through from one person to another for my part I had no idea what the opposition looked like but if their principal had been forced to hire guys in nice suits as local camouflage then his own crew probably looked somewhat different themselves otherwise no point I saw lots of different looking people maybe a couple hundred thousand you always do in New York City but none of them showed any interest in me none of them stayed with me not that I made it easy I took the for train to Grand Central walked two circuits through the crowds took the shuttle to Time Square walked a long and illogical loop from there to 9th Avenue and came on the diner from the West straight past the 14th Precinct Jacob Mark was already inside he was in a back Booth cleaned up hair brushed wearing dark pants and a white shirt and a Navy windbreaker he could have had off duty cop tattooed across his forehead he looked unhappy but not frightened I slid in opposite him and sat sideways so I could watch the street through the windows did you talk to Peter I asked him he shook his head but I think he's okay you think or you know he didn't answer because the waitress came by the same woman from the morning I was too hungry to be sensitive about whether or not Jake was going to eat I ordered a big platter tune a salad with eggs and a bunch of other stuff plus coffee to drink Jake followed my lead and got a grilled cheese sandwich and water I said tell me what happened he said the campus CAU helped me out they were happy too Peter's a football star he wasn't home so they red his buddies and got the story turns out Peter is away somewhere with a woman where we don't know what woman a girl from a bar Peter and the guys were out four nights ago the girl was in the place Peter left with her I said nothing Jake said what I asked who picked up who he nodded this is what makes me feel okay he did all the work his buddy said it was a 4-Hour project he had to put everything into it like a championship game the guy said so it wasn't matah Harry or anything description a total babe and these are jocks talking so they mean it a little older but not much maybe 25 or six you're a college senior that's an irresistible challenge right there name Jake shook his head the others kept their distance it's an etiquette thing the regular place on their circuit Booker decoy no way these guys get around they ain't dumb they can tell and Peter did all the work anyway 4 hours everything he'd ever learned it would have been over in 4 minutes if she'd wanted it to be Jake nodded again believe me I've been through it a 100 times any funny business an hour would have been enough to make it look kosher two tops nobody had stretched it to four so it's okay more than okay from Peter's point of view 4 days with a total babe what were you doing when you were 22 I hear you I said when I was 22 I had the same kinds of priorities although a 4-day relationship would have seemed long to me practically like engagement or marriage Jake said but Susan was delayed 4 hours on the turnpike I'm wondering what kind of a deadline could have passed to make a mother feel like killing herself Peter's okay don't worry about it he'll be home soon weak at the knees but happy I said nothing more the waitress came by with the food it looked pretty good and there was a lot of it Jake asked did the private guys find you I nodded and told them the story between forkfuls of tuna he said they knew your name that's not good not ideal no and they knew I talked to Susan on the train how their ex cops they've still got friends on the job no other explanation Lee and doy maybe or maybe some day guy who came in and read the file and they took your picture that's not good either not ideal I said again any sign of this other crew they were talking about he asked I checked the window and said so far nothing what else John Sansom isn't exaggerating about his career he seems to have done nothing very special and that kind of a claim isn't really worth refuting dead end then maybe not I said he was a major that's one automatic promotion plus two on Merit he must have done something they liked I was a major too I know how it works what did you do that they liked something they regreted later probably H length of service Jake said you stick around you get promoted I shook my head that's not how it works plus this guy won three of the top four Metals available to him one of them twice so he must have done something special four somethings in fact everybody gets medals not those medals I got a silver star myself which is Pocket Change to this guy and I know for a fact they don't fall out of the box with a breakfast cereal and I got a purple heart too which Sansom apparently didn't he doesn't mention one in his book and no politician would forget about a wound in action not in a million years but it's relatively unusual to win a gallantry medal without a wound normally the two things go hand in hand so maybe he's bullshitting about the medals I shook my head again can't be done maybe with a combat pip on a Vietnam ribbon something like that but these are heavy duty Awards this guy's got everything except the Medal of Honor so so I think he is bullshitting about his career but in reverse he's leaving stuff out not putting stuff in why would he because he was on at least four secret missions and he still can't talk about them which makes them very secret indeed because the guy is in the middle of an election campaign and the urge to talk must be huge what kind of secret missions could be anything Black Ops covert actions against anybody oh maybe s was asked for details impossible I said Delta's orders and operational logs and after action reports aren't anywhere near HRC they're either destroyed or locked up for 60 years at Fort Bragg no disrespect but your sister couldn't have gotten within a million miles of them so how does this help us it eliminates sanson's combat career that's how if Sansum is involved at all it's in some other capacity is he involved why else would his name have been mentioned what capacity I put my Fork down and drained my cup and said I don't want to stay in here it's Ground Zero for this other crew the first place they'll check I left a tip on the table and headed for the register this time the waitress was pleased we were in and out and record time Manhattan is both the best and the worst place in the world to be hunted the best because it's teaming with people and every square yard of it has literally hundreds of witnesses all around the worst because it is teaming with people and you have to check each and every one of them just in case which is tiring and frustrating and fatiguing and eventually drives you crazy or makes you lazy so for the sake of convenience we went back to West 35th and walked the Shady Side of the Street up and down opposite the row of parked cop cars which seemed like the safest stretch of sidewalk in the city what capacity Jake asked again what did you tell me were the reasons behind the suicides you saw in Jersey Financial asexual and Sansom didn't make his money in the Army you think he was having an affair with Susan possible I said he could have met her at work he the kind of guy who's always in and out of the place photo opportunities stuff like that well he's married exactly and it's election season I don't see it Susan wasn't like that so suppose he wasn't having an affair with her then maybe he was having one with another HRC staffer and Susan was a witness I still don't see it me either I said because I don't see how information would be involved information is a big word an affair is a yes no answer maybe Susan was working with Sansom not against him maybe Sansom wanted dirt on someone else then why would Susan come to New York instead of DC or North Carolina Jake said I don't know and why would Sansom ask Susan for anything anyway he's got a 100 better sources than an HRC clerk he didn't know so where's the connection maybe Sansom had an affair long ago with someone else when he was still in the Army he wasn't married then but there were rules maybe he was banging a subordinate that resonates now in politics did that happen all the time I said to you as often as possible both ways around sometimes I was the subordinate did you get in trouble not then but there'd be questions now if I was running for office so you think there were rumors about Sansom and Susan was asked to confirm them she couldn't confirm the behavior that kind of stuff is in a different set of files but maybe she could confirm that person a and person B served in the same place at the same time that's exactly what HRC is good for huh so maybe Leela ho was in the army with them maybe someone is trying to link the two names for a big Scandal I don't know I said it all sounds pretty good but I got a local tough guy too scared to talk to the NYPD and I've got all kinds of dire threats and I've got a story about some Barbarian crew ready to slip the leash politics is a dirty business but is it that bad Jake didn't answer I said and we don't know where Peter is I don't worry about Peter he's a grown-up he's a defensive tackle he's going to the NFL he's 300 lb of muscle he can take care of himself remember the name Peter Molina one day you're going to read about him in the paper but not soon I hope relax I said so what do you want to do now Jake Shrugged and stumped around up and down on the sidewalk an inarticulate man and further stymied by the complexity of his emotions he stopped and leaned on a wall directly across the street from the 14th precincts door he looked at all the parked Vehicles left to right the impos and the crown Vicks marked and unmarked and the strange little traffic carts she's dead he said nothing is going to bring her back I didn't speak so I'm going to call a funeral director he said and then nothing she shot herself knowing the reason won't help most of the time you never really know the reason anyway even when you think you do I said I want to know the reason why she was my sister not yours you didn't see it happen he said nothing just gazed at the parked cars opposite I saw the vehicle that Thea Lee had used it was fourth from the left one of the unmarked Crown Vicks farther along the road was newer than the others shinier it winked in the sun it was black with two short thin antennas on the trunk lid like needles Federal I thought some big budget agency with the pick of the litter when it came to transportation choices and Communications devices Jake said I'm going to tell a family and we're going to bury her and we're going to move on life's a [ __ ] and then you die maybe there's a reason we don't care how or where or why better not to know no good can come of it just more pain just something bad about to hit the fan your choice I said he nodded and said nothing more just shook my hand and moved away I saw him walk into a garage on the Block West and 9th and four minutes later I saw a small green Toyota SUV drive out it went West with the traffic I guessed he was heading for the Lincoln Tunnel and home I wondered when I'd see him again between 3 days and a week I thought I was wrong chapter 19 I was still directly across the street from the 14th precinct's door when Theresa Lee came out with two guys in blue suits and white button-down shirts she looked tired she'd caught the call at 2:00 in the morning which put her on the night watch so she should have quit around 700 and been home home in bed by 8 she was 6 hours into overtime good for her bank balance not so good for anything else she stood in the sunlight and blinked and stretched and then she saw me on the far sidewalk and did a classic double take she smacked the guy next to her on the elbow and said something and pointed straight at me I was too far away to hear her words but her body language screamed hey that's him right there with a big exclamation point in the V of her physical gesture the guys in the suits automatically checked left for traffic which told me they were based in town odd-numbered streets run east to west even numbers run west to east they knew that in their bones therefore they were local but they were more used to driving than walking because they didn't check for bicycle Messengers coming the wrong way they just hustled across the street dodging cars scrambling splitting up and coming at me from the left and the right simultaneously which told me they were field trained to some degree and in a hurry I guess the Crown Vic with the needle antennas was theirs I stood in the shade and waited for them they had black shoes and blue ties and their undershirt showed through at the neck white Under white the left sides of their suit coats bulged more than the right right-handed agents with shoulder holsters they were late 30s early 40s in their Prime not rookies not out to pasture they saw that I wasn't going anywhere so they slowed up a little and approached me at a fast walk FBI I thought closer to Cops than paramilitaries they didn't show me id they just assumed I knew what they were we need to talk to you the left-hand guy said I know I said how because you just ran through traffic to get here do you know why oh idea unless is to offer me counseling because of my traumatic experience the guy's mouth set in an impatient scowl like he was ready to ball me out for my sarcasm then his expression changed a little to a Ry smile and he said okay here's my counsel answer some questions and then forget you were ever on that train what train the guy started to reply and then stopped late to catch on that I was yanking his chain and embarrassed about looking slow I said what questions he asked what's your phone number I said I don't have a phone number not even a cell especially not even I said really I'm that guy I said congratulations you found me what guy the only guy in the world who doesn't have a cell phone are you Canadian why would I be Canadian the detective told us you speak French lots of people speak French there's a whole country in Europe are you French my mother was when were you last in Canada I don't recall years ago probably you sure pretty much you got any Canadian friends or Associates no the I went quiet Thea Lee was still on the sidewalk outside the 14th precincts door she was standing in the Sun and watching us from across the street the other guy said it was just a suicide on a train upsetting but no big deal [ __ ] happens are we clear I said are we done did she give you anything no are you sure completely are we done the guy asked you got PL hands I'm leaving town heading where someplace else the guy nodded okay we're done now beat it I stayed where I was I let them walk away back to their car they got in and waited for a gap in the traffic and eased out and drove away I guessed they would take the wests side highway all the way downtown back to their desks Thea Lee was still on the sidewalk I crossed the street and threaded between two parked blue and white prowl cars and stepped up on the curb and stood nearer far enough away to be respectful close enough to be heard facing the building so I wouldn't have the sun in my eyes I asked what was that all about she said they found Susan Mark's car it was parked way down in SoHo it was told this morning and they searched it obviously why obviously they're making a lot of fuss about something they claim is no big deal they don't explain their thinking not to us anyway what did they find a piece of paper with what they think is a phone number on it like a scribbled note screwed up like trash what was the number it had a 600 area code which they say is a Canadian cellular service some special Network then a number then the letter d like an initial means nothing to me I said me either except I don't think it's a phone number at all there's no Exchange number and then it has one too many digits if it's a special Network maybe it doesn't need an exchange number it doesn't look right so what was it she answered me by reaching behind her and pulling a small notebook out of her back pocket not official Police Issue it had a stiff black board cover and an elastic strap that held it closed the whole book was slightly curved like it spent a lot of time in her pocket she slipped the strap and opened it up and showed me a fawn colored page with 600-8285 D see anything she asked I said maybe Canadian C phones have more numbers I knew that phone companies the world over were worried about running out adding an extra digit would increase an area code's capacity by a factor of 10 30 million not three although Canada had a small population a big land mass but most of it was empty about about 33 million people I thought smaller than California and California got by with regular phone numbers Lee said it's not a phone number it's something else like a code or a serial number or a file number those guys are wasting their time maybe it's not connected trash in a car it could be anything not my problem I asked was there Luggage in the car no nothing except the usual kind of crap that piles up in a car so it was supposed to be a quick trip in and out Lee didn't answer she yawned and said nothing she was tired I asked did those guys talk to Susan's brother I don't know he seems to want to sweep it all under the rug understandable Lee said there's always a reason and it's never very attractive that's been my experience anyway are you closing the file it's already closed you happy with that why shouldn't I be statistics I said 80% of suicides are men suicide is much rarer in the East than the west and where she did it was weird but she did it you are there's no doubt about it there's no dispute it wasn't a homicide cleverly disguised maybe she was driven to it maybe it was a homicide by proxy then all suicides are she glanced up and down the street wanting to go too polite to say so I said well it was a pleasure meeting you you leaving town I nodded I'm going to Washington DC chapter 20 I took the train from Penn State more public transportation getting there was tense just a three block walk through the crowds but I was watching for people checking faces against their cell phone screens and it seemed like the entire world had some kind of an electronic device out and open but I arrived intact and bought a ticket with Cash the train itself was full and very different from the subway all the passengers faced forward and they were all hidden behind high back chairs the only people I could see were alongside me a woman in the seat next to me and Two Guys across the aisle I figured all three of them for lawyers not Major Leaguers double or AAA players probably senior Associates with busy lives not suicide bombers anyway the two men had fresh shaves and all three of them were irritable but apart from that nothing rang a bell not that the DCM trct would attract suicide bombers anywhere way it was tailor made for a suitcase bomb Instead at Penn the track is announced at the last minute the crowd Mills around on The Concourse and then rushes down and piles on no security identical black Rons are stacked on the luggage racks easy enough for a guy to get off in Philadelphia and leave his bag behind and then exploded a little later by cell phone as the train pulls into Union Station without him right in the heart of the capital but we got there okay and I made it out to Delaware Avenue unharmed DC was as hot as New York had been and damper the sidewalks ahead of me were dotted with knots of tourists family groups mostly from far and wide beautiful parents Sullen children all dressed in gy shorts and t-shirts maps in their hands cameras at the ready not that I was either well-dressed or a frequent visitor I had worked in the area from time to time but always on the left of the river but I knew where I was going my destination was unmistakable and right there in front of me the US capital it had been built to impress foreign diplomats were supposed to visit during the fledgling days of the Republic and come away convinced that the new nation was a player the design had succeeded Beyond it across Independence Avenue were the house offices at one time I had a rudimentary grasp of congressional politics investigations had sometimes LED all the way to committees I knew that the Raburn building was full of bloated old hacks who had been in Washington forever I figured a relatively new guy like Sansom would have been given space in the Cannon Building instead prestigious but not top drawer the cannon building was on Independence and first crouching opposite the far corner of the capital like it was paying homage or mounting a threat it had all kinds of security at the door I asked a guy in a uniform if Mr Sansom of North Carolina was inside the guy checked a list and said yes he was I asked if I could messenger a note to his office the guy said yes I could he supplied a pencil and special house note paper and an envelope I addressed the envelope to Major John T Sansom US Army retired and added the date and the time on the paper I wrote early this morning I saw a woman die with your name on her lips not true but close enough I added Library of Congress steps in one hour I signed it major Jack nun Reacher US Army retired there was a box to tick at the bottom it asked are you my con constituent I ticked the Box not strictly true I didn't live in sanson's District but no more so than I didn't live in any of the other 434 districts and I had served in North Carolina three separate times so I felt I was entitled I sealed the envelope and handed it in and went back outside to wait chapter 21 I Walked In the Heat of on Independence as far as the Air and Space Museum and then about turned and headed for the library I sat down on the steps 50 minutes into the hour the stone was warm there were men in uniform behind the doors above me but none of them came out threat assessment exercises must have placed the library low on the list I waited I didn't expect Sansom himself to show I figured I'd get staffers instead maybe campaign workers how old and how many I couldn't guess between one and four maybe between post scad and professional I was interested to find out one youngster would show that Sansom wasn't taking my note very seriously for senior people would suggest he had sensitivity on the issue and maybe something to hide the 60-minute deadline came and went and I got no staffers and no campaign workers neither young nor old instead I got sanson's wife and his head of security 10 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 and sanson's book 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 2 in 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 but rougher than Sansom had looked in his photographs his suit was conservatively tailored out of good material but he had it all bunched and creased like well-worn battle dress 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'd be looking about 3 ft 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 and 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 eleth 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 sanson's book he went on to list his whole pedigree which started out with military service at Sansom side and went on to include civilian Service as head of security during sanson's business years and then head of security during sanson's house terms and was projected to include the same kind of Duty during Sansom 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 interest 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 eleth Sansom glanced at Browning and Browning nodded and said I saw it online the New York Times And The Washington Post it happened too late for the printed papers a little after 2:00 in the morning I said eleth 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 of 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 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 Elisabeth Sansom said 7:00 this evening she named what I guessed was a restaurant on Dupont Circle my husband will give you 5 minutes then she looked at me again and said don't come come dressed like that or you won't get in they got back in the town car and