Gone Tomorrow - Lee Child [37]
I said, “No.”
“We’ve seen your record. You were hot shit 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’s guy.”
“He’s gone. And his name isn’t Browning. 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, OK? We need you to stick to being a witness. We need to know how Sansom’s name is linked with the dead woman. You’re not going to leave this room until we find out.”
I said, “I’ll leave this room exactly when I decide to. It will take more than three file clerks to keep me somewhere I don’t want to be.”
“Big talk.”
I said, “Sansom’s 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.”
“Is that the best you can do? That’s a pretty thin story. I think you heard it from Susan Mark herself.”
“Why do 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 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 seventeen years.”
“What do you think he did?”
“Four secret missions.”
The room went quiet.
The lead agent asked, “How do you know about Sansom’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 else they 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 foul.”
“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 out something?”
The third guy said, “What makes you think the two worries are different? Maybe they’re the same thing. You find out something, 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’s 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.”
“OK,” 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? It’s much worse now. A hundred 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.”
They 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 Elspeth Sansom. She impressed me. Don’t come dressed like that,