Gone Tomorrow - Lee Child [90]
So we moved on again. We were all aware of cop cars on the streets. We saw plenty of them. The NYPD is a big operation. The largest police department in America. Maybe the largest in the world. We found a noisy bistro in the heart of NYU territory after skirting north of Washington Square Park and then heading east. The place was dark and packed with undergraduate students. Some of the food it sold was recognizable. I was hungry and still dehydrated. I guessed my systems had been working overtime to flush out the double dose of barbiturate. I drank whole glasses of tap water and ordered a kind of shake made of yogurt and fruit. Plus a burger, and coffee. Jake and Lee ordered nothing. They said they were too shaken to eat. Then Lee turned to me and said, “You better tell us what exactly is going on.”
I said, “I thought you didn’t want to know.”
“We just crossed that line.”
“They didn’t show ID. You were entitled to assume the detention was illegal. In which case busting out wasn’t a crime. In fact it was probably your duty.”
She shook her head. “I knew who they were, ID or no ID. And it’s not the busting out that I’m worried about. It’s the shoes. That’s what’s going to screw me. I stood over the guy and stole his footwear. I was looking right at him. That’s premeditation. They’ll say I had time to reflect and react appropriately.”
I looked at Jake, to see whether he wanted to be included, or whether he still figured that innocence was bliss. He shrugged, as if to say in for a penny, in for a pound. So I let the waitress finish up serving my order and then I told them what I knew. March of 1983, Sansom, the Korengal Valley. All the details, and all the implications.
Lee said, “There are American troops in the Korengal Valley right now. I just read about it. In a magazine. I guess it never stops. I hope they’re doing better than the Russians did.”
“They were Ukrainians,” I said.
“Is there a difference?”
“I’m sure the Ukrainians think so. The Russians put their minorities out front, and their minorities didn’t like it.”
Jake said, “I get it about World War Three. At the time, I mean. But this is a quarter-century later. The Soviet Union isn’t even a country anymore. How can a country be aggrieved about something, if it doesn’t even exist today?”
“Geopolitics,” Lee said. “It’s about the future, not the past. Maybe we want to do similar stuff again, in Pakistan or Iran or wherever. It makes a difference if the world knows we did it before. It sets up preconceptions. You know that. You’re a cop. You like it when we can’t mention prior convictions in court?”
Jake said, “So how big of a deal do you think this is?”
“Huge,” Lee said. “As big as can be. For us, anyway. Because overall it’s still small. Which is ironic, right? You see what I mean? If three thousand people knew, there’s not much anyone could do about it. Or three hundred, even. Or thirty. It would be out there, end of story. But right now only the three of us know. And three is a small number. Small enough to be contained. They can make three people disappear without anyone noticing.”
“How?”
“It happens, believe me. Who’s going to pay attention? You’re not married. Me either.” She looked at me and asked, “Reacher, are you married?”
I shook my head.
She paused a second. She said, “No one left behind to ask questions.”
Jake said, “What about people where we work?”
“Police departments do what they’re told.”
“This is insane.”
“This is the new world.”
“Are they serious?”
“It’s a cost-benefit analysis. Three innocent people versus a big geopolitical deal? What would you do?”
“We have rights.”
“We used to.”
Jake said nothing in reply to that. I finished