drove away I had 3 hours to kill I caught a cab to the corner of 18th Street in Mass Avenue and found a store and bought a pair of plain blue pants and a blue check 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 up to a random floor and walked the corridor until I found a maid servicing an empty room it was past 4:00 in the afternoon check-in time was 2 therefore the room was going to stay empty that night maybe the next night too big hotels are rarely 100% full and big hotels never treat their Maids very well therefore the woman was happy to take 30 bucks in cash and a 30-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 30 bucks for the room cheaper than the spa and faster I was back on the street inside 28 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 20 bucks for an appetizer worth 20 cents on the street to kabo I was okay with the food but not with the prices I figured I'd 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 5 to 7: I scrambled back up and headed for the restaurant chapter 22 at 7 in the evening DC 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 curb was clogged with limousines most of the courtyard tables were already full but not with Sansom in his party all I saw were young men in suits and young women in skirts skirts they were gathered in pairs and trios and quartets talking making calls from their cells reading emails 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 20 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 5 minutes before it starts okay 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 recall 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 onto 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 pomac 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 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 20 ft across great carpet to a door marked Universal research a bland title and an unremarkable lab 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 leftand door and knocked and entered there were three men waiting for me in the inner office none of them was Sansom chapter 23 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 5:00 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 Note Paper the capital 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 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 clerk showing up early for work looking to pass the time and there's no law about lying of civilians or your bosses at all be in jail we told you who we were huh 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 no you heard of Jimmy Connor bjor Borg John mro I said tennis players from way back what would happen if they played the US 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 [ __ ] 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 guy he's gone and his name isn't Browning huh you're a babe in the woods I said nothing just heard the word babe and thought about Jacob Mark and 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 okay we need you to stick to being a witness we need to know how sanson's name is linked with the dead woman you're not not going to leave this room until we find out I said I'll leave this room exactly when I decide to it'll take more than three file clerks to keep me somewhere I don't want to be big talk I said Sansom 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 huh is that the best you can do that's a pretty thin story I think you heard it from Susan Mark herself why would 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 spiraled and ballooned crazily upward and outward like it's not just Sansom we're worried about it's the Army it's the military it's 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 17 years what do you think he did four secret missions the room went quiet the lead agent asked how do you know about sanson'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 Els it 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 F 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 the lead agent said Last Chance stick to being a witness did the woman mention Sansom name or not 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 okay 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 well it's much worse now 100 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 this 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 eleth 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 huh 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 20 minutes on foot maybe less chapter 24 restaurant meals in DC rarely run shorter than an hour or longer than two that had been my experience so I expected to find Sansom finishing up his entree 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 and suits and new girls and skirts more pairs now than threesom 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 a 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 Sansom wasn't in it no sign of him no sign of his wife no sign of the guy who had called himself Browning no pack of eager staffers or campaign vol volunteers I backed out again and the woman at the hostess station looked at me quizzically and asked who were you joining I said John Sansom he isn't here evidently a kid at a table next to my elbow said North Carolina 14th he left town he's got a fundraiser breakfast tomorrow in Greensboro Banking and insurance no tobacco I heard him tell my guy all about it his last sentence was directed at the girl opposite him not at me maybe the whole speech was my guy clearly the kid was a hell of an important player or wanted to be I stepped back to the sidewalk and Stood Still for a second and then set out for Greensboro North Carolina I got there on a late bus that was scheduled to stop first in Richmond Virginia and then in Raleigh and then in Durham and then in Burlington I didn't notice the itinerary I slept all away we arrived in Greensboro close to 4:00 in the morning I walked past bail bond offices and shuttered pawn shops and ignored a couple of greasy spoon eateries until I found the kind of Diner I wanted I wasn't choosing on the basis of food all diner food tastes the same to me I was looking for phone books and racks of free local newspapers and it took a long walk to find them the place I picked was was just opening for business a guy in an undershirt was greasing a griddle coffee was Dripping into a flask I hauled the Yellow Pages to a booth and checked H for hotels greensbor had plenty it was a decent sized place maybe a quar million people I figured a fundraising breakfast would take place in a fairly upscale location donors are rich and they don't go to the Red Roof end for $500 a plate not if they work in banking and insurance I guess the hayatt or the Sheran Greensboro had both 50/50 I closed the Yellow Pages and started leaping through the free papers looking for confirmation free papers carry all kinds of local coverage I found a story about the breakfast in the second paper I opened but I was wrong about the hotels not the Hyatt not the Sheridan instead Sanson was fixed up at a place called The O Henry hotel which I guess was named for the famous North Carolina writer there was an address given the event was planned to start at 7:00 in the morning I tore out the story and folded it small and put it in my pocket the guy behind the counter finished his preparations and brought me a mug of coffee without asking I took a sip nothing better than a fresh brew in the first minute of its life then I ordered the biggest combo on the menu and sat back and watched the guy cooking I took a cab to the O Henry Hotel I could have walked and it took longer to find the cab than to make the drive but I wanted to arrive in style I got there at A4 after 6 the hotel was a modern fact simile of a stylish old place it looked more like an independent establishment but probably wasn't few hotels are the lobby was rich and dim and full of Clubby Lea armchairs I walked past them to the reception desk with as much panach and confidence as was possible for a guy in a creased $19 shirt there was a young woman on duty behind the counter she looked tentative as if she'd just come in and wasn't settled yet she looked up at me and I said I'm here for the Sansom breakfast the young woman didn't reply she struggled to find a reaction like I was embarrassing her with too much information I said they were supposed to leave my ticket here your ticket my invitation who was eleth I said Mrs Sansom I mean or their guy which guy their security person Mr Springfield I smiled to myself Springfield was a manufacturer of autoloader rifles the same as Browning was the guy liked word games which was fun but dumb false names work better if they're completely unconnected with reality I asked have you seen them yet this morning it was an attempt at finesse I was guessing Greensboro wasn't in sanson's own congressional district a senate campaign needed Statewide funding and exposure I figured sanson's own patch was already sewn up tight and that by now he would be trolling further a field therefore he had probably stayed in the hotel overnight to be ready for the early start but I couldn't be sure to ask if he had come down from his room yet would make me look like an idiot if he lived 5 minutes away to ask if he had arrived yet would make me look just as bad if he lived 200 miles away so I aimed for neutrality the woman said they're still upstairs as far as I know I said thanks and walked back into the lobby away from the elevators so she wouldn't have anything to worry about I waited until her phone rang and she started tapping on her keyboard and concentrating on her computer screen and then I drifted around the edge of the room and hit the up button I figured that Sansom would be in a big suite and that the big suits would all be on the top floor so I hit the highest number the elevator had to offer a long moment later I stepped out in a hushed carpeted car Corridor and saw a uniformed cop standing easy outside a double mahogany door a patrolman from the Greensborough PD not young a veteran with first dibs on some effortless overtime a token presence I walked towards him with a ruul smile on my face like hey you're working I'm working what's a guy to do I figure he must have processed a few visitors already room service coffee staffers with legitimate reasons to be there maybe journalists I nodded to him and said Jack Reacher for Mr Sansom and leaned Beyond him and knocked on the door he didn't react didn't complain just stood there like the window dressing he was whatever Sansom was going to be next right then he was still only a congressman from the sticks he was a long way from getting serious protection there was a short delay and then the sweet door opened sanson's wife stood there with her hand on the inside handle she was dressed quaffed made up and ready for the day hello eleth I said can I come in chapter 25 I saw a fast expert politician's wife calculation run behind eleth sanson's eyes first instinct throw the bum out but there was a cop in the corridor and probably media in the building and almost certainly Hotel staff within earshot and local people talk so she swallowed once and said major breacher how nice to see you again and stood back to give me room to pass the suite was large and dark because of draped windows and full of heavy furniture and Rich and muted colors there was a living room with a breakfast bar and an open door that must have led to a bed room eleth Sansom walked me to the middle of the space and stopped like she didn't know what to do with me next then John Sansome stepped out of the bedroom to see what the fuss was all about he was in pants and a shirt and a tie and socks no shoes he looked small like a miniature man wiry build narrow through the shoulders his head was a little large compared to the rest of his body his hair was cut short and neatly brushed his skin was tanned but in a creased active Outdoors kind of a way rugged no sunlamps for this guy he glowed with wealth and power and energy and Charisma it was easy to see how he had won plenty of Elections easy to see why the news weeklies were in love with him he looked at me and then looked at his wife and asked where's Springfield eleth said he went downstairs to check on things they must have passed in the elevators Sansom nodded not much more than a fast up and down with his eyelids a practice decision maker and a pragmatic man not much given to crying over spilled milk he glanced at me and said you don't give up I said I never have didn't you listen to those Federal Boys in Washington who were they exactly those guys you know know how it is I could tell you but then I'd have to kill you but whatever they were supposed to warn you off didn't resonate they copied me on your record I told them they'd fail they talked to me like I was a [ __ ] and they called me too old which makes you way too old H I am way too old for most of this [ __ ] anyway you got 10 minutes I can give you five you got coffee you're wasting time we got plenty of time more than 5 minutes anyway more than 10 even you need to lace your shoes and put a jacket on how long can that take Sansom Shrugged and stepped over to the breakfast bar and poured me a cup of coffee he carried it back and gave it to me and said now cut to the chase I Know Who You Are are and why you're here did you know Susan Mark I asked him he shook his head never met or never even heard of her before last night I was watching his eyes and I believed him I asked why wouldn't HRC clerk be coerced into checking you out is that what was happening best guess then I have no idea HRC is the new purcom right what did you ever get from purcom what did anyone what do they got there dates and units that's all and my life is public record anyway I've been on CNN 100 times I joined the army I went to OCS I was Commissioned I was promoted three times and I left no secrets there your Delta missions were Secrets the room went a little quieter Sansom asked how do you know that you got four good medals you don't explain why Sansom nodded H that damn book he said the metals are a matter of record too I couldn't dis own them it wouldn't have been respectful politics is a mindfield damned if you do damned if you don't either way around they can always get to you I said nothing he looked at me and asked how many people are going to make the connection besides you I mean about 3 million I said maybe more everyone in the Army and all the Vets with enough eyesight left to read they know how things work he shook his head not that many most people don't have inquiring minds and even if they do most people respect secrecy in matters like that I don't think there's a problem there's a problem somewhere otherwise why was Susan Mark being asked questions did she actually mention my name I shook my head that was to get your attention I heard your name from a bunch of guys I'm assuming were employed by the person asking the questions and what's in this for you nothing but she looked like a nice person caught between a rock and a hard place and you care you do too if only a little bit you're not in politics just for what you can get out of it for yourself at least I sincerely hope you're not are you actually my constituent not until they elect your president Sansom was quiet for a beat and then he said the FBI briefed me too I'm in a position where I can do favors for them so they make a point of keeping me in the loop they say the NYPD feels you're reacting to this whole thing with a measure of guilt like you push too hard on the train and guilt is never a sound basis for good decisions I said that's just one woman's opinion was she wrong I said nothing Sansom said I'm not going to tell you a damn thing about the missions I said I don't expect you to but how much could come back and bite you in the ass nothing in this life is entirely black and white you know that but no crimes were committed and no one could get to the truth through an HRC clerk anyway this is a fishing Expedition this is half-baked amateur Muk ring journalism at its worst I don't think it is I said Susan Mark was terrified and her son is missing Sansom glanced at his wife back at me he said we didn't know that it hasn't been reported he's a jock at USC he left a bar with a girl 5 days ago hasn't been seen since he's presumed awall having the time of his life and you know this how through Susan Mark's brother the boy's uncle and you don't buy the story too coincidental not necessarily boys leave bars with girls all the time you're a parent I said what would make you shoot yourself and what would make you not the room went quieter still eleth Sansom said [ __ ] John Sansom got the kind of far away look in his eyes that I'd seen before from Good Field officers reacting to a tactical setback rethink redeploy reorganize all in a fast second or two I saw him scanning back through his and coming to a firm conclusion he said I'm sorry about the marked family situation I really am and I would help if I could but I can't there's nothing in my Delta career that could be accessed through HRC nothing at all either this is about something else entirely or someone is looking in the wrong place where else would they look you know where and you know they wouldn't even get close and someone who knew enough to want Del records would know where to look for them and where not to surely so this is not about Special Forces can't be so what else could it be about nothing I'm spotless really completely 100% I'm not an idiot I wouldn't have gotten into politics if I had the tiniest thing to hide not the way things are now H I never even had a parking ticket okay I said I'm sorry about the woman on the subway okay I said again but now we really have to go we have some serious begging to do I asked you ever heard the name Leela ho Leela ho Sansom said no I never heard that name I was watching his eyes and I felt he was telling the absolute truth and lying through his teeth both at the same time chapter 26 I passed Springfield on my return trip through the hotel lobby I was heading for the street door he was coming out of a dining room Beyond him I saw round tables with snowy white tablecloths and large floral decorations in their centers Springfield looked at me with no surprise in his face it was as if was judging my performance and finding it satisfactory as if I'd gotten to his principles in about the span of time he had expected not fast not slow but right there in the middle of the window he had allowed he gave me a look of professional appraisal and moved on without a word I went back to New York the same way I had left it but in Reverse cab to the Greensboro Depot bus to DC and then the Train the trip took all day and some of the evening the bus schedule and the train schedule were not well integrated and the first two trains from DC were sold out I spent the travel time thinking firstly about what Sansom had said and what he hadn't nothing in this life is entirely black and white but no crimes were committed and no one could get to the truth through an HRC clerk anyway no denial of questionable activity almost the opposite prac Ally a confession but he felt he hadn't strayed outside the envelope no crimes and he had absolute confidence that the details were locked away forever altogether a common position among sharpend X military questionable was a big word for all of us 12 letters and a textbooks worth of implications certainly my own career would not withstand extended scrutiny I don't lose sleep over it but in general I'm happy that the details stay locked away and so was Sansom clearly I know my details but what were his something damaging to him obviously either personally or to his election bid or both inevitably the feds had made that perfectly clear Sansom can't afford to tell you anything but damaging in a wider context too or why else would the feds be involved in the first place and who the hell was Leela hoath I asked myself these questions all the way through the jolting bus ride and all the way through the long layover at Union Station and then I gave them up when the train I made rolled North through Baltimore I had gotten nowhere with them and by then I was thinking about something else anyway I was thinking about where exactly in New York City Susan Mark had been headed she had driven in from the south and had planned to ditch her car and arrive at her destination by Subway tactically smart and no other choice probably she wouldn't have worn her winter coat in the car too hot she probably had it on the back seat or more likely in the trunk with the bag and the gun where the gun would be safe from prying eyes therefore she chose to park and get out and get herself battle ready at a distance and in relative privacy but not at too much of a distance not too far from her ultimate destination because she had been delayed she was seriously late therefore if she was headed way up town she would have parked in Midtown but she had parked downtown in SoHo probably joined the train at Spring Street one one stop before I had she was still sitting tight past 33rd Street then things had unraveled if they hadn't I figured she would have stayed on the train through Grand Central and gotten out at 51st Street maybe 59th but no farther surely 68th was a stop too far well into the Upper East Side a whole new neighborhood if she was headed all the way up there she would have used the Lincoln Tunnel not the Holland and she would have driven farther north before she parked because time was tight for her so the 59th Street Station was her upper limit but having gotten wherever she was going I felt she would have aimed to double back even if just a little amateur psychology approach from the south overshoot come back from the north and hope her opponents were facing the wrong way so I drew box in my Head 42nd Street to 59th and 5th Avenue to 3 68 square blocks containing what about 8 million different things I stopped counting them well before we hit Philadelphia by then I was distracted by the girl across the aisle she was in her middle 20s and completely spectacular maybe a model maybe an actress maybe just a greatl looking lawyer or Lobby VI a total babe as a USC jock might say which got me thinking about Peter Molina again and the apparent contradiction in someone expert enough to use him for leverage against a source that was worthless our principal brought a whole crew New York City has six main public transportation gateways Newark LaGuardia and JFK airports plus Penn Station and Grand Central Terminal plus the Port Authority Bus Depot Newark has three terminals LaGuardia has three plus the shuttle terminal JFK has eight Penn Station is Big Grand Central is huge and the Port Authority is a Warren total Manpower required to make a sensible attempt at surveillance would run close to 40 people 80 or more to allow for round-the-clock coverage and 80 people was an Army not a crew so I got off the train with no more than normal caution which fortunately was enough chapter 27 I saw the Watcher immediately he was leaning on a pillar in the center of the Penn Station Concourse inert with the kind of complete physical immobility that comes from being settled in for a long period of Duty he was stock still and the world was moving busily past him like a river flows around a rock he had a clamshell phone in his hand open held low down against his thigh he was a tall guy but re young maybe 30 at First Sight not impressive he had pale skin with a shaved head and a dusting of Ginger stubble not a great look scarier than an autograph Hunter maybe but not by much he was dressed in a shirt with a floral pattern and over it was a short tight leather jacket that was probably brown but which looked lued orange Under The Lights he was staring at the oncoming crowd with eyes that long ago grown tired and then bored The Concourse was full of people I moved with the flow slowly hemmed in I was carried along on the current The Watcher was about 30 ft away ahead and on my left his eyes were not moving he was letting people walk through a fixed field of vision I was about 10 ft away from