Gone Tomorrow - Lee Child [56]
By ten-forty I had figured out what 600-82219D meant.
Chapter 34
I got up out of my chair and followed engraved brass signs to the Sheraton’s business center. 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 dialog 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. There were 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.”