by Lee Child
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 idea.
And what exactly was 600-82219-D, if it wasn’t a phone number?
I sat another ten 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.
The 600 part rang a faint bell.
Susan Mark.
600.
But I couldn’t get it.
I finished my coffee and put Leonid’s cell back in my pocket and headed north towards the Sheraton.
* * *
The hotel was a huge glass pillar with a plasma screen in the lobby that listed all the day’s events. The main ballroom was booked for lunch by a group calling itself FT, Fair Tax, 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 eleven. 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 sixty 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 Elspeth 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 khaki poplin and paid eleven bucks for it. Cheap, 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 ten thirty I was back in the Sheraton’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 ten forty I had figured out what 600-82219-D meant.
THIRTY-FOUR
I got up out of my chair and followed engraved brass signs to the Sheraton’s business centre. I couldn’t get in. You needed a room key. I hung around at the door for three 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 work stations 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’s screen saver by tapping on the keyboard’s 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 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 had used a computer. Maybe technology really was moving on. Right there on the home page was a shortcut to Google. I clicked on it, and Google’s 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 five minutes I clicked and scrolled and read.
* * *
I got back to the lobby ten minutes before eleven. 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 won.
The day was hot. But the street was clean. It didn’t smell. I here 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 Seventh 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 five past eleven. 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 minefield. 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 Elspeth 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 freighted 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 Elspeth smiled like I had just promised her a hundred thousand 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. Elspeth played host. Springfield didn’t speak. Sansom took a call on his cell from his chief of staff back in D.C. They talked for four minutes about economic policy, and then for a further two about their afternoon agenda. It was clear from the context that Sansom 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 Elspeth Sansom opened the bidding. She asked, ‘Is there any news on the missing boy?’
I said, ‘A little. He skipped football practice, which apparently is rare.’
‘At USC?’ Sansom 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.’
Elspeth said, ‘That’s OK, then.’
‘I would have preferred a live real-time 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 turne
d 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 Lila Hoth?’
‘I already told you I haven’t.’
‘You ever heard the name Svetlana Hoth?’
‘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’s cell rang in my pocket. I felt a 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. Lila Hoth, presumably. I wondered whether Leonid was still missing, or whether he had gotten back and told his story and now Lila was calling me specifically.
I pressed random buttons until the ringing stopped and 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 600-8-22 is?’
‘An 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 Bragg 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 600-8-22, section one, paragraph nine, subsection I), 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 thinking 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 DSCs? I bet they were as rare as hens’ teeth early in 1983.’
Elspeth 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 wariness. 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 medal that month probably led it. Wouldn’t work in wartime, because big medals would be too common. But in peacetime, when nothing else is going on, a big award would stick out like a sore thumb.’
‘We invaded Grenada in 1983,’ Elspeth said. ‘Delta was there.’
‘October,’ Sansom said. ‘Which would add some background noise later in the year. But the first nine months were pretty quiet’
Elspeth Sansom looked away. She didn’t know what her husband had been doing during the first nine months of 1983. Perhaps she never would. She said, ‘So who is asking?’
I said, ‘An old battleaxe called Svetlana Hoth, 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 is 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 and the section and the paragraph to tell her exactly where to look.’
Elspeth 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 favour 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 have been talking to is looking for someone else. It’s as simple as that.’
* * *
Sansom’s little speech hung in the air for a moment. We all sipped our drinks and sat quiet. Then Elspeth 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 Sansom’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’s 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 sha
ke hands or say goodbye. It didn’t seem to be that kind of a parting.
Springfield followed me to the lobby. He didn’t speak. He seemed to be rehearsing something. I stopped and waited and lie 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 any more. 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 would 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 for the elevators. I stepped out to the Seventh Avenue sidewalk and Leonid’s phone started ringing in my pocket again.
THIRTY-FIVE
I stood on Seventh Avenue with my back to the traffic and answered Leonid’s phone. I heard Lila Hoth’s voice, soft in my ear. Precise diction, quaint phrasing. She said, ‘Reacher?’
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.’