him it was going to be like stepping through a metal detector hoop at the airport I slowed a little and someone bumped into my back I turned briefly to check that they weren't tag teaming me they weren't the person behind me was a woman with a stroller the size of an SUV with two babies in it maybe twins there are a lot of twins in New New York City plenty of older mothers therefore plenty of laboratory fertilization the twins in the stroller behind me were both crying maybe because it was late and they were tired or maybe they were just confused and bewildered by the farest of legs all around them their noise blended with the general hubub The Concourse was tiled and full of Echoes I drifted left aiming to move six lateral feet in the next 10 forward I got near the edge of the stream and passed through the Watcher's Point of focus his eyes were bright blue but filmed with fatigue he didn't react not at first then after a long second's delay his eyes opened wider and he raised his phone and flicked the lid to light the screen he glanced at it glanced back at me his mouth opened in Surprise by that point I was about 4 ft away from him then he fainted I lunged forward and caught him and lowered him gently to the ground a Good Samaritan helping out with a sudden medical emergency that was what people saw anyway but only because people see what they want to see if they had replayed the brief sequence in their heads and scrutinized it very carefully they might have noticed that I had lunged slightly before the guy had started to fall they might have noticed that whereas my right hand was certainly moving to catch him by the collar it was only moving a split second after my left hand had already stabbed him in the solar plexus very hard but close into our bodies hidden and surreptitious but people see what they want to see they always have and they always will I crouched over the guy like the responsible member of the public I was pretending to be and the woman with the stroller trundled on behind me after that a small crowd gathered full of concern New York's hostile reputation is undeserved people are generally very helpful a woman crouched down next to me other people stood close and looked down I could see their legs and their shoes the guy in the leather jacket was flat on the floor twitching with chest spasms and gasping desperately for air a hard blow to the solar plexus will do that to a person but so will a heart attack and any number of other medical conditions the woman next to me asked what happened I said I don't know he just killed over his eyes rolled up we should call the ambulance I said I dropped my phone the woman started to fumble in her purse I said wait he might have had an episode we need to check if he's carrying a card an episode an attack like a seizure like epilepsy or something what kind of a card people carry them with a instructions we might have to stop him biting his tongue and maybe he has medication with him check his pockets the woman reached out and patted the guy's jacket pockets on the outside he had small hands long fingers lots of rings the guy's outside Pockets were empty nothing there the woman folded the jacket back and checked inside I watched carefully the shirt was unlike anything I'd ever seen acrylic coral a riot of pastel colors the jacket was cheap and stiff lined with nylon there was an inside label quite ornate with cilc writing on it the guy's inside Pockets were empty too try his pants I said quick the woman said I can't do that so some take charge executive dropped down next to us and stuck his fingers in the guy's front P's pocket nothing there he used the pocket flaps to roll the guy first one way and then the other to check the back pockets nothing there either nothing anywhere no wallet no ID no nothing at all okay we better call the ambulance I said you see my phone the woman looked around and then burrowed under our guy's arm and came back with the clamshell cell the lid got got moved on the way and the screen lit up my picture was right there on it big and obvious better quality than I thought it would be better than the Radio Shack guys attempt the woman glanced at it I knew people kept pictures on their phones I've seen them their Partners their dogs their cats their kids like a homepage or wallpaper maybe the woman thought I was a big time egotist who used a picture of himself but she handed me the phone anyway by that time the take charge executive was already dialing the emergency call so I backed away and said I'll go find a cop I forced my way into the tide of people again and let it Carry Me onward out the door to the sidewalk into the dark and Away chapter 28 now I wasn't that guy anymore no longer the only man in the world without a cell phone I stopped in the hot Darkness three blocks away on 7th Avenue and looked over my prize it was made by Motorola gray plastic somehow treated and Polished to make it look like metal I fiddled my way through the menus and found no pictures other than my own it had come out quite well the cross street west of 8th the Bright Morning Sun me Frozen in the act of turning around in response to my shouted name there was plenty of detail from head to toe clearly huge numbers of megapixels had been involved I could make out my features fairly well and I thought I looked pretty good considering I'd hardly slept there were cars and a dozen bystanders nearby to give a sense of scale like the ruler painted on the wall behind a police mug shot my posture looked exactly like what I see in the mirror very characteristic I had been nailed but good photographically that was for damn sure I went back to the call register menu and checked for calls dialed there were none recorded I checked calls received and found only three all within the last 3 hours all from the same number I guessed The Watcher was supposed to delete information on a regular basis maybe even after every call but had gotten lazy about 3 hours ago which was certainly consistent with his demeanor and his reaction time I guess the number of the calls had come in from represented some kind of an organizer or dispatcher maybe even the big boss himself if it had been a cell phone number it would have been no good to me no good at all cell phones can be anywhere that's the point of cell phones but this wasn't a cell phone number it was a 212 number a Manhattan landline which would have a fixed location that's the nature of landlines the best method of working backward from a phone number depends on how high up the food chain you are cops and private eyes have reverse telephone directories look up the number get a name get an address the FBI has all kinds of sophisticated databases the same kind of thing but more expensive CIA probably owns the phone companies I don't have any of that stuff so I take the low Tech approach I dial the number and see who answers I hit the green button and the phone brought up the number for me I hit the green button again and the phone started dialing there was ringtone it cut off fairly fast and a woman's voice said this is the Four Seasons and how may I help you I said the hotel yes and how may I direct your call I said I'm sorry I have the wrong number I clicked off the Four Seasons Hotel I had seen it I'd never been in it it was a little above my current pay grade it was on 57th Street between Madison Avenue and Park Avenue right there in my 68 Square block box a little West and a lot north of its geographic center but a short walk for someone getting off the sixth train at 59th Street hundreds of rooms hundreds of telephone extensions all routed out through the main switchboard all carrying the main switch boards callor ID helpful but not very I thought for a moment and looked around very carefully and then reversed direction and headed for the 14th Precinct I had no idea what time an NYPD detective would show up for a night watch but I expected thees a Lee to be there within about an hour I expected to have to wait for her in the downstairs Lobby what I didn't expect was to find Jacob Mark already in there ahead of me he was sitting on an upright chair against a wall and drumming his fingers on his knees he looked up at me with no surprise at all and said Peter didn't show up for practice chapter 29 right there in the precinct Lobby Jacob Mark talked for about five straight minutes with the kind of rambling fluency that is typical of the truly anxious he said that the USC football people had waited 4 hours and then called Peter's father who had called him he said that for a star senior on a full scholarship to miss practice was completely unthinkable in fact to make practice no matter what else was going on was a major part of the culture earthquakes riots Wars deaths in the family mortal disease everyone showed up it emphasized to the world how important football was and by implication how important the players were to the university because jocks were respected by most but disrespected by some and there was an unspoken mandate to live up to the majority's ideas and Chang the minority's minds then there were the straightforward machismo issues to Mis practice was like a firefighter declining a turnout like a hit by pitch batter rubbing his arm like a gunslinger staying inside the saloon Unthinkable unheard of doesn't happen hangovers broken bones torn muscles bruises it didn't matter you showed up plus Peter was going to the NFL and increasingly pro teams look for character they've been burned too many times so missing practice was the same thing as trashing his Meal Ticket inexplicable incomprehensible I listened without paying close attention I was counting hours instead close to 48 since Susan Mark had missed her deadline why hadn't Peter's body been found then Theresa Lee showed up with news but first Lee had to deal with Jacob Mark's situation she took us up to the second floor Squad room and heard him out and asked has Peter been officially reported missing Jake said I want to do that right now you can't lee said at least not to me he's missing in La not in New York Susan was killed here she committed suicide here the USC people don't take Miss person's reports and the LAPD won't take it seriously they don't understand Peter's 22 years old it's not like he's a child he's been missing more than 5 days duration isn't significant he doesn't live at home and who is to say he's missing who's to say what his normal pattern might be presumably he goes for long periods without contact with his family family ah this is different what's your policy over there in Jersey Jake didn't answer Lee said he's an independent adult it's like he got on a plane and went on vacation it's like his friends were at the airport and watched him go I can see where the LAPD is coming from on this but he missed football practice that doesn't happen it just did apparently Susan was being threatened Jake said by who Jake looked at me tell her Reacher I said something to do with her job there was a lot of Leverage had to be I think a threat against her son would be consistent okay Lee said she looked around the squad room and found her partner doerty he was working at one of a pair of twin desks at the far end of the space she looked back at Jake and said go make a full report everything you know and everything you think you know Jake nodded gratefully and headed towards doery I waited until he was gone and asked are you reopening the file now Lee said no the file is closed and it's staying closed because as it happens there's nothing to worry about but the guy's a cop and we have to be courteous and I want him out of the way for an hour why is there nothing to worry about so she told me her news she said we know why Susan Mark came up here how we got a missing person's report she said apparently Susan was helping someone with an inquiry and when she didn't show the individual concerned got worried and came in to report her missing what kind of inquiry something personal I think I wasn't here the day guys said it all sounded innocent enough and it must have been really or why else come to the police station and Jacob Mark shouldn't know this why we need a lot more detail and getting it will be easier without him there he's too involved he's a family member he'll scream and yell I've seen it before who was the individual concerned a foreign National briefly here in town for the purpose of conducting the research that Susan was helping with wait I said briefly here in town staying in a hotel yes Lee said the Four Seasons yes Lee said what's his name it's a her not a him Lee said her name is Leela ho Chapter 30 it was very late in the evening but Lee called anyway and Leela ho agreed to meet with us at the four SE right away no hesitation we drove over in Lee's unmarked car and parked in the hotel's curbside loading zone the lobby was magnificent all pale sandstone and brass and tan paint and golden marble suspended halfway between dim intimacy and bright modernism Lee showed her badge at the desk and the clerk called upstairs and then pointed us towards the elevators we were headed for another high floor and the way the clerk had spoken made me feel that Leela Ho's room wasn't going to be the smallest or the cheapest in the place in fact Leela Ho's room was another Suite it had a double door like Sansom in North Carolina but no cop outside just a quiet empty Corridor there were used room service trays here and there and some of the door knobs had do not disturb signs or breakfast orders on them Theresa Lee paused and double checked the number and knocked nothing happened for a minute then the right hand panel opened and we saw a woman standing inside the doorway with soft yellow light directly behind her she was easily 60 maybe more short and thick and heavy with steel gray hair cut plain and blunt dark eyes lined and hooded a white slab of a face meaty immobile and bleak a guarded unreadable expression she was wearing an ugly Brown House dress made of thick man-made material Lee asked Miss ho the woman ducked her head and blinked and moved her hands and made a kind of all-purpose apologetic sound the universal dumb show for not understanding I said she doesn't speak English Lee said she spoke English 15 minutes ago the light behind the woman was coming from a table lamp set deep inside the room its glow dimmed briefly as a second figure stepped in front of it and headed our way another woman but much younger maybe 25 or 26 very elegant and very very beautiful rare and exotic like a model she smiled a little shyly and said it was me speaking English 15 minutes ago I'm Leela this is my mother she bent and spoke fast in a foreign language Eastern European quietly more or less straight into the older woman's ear explanation context inclusion the older woman brightened and smiled we introduced ourselves by name Leela ho spoke for her mother she said her name was fetl Ho we all shook hands back and forth quite formally Crossing wrists two people on our side and two on theirs Leela ho was stunning and very natural she made the girl I'd seen on the train look contrived in comparison she was tall but not too tall and she was Slender but not too slender she had dark skin like a perfect Beach Tan she had long dark hair no makeup huge hypnotic eyes the brightest blue I'd ever seen as if they were lit from within she moved with a kind of live economy half the time she looked young and leggy and gamine and half the time she looked all grown up and self-possessed half the time she seemed unaware of how good she looked and half the time she seemed a little bashful about it she was wearing a simple black cocktail dress that probably came from Paris and cost more than a car but she didn't need it she could have been in something stitched together from old potato a without diminishing the effect we followed her inside and her mother followed us the suite was made up of three rooms a living room in the center and bedrooms either side the living room had a full set of furniture including a dining table there were the remnants of a room service supper on it there were shopping bags in the corners of the room two from Bergdorf Goodman and two from Tiffany Theresa Lee pulled her badge and Leela ho stepped away to a credenza under a mirror and came back with two slim booklets which she handed to her their passports she thought official visitors in New York needed to see papers the passports were maroon and each had an eagle graphic printed in gold in the center of the cover and words in cilic above and below it that looked like Knack kned IPA in English Lee flipped through them and stepped away and put them back on the cenza then we all sat down Sedana ho stared Straight Ahead blank excluded by language Leela ho looked at the Two of Us carefully establishing our identities in her mind a cop from the precinct and the witness from the train she ended up looking straight at me maybe because she thought I'd been the more seriously affected by events I wasn't complain in I couldn't take my eyes off her she said I am so very sorry about what happened to Susan Mark her voice was low her diction was precise she spoke English very well a little accented a little formal as if she had learned the language from black and white movies both American and British Thea Lee didn't speak I said we don't know what happened to Susan Mark not really beyond the vious facts I mean Leela ho nodded courteously delicately and a little contritely she said you want to understand my involvement yes we do it's a long story but let me say at the very beginning that nothing in it could possibly explain the events on the subway train the Lee said so let's hear the story and so we heard it the first part of it was background information purely biographical Leela ho was 26 years old she was Ukrainian she'd been married at the age of 18 to a Russian the Russian had been knee in 90 style Moscow entrepreneurship he had grabbed oil leases and coal and uranium rights from the crumbling State he had become a single figure billionaire Next Step was to become a double figure billionaire he didn't make it it was a tight bottle neck everyone wanted to squeeze through and there wasn't room for everyone to succeed a rival had shot the Russian in the head one year ago outside a nightclub the body had Lin in the snow on the sidewalk all the next day a message Moscow style the newly widowed Leela hoath had taken the hint and cashed out and moved to London with her mother she liked London and planned on living there forever a wash with money but with nothing much to do she said there's a presumption that young people who get rich will do things for their parents you see it all the time with pop stars and movie stars and athletes and such a thing is a very Ukrainian sentiment my father died before I was born my mother is all I have left so of course I offered her anything she wanted houses cars holidays cruises she refuse them all all she wanted was a favor she wanted me to help her track down a man from her past it was like the dust had settled after a long and turbulent life and at last she was free to concentrate on what meant most to her I asked who was a man an American soldier named John that was all we knew at first my mother claimed him only as an acquaintance but then it emerged that he had been very kind to her at a particular time and place where and when in Berlin for a short period in the early 80s that's vague it was before I was born it was in 1983 privately I thought trying to find a man was a hopeless task I thought my mother was becoming a silly old woman but I was happy to go through the motions and don't worry she doesn't understand what we're saying Sedano smiled and nodded at nothing in particular I asked why was your mother in berin she was with the Red Army her daughter said doing what she was with an infantry regiment as what she was a political commissar all regiments had one in fact all regiments had several I asked so what did you you do about tracing the American my mother was clear that her friend John had been in the Army not the Marines that was my starting point so I telephoned from London to your Department of Defense and asked what I should do after many explanations I was transferred to the human resources command they have a press office the man I spoke to was quite touched he thought it was a sweet story possibly he saw a public relations aspect I don't know some good news at last perhaps instead of all the bad he said he would make inquiries personally I thought he was wasting his time John is a very common name and as I understand it most American soldiers rotate through Germany and most visit Berlin so I thought the pool of possibilities would grow enormous which apparently it did the next thing I knew was weeks later when a clerk called Susan Mark telephoned me I wasn't home she left a message she said she had been assigned the task she told me that some names that sound like John are actually contractions of Jonathan spelled without the letter H she wanted to know if my mother had ever seen the name written down perhaps on a note I asked my mother and called Susan mark back and told her we were sure it was John with the letter age the conversation with Susan turned out to be very pleasant and we had many more we almost became friends I think the way you sometimes can on the phone like pen pals but talking instead of writing she told me a lot about herself she was a very lonely woman and I think our conversations brightened her days Lee asked and then what eventually I received news from Susan she said she had arrived at some preliminary conclusions I suggested we meet here in New York almost as a way to to consummate our friendship you know dinner and maybe a show as a way of saying thank you for her efforts certainly but she never arrived I asked what time were you expecting her about 10:00 she said she would leave after work too late for dinner and a show she planned to stay over I booked a room for her when did you get here 3 days ago how British Airways from London I said you hired a local crew leelah ho nodded I asked when just before we got here why it's expected she said and sometimes useful where did you find them they advertise in the Moscow papers and in The Expatriate papers in London it's good business for them and it's a kind of status check for for us if you go overseas unassisted you look weak and it's better not to do that they told me you brought a crew of your own she looked surprised I don't have a crew of my own she said why on Earth would they say that I don't understand it they said you brought a bunch of scary types for a second she looked mystified and a little annoyed then some kind of comprehension dawned in her face she seemed to be a fast analyst she said perhaps they were inventive strategically when Susan didn't arrive I sent them out looking I thought I'm paying them they might as well do some work and my mother has a lot of Hope invested in this business so I didn't want to come all this way and then fail at the last minute so I offered them a bone us we grow up believing that money talks loudest in America so perhaps those men were making up a story for you perhaps they were inventing a scary alternative to make sure that they got their extra money so that you would be tempted to talk to them I said nothing then something else dawned in her face some new realization she said I have no crew as you call it just one man Leon it one of my husband's old team he couldn't get a new job he's a bit of a lame duck I'm afraid so I kept him on right now he's at Penn Station he's waiting for you the police told me that the witness had gone to Washington I assumed you would take the train and come back the same way did you not I said yes I came back on the train then Leonid must have missed you he had your picture he was supposed to ask you to telephone me poor man he must still be there she stood up and headed for the credenza for the room phone which gave me a temporary tactical problem because Leonid cell was in my pocket chapter 31 in principle I know how to turn off a cell phone I've seen it done and I've