The room was still. A glance crackled between Hamilton and Hewitt. No one spoke. Jack Notley steepled his fingers.
‘Is there anything else?’ he asked quietly.
Louise Hewitt shrugged. ‘Only that what we’ve heard is a pack of lies designed to hide the fact that Chris has gone political on us.’
‘Anything constructive,’ asked Notley, still more softly.
‘Yes,’ said Chris, thinking of Lopez, tossed into the arena and up against a twenty-year-old blade sicario who’d be savage with favela poverty and sight of a way out. Thinking of Barranco, machine-gunned to death on a darkened beach, blood leaking into the sand under a shattering of glass shard stars. ‘I am not political. My reasons for backing Vicente Barranco have nothing to do with politics. And anyone who wants to call that into question can see me on the road.’
Chapter Forty-Three
‘You are a lying motherfucker, Chris.’ Mike Bryant paced back and forth in front of the BMW, furious. His feet crunched in the hard shoulder gravel. Off to one side, a breeze stirred the grass beside the motorway ramp. He stopped and jabbed a finger at Chris. ‘You have turned political, haven’t you. Fucking Barranco got to you, didn’t he?’
Chris leaned on the still warm hood of the car, arms folded. The orbital stretched away below them, deserted as far as the eye could see in both directions. After the confines of the Shorn block, the sky over them seemed enormous. They’d driven for less than an hour, but it felt as if they stood at the edge of the world.
‘Oh, give me a fucking break. You’re accusing me of politics. A week ago, Barranco was the horse to back. Now suddenly, he’s unprofitable? What is that, Mike? That’s not political?’
‘The numbers make sense,’ said Bryant.
‘The numbers?’ Chris came off the hood of the BMW, taut with rage. ‘The fucking numbers? That shit is made up, Mike. You can make the numbers tell you any fucking thing you want them to. What about the numbers that made sense for Barranco? What happened to them? What are we, economists all of a sudden? You want to draw me a fucking curve? It’s got nothing to do with reality, Mike. You know that’
Mike looked away. ‘That fact remains, Chris. You’re in way too close with Barranco. You’ve got to come off the account. Let Hamilton run with it, see what happens.’
‘Great. And meanwhile what happens to Joaquin Lopez?’
‘That’s not important!’ Bryant made fists, punched exasperatedly off into the wind. ‘Fuck Chris, pay attention, will you. You can’t get personal on this thing. It’s just business. Lopez has been undercut, that’s all there is to it. If this new guy can do the same work for a percentage point less commission, what the fuck are we doing still working with Lopez anyway?’
‘It’s a half per cent, Mike. And he’s a twenty-year-old sicario, straight out of the favelas. How do we know what he’ll do?’
‘If he’s hungry, he’ll do well. They always do.’
‘Oh, what the fuck are you talking about, Mike? You were at the briefing. This guy is cheap and aggressive, and that’s all we know. He could be fucking illiterate for all the background Hamilton’s shown us. This is a bad call, Mike. This isn’t business, it’s a fucking greed call. Can’t you see that?’
‘What I see, Chris, is that you’re cruising for a fall.’ Mike’s voice softened, but it was the gentle tug of a steel tow cable, taking up slack. He moved in, stood close. ‘I see why you’re acting like this, but it’s no good. You’re out of control. You’re unmanageable. And we can’t afford that, not in any of us. I’m sorry about what happened to your dad, really I am.’
Chris flinched away. Mike caught his arm.
‘No, I am. I’m sorry about the zones and your mum and everything that’s happened to you. But that’s the past, Chris, and it’s over. It doesn’t give you an excuse to fuck up everyone else’s life around here. Now I’m telling you, listen to me, Chris, I’m telling you, you’re off the NAME account. End of story. I’m the one that brought you aboard in the first place, and now I’m cutting you loose. It’s not like you haven’t got enough else to worry about. Fuck, Chris, why don’t you go home? Talk to Carla, sort your life out.’
Chris shoved him away, both palm-heels into the chest. For a flashpoint second, both men almost dropped into a karate stance.
‘I’ve told you before, Mike. I don’t need marital advice from you.’
‘Chris, you’re throwing away the best—‘
‘Shut the fuck up!’ The yell lashed out, fury etched with pain. ‘What do you know about it, Mike, what the fuck do you know about it?’
‘I know—‘
Chris cut across him savagely. ‘Try staying faithful to Suki for ten minutes, why don’t you? Try acting like a responsible father and husband for a change. Get your dick out of Sally Hunting and Liz Linshaw and whoever else you’re dipping it into these days. There. You enjoying this, Mike? Doesn’t feel good, does it?’
‘I’m not seeing Liz at the moment,’ said Mike quietly. ‘She’s got a lot of work on. And I haven’t fucked Sally Hunting in better than six years. You want to make sure of your facts before you start mouthing off.’
‘I couldn’t have put it better myself.’
They stood twitchily, facing each other across one corner of the BMW’s hood. Very distantly, the sound came of a single vehicle on the orbital. Finally, Mike Bryant shrugged.
‘Alright,’ he said. ‘If that’s the way you want it. But what I said before stands. You’re off the NAME account, you’re—‘
His phone queeped for attention. He grimaced and fished it out, pressed it impatiently to his ear. ‘Yeah, Bryant. Out on the orbital, why? Yeah, he’s right here.’
He handed the phone to Chris.
‘Hewitt,’ he said.
Louise Hewitt sat behind her desk, hands spread on its surface as if she might find built-in weaponry there to blast Chris into grease on the carpet. Her tone was chilly.
‘Well, I’m glad you’re back from your picnic in the country. There are a couple of things we need to clear up.’
Chris waited.
‘Primarily, I’m concerned to get your files for the NAME transferred to Philip Hamilton’s desk as soon as electronically possible. He’ll need your Panama City contacts, the background data on Barranco, and any of the other insurgents you did work on for Hammett McColl.’ She offered him a thin smile. ‘Since we’re now back in the business of helping the regime flatten its opponents, anything you have will be of some value.’
‘Then maybe you should shut down the agency tender on Lopez. He knows the ground. That’s value, right there.’
She looked him up and down, like a specimen of something she’d thought was extinct. ‘Remarkable, Chris. Your capacity for inappropriate loyalty, I mean. Quite remarkable. However, I think we all agreed at the briefing that a clean break is essential. There’s no telling what inconvenient loyalties Lopez himself may have. Perhaps he has, uh, bonded with Vicente Barranco as strongly as you have. The man is, by all accounts, quite inspiring.’
Nothing. He wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.
‘But I digress,’ Hewitt said smoothly. ‘In addition to the file transfer, I want you to prepare a formal statement of apology for your behaviour today. For posting on our intranet. First and foremost, that means an apology for your zone-mannered outburst in Philip’s briefing, but it’s not limited to that. There are other matters. I feel, and our senior partner concurs, that the apology had better also cover your failure to consult your colleagues before taking client-related decisions.’
‘Notley said that?’
The thin smile again. ‘He’s not on your side, Chris, whatever you think. Don’t make that mistake. Notley’s concerned wholly with the success of Shorn Conflict Investment, with maybe a side interest in waving the Union Jack when he gets the chance. Call it a hobby. That’s it, that’s the whole story. At the moment, he still thinks you’re a necessary component for the division to do well. Thus far, I’ve failed to persuade him otherwise, but I think, with your help today, he’s coming around. I told you once you’d disappoint him, and I think we’re closing on that.’