Gone Tomorrow

Lila Hoth didn’t speak.

‘My advice?’ I said. ‘Forget all about it. Your father and your uncle were killed in a war. They weren’t the first, and they won’t be the last. Shit happens.’

‘We just want to ask him why.’

‘You already know why. There had 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 Three. 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. Lila Roth signed it. She said, ‘Sansom should be called to account.’

‘If it was him,’ I said. ‘If it was anybody.’ I took Leonid’s phone out of my pocket and dumped it on the table. I pushed my chair back and got ready to leave.

Lila said, ‘Please keep the phone.’

I said, ‘Why?’

‘Because my mother and I are staying. Just a few more days. And I would really like to be able to call you, if I wanted to.’ She wasn’t coy in the way she said it. Not coquettish. 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 in her 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 colour, 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 Sheraton was three blocks west and five blocks south. Twenty minutes, max. I figured I could get there before Sansom finished his lunch.

THIRTY-NINE

I DIDN’T GET TO THE SHERATON 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. Sansom’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 D.C. train by five minutes, which meant I trailed him back to the capital a whole hour and a half in arrears.

The same guard was on duty at the Ca

Sansom’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 in 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 favours 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 i

Sansom’s i

Sansom said, ‘So?’

I said, ‘I know about the DSM in March of 1983.’

‘How?’

‘Because of the VAL Silent Sniper. The battleaxe 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 Lila Hoth or Svetlana Hoth, but you met with some other guy called Hoth 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.