done it myself on more than one occasion on most models you hold down the red button for two long seconds but the phone was in my pocket no room to open it no chance of finding the red button by feel alone too suspicious to take it out and turn it off in full view of everyone Leila the hoath hit nine for a line and dialed I put my hand in my pocket and used my thumbnail and found the catch and unlatched the battery separated it from the phone and turned it sideways to avoid any chance of accidental electrical contact Leela ho waited and then she sighed and hung up he's hopeless she said but very loyal I tried to track Leon's likely progress in my head cops paramedics probably an obligatory trip down to the St Vincent's Emergency Room no ID possibly no English maybe worries and questions and detention then the trip back up town how long of a detention I didn't know how fast of a trip I couldn't predict I said the local crew mentioned John sanson's name Leela ho sighed again and shook her head head in a tiny display of exasperation she said I briefed him when we arrived obviously I told them the story and we all got along quite well I think all of us felt that we were wasting our time humoring my mother we shared jokes about it frankly one of the men was reading the newspaper about Sansom he said here's an American soldier called John of roughly the right vintage he said maybe Sansom is the guy you're looking for for a day or two it became a kind of Catchphrase an in joke I suppose we would say let's just call John Sansom and have done with it I was really only joking of course because what are the chances a million to one perhaps and they were joking too really but later they became somehow quite Earnest about it perhaps because of the impact it would have because he is such a famous politician what impact what did your mother do with this guy called John Sedana ho stared on into space uncomprehending Leela ho sat down again she said my mother has never spoken in detail about it certainly it can't have been Espionage my mother was not a traitor I say that not as a loyal daughter but as a realist she is still alive therefore she was never suspected and her American friend was not a traitor either liasing with foreign traitors was a KGB function not Army and personally I doubt that her interest was romantic it was more likely Aid of some sort personal help either Financial or political possibly covert but those were bad times for the Soviet Union possibly it was romantic all she has ever said said is that the man was very kind to her she placed her cards close to her chest ask her again now I have asked her many times as you can imagine she's reluctant to say but you think Sansom isn't actually involved no not at all that was a joke that got out of hand that's all unless of course it really is a million to one thing which would be extraordinary don't you think to joke about something and have it turn out to be true I said nothing Leela H said now me I ask you a question did Susan Mark give you the information intended for my mother Sano smiled and nodded again I began to suspect she recognized the words my mother like a dog that wags its tail when it hears its name I said why would you think Susan Mark gave me in information because the people I hired here told me you told them that she had computerized on a USB memory stick they gave me that message and transmitted your photograph and resigned their commission I'm not sure why I was paying them very well I moved in my chair and stuck my hand in my pocket scrabbled down past the disassembled phone and found the Radio Shack stick I felt the soft pink neoprene sleeve against my fingernails I pulled it out and held it up and watched leelah Ho's eyes very carefully she looked at the stick the way a cat looks at a bird she asked is that really it Thea Lee moved in her chair and looked at me like she was asking are you going to say it or am I Leela ho caught the glance and asked asked what I said the whole thing looked very different to me I'm afraid Susan Mark was terrified on the train she was in big trouble she didn't look like a person coming to town to meet a friend for dinner and a show Leela ho said I told you at the beginning I can't explain that I put the memory stick back in my pocket said Susan didn't bring an overnight bag I can't to explain it and she dumped her car and approached by Subway which is weird if you were prepared to book a room for her I'm sure you would have sprung for valet parking sprung paid for of course and she was carrying a loaded gun she lived in Virginia I heard it's compulsory there it's legal there I said not compulsory I can't explain it I'm sorry and her son is missing last seen leaving a bar with a woman of your age and roughly your description missing disappeared a woman of my description a total babe what does that mean a good-looking young woman what bar somewhere in LA Los Angeles in California I haven't been to Los Angeles never in my life I have only been in New York I said nothing she said look around you I have been here in New York 3 days on a tourist visa and I occupy three rooms in a commercial hotel I have no crew as you call it I have never been to California I said nothing she said the looks are subjective and I'm not the only woman in my age there are 6 billion people in the world trending young for sure half of them are 15 or younger which means there are still 3 billion people 16 or older following the curve perhaps 12% of them are in their middle 20s that's 360 million people about half are women that's 180 million even if only one in a hundred of them might be judged good-look in a bar in California then it's it's still 10 times more likely that John Sansom was my mother's friend than I had anything to do with Susan Mark's son I nodded arithmetically Leela ho was right on the money she said and it's probably true that Peter is away somewhere with a girl anyway yes I know his name in fact I know all about him Susan told me on the phone we talked about all our problems she hated her son she despised what he is he has everything she disliked he was just a shallow fraternity boy with immature attitudes he rejected her in favor of his father and do you know why because he was obsessed with his ancestry and Susan was adopted did you even know that her son thought of her only as a person conceived out of wedlock he hated her for it I know more about Susan than anybody I talked to her many times I listened to her she was a lonely isolated woman I was her friend she was excited to come here and meet me at that point I sensed that Thea Lee needed to get going and I certainly wanted to be out of there before young loned showed up again so I nodded and Shrugged as if I had nothing more to say and no further issues to pursue Leela ho asked if I'd give her the stick that Susan Mark had given to me I didn't say yes and I didn't say no I didn't answer at all we just shook hands all around once more and then we made an exit the door closed behind us and we walked through the silent Corridor and the elevator chimed open we stepped in and we looked at each other in the mirrored walls and Lee said well what did you think I thought she was beautiful I said one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen apart from that amazing eyes apart from her eyes I thought she was lonely too lonely and isolated she was talking about Susan but she could have been talking about herself what about her story do good-looking people automatically get more credibility not from me pal and get over it anyway 30 years from now she'll look just like her mother did you believe her did you Lee nodded I believed her because a story like that is ridiculously easy to check only a fool would give us so many chances to prove her wrong like does the Army really have press officers hundreds of them so all we have to do is find the one she spoke to and asked we could even track the phone calls from London I could Le a with Scotland Yard I'd love to do that can you imagine doerty interrupts me I say butt out pal I'm on the phone with Scotland Yard here it's every detective's dream NSA will have the calls I said a foreign number into the do o d they're already part of an intelligence analysis somewhere and we could track Susan Mark's calls out of the Pentagon if they talked as often as Leela claimed we'd see them easily International to the UK they're probably flagged up separately so go for it check I guess I will she said and she must know I could she struck me as an intelligent woman she knows British Airways and Homeland Security can track her in and out of the country she knows we can tell if she ever flew to La she knows we can just go ahead and ask Jacob Mark whether his sister was adopted it's also easy to confirm it would be crazy to lie about stuff like that plus she came into the precinct house and involved herself voluntarily and she just showed me her passport which is the exact opposite of suspicious Behavior those are big points in her favor I took the cell phone from my pocket and reassembled the battery I hit the on switch and the screen lit up it was showing a missed call Leela hoath presumably from her room 10 minutes ago I saw Lee looking at the phone and I said it's leonids I took it from him he actually found you I found him which is why I'd gotten as far as this hotel where is he now walking home from St Vincent's Hospital probably is this something you really want to be telling to an NYPD detective he fainted I helped that's all talk to the witnesses whatever it's going to put the cat among the pigeons with Leela she thinks gun ownership is compulsory in Virginia she probably thinks mugging is compulsory in New York she grew up with propaganda we got out of the elevator in the lobby and headed for the street door Lee asked but if all of this is so innocent why are there feds involved if the story is true that an American Soldier met with a red Army political commissar back during the Cold War the feds want to be absolutely sure it's innocent that's why hrc's response was delayed by weeks they were taking policy decisions putting surveillance in place we got into Lee's car she said you aren't agreeing with me all the way are you I said if the ho family business is innocent so be it but something wasn't innocent that's for damn sure and we're saying that other something brought Susan Mark to the exact same place at the exact same time which is a hell of a coincidence and how many times have you known a million to one chance turn out to be a winner never me either but I think it's happening here John Sansom is a million to one against but I think he's involved why I spoke spoke to him in Washington actually I had to follow him to North Carolina you don't give up do you that's what he said then I asked him if he'd heard the name Leela hoath he said no I was watching his face I believed him and I thought he was lying too both at the same time and maybe he was how maybe he'd heard the name ho but not Leela so technically no he hadn't heard the name Leela ho but maybe he had heard the name SED Lano maybe he was very familiar with it what would that mean maybe more than we'd think because if Leela ho is telling the truth then there's kind of a weird logic working here why would Susan Mark bust a gut on a case like this she had sympathy why would she in particular I don't know because she was adopted born out of wedlock presumably wondering about her real folks from time to time sympathetic to other people in the same situation like Leela ho maybe some guy was very kind to her mother before she was born there are a lot of ways to interpret a phrase like that for example best case he gave her a warm coat and winter and worst case maybe John Sansom is Leela Ho's father chapter 32 Lee and I went straight back to the precinct Jacob Mark had finished his business with doery that was clear and something had changed that was clear too they were sitting opposite each other across docker's desk not talking anymore Jake looked happier dockerty had a patient expression on his face like he just wasted an hour he didn't look resentful about it cops are accustomed to wasting time statistically most of what they do leads nowhere Lee and I walked over to them and Jake said Peter called his coach I asked when two hours ago the coach called Molina and Molina called me so where is he he didn't say he had to leave him message his coach never answers his phone over dinner family time but Peter's okay he said he won't be back anytime soon maybe ever he's thinking about quitting football it was a girl giggling in the background doery said she must be some girl I asked Jake you okay with that Jake said hell no but it's his life and he'll change his mind anyway the only question is how fast I meant are you happy that the message was for real well the coach knows his voice better than I do probably anyone try calling him back all of us but his phone is off again the Lee said so we're satisfied I guess feeling better relieved may I ask you a question about another subject shoot was your sister adopted Jake paused switched gears nodded yeah we both were as babies separately 3 years apart Susan first then he asked why Lee said I'm corroborating some new information received what new information it seems that Susan came up here to meet a friend what friend a Ukrainian woman called Leela ho Jake glanced at me we've been through this I never heard that name from Susan Lee asked him would you expect to how close were you it seems to be a fairly recent friendship yeah we weren't very close when was the last time you talked a few months I guess so you're not completely up to date with her social life Jake said I guess not Lee asked how many people knew that Susan was adopted I guess she didn't advertise it but it wasn't a secret how fast would a new friend find out fast enough probably friends talk about stuff like that how would you describe Susan's relationship with her son what kind of question is that an important one Jake hesitated he clammed up and turned away physically like he was literally dodging the issue like he was flinching from a blow maybe because he was reluctant to wash dirty Linen in public in which case his body language was really all the answer we needed but thees Lee wanted chapter and verse she said talk to me Jake cop to cop this is something I need to know about Jake was quiet for a spell then he Shrugged and said I guess you could call it a LoveHate relationship ship in what way exactly Susan loved Peter Peter hated her why more hesitation another shrug it's complicated how Peter went through a phase like most kids do like girls want to be long lost princesses or boys want their grandfathers to have been Admirals or generals or famous explorers for a spell everyone wants to be something they're not Peter wanted to live in a Ralph Lauren advertisement basically he wanted to be Peter Molina I fourth or at least the third he wanted his father to have an estate in Kenny buunk port and his mother to have the remnants of an old Fortune Susan didn't handle it well she was the daughter of a drug addicted teenage [ __ ] from Baltimore and she made no secret of it she thought honesty was the best policy Peter handled it badly they never really got past it and then the divorce came and Peter chose upside sides and they never got over it how did you feel about it I could see both points of view I never inquired about my real mother I didn't want to know but I went through a spell where I wish she was a grand old lady with diamonds I got over it but Peter didn't which is stupid I know but understandable did Susan like Peter as a person as opposed to loving him as a son Jake shook his head no which made things even worse Susan had no sympathy for jocks and letter jackets and all that stuff I guess in school and college she had bad experiences with people like that she didn't like that her son was turning into one of them but the stuff was important to Peter and its own right at first and then later as a weapon against her it was a dysfunctional family no question who knows this story you mean with a friend though Lee nodded Jake said a close friend might a close friend she met quite recently there's no timetable it's about trust isn't it I said you told me Susan wasn't an unhappy person Jake said and she wasn't I know that sounds weird but adopted people have a different view of family they have different expectations believe me I know Susan was at peace with it it was a fact of life that's all was she lonely yeah I'm sure she was did she feel isolated I'm sure she did did she like to talk on the phone most women do Lee asked him have you got kids Jake shook his head again no he said I don't have kids not even married I tried to learn from my big sister's experience Lee stayed quiet for a spell and then she said thanks Jak I'm happy that Peter's okay and I'm sorry I had to bring all that bad stuff up then she walked away and I followed her and she said I'll check the other things too but it will take time because those channels are always slow but right now my guess is that Leela ho will pan went out just fine she's two for two so far on the adoption thing and on the mother son thing she knows stuff only a genuine friend would know I nodded agreement you interested in the other thing whatever it was that got Susan so scared not until I see actual evidence of a crime committed in New York City somewhere between 9th Avenue in Park and 30th Street and 45th that's this Precinct she nodded anything else would be volunteer work you interested in Sansom not even a little bit are you I feel like I should warn him maybe about what a million to one possibility it's actually much shorter odds than a million to one there are 5 million men called Jon in America second only to James for popularity that's one in3 guys which means that in 1983 there could have been about 33,000 John's in the US Army discounted maybe 10% from military demographics the chances are about 130,000 those are still very big odds I think Sansom should know that's all why call it a brother officer thing maybe I'll head back to DC no need save yourself the trip he's coming here tomorrow midday for a fundraiser lunch at the Sheran with all the Heavy Hitters from Wall Street 7th Avenue and 52nd Street we got a memo why he wasn't getting much protection in Greensboro he isn't getting much protection here either in fact he isn't getting any but we get memos about everything that's how it is now that's the new NYPD then she walked away leaving me all alone in the middle of the empty Squadron and leaving me feeling a little uneasy maybe Leela ho really was as pure as a driven snow but I couldn't shake the Sensation that sansen was walking into a trap just by coming to the city chapter 33 it has been a long time since you could sleep well in New York for $5 a night but you can still do it for 50 if you know how the key is starting late I walked down to a hotel I used before near Madison Square Garden it was a big place once Grand now just a faded old pile perpetually close to renovation or demolition but never actually getting there after midnight the front of house staff shrinks down to a lone night Porter responsible for everything including the desk I walked up to him and asked if he had a room available he made a show at tapping on a keyboard and looking at a screen and then he said yes he did have a room available he quoted at a price of $185 plus tax I asked if I could see the room before I committed it was the kind of hotel where that kind of request seemed reasonable and sensible mandatory even the guy came out from behind the desk and took me up in the elevator and along a corridor he opened a door with a passcard attached to his belt by a curly plastic cord and stood back to let me enter the room was okay it had a bed in it and a bathroom everything I needed and nothing I didn't I took two 20s out of my pocket and said suppose we don't worry about that whole registration process downstairs the guy said nothing they never do it that point I took out another 10 and said for the maid tomorrow the guy shuffled a little like I was putting him on the spot but then his hand came out and he took the money he said be out by 8 and he walked away the door closed behind him maybe a Central Computer would show that his passcard had unlock the room and when but he would claim that he had shown me the accommodations and that I had been unmoved by their attractions and that I had left again immediately it was probably a claim he made on a regular basis I was probably the fourth guy he'd stowed away that week maybe the fifth or the sixth all kinds of things happen in City hotels after the day staff has quit I slept well and woke up feeling good and I was out 5 minutes before 8 I forced my way through the crowds heading in and out of Penn Station and got breakfast in the back Booth of a place on 33rd coffee eggs bacon pancakes and more coffee all for six bucks plus tax plus tip more expensive the North Carolina but only slightly the battery on Leon's cell was still about half half charged an icon was showing some bars blank and some bars lit I figured I had enough juice for a few calls I dialed 600 and then aimed to dial 8229 but before I got halfway through the sequence the earpiece started up with a fast little triplet Trill pitched somewhere between a siren and a xylophone a voice came on and told me my call could not be completed as dialed it asked me to check and try again I tried one 600 and got exactly the same result I tried 011 for an international line and then one for North America and then 600 a circuitous route but the outcome was no better I tried 001 as the international code in case the phone thought it was still in London no result I tried eight star star 101 which was the Eastern European international code for America in case the phone had been hauled all the way from Moscow a year ago no result I looked at the phone's keypad and thought about using a three in place of the day but the system was already beeping at me well before I got there so 600 8221 9d was not a phone number Canadian or otherwise which the FBI must have known maybe they had considered the possibility for about a minute and then dismissed it out of hand the FBI has a lot of things but but dumb isn't one of them so back on 35th Street they buried their real questions for me behind a smoke screen what else had they asked me they had gauged my level of Interest they had asked yet again if Susan had given me anything and they had confirmed that I was leaving town they had wanted me incurious and empty-handed and gone why I had no no idea and what exactly was 60082 219d if it wasn't a phone number I sat another 10 minutes with a final cup of coffee sipping slowly eyes open but not seeing much trying to sneak up on the answer from below like Susan Mark had planned to sneak up out of the subway I visualized the numbers in my mind strung out separately together different combinations spaces hyphens groups oops the 600 part rang a faint Bell Susan Mark 600 but I couldn't get it I finished my coffee and put leaned cell back in my pocket and headed north towards the Sheridan the hotel was a huge glass pillar with a plasma screen in the lobby that listed all the days events the main Ballroom was booked for lunch by a group calling itself ft there taxs or free trade or maybe even the financial times itself plausible cover for a bunch of Wall Street Fat Cats looking to buy yet more influence their Affair was due to start at noon I figured Sansom would try to arrive by 11 he would want some time and space and calm beforehand to prepare this was a big meeting for him these were his people and they had Deep Pockets he would need 60 Minutes minimum which gave me two more hours to kill I walked over to Broadway and found a clothing store two blocks north I wanted another new shirt I didn't like the one I was in it was a symbol of defeat don't come dressed like that or you won't get in if I was going to see Els butth Sansom again I didn't want to be wearing a badge of my failure and her success