Gone Tomorrow

‘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 shake 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.’

‘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 Leonid?’

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 diffidently, like a supplicant. But notwithstanding 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 Lila Hoth, ‘I’ll meet you in your hotel lobby, fifteen minutes from now.’ I thought that avoiding her suite would be enough of a safeguard, against whatever complications might ensue. Then I closed the phone and headed straight for the Sheraton’s taxi line.

The Four Seasons’ lobby was divided into a number of separate areas on two separate levels. I found Lila Hoth and her mother at a corner table in a dim panelled space that seemed to be a tea 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-priced suits, nobody lingering over the morning newspaper. No apparent surveillance at all. So I slid into a seat, next to Lila, across from her mother. Lila 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. Svetlana was in another shapeless house dress, this time muddy maroon. Her eyes were dull. She nodded uncomprehendingly as I sat down. Lila 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 Lila got straight to the point. She asked, ‘Did you bring the memory stick?’

I said, ‘No,’ although I had. It was in my pocket, with my toothbrush and Leonid’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.’