I chose an insubstantial thing made from thin cocky Poppin and paid 11 bucks for it she and it should have been it had no pockets and the sleeves ended halfway down my forearms with the Cuffs folded back they hit my elbows but I liked it well enough it was a satisfactory garment and it was purchased voluntarily at least by 10:30 I was back in the sheron's lobby I sat in a chair with people all around me they had suitcases half of them were heading out waiting for cars half of them were heading in waiting for rooms by 1040 I'd figured out what 60082 219d meant chapter 34 I got up out of my chair and followed engraved brass signs to the sheron's business center I couldn't get in you needed a room key I hung around to the door for 3 minutes and then another guy showed up he was in a suit and he looked impatient I put on a big display of hunting through my pants pockets and then I stepped aside with an apology the other guy pushed ahead of me and used his key and opened the door and I stepped in after him there were four identical workstations in the room each had a desk a chair a computer and a printer I sat down far from the other guy and killed the computer screen saver by tapping on the keyboard space bar so far so good I checked the screen icons and couldn't make much sense of them but I found that if I held the mouse pointer over them as if hesitating or or ruminating then a label popped up next to them I identified the Internet Explorer application that way and clicked on it twice the hard drive chattered and the browser opened up much faster than the last time I'd used a computer maybe technology really was moving on right there on the homepage was a shortcut to Google I clicked on it and Google search page appeared again very fast I typed Army regulations in the dialogue box and hit enter the screen redrew in an instant and gave me whole pages of options for the next 5 minutes I clicked and scrolled and read I got back to the lobby 10 minutes before 11 my chair had been taken I went out to the sidewalk and stood in the sun I figured Sansom would arrive by town car and come in through the front door he wasn't a rock star he wasn't the president he wouldn't come in through the kitchen or the loading dock the whole point was for him to be seen the need to enter places undercover was a prize he had not yet one the day was hot but the street was clean it didn't smell there was a pair of cops on the corner south of me and another pair on the corner to the north standard NYPD deployment in Midtown proactive and reassuring but not necessarily useful given the range of potential threats alongside me departing Hotel guests climbed into taxis the city's Rhythm ground on relentlessly traffic on 7th Avenue flowed and stopped at the light and flowed again traffic from the cross streets flowed and stopped and started pedestrians bunched on the corners and struck out for the opposite sidewalks horns honked trucks roared the sun bounced off high glass and beat down hard Sansom arrived in a town car at 5 11 local plates which meant he had ridden up most of the way on the train less convenient for him but a smaller carbon footprint than driving all the way or flying every detail mattered in a campaign politics is a mind Field Springfield climbed out of the front passenger seat even before the car had stopped and then Sansom and his wife climbed out of the back they stood for a second on the sidewalk ready to be gracious if there were people to greet them ready not to be disappointed if there weren't they scanned faces and saw mine and Sansom looked a little quizzical and his wife looked a little worried Springfield headed in my direction but elth waved him off with a small gesture I guessed she had appointed herself damage control officer as far as I was concerned she shook my hand like I was an old friend she didn't comment on my shirt instead she leaned in close and asked do you need to talk to us it was a perfect politician's wife inquiry she frighted the word need with all kinds of meanings her emphasis cast me both as an opponent and a collaborator she was saying we know you have information that might hurt us and we hate you for it but we would be truly grateful if you would be kind enough to discuss it with us first before you make it public practically a whole essay all in one short syllable I said yes we need to talk Springfield scowled but eleth smiled like I just promised her 100,000 votes and took my arm and led me inside the hotel staff didn't know or care who Sansom was except that he was the speaker for the group that was paying a hefty fee for the ballroom so they summoned up a whole lot of artificial enthusiasm and showed us to a private lounge and bustled about with bottles of lukewarm sparkling water and pots of weak coffee elsabeth played host Springfield didn't speak Sansom took a call on his cell from his chief of staff back in DC they talked for 4 minutes about economic policy and then for a further two about their afternoon agenda it was clear from the context that Sanson was heading back to the office directly after lunch for a long afternoon's work the New York event was a fast hit and run nothing more like a drive by robbery the hotel people finished up and left and Sansom clicked off and the room went quiet canned air hissed in through vents and kept the temperature lower than I would have liked for a moment we sipped water and coffee in silence then eleth Sansom opened the bidding she asked is there any news on the missing boy I said a little he skip football practice which apparently is rare at USC s said he had a good memory i' had mentioned USC only once and in passing yes that's rare but then he called his coach and left a message when last night dinner time on the coast and apparently he's with a woman elsabeth said that's okay then I would have preferred a live realtime conversation or a face-to-face meeting a message isn't good enough for you I'm a suspicious person so what do you need to talk about I turned to Sansom and asked him where were you in 1983 he paused just a fraction of a beat and something flickered behind his eyes not Shock I thought not surprise resignation possibly he said I was a captain in 1983 that's not what I asked you I asked where you were I can't tell you that were you in Berlin I can't tell you that you told me you were spotless you still stand by that completely is there anything your wife doesn't know about you plenty of things but nothing personal are you sure positive you ever heard the name Leela ho I already told you I haven't you ever heard the name fet Lanana ho never Sansom said I was watching his face it was very composed he looked a little uncomfortable but apart from that he was communicating nothing I asked him did you know about Susan Mark before this week I already told you I didn't did you win a medal in 1983 he didn't answer the room went quiet again then Leonid cell rang in my pocket I felt the vibration and heard a loud electronic tune I fumbled the phone out and looked at the small window on the front a 212 number the same number that was already in the call register the Four Seasons Hotel Leela hoath presumably I wondered whether Leonid was still missing or whether he'd gotten back and told his story and now Leela was calling me specifically I pressed random buttons until the ringing stopped and then I put the phone back in my pocket I looked at Sansom and said I'm sorry about that he Shrugged as if apologies were unnecessary I asked did you win a medal in 1983 he said why is that important you know what 6822 is and Army regulation probably I don't know all of them verbatim I said we figured all along that only a dumb person would expect HRC to have meaningful information about Delta operations and I think we were largely right but a little bit wrong too I think a really smart person might legitimately expect it with a little lateral thinking in what way suppose someone knew for sure that a Delta operation had taken place suppose they knew for sure it had succeeded then they wouldn't need information because they've already got it suppose they wanted to confirm the identity of the officer who led the operation they couldn't get that from HRC just not possible orders and deployment records and after action reports are classified and retained at Fort Brag under lock and key but what happens to officers who lead successful missions you tell me they get medals I said the bigger the mission the bigger the medal and Army regulation 6822 Section 1 paragraph 9 subsection D requires the human resources command to maintain an accurate historical record of each and every award recommendation and the resulting decision maybe so Sansom said but if it was a Delta Mission all the details would be omitted the citation would be redacted the location would be redacted and the meritorious conduct would not be described I nodded all the record would show is a name a date and an award nothing else exactly which is all a smart person think laterally really needs right an award proves a mission succeeded the lack of a citation proves it was a covert Mission pick any random month say early in 1983 how many medals were awarded thousands hundreds and hundreds of Good Conduct medals alone how many silver stars not so many if any I said not much was happening early in 1983 how many dsms were handed out how many dsc's I bet they were as rare as hen teeth early in 1983 eleth Sansom moved in her chair and looked at me and said I don't understand I turned towards her but Sansom raised a hand and cut me off he answered for me there were no secrets between them no weariness he said it's a kind of Back Door Direct information is completely unavailable but indirect information is out there if someone knew that a Delta Mission had taken place and succeeded and when then whoever got the biggest unexplained metal ad month probably led it wouldn't work in war time because big medals would be too common but in peace time when nothing else is going on a big award would stick out like a sore thumb we invaded Grenada in 1983 elth said Delta was there October Sansom said which would add some background noise later in the year but the first N9 months were pretty quiet elsabeth Sansom looked away she didn't know what her husband had been doing during the first 9 months of 1983 perhaps she never would she said so who was asking I said an old battle axe called Sedana ho who claims to have been a Red Army political commissar no real details but she says she knew an American soldier named John in Berlin in 1983 she says he was very kind to her and the only way that inquiring about it through Susan Mark makes any sense as if there was a mission involved and the guy named John LED it and got a medal for it the FBI found a note in Susan's car someone had fed her the regulation in the section and the paragraph to tell her exactly where to look eleth glanced at Sansom involuntarily with a question in her face that she knew would never be answered did you get a medal for something you did in Berlin in 1983 Sansom didn't respond so I tried I asked him straight out were you on a mission in Berlin in 1983 Sansom said you know I can't tell you that then he seemed to lose patience with me and he said you seem like a smart guy think about it what possible kind of operation could Delta have been running in Berlin in 1983 for God's sake I said I don't know as I recall you guys worked very hard to stop people like me knowing what you were doing and I don't really care anyway I'm trying to do you a favor here that's all one brother officer to another because my guess is something is going to come back and bite you in the ass and I thought you might appreciate a warning Sansom calmed down pretty fast he breathed in and out a couple of times and said I do appreciate the warning and I'm sure you understand that I'm not really allowed to deny anything because logically denying something is the same as confirming something else if I deny Berlin and every other place I wasn't then eventually by a process of elimination you could work out where I was but I'll go out on a limb just a little because I think we're all on the same side here so listen up Soldier I was not in Berlin at any point in 1983 I never met any Russian women in 1983 I don't think I was very kind to anyone the whole year long there were a lot of guys in the Army called John Berlin was a popular destination for sightseeing this person you've been talking to was looking for someone else it's as simple as that sanson's little speech hung in the air for a moment we all sipped our drinks and sat quiet then eleth Sansom checked her watch and her husband saw her do it and said you'll have to excuse us now today we have some really serious begging to do Springfield will be happy to see you out which I thought was an odd proposal it was a public Hotel it was my space as much as sanson's I could find my own way out and I was entitled to I wasn't going to steal the spoons and even if I did they weren't Sansom spoons but then I figured he wanted to set up a little quiet time for Springfield and me in a lonely Corridor somewhere for further discussion perhaps or for a message so I stood up and headed for the door didn't shake hands or say goodbye it didn't seem to be that kind of parting Springfield followed me to the lobby he didn't speak he seemed to be rehearsing something I stopped and waited and he caught up to me and said you really need to leave this whole thing alone I asked why if he wasn't even there because to prove that he wasn't there you'll start asking where he was instead better that you never know I nodded this is personal to you too isn't it because you were right there with him you went wherever he went he nodded back just let it go you really can't afford to turn over the wrong Rock why not because you'll be erased if you do you won't exist anymore you'll just disappear physically and bureaucratically that can happen now you know this is a whole new world I'd like to say I would help with the process but I wouldn't get the chance not even close because a whole bunch of other people would come for you first I'd be so far back in line that even your birth certificate would be blank before I got anywhere near you what other people he didn't answer government he didn't answer those Federal guys he didn't answer just turned back and headed the elevators I stepped out to the 7th Avenue sidewalk and Leonard's phone started ringing in my pocket again chapter 35 I stood on 7th Avenue with my back to the traffic and answered Leon's phone I heard Leela Ho's voice soft in my ear precise diction quaint phrasing she said pracher I said yes she said I need to see you quite urgently about what I think my mother might be in danger myself also possibly from what three men were downstairs asking questions at the desk while we were out I think our rooms have been searched too what three men I don't know who they were apparently they wouldn't say why talk to me about it because they were asking about you too please come and see us I asked you're not upset about Leonard she said under the circumstances no I think that was just an unfortunate misunderstanding please come I didn't answer she said I would very much appreciate your help she spoke politely appealingly a little submissively even definently like a supplicant but not withstanding all of that something extra in her voice made me fully aware that she was so beautiful that the last time any guy had said no to her was probably a decade in the past she sounded vaguely commanding like everything was already a done deal like to ask was to get Just Let It Go Springfield had said and of course I should have listened to him but instead I told Leela ho I'll meet you in your hotel lobby 15 minutes from now I thought that avoiding her sweet would be enough of a safeguard against whatever complications might ensue then I closed the phone and headed straight for the sheron's taxi line the Four Season Lobby was divided into a number of separate areas on two separate levels I found Leela ho and her mother at a corner table in a dim panel space that seemed to be a t- room during the day and might have been a bar by night they were alone Leonid wasn't there I checked carefully all around and saw no one else worth worrying about no unexplained men in mid-price suits nobody lingering over the morning newspaper no apparent surveillance at all so I slid into a seat next to Leela across from her mother Leila was wearing a black skirt and a white shirt like a cocktail waitress except that the fabrics and the cut and the fit were like nothing a cocktail waitress could afford her eyes were twin points of light in the Gloom as blue as a tropical sea Sedana was in another shapeless house dress this time muddy maroon her eyes were dull she nodded uncomprehendingly as I sat down Leela extended her hand and shook mine quite formally the contrast between the two women was enormous in every way in terms of age and looks obviously but also in terms of energy vivacity manners and disposition I settled in and Leela got straight to the point she asked did you bring the memory stick I said no although I had it was in in my pocket with my toothbrush and Leon's phone where is it somewhere else somewhere safe completely she asked why did those men come here I said because you're poking around in something that's still a secret but the Press officer at the human resources command was enthusiastic about it that's because you lied to him I'm sorry he told him it was about Belin but it wasn't berin in 1983 was no kind of fun but it was stable it was a cold war Tableau Frozen in time maybe there was a little back and forth between the CIA and the KGB and the Brits and the stazzy but there was no real US Army involvement for our guys it was just a tourist destination take the train see the wall great bars and great hookers probably 10,000 guys called John pass through but they didn't do anything except spend money and catch the clap certainly they didn't fight and they didn't win in medals so tracking one of them down would be next to Impossible maybe HRC was prepared to waste a little time just in case something good came of it but from the beginning it was a ridiculous task so you can't have gotten a positive outcome from Susan Mark she can't have told you anything about Berlin that made it worth coming over here just not possible so why did we come because during those first few phone calls you softened her up and you made her your friend and then when you judg the moment was right you told her what you really wanted and exactly how to find it for her ears only not Berlin something else entirely an unguarded person with nothing to hide would have responded instantly and openly probably with outrage possibly with h feelings an amateur bluffer would have faked it with Bluster and Noise Leela ho just sat quiet for a beat her eyes showed the same kind of fast response as John Sansom had back in his room in the O Henry Hotel rethink redeploy reorganize all in a brief couple of seconds she said it's very complicated I didn't answer she said but it's entirely innocent I said tell that to Susan Mark she inclined her head the same gesture I had seen before courteous delicate and a little contrite she said I asked Susan for help she agreed quite willingly clearly her actions created difficulties for her with other parties so yes I suppose I was the indirect cause of her troubles but not the direct cause and I regret what happened very very much please believe me if I had known beforehand I would have said no to my mother Sedano nodded and smiled I said what other parties leelah ho said her own government I think your government why what did your mother really want Leela said she needed to explain the background first chapter 36 Leela ho had been just 7 years old when the Soviet Union had fallen apart so she spoke with a kind of historical Detachment she had the same kind of distance from former realities that I had from the Jim Crow years in America she told me that the Red Army had deployed political commissars very widely every infantry company had one she said that command and dis displine were shared uneasily between the commissar and a field officer she said that rivalry was common and bitter not necessarily between the two as individuals but between tactical common sense and ideological Purity she made sure I understood the general background and then she moved on to specifics Sedana ho had been a political commissar assigned to an infantry company her company had gone to Afghanistan soon after the Soviet invasion of 1979 initial combat operations had been satisfactory for the Infantry then they had turned disastrous attritional losses had become heavy and constant at first there had been denial then Moscow had reacted belatedly the order of battle had been reorganized companies had been merged tactical Common Sense had suggested retrenchment ideology had required renewed defensives morale had required Unity of ethnicity and geographical origin companies had been reconstituted to include sniper teams expert marksmen were brought in with their companion spotters thus pairs of ragged men used to living off the land had arrived SED Lana's sniper was her husband his spotter was SED Lana's younger brother the situation had improved both in military and in personal terms SED Lana's and other family and Regional groupings had spent downtime together very happily companies had dug in and settled down and achieved acceptable Safety and Security offensive requirements were satisfied by regular nighttime sniper operations the results were excellent Soviet snipers had long been the best in the world the Afghan mujahadin had no answer to them late in 1981 Moscow had reinforced a winning hand by shipping new weapons a new model rifle had been issued it was recently developed and still top secret it was called the Val silent sniper I nodded said I saw one once leelah ho smiled briefly with a hint of shyness and with a hint of national pride perhaps for a country that no longer existed probably just a shadow of the pride her mother had felt way back when because the Val was a great weapon it was a very accurate silenced semi-automatic rifle it fired a heavy 9mm Bullet at a subsonic velocity and could defeat all types of contemporary body armor and thin-skinned military vehicles at ranges out to about 400 yards it came with a choice of powerful day telescopes or electronic night Scopes it was a nightmare from an opponent's point of view he could be killed with no warning at all silently suddenly and randomly asleep in bed in a tent in the latrines eating dressing walking around in the light in the dark I said it was a fine piece leelah hold smiled again but then the smile faded the bad news started the stable situation lasted a year and then it ended the Soviet infantry's inevitable military reward for good performance was to be handed ever more Danger dangerous tasks the same the world over the same throughout history you don't get a pat on the back and a ride home you get a map instead sana's company was one of many ordered to push north and east up the Kangal Valley the valley was 6 Mi long it was the only navigable route out of Pakistan the Hindu Kush mountains reared up on the far left impossibly Barren and high and the ab asgar range blocked the right flank the 6-mile trail in between was a major mujahadin supply line out of the Northwest Frontier and it had to be cut Leela said the British wrote the book over a hundred years ago about operations in Afghanistan because of their empire they said when contemplating an offensive the very first thing you must plan is your inevitable Retreat and they said you must save the last bullet for yourself because you do not want to be Tak alive especially by the women the company commanders had read that book the political commissars had been told not to they had been told that the British had failed only because of their political unsoundness Soviet ideology was pure and therefore success was guaranteed with that delusion our very own Vietnam began the push up the Kangal Valley had been backed by air and artillery power and had succeeded ceeded for the first three miles a fourth had been one yard by yard against opposition that had seemed ferocious to the grunts but strangely muted to the officers the officers were right it was a trap the mujahadin waited until Soviet supply lines were stretched 4 miles long and then they dropped the hammer helicopter resupply was largely interdicted by a constant barrage of us supplied shoulder launched ground to air missiles coordinated attacks pinched off the Salient at its origin late in 1982 thousands of Red Army troops were essentially abandoned in a long thin chain of inadequate and improvised encampments the winter weather was awful freezing blasts of wind howled constantly along the path between the mountain ranges and there were Evergreen holly bushes everywhere pretty and picturesque in the right context but not for soldiers forced to work among them they were inly noisy in the wind and they limited mobility and they tore skin and shredded uniforms then harassment raids had started prisoners had been taken in ones and twos their fate was appalling Leela quoted lines that the old British writer rogard Kipling had put in a doom Laden poem about failed offensives and groaning abandoned Battlefield casualties and cruel Afghan tribes women with knives when you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's PLS and the women come out to cut up what remains just roll to your rifle and blow out your brains and go to your God like a soldier then she said what had been true even at the Zenith of the British Empire's power was still true and worse Soviet infantrymen would go missing and hours later in the dark the winter wind would carry the sound of their screaming from unseen enemy camps close by the screaming would start at a desperate pitch and move slowly and surely upward into insane Banshee wailing sometimes it would last 10 or 12 hours most corpses were never recovered but sometimes bodies would be returned missing hands or feet or whole limbs or heads or ears or eyes or noses or penises or skin some were Flay alive Leela said their eyelids would be cut away and their heads forced down in a frame so they would have no choice but to watch their skin being peeled back first from their faces and then from their bodies the cold enzed their wounds to some extent and stopped them dying of shock too soon sometimes the process lasted a very long time time or sometimes they would be roasted alive on Fires Parcels of cooked meat would show up near our imp placements at first the men thought they were Gifts of food perhaps from sympathetic locals but then they realized Sedana ho stared on into the room not seeing anything looking even bler than before maybe the tone of her daughter's voice was prompting memories certainly it was very compelling Leela had not lived through or witnessed the event she was describing but it sounded like she had it sounded like she had witnessed them yesterday she had moved on from historical Detachment it struck me that she'd make a fine Storyteller she had the gift of narrative she said they like to capture our snipers best of all they hated our snipers I think snipers are always hated but perhaps because of the way they kill my mother was very worried about my father obviously and her baby brother they went out most nights into the low Hills with the electronic scope not too far maybe a thousand yards to find an angle maybe a little more far enough to be effective but close enough to feel safe but nowhere was really safe everywhere was vulnerable and they had to go their orders were to shoot the enemy their intention was to shoot the prisoners they thought it would be a mercy it's an awful time and my mother was pregnant by then with me I was conceived in a rock trench hacked out of the coral floor under a gra coat that dated back to the end of World War II and on top of two others that were possibly even older my mother said they had old bullet holes in them maybe from Stalingrad I said nothing Sedana stared on Leela put her hands on the table and Tangled her fingers Loosely together she said for the first month or so my father and my uncle came back every morning Safe they were a good team perhaps the best Sedana stared on Leela took her hands off the table and paused a Beat then she sat up straight and squared her shoulders a change of pace a change of subject she said there were Americans in Afghanistan at that time I said were there she nodded I said what Americans soldiers not many but some not always but sometimes you think she nodded again the US Army was definitely there the Soviet Union was their enemy and the mujahedin were their allies it was the Cold War by proxy it suited President Reagan very well to have the Red Army worn down it was a part of his anti-communist strategy and he enjoyed the chance to capture some of our new weapons for intelligence purposes so teams were sent Special Forces they were in and out on the regular basis and one night in March of 1983 one of those teams found my father and my uncle and stole their valve rifle I said nothing Leela said the loss of the rifle was a defeat of course but what was worse was that the Americans gave my father and my uncle to the tribes women there was no need for that obviously they had to be silenced because the presence was entirely covert and had to be concealed but the Americans could have killed my father and my uncle themselves quickly and quietly and easily they chose not to my mother heard their screams all the next day and far into the night her husband and her brother 16 18 hours she said even screaming that badly she could still tell them apart by the sound of the their voices chapter 37 I glanced around the Four Seasons dim te room and moved in my chair and said I'm sorry but I don't believe you Leela ho said I'm telling you the truth I shook my head I was in the US Army I was a military cop broadly speaking I knew where people went and where they didn't and there were no us boots on the ground in Afghanistan not back then not during that conflict it was purely a local Affair but you had a dog in the fight of course we did like you did when we were in Vietnam was the Red Army in country there it was a rhetorical question designed to make a point but Leela ho took it seriously she leaned forward across the table spoke to her mother low and fast in a foreign language that I presumed was Ukrainian sana's eyes opened a little and she cocked her head to one side as if she was recalling some small matter of Arcane historical detail she spoke back to her daughter low and fast and long and then Leela paused a second to Marshall her translation and said no we sent no troops to Vietnam because we had confidence that our socialist brothers from the People's Republic could complete their task uned which my mother says apparently they did quite splendidly little men in pajamas defeated the Big Green Machine sedan ho smiled and nodded I said just like a bunch of goat herders kicked her ass undisputedly but with a lot of help didn't happen but you admit that material help was provided surely to the mujin money and weapons especially surface to air missiles and things of that nature like in Vietnam only the other way around and Vietnam is an excellent example because to your certain knowledge whenever did the United States provide military aid anywhere in the world without also sending what they called military advisers I didn't answer she asked for instance how many countries have you served in I said n nothing she asked when did you join the Army in 1984 I said then these events of 1982 and 1983 were all before your time only just I said and there is such a thing as institutional memory wrong she said secrets were kept and institutional memories were conveniently erased there's a long history of illegal American Military involvements all around the world especially during the Mr Reagan's presidency you learned that in high school yes I did and remember the Communists were gone long before I was in high school thanks in part to Mr Reagan himself I said even if you're right why assume Americans were involved on that particular night presumably your mother didn't see it happen why not assume your father and your uncle were captured directly by the muine because they're right was never found and my mother's position was never fired on at night by a sniper my father had 20 rounds in his magazine and he was carrying 20 spare if the mujahedin had captured him directly then they would have used his rifle against us they would have killed 40 of our men or tried to and then they would have run out of ammunition and abandoned the gun my mother's company would have found it eventually there was a lot of back and forth skirmishing our side overand their position Ians and vice versa it was like a crazy circular chase the mujin were intelligent they had the habit of doubling back to positions we had previously written off as abandoned but over a period of time our people saw all their places they would have found the Val empty and rusting maybe in use as a fence post they accounted for all their other captured weapons that way but not that Val the only logical conclusion is that it was carried straight to America by Americans I said nothing Leela ho said I'm telling you the truth I said I once saw a Val silent sniper you told me that already I saw it in 1994 I said we were told it had just been captured 11 whole years after you claim it was there was a big urgent panic because of its capabilities the Army wouldn't wait 11 years to get in a panic yes it would she said to unveil the rifle immediately after its capture might have started World War II it would have been a direct admission that your soldiers were in direct face-to-face contact with ours without any Declaration of hostilities illegal at the very least and completely disastrous in geopolitical terms America would have lost the moral High Ground support inside the Soviet Union would have been strengthened the fall of Communism would have been delayed perhaps for years I said nothing she said tell me what happened in your Army in 1994 after the big urgent panic I paused in the same way that SED Lana ho had I recalled the historical details they were surprising I checked and read rechecked then I said not very much happened actually no new body armor no new camouflage no tactical reaction of any kind no is that logical even for an army not especially when was the last equipment upgrade before that I paused again sought more historical details recalled the pasgt introduced to much excitement and Fanfare and acclaim during my early years in uniform the personal armor system ground troops a brand new Kevlar helmet rided to withstand all manner of assault by Small Arms fire a thick new body armor vest to be worn either over or under the battle dress blouse rided safe even against long guns specifically as I recalled rid safe against incoming 9mm rounds plus new camouflage patterns carefully designed to work better and available in two flavors Woodland and desert the Marines got a third option blue and gray for urban environments I said nothing Leela ho asked when was the upgrade I said in the late 80s even with a big urgent Panic how long does it take to design and manufacture an upgrade like that I said a few years so let's review what we know in the late ' 80s you received upgraded equipment explicitly designed for better personal protection do you think it is possible that was the result of a direct stimulus derived from an unrevealed Source in 1983 I didn't answer we all sat quiet for a moment a silent and discreet way came by and offered us tea he recited a long list of exotic Blends Leela asked for a flavor I'd never heard of and then she translated for her mother who asked for the same thing I asked for regular coffee black the waiter inclined his head about a quar of an inch as if the four seasons was willing to accommodate all in any requests however appallingly proletarian they might be I waited until the guy had retreated again and asked how did you figure out who you're looking for Leela said my mother's generation expected to fight a land war with you in Europe and they expected to win their ideology was pure and yours wasn't after a Swift and certain Victory they expected to take many of you prisoner possibly millions of you in that phase part of a political commissar duties would have been to classify enemy combatants to call the ideologically irretrievable from The Herd to Aid them in that task they were made familiar with the structure of your military made familiar by who by the KGB it was an ongoing program there was a lot of information available they knew who did what in the case of elite units they even knew names not just the officers but the enlisted men too like a true soccer fan knows the personnel and the strengths and the weaknesses of all the other teams in the league bench players included for incursions into the corena valley my mother reasoned that there were only three realistic options either seals from the Navy or Recon Marines from the core or Delta Force from the Army contemporary intelligence argued against the seals or the Marines there was no circumstantial evidence of their involvement no specific information the KGB had people throughout your organizations and they reported nothing but there was significant radio traffic out of Delta bases in Turkey and out of staging posts in Oman our radar picked up unexplained flights it was a logical conclusion that Delta was running the operations the waiter came back with a tray he was a tall dark guy quite old probably foreign he had an air about him the Four Seasons probably put him front and center because of it his bearing suggested he might once have been a tea expert in some dark panel place in Vienna or Saltsburg in reality he had probably been unemployed in Estonia maybe he'd been drafted along with the rest of SED Lana's generation maybe he' endured the coral Winters along with her somewhere down the line in an ethnic grouping of his own he made a big show of serving the tea and arranging the lemons on a plate my coffee came in a nice cup he put it down in front of me with an elegantly disguised disapproval when he was gone again Leela said my mother estimated that the raid would have been led by a captain a leftenant would have been too Junior and a major would have been too senior the KGB had Personnel lists there were a lot of captains assigned to Delta at the time but there had been some radio analysis someone had heard the name John that narrowed the field I nodded pictured a massive dish antenna somewhere maybe in Armenia or aeran a guy in a hut headphones on rubber cups clamped tight in his ears sifting through the frequencies hearing the whine and Screech of scrambled channels stumbling on a fragment of plain speech writing the word John on a p of course brown paper a lot of stuff is snatched from The Ether most of it is useless a word that you understand is like a nugget of gold in a pan or like a diamond in a rock and a word that they understand is like a bullet in the back Leela said my mother knew all about your Army's medals they were held to be important as criteria for classifying prisoners Badges of Honor that would become Badges of Dishonor immediately upon capture she knew that the Val rifle would be worth a major award but which award remember there had been no Declaration of hostilities and most of your major Awards specified gallantry or herris while in action against an armed enemy of the United States technically whoever stole the Val from my father was not eligible for any of those Awards because technically the Soviet Union was not an enemy of the United States not in the military sense not in a formal political way there had been no declaration of war I nodded again we had never been at war with the Soviet Union on the contrary for four long years we'd been allies in a desperate struggle against a common foe we had cooperated extensively the World War two era Red Army great coat that leel La ho claimed to have been conceived under had almost certainly been made in America as part of the lend lease program we had shipped 100 million tons of Woolen and cotton Goods to the Russians plus 15 million pairs of leather boots 4 million rubber tires 2,000 railroad locomotives and 11,000 Freight cars as well as all the obvious heavy metal like 15,000 airplanes 7,000 tanks and 375,000 army trucks all free grus and for nothing Winston Churchill had called the program the least sorted in all of history Legends had grown up around it the Soviets were said to have asked for condoms and in an attempt to impress and intimidate they had specified that they should be 18 in Long the US had duly shipped them in carton stamped size medium so went the story Leela asked are you listening I nodded the superior service medal would have fit the bill or the Legion of Merit or the soldiers medal not big enough thanks I won all three capturing the Val was a really big coup a sensation it was a completely unknown weapon its acquisition would have been rewarded with a really big medal but which one my mother concluded that it would be the distinguished service medal that one is big but different the applicable standard is exceptionally meritorious service to the United States government in a duty of great responsibility it is completely independent of formal declared combat activities it is normally awarded to politically pliable Brigadier generals and the above my mother was under orders to execute all holders of the DSM immediately below the rank of Brigadier General it is awarded only very rarely but it's the only significant medal a Delta captain could have won that night in the Coran gal valy I nodded I agreed I figured Sedana ho was a pretty good analyst clearly she'd been well trained and well informed the AGB had done a decent job I said so you went looking for a guy called John who had been a Delta captain and one a DSM both in March of 1983 Leela nodded and to be certain the DSM had to come without the citation and you made Susan Mark help I didn't make her she was happy to help why because she was upset by my mother's story Sedana smiled and nodded Leela said and she was a little upset by my story too I'm a fatherless child the same as her I asked how did John sanson's name come up even before Susan reported back I don't believe that it was from a bunch of New York private eyes sitting around reading the newspaper and making jokes it's a very rare combination Leela said John Delta DSM but never a onear general we noticed it in The Herald Tribune when his Senate Ambitions were announced we were in London you can buy that paper all over the world it's a version of The New York Times John Sansom might well be the only man in your Army's history who matches those criteria 444 but we wanted to be absolutely sure we needed final confirmation before what what do you want to do to the guy Leela ho looked surprised do she said we don't want to do anything we just want to talk to him that's all we want to ask him why why would he do that to two other human beings chapter 38 Leela ho finished her tea and put her cup down on her saucer bone china clinked politely on bone china she asked will you go get Susan's information for me I didn't answer she said my mother has waited a long time I asked why has she I'm chance means opportunity money mostly I suppose her Horizons had been very narrow until recently I asked why was your husband killed my husband back in Moscow Leela paused and said it was the times same for your mother's husband no I told you if Sansom had shot him in the head like what happened to my husband or stabbed him in the brain or broken his neck or whatever else Del the soldiers were thought to do it would have been different but he didn't he was cruel instead inhuman my father couldn't even roll to his rifle because they had stolen his rifle I said nothing she said you want the man like that in your Senate as opposed to what will you give me Susan's confirmation no point I said why not because you wouldn't get anywhere near John Sansom if any of what you say actually happen then it's a secret and it's going to stay a secret for a very long time and secrets are protected especially now there are already two federal agencies at work on this you just had three guys asking questions at best you'll be deported your feet won't touch the ground all the way back to the airport they'll put you on the plane in handcuffs in coach the Brits will pull you off the plane at the other end and you'll spend the rest of your life under surveillance Sedana ho stared into space I said and at worst you'll just disappear right here one minute you'll be on the street and then you won't be you'll be rotting in Guantanamo or you'll be on your way to Syria or Egypt so they can kill you there Leela ho didn't speak my advice I said forget all about it your father and your uncle were killed in the war they weren't the first and they won't be the last [ __ ] happens we just want to ask him why you already know why there'd been no Declaration of hostilities therefore he couldn't kill your guys it's about the Rules of Engagement there's a heavy duty briefing before every Mission so he let someone else do it for him it was the times like you said it might have started World War I it was in everyone's interest to avoid that have you looked at the file did Susan really have the confirmation just tell me yes or no I won't do anything without actually seeing it I can't you won't do anything period it wasn't right invading Afghanistan in the first place wasn't right you should have stayed home then so should you from all the places you went no argument from me what about Freedom of Information what about it America is a country of laws true but do you know what the laws actually say now you should read The Herald Tribune more carefully are you going to help us I'll ask the concierge to call you a cab to the airport is that all that's the best help anyone could give you is there anything I can do to change your mind I didn't answer anything at all no I said we all went quiet after that the tea expert brought the check it was in a padded leather wallet Leela ho signed it she said sensum should be called to account if it was him I said if it was anybody I took Leon's phone out of my pocket and dumped it on the table I pushed my chair back and got ready to leave Leela said please keep the phone I said why because my mother and I are staying just a few more days and I would would really like to be able to call you if I wanted to she wasn't Coy in the way she said it not coish no lowered eyelids no batted lashes no hand on my arm no attempt to seduce no attempt to change my mind it was just a plain statement neutrally delivered then she said even if you're not a friend and I heard the tiniest bat squeak of a threat iner voice just a faint far off chime of Menace a hint of danger barely audible behind the words accompanied by a perceptible chill in her amazing blue eyes like a warm summer sea changing to sunlit Winter ice same color different temperature or maybe she was just sad or anxious or determined I looked at her with a level gaze and put the phone back in my pocket and stood up and walked away there were plenty of cabs on 57th Street but none of them was empty so I walked the Sheran was three blocks west and five blocks south 20 minutes max I figured I could get there before Sansom finished his lunch chapter 39 I didn't get to the Sheridan before Sansom finished his lunch partly because the sidewalks were clogged with people moving slowly in the Heat and partly because it had been a short lunch which I guessed made sense sans's Wall Street audience wanted to spend maximum time making money and minimum time giving it away I didn't make it on to the same Amtrak as him either I missed a DC Train by 5 minutes which meant I trailed him back to the capital a whole hour and a half in a rears the same guard was on duty at the Canon building's door he didn't recognize me but he let me in anyway mainly because of the Constitution because of the first amendment in the Bill of Rights Congress shall make no law abridging the right of the people to petition the government my pocket junk inched through an x-ray machine and I stepped through a metal detector and was paded down even though I knew the lighted flashed green there was a gaggle of house Pages inside the lobby and one of them called AE and then walked me to sanson's quarters the corridors were wide and generous and confusing the individual offices seemed small but handsome maybe they'd once been large and handsome but now they were broken up into reception anti rooms and multiple inner spaces partly for senior staff to use I guessed and partly to make eventual labyrinthine access to the big guy seemed more of a gift than it really was sanson's place looked the same as all the others a door off the corridor lots of flags lots of eagles some oil paintings of old guys and wigs a reception desk with a young woman behind it maybe a staffer maybe an intern Springfield was leaning on the corner of her desk he saw me and nodded without a smile and pushed off the desk and came to the door to meet me and jerked his thumb farther along the corridor cafeteria he said we got there down a flight of stairs it was a wide low room full of tables and chairs Sansom was nowhere in it Springfield grunted like he wasn't surprised and concluded that Sansom had returned to his office while we were out looking for him by an alternative route possibly via a colleague's Billet he said the place was a Warren and that there were always conversations to be had and favors to be sought and deals to be struck and votes to be traded we walked back the same way we had come and Springfield stuck his head around an inner door and then backed away and motioned me inside sanson's inner office was a rectangular space larger than a closet and smaller than a $30 motel room it had a window and panel walls covered with framed photographs and framed newspaper headlines and souvenirs on shelves Sansom himself was in a red leather chair behind a desk with a fountain pen in his hand and a whole lot of papers spread out in front of him he had his jacket off he had the weary airless look of a man who had been sitting still for a long time he hadn't been out the cafeteria detour had been a charade presumably designed to allow someone to make an exit without me seeing him who I didn't know why I didn't know but I sat down in the visitor chair and found it still warm from someone else's body behind sanson's head was a large framed print of the same picture I'd seen in his book Donald Rumsfeld and Saddam Hussein in Baghdad sometimes our friends become our enemies and sometimes our enemies become our friends next to it was a cluster of smaller pictures some of Sansom standing with groups of people some of them alone and shaking hands and smiling with other individuals some of the group shots were formal and some were of wide smiles and confetti stwn stages after election victories I saw eleth and most of them her hair had changed a lot over the years I saw Springfield and some of the others his small wary shape easily recognizable even though the images were tiny the two shots were what news photographers call grip and grins some of the individuals in them I recognized and some I didn't some had autographed the pictures with extravagant dedications and some hadn't Sansom said so I said I know about the DSM in March of 83 Al because of the Val silent sniper the battle axe I I told you about is the Widow of the guy you took it from which is why you reacted to the name maybe you never heard of Leela ho or Sedana ho but you met with some other guy called ho back in the day that's for damn sure it was obvious you probably took his dog tags and had them translated you've probably still got them as souvenirs there was no surprise no denial Sansom just said no actually those tags were locked up with the after action reports and everything else I said nothing Sansom said his name was gregoryi Ho he was about my age at the time he seemed competent his spotter not so much he should have heard us coming I didn't reply there was a long silence then the situation seemed to head home and Sansom shoulders fell and he sighed and he said what a way to get found out right medals are supposed to be rewards not penalties they're not supposed to screw you up they're not supposed to follow you around the rest of your life like a damn ball in chain I said nothing he asked what are you going to do I said nothing really I don't care what happened in 1983 and they lied to me first about Berlin and they're still lying to me now they claim to be mother and daughter but I don't believe them the alleged daughter is the cutest thing you ever saw the alleged mother fell out of the ugly tree and hit every Branch I first met them with a cop from the NYPD she said 30 years from now the daughter will look just like the mother but she was wrong the younger one will never look like the older one not in a million years so who are they I'm prepared to accept that the older one is for Real she was a Red Army political commissar who lost her husband and her brother in Afghanistan her brother the spotter but the younger woman is posing I nodded as a billionaire expatriate Widow from London she says her husband was an entrepreneur who didn't make the cut and she's not convincing oh she dresses the part she acts it well maybe she lost a husband somewhere along the line but what is she really I think she's a journalist why she knows things she's got the right kind of inquiring mind she's analytical she monitors The Herald Tribune she's a hell of a Storyteller but she talks too much she's in love with words and she embroiders details she can't help herself for example she went for some extra P She made out that the political commissars were in the trenches along with the grunts she claimed she was conce received on a rock floor under a Red Army great coat which is [ __ ] commissars were Big Time rear Echelon [ __ ] they stayed well away from the action they clustered together back at HQ writing pamphlets occasionally they'd visit up the line but never if there was any danger involved and you know this how you know how I know it we expected to fight a land war with them in Europe we expected to win we expected to take millions of them prisoner and P's were trained to handle them all the 110th was going to direct operations delusional maybe but the Pentagon took it very seriously we were taught more about the Red Army than we were about the US Army certainly we were told exactly where to find the commissars we were under orders to execute them all immediately what kind of journalist television probably the local crew she hired was tied to the television business and have you ever seen Eastern European television all the anchors are women and they all look Sensational what country Ukraine what angle investigative historical with a little human interest mixed in the younger one probably heard the older one's story and decided to run with it would like the History Channel in Russia and Ukrainian I said why what's the message they want to embarrass us now after more than 25 years no I think they want to embarrass the Russians there's a lot of tension right now between Russia and the Ukraine I think they're taking America's evil for granted and saying that big bad Moscow shouldn't have put poor helpless ukrainians In Harm's Way so why haven't we seen the story already because they're way behind the times I said they're looking for confirmation they still seem to have some kind of journalistic Scruples over there are they going to get confirmation not from you presumably and no one else knows anything for sure Susan Mark didn't live long enough to say y or nay so the lid is back on I advise them to forget all about it and head home why are they posing his mother and daughter because it's a great con I said it's appealing it's like reality TV or those magazines they sell in the supermarket clearly they studied our culture why wait so long well it takes time to build a mature television industry they probably Wasted Years on important stuff Sansome nodded vaguely and said it's not true that no one knows anything for sure you seem to know plenty but I'm not going to say anything can I trust you on that I served 13 years I know all kinds of things I don't talk about them I'm not not happy about how easy it was for them to approach Susan Mark and I'm not happy we didn't know about her from the get-go we never even heard of her before the morning after this whole thing was like an ambush we were always behind the curve I was looking at the photographs on the wall behind him looking at the tiny figures their shapes their postures their Silhouettes I said really we should have been told I said have a word with the Pentagon and with those guys from the Watergate Sansom said I will then he went quiet as if he was rethinking and reassessing more calmly and at a slower Pace than his usual fast field officer style the lid is back on he seemed to examine that proposition for a spell from all kinds of different angles then he Shrugged and got a slightly sheepish look on his face and he asked so what do you think of me now is that important I'm a politician it's a reflex inquiry I think you should have shot them in the head he paused and said we had no silenced weapons you did You' just taken one from them Rules of Engagement you should have ignored them the Red Army didn't travel with forensics labs they would have had no idea who shot who so what do you think of me I think you shouldn't have handed them over that was uncalled for that was going to be the point of the story as a matter of fact on Ukrainian TV the idea was to get the old woman next to you and let her ask you why Sansom Shrugged again I wish she could because the truth is we didn't hand them over we turned them loose instead it was a calculated risk a kind of Double Bluff they'd lost their rifle everyone would have assumed that the madine had taken it which was a sorry outcome and a major disgrace it was clear to me that they were very scared of their officers and their political commissars so they would have been falling over themselves to tell the truth that it was Americans not Afghans it would have been a kind of exculpation but their officers and their commissars knew how scared they were of them so the truth would have sounded like a [ __ ] story like a pathetic excuse it would have been discounted immediately as a fantasy so I felt it was safe enough to let them go the truth would have been out there in plain sight but unrecognized I said so what happened Sansom said I guess they were more scared than I thought too scared to go back at all I guess they just wandered until the tribes people found them Gregory ho was married to a political commissar he was scared of her that's what happened and that's what killed him I said nothing he said not that I expect anyone to believe me I didn't reply he said you're right about tension between Russia and the Ukraine but there's tension between Russia and ourselves too right now there's plenty of it if the coral part of the story gets out things could blow up big like the cold war all over again except different at least the Soviets were sane in their way this Bunch not so much after that we sat in silence for what felt like a long time and then sanson's desk phone rang it was his receptionist on the line I could hear her voice through the earpiece and through the door she rattled off a list of things that needed urgent attention Sansom hung up and said I have to go I'll call a Paige to see you out he stood up and came around the desk and walked out of the room just like an innocent man with nothing to hide he left me all alone sitting in my chair with the door open Springfield had gone too I could see no one in the outer office except the woman at the desk she smiled at me I smiled at her no page showed up up we were always behind the curve Sansom had said I waited a long minute and then started squirming around like I was Restless then after a plausible interval I got out of my chair I stumped around with my hands clasped behind my back like an innocent man with nothing to hide just waiting around on Turf that was not his own I headed over to the wall behind the desk like it was a completely random destination I studied the picture I counted faces I knew my initial total came to 24 four presidents nine other politicians five athletes two actors Donald Rumsfeld Saddam Hussein elth and Springfield plus someone else I knew a 25th pH in all of the celebratory election night Victory pictures right next to Sansom himself was a guy smiling just as widely as if he was basking in the glow of a job well done as if he was not very modestly claiming his full share of the credit a strategist a tactician a sangali a behind the scenes political fixer sanson's Chief of Staff presumably he was about my age in all of the pictures he was dusted with confetti or Tangled with streamers or kneed deep in balloons and he was grinning like an idiot but his eyes were cold they had a canny calculating shrewdness in them they reminded me of a ball player's eyes I knew why the cafeteria charade had been staged I knew who had been sitting in sanson's visitor chair before me we were always behind the curve liar I knew sanson's chief of staff I had seen him before I had seen him wearing chinos and a golf shirt riding the six train late at night in New York City chapter 40 I checked all the celebration pictures very carefully the guy from the subway was in all of them different angles different years different victories but it was definitely the same guy literally at sanson's right hand then a page bustled into the office and 2 minutes later I was back on the Independence Avenue sidewalk 14 minutes after that I was inside the railroad station waiting for the next train back to New York 58 minutes after that I was on it sitting comfortably leaving town watching the Dismal Rail Yards through the window far to my left a gang of men wearing hard hats and orange high visibility vests was working on a section of track their vests glowed through the smog the the fabric must have had tiny beads of reflective glass mixed into the plastic wave safety Through Chemistry the vests were more than highly visible they were attention getting they drew the eye I watched the guys work until they were just tiny orange dots in the distance and then until they were completely lost to sight which was more than a mile later and at that point I had everything that I was ever going to get I knew everything I was ever going to know but I didn't know that I knew not then the train rolled into pen and I got a late dinner in a place directly across the street from where I'd gotten breakfast then I walked up to the 14th precinct on West 35th the night watch had started Theresa Lee and her partner doery were already in place the squad room was quiet like all the air had been sucked out of it like there'd been bad news but no one was rushing around there for the bad news had happened somewhere else the receptionist at the Bullpen gate had seen me before she turned on her swivel chair and glanced at Lee who made a face like it wouldn't kill her one way or the other whether she ever spoke to me again or not so the receptionist turned back and made a face of her own like the choice to stay or go was entirely mine I squeaked the hinge and threaded my way between desks to the back of the room doerty was on the phone mostly listening Lee was just sitting there doing nothing she looked up as I approached and she said I'm not in the mood for what Susan Mark she said any news none at all nothing more on the boy you sure are worried about that boy and you're not not even a little bit is the file still closed tighter than a fish's [ __ ] okay I said she paused a beat and sigh and said what have you got I know who the fifth passenger was there were only four passengers and the Earth is flat and the moon is made of cheese did this alleged fifth passenger commit a crime somewhere between 30th Street and 45th no I said then the file stays closed Dy put his phone down and glanced at his partner with an eloquent look on his face I knew knew what the look meant I had been a cop of sorts for 13 years and had seen that kind of look many times before it meant that someone else had caught a big case and that Dary was basically glad that he wasn't involved but a little wistful too because even if being at the heart of the action was a pain in the neck bureaucratically it was maybe a whole lot better than watching from the sidelines I asked what happened Lee said Multiple homicide over in the 17th a nasty one four guys under the FDR Drive beaten and killed with hammers Dy said I said hammers carpentry tools from the Home Depot on 23rd Street just purchased they were found at the scene the price tags are still on them under the blood I asked who were the four guys no one knows Dy said that seems to been the point of the Hammers their faces are pulped their teeth are smashed out and their fingertips are ruined old young black white white Dockery said not old in suits nothing to go on except they had phony business cards in their pockets with some corporate name that isn't registered anywhere in New York state and a phone number that is permanently disconnected because it belongs to a movie company chapter 41 D's desk phone rang and he picked it up and started listening again a friend in the 17th presumably with more details to share I looked at Lee and said now you're going to have to reopen the file she asked why because those guys were the local crew that Lea hoath hired she looked at me and said what are you telepath pic I met with them twice you met some crew twice nothing says these are the same guys they gave me one of those phony business cards all those Crews use phony business cards with the same kind of phone number movies and TV are the only places to get those numbers they were ex cops doesn't that matter to you I care about cops not ex cops they said Leela Ho's name no some crew said her name doesn't mean these dead guys did oh you think this is a coincidence they could be anybody's crew like who else's anybody in the whole wide world this is New York New York is full of private guys they roam in packs they all look the same and they all do the same stuff they said John sanson's name too no some crew said his name in fact they were the first place I heard his name and maybe they were his crew not leelas would he have been worried enough to have his own people up here he had his chief of staff on the train that's who the fifth passenger was there you go then you're not going to do anything I'll inform the 17th for background you're not going to reopen your file not until I hear about a crime my side of Park Avenue I said I'm going to the Four Seasons it was late and I was pretty far west and I didn't find a cab until I hit 6th Avenue after that it was a fast trip to the hotel the lobby was quiet I walked in like I had a right to be there and rode the elevator to Leela Ho's floor walked the silent Corridor and paused at outside her Suite her door was open an inch the tongue of the security deadbolt was out and the spring closer had trapped it against the jam I paused Another Second and knocked a response I pushed the door and felt the mechanism push back I held it open 45° against my spread fingers and listened no sound inside I opened the door all the way and stepped in ahead of me the living room was dim the lights were off but the drapes were open and there was enough of a glow from the city outside to show me that the room was empty empty as in no people in it also empty as in checked out of and abandoned no shopping bags in the corners no personal items stowed either carefully or carelessly no coats over chairs no shoes on the floor no signs of life at all the bedrooms were the same the beds were still homeade but they had suitcase sized dents and rocks on them the closets were empty the bathrooms were strewn with used towels the shower stalls were dry I caught a faint trace of Leela hot's perfume in the air but that was all I walked through all three rooms one more time and then stepped back to the corridor the door closed behind me I heard the spring inside the hinge doing its work and I heard the deadbolt tongue settle against the jam metal on wood I walked away to the elevator and hit the down button and the door slid back immediately the car had waited for me a nighttime Protocol no unnecessary elevator movement no unnecessary noise I rode back to the lobby and walked to the desk there was a whole night staff on duty not as many people as during the day but way too many for the $50 trick to have worked the Four Seasons wasn't that kind of a place a guy looked up from a screen and asked how he could help me I asked him when exactly the hoath had checked out the who sir he asked back he spoke in a quiet measured nighttime voice like he was worried about waking the guests stacked high above him Leela ho and sedl hoo I said the guy got a look on his face like he didn't know what I was talking about and refocused on his screen and hit a couple of keys on his keyboard he scrolled up and down and hit a couple more keys and said I'm sorry sir but I can't find a record of any guests under that name I told him the sweet number he hit a couple more keys and his mouth turned down and puzzled surprise and said that site hasn't been used at all this week it's very expensive and quite hard to rant I double checked the number in my head and said I was in it last night it was being used then and I met the occupants again today in the te- room there's a signature on a check the guy tried again he called up t- checks that have been charged to guest accounts he half turned his screen so that I could see it too in the sharing gesture that clerks use when they want to convince you of something we had had te for two plus a cup of coffee there was no record of any such charge then I heard small sounds behind me the scuff of soles on carpet the rattle of drawn breath the sigh of fabric moving through the air and a clink of metal I turned around and found myself facing a perfect semicircle of seven men four of them were uniformed NYPD patrolman three of them were the federal agents I'd met before the cops had shotguns the feds had something else chapter 42 seven men seven weapons the police shotguns were Frankie spas 12's from Italy probably not standard NYPD issue the Spas 12 is a futuristic fearsome looking item a semi-automatic 12 gauge smooth boore weapon with a pistol grip and a folding stock advantages many drawbacks two cost was the first but clearly some specialist division inside the police department had been happy to sign off on a purchase semi-automatic operation was the second drawback it was held to be theoretically unreliable in a powerful shotgun people who have to shoot or die worry about it mechanical failure happens but I wasn't about to bet on four mechanical failures happening all at once but the same reason I don't buy lottery tickets optimism is good Blind Faith is not two of the feds had Glock 17s in their hands 9mm automatic pistols from Austria Square boxy Rel viable well-proved through more than 20 years of useful service I had retained a mild personal preference for the Beretta M9 like the Frankie also from Italy but a million times out of a million in one the Glock would get the job done just as well as the Beretta right then the job was to keep me standing still ready for the main attraction the FED leader was in the exact center of the semicircle three men on his left three on his right he was holding a weapon I'd seen before only on television I remembered it well a cable channel in a motel room in Florence Texas not the Military Channel the National Geographic Channel a program about Africa not Civil Wars and Mayhem and disease and starvation a wildlife documentary gorillas not guerillas a bunch of Zoological researchers was tracking an adult male Silverback they wanted to put a radio tag in its ear the creature weighed close to 500 lb a quar of a ton they put it down with a dart gun loaded with primate tranquilizer that was what the FED leader was pointing at me a dart gun the National Geographic people had taken great pains to reassure their viewers that the procedure was Humane they had shown detailed diet diagrams and computer simulations the dart was a tiny feathered cone with a surgical steel shaft the tip of the shaft was a sterile ceramic honeycomb laced with anesthetic the dart fired at high velocity and the shaft buried itself a/ in into the gorilla and stopped the tip wanted to keep on going the momentum Newton's law of motion the shock and the inertia exploded the ceramic Matrix and the potion contained in the honeycomb flung itself onward not quite droplets not quite aerosol like a heavy Mist spreading Under the Skin flooding tissue the way a paper towel soaks up a spilled drop of coffee the gun itself was a one-hot deal it had to be loaded with a single Dart and a single tiny bottle of Compressed Gas to power it nitrogen as I recall reloading was laborious it was better to hit first time the researchers had hit first time in the documentary film The Gorilla had been groggy after 8 seconds and in a coma after 20 then it had woken up in perfect health 10 hours later but it had weighed twice what I weigh behind me was the hotel's reception counter I could feel it against my back it had a ledge about 14 in wide set probably 42 in off the floor bar height convenient for a customer to spread his papers on convenient to sign things on behind that was a drop to a regular desk height counter for the clerks it was maybe 30 in deep or more I wasn't sure but the total obstacle was a high and wide hurdle impossible to clear from a standing start especially when facing the wrong way and pointless anyway clearing the counter would not put me in another room I would still be right there just behind the counter rather than in front of it no net gain and maybe a big net loss if I landed awkwardly on a rolling chair or got tangled up in a telephone wire I turned my head and glanced behind me no one there the desk people had filed out left and right they'd been coached maybe even rehearsed the seven men in front of me had a clear Field of Fire No Way Forward no way back I Stood Still the FED leader was sighting down the barrel of his dart gun and aiming directly at my left thigh my left thigh made a moderately large Target no fat Under the Skin just hard flesh full of capillaries and other aids to Rapid and efficient blood circulation completely unprotected except for my new blue pants which were made of thin summer weight cotton don't come dressed like that or you won't get in I tensed up as if muscle tone would make the damn thing bounce off then I relaxed again muscle tone hadn't helped the gorilla and it wouldn't help me way behind the seven men I could see a paramedic crew in a gloomy Corner Fire Department uniforms three men one woman they were standing and waiting they had a wheeled gurnie ready when all else fails start talking I said if you guys have more questions I'm quite happy to sit down for a conversation we could get some coffee keep things civilized decaf if you prefer since it's late they'll make fresh I'm sure this is the Four Seasons after all the FED leader didn't answer he shot me instead with a dart gun from about 8 ft straight into the meat of my thigh I heard a blast of compressed gas and felt pain in my leg not a sting a dull thumping blow Like a Knife wound then a split second to nothing like disbelief then a sharp angry reaction I thought if I was a gorilla I would want to tell the damn researchers to stay home and leave my ears alone the FED leader lowered the gun nothing happened for a second the then I felt my heart accelerate and my blood pressure spike and fall I heard rushing in my temples like Chinese food 20 years ago I looked down the dart's feathered butt was tight against my pants I pulled it out the shaft was smeared with blood but the tip was gone the ceramic material had fragmented to powder and the liquid it had held in suspension was already inside me doing its work a fat dot of blood blood welled out of the wound and soaked into the cotton fabric of my pants following the warp and the weft like a map of an epidemic spreading through city streets my heart was beating hard I could feel blood rushing around inside me I wanted to stop it no practical way to do that I leaned back against the counter just temporary I figured for Relief the seven men in front of me seemed to slide suddenly sideways like a wheel play in baseball I wasn't sure if they had moved or if I had moved my head or perhaps the room had moved certainly there was a whole lot of fast rotation going on some kind of a spinning sensation the edge of the counter hit me under the shoulder blades either it was rising up or I was sliding down I put my hands back and flat on its surface I tried to steady it or myself no lu The Edge hit me in the back of the head my internal clock wasn't working right I was trying to count seconds I wanted to get to nine I wanted to Outlast the silver back some last vesage of Pride I wasn't sure if I was succeeding my ass hit the ground my vision went it didn't go dim or dark it brightened instead it got full of mad whirling silver shapes flashing horizontally right to left like a fairr ride running a thousand times too fast then I started a sequence of crazy dreams urgent and breathless and Vivid full of action and color afterwards I realized that the start of the dreams marked the point where I officially lost Consciousness lying there on the Four Seasons Lobby floor chapter 43 I don't know when when exactly I woke up the clock in my head still wasn't running right but I surfaced eventually I was on a cot my wrists and my ankles were fastened to the rails with plastic handcuffs I was still fully dressed apart from my shoes those were gone in my fuddled state I heard my dead brother's voice in my head a line he liked to use as a kid before you criticize someone you should walk a mile in his shoes then when you start criticizing him you're a mile away and he's got to run after you in his socks I moved my toes then I moved my hips I could feel that my pockets were empty they'd taken my stuff maybe they'd listed it all on a form and bagged it up I ducked my head to my shoulder and scraped my chin across my shirt stubble a little more than I remembered maybe 8 hours worth the gorilla on the National Geographic Channel had slept for 10 score one for Reacher except they probably used a lighter dose on me at least I hope they had that huge primate had crashed down like a tree I raised my head again and looked around I was inside a cell and the cell was inside a room no window bright electric light new construction inside old construction a row of three simple cages made of bright new spot welded steel sitting in a line and inside a big old room made of brick the cells were each about 8 ft square and 8 ft tall they were roofed with bars the same as their sides they were floored with steel tread plate the tread plate was folded up at the edges to make a shallow inch deep tray to contain spilled liquids I guessed all kinds of liquids can get spilled in cells the tray was spot welded inside a horizontal rail that ran around the bottom of all the vertical bars there were no bolts through the floors the cells were not fixed down they were just sitting there three freestanding structures parked in a big old room the big old room itself had a high barreled ceiling the brick was all painted fresh white but it looked soft and worn there are guys who can look at the dimensions of bricks and the brick laying patterns they make and tell you exactly where a building is and exactly when it was constructed I am not one of of them but even so the place looked like the east coast to me 19th century built by hand immigrant labor working fast and dirty I was probably still in New York and I was probably underground the place felt like a basement not damp not cool but somehow stabilized in terms of temperature and humidity by virtue of being buried I was in the center cage of the three I had the Cod I was strapped to and a toilet that was all nothing else the toilet was enclosed by a three-sided u-shaped privacy screen about 3 ft High the toilet tank had a dished top that made a sink I could see a faucet just one cold water only the other two cages look the same CS toilets nothing else leading away from each of the cells were recent excavations in the outer room's floor now trenches three of them exactly parallel dug up and refilled and smoothed over with new concrete sewer lines to the toilets I guessed and water lines to the faucets the other two cages were empty I was all alone in the far corner of the outer room where the walls met the ceiling there was a surveillance camera a Beady glass eye a wide angle lens presumably to see the whole room at once to see into all three cells I guess there would be microphones too many more than one probably some of them close by electronic eavesdropping is hard Clarity is important room Echo can ruin everything my left leg hurt a little a puncture wound and a bruise right where the dart had hit the blood on my pants had dried there wasn't much of it I tested the strength of the Cuffs around my wrists and my ankles unbreakable I bucked and jerked against them for half a minute not trying to get free just checking whether I would pass out again from the effort and aiming to attract attention from whoever was watching through the surveillance camera and listening through the microphones I didn't pass out again my head achd a little as it cleared and the exertion didn't make my leg throb any less but apart from those minor symptoms I felt pretty good the attention I had attracted was delayed well over a minute and took the form of a guy I'd never seen before walking in with a hypodermic syringe some kind of a medical technician he had a wet cotton ball in his other hand ready to swab my elbow he stopped outside my cage and looked in at me through the bars I asked him is that a lethal dose the guy said no are you authorized to give a lethal dose no then you better back off because however many times you shoot me up I'm always going to wake up later and one of those times I'm going to come and get you either I'll make you eat that thing or I'll stick it up your ass and inject you from the inside it's a painkiller the guy said an analgesic for your leg my leg is fine you sure just back off so he did he went out through a stout wooden door painted the same white as the walls the door looked old it was vaguely gone IC in shape I'd seen similar doors in Old public buildings City schools and police stations I dropped my head back to the cot I had no pillow I stared up through the bars at the ceiling and prepared to settle in but less than a minute later two of the men I knew came in through the wooden door two of the federal agents the two sidekicks not the leader one of them had a Frankie 12 with him it looked loaded and cocked and ready the the other guy had some kind of a tool in his hand and a bunch of thin chains looped over his arm the guy with a shotgun stepped up close to my bars and poked the barrel through and jammed the muzzle into my throat and kept it there the guy with the chains unlocked my gate not with a key but by spinning a dial left and right a combination lock he opened the gate and came inside and stopped beside my cot the tool in his hand was like a pair of pliers but with blades instead of Mill grips some kind of a cutter he saw me looking at it and smiled he leaned forward above my waist the shotgun muzzle pressed harder into my throat a wise precaution even with my hands strapped down I could have folded forward from the waist and delivered a pretty good headbutt not my best maybe but with plenty of snap from the neck I could have put the guy to sleep for longer than I'd been out longer than the silver back perhaps I already had a headache another big impact wouldn't have made it much worse but the Frankie muzzle stayed firmly in place and I was reduced to the status of a spectator the guy with the chains untangled them and laid them in place like a trial run one would cuff my wrists to my waist one would chain my ankles and the third would connect the first two together standard issue prison restraints I would be able to shuffle along a foot at a time and lift my hands as far as my hips but that was all the guy got the chains all locked and fastened and tested and then he used the tool to cut off the plastic cuffs he backed out of the cage and left the gate open and his partner pulled the Frankie away I guessed I was supposed to slide off the cot and stand up so I stayed where I was you have to ration your opponent's victories you have to meet them out slowly and meanly you have to make your opponent subliminally grateful for every little bit of compliance that way maybe you get away with giving up 10 small losses a day rather than 10 big ones but the two feds had had the same training I had had that was clear they didn't stand there getting all beaten and frustrated they just walked away and the guy who had fitted the chains called back from the door and said coffee and muffins through here any old time you want them which put the onus right back on me exactly like it was designed to not stylish to wait an hour and then hobble through and wolf stuff down like I was desperate that would be getting beaten in public by my own hunger and thirst not stylish at all so I waited just a token interval and then I slid off the cot and shuffled out of the cage the wooden door led to a room about the same size and shape as the one the cages were in same construction same color paint no window there was a large wooden table on the center of the floor three chairs on the far side full of the three feds one chair on my side empty waiting for me on the table all lined up neatly was the stuff from my pockets my roll of cash flattened out and trapped under a sprinkling of coins my old passport my ATM card my folding toothbrush the metro card I'd bought for use on the subway the Le's NYPD business card which she had given to me in the white tile grum Underground Grand Central Terminal the phony business card that Leela Ho's local crew had given to me on the corner of 8th Avenue in 35th Street the computer memory I'd bought at Radio Shack with its loud pink neoprene sleeve plus Leon's clamshell cell phone nine separate items each one of them Stark and lonely under the bright bulbs on the ceiling to the left of the table was another door same Gothic shape same wooden construction same new paint I guessed it led onward to another room the third of three in an L-shaped chain or the first of three depending on your point of view depending on whether you were a captive or a captor to the right of the table was a low chest of drawers that looked like it belonged in a bedroom on it were a pile of napkins and a tube of nested foam cups and a steel vacuum flask and a paper plate with two blueberry muffins I shuffled over in my socks and poured a cup of coffee from the flask the operation was easier than it might have been because the chest was low my chained hands didn't hamper me much I carried the cup low and two-handed to the table sat down in the vacant chair dipped my head and sipped from the cup the action made me look like I was yielding like it was designed to or bowing or deferring the coffee was pretty bad too and only lukewarm the FED leader cued his hand and held held it behind my stack of money as if he was considering picking it up then he shook his head as if money was too prosaic a subject for him too mundane he moved his hand onward and stopped it behind my passport he asked why is it expired I said because no one can make time stand still I meant why haven't you renewed it no imminent need like you don't carry a condom in your wallet the I paused a beat and asked when was the last time you left the country I said I would have sat down and talked to you you know you didn't need to shoot me with a dart like I was something escaped from the zoo you'd been warned many times and you'd been markedly uncooperative you could have put my eye out but I didn't no harm no foul I still haven't seen ID I don't even know your name the guy said nothing I said no ID no names no Miranda no charges no lawyer Brave New World right you got it well good luck with that I said I glanced at my passport as if I'd suddenly remembered something I raised my hands as far as they would go and leaned forward I shuffled my coffee cup well out of my way which left it in the space between my passport and my ATM card I picked up my passport and squinted down at it and leaf through the pages at the bag I Shrugged like my memory had been playing tricks on me I went to put the passport back but I was inexact with its placement a little hampered by the chains the stiff edge of the little booklet caught my coffee cup and tipped it over coffee spilled out and splashed on the table and flowed right over the far Edge and into the FED Leader's lap he did the thing that everyone does he jumped back half stood and batted at the air as if he could divert the liquid one molecule at a time sorry I said his pants was soaked so now the onus was on him two choices either disrupt the rhythm of the interrogation by taking a break to change or continue with wet pants I saw the guy debating he wasn't quite as inscrutable as he thought he was he chose to continue with wet pants he detoured to the chest of drawers and dabbed at himself with napkins then he brought some back and dried the table he made a big effort not to react which was a reaction in itself he asked again when was the last time you left the country I said I don't recall where were you born I don't recall everyone knows where they were born it was a long time ago we'll see sit here all day if necessary I was born in West Berlin I said and your mother is French she was French what is she now dead I'm sorry it wasn't your fault are you sure you're an American citizen what kind of a question is that a straightforward one the state department gave me a passport was your application truthful did I sign it I imagine you did then I imagine it was truthful how were you naturalized you were born overseas to a foreign parent I was born on a military base that counts as us Sovereign territory my parents were married my father was an American citizen he was a marine can you prove all of that do I have to it's important whether or not you're a citizen could affect what happens to you next no how much patience I have will affect what happens to me next the guy on the left stood up he was the one who had held the Frankie's muzzle hard against my throat he went directly left from behind the table and walked out through the wooden door into the third room I glimpsed desks computers cabinets and lockers no other people the door closed softly behind him and the room we were in went quiet the main guy asked was your mother Algerian I said I just got through telling you she was French some French people are Algerian no French people are French and Algerian people are Algerian it's not rocket science okay some French people were originally immigrants from Algeria or from Morocco or Tunisia or elsewhere in North Africa my mother wasn't was she a Muslim what do you want to know I'm making inquiries I nodded safer to inquire about my mother than yours probably what do you mean Susan Mark's mother was a teenage crack whor maybe yours worked with her maybe they turned tricks together are you trying to make me mad no I'm succeeding you're all red in the face and you've got wet pants and you're getting absolutely nowhere all in all I don't think this particular session will be written up for the training manual this isn't a joke but it's heading that way the guy paused and regrouped he used his index finger to realign the nine items in front of him he got them straight and then he pushed the computer memory an inch towards me he said you concealed this from us when we searched you Susan Mark gave it to you on the train I said did I did she the guy nodded but it's empty and it's too small anyway where's the other one what other one this one is obviously a decoy where's the real one Susan Mark gave me nothing I bought that thing at Radio Shack why I like the look of it with the pink sleeve [ __ ] I said nothing he said you like the color pink in the right place What place would that be a place you haven't been in a long time where did you conceal it I didn't answer was it in a body cavity you better hope not you just touched it do you enjoy that kind of thing are you a fairy that kind of question might work down at Guantanamo but it won't work with me the guy Shrugged and used his fingertip and pulled the stick back into line and then he moved the phony business card and Leon had cell phone both forward an inch like he was moving pawns on a chess board he said you've been working for Leela ho the card proves you were in communication with the crew she hired and your phone proves she called you at least six times the Four Seasons number is in the memory it's not my phone we found it in your pocket Leela ho didn't stay at the Four Seasons according to them only because we told them to cooperate we both know she was there you met her there twice and then she broke the third rendevu who is she exactly that's a question you should have asked before you agreed to work for her I wasn't working for her your phone proves that you were it's not rocket science I didn't answer he asked where is leelah ho now don't you know how would I know well I assumed you scooped her up when she checked out before you started shooting darts at me the guy said nothing I said you were there earlier in the day you searched her room I assumed you were watching her the guy said nothing I said you missed her right huh she walked right past you Ah that's terrific you guys an example to us all a foreign National with some kind of weird Pentagon involvement and you let her go it's a setback the guy said he seemed a little embarrassed but I figured he need not have been because leaving a hotel under surveillance is relatively easy to do you do it by not doing it by not not leaving immediately you send your bags down with the Bellman and the service elevator the agents cluster in the lobby you leave the passenger elevator at a different floor and you hold up somewhere for 2 hours until the agents give up and leave then you walk out it takes nerve but it's easy to do especially if you've booked another room under another name which Leela ho certainly had or Leonid at least the guy asked where is she now I asked who who is she the most dangerous person you ever met she didn't look it that's why I said I have no idea where she is there was a long pause and then the guy moved the phony business card and the cell phone back into line and advanced Thea Le's card in their place he asked how much does the detective know what does it matter we have a fairly simple sequence of tasks in front of us we need to find the hoes we need to recover the real memory stick but above all we need to contain the leak so we need to know how far it is spread so we need to know who knows what nobody knows anything least of all me this is not a contest you don't get points for resisting we're all on the same side here doesn't feel that way to me you need to take this seriously believe me I am then tell us who knows what I'm not a mind reader I don't know who knows what I heard the door in my left open again the leader looked across and nodded some kind of consent I turned in my seat and saw the guy from the left-and chair he had a gun in his hand not the Frankie 12 the dart gun he raised it and fired I spun away but far too late the dart caught me high on the upper arm chapter 44 I woke up all over again but I didn't open my eyes immediately I felt like the clock in my head was back on track and I wanted to let it calibrate and settle for