Bloody Dan Hall; now he was inviting her out with this obviously prepared speech! She considered just how rudely to brush him off.
‘Gerry?’
You don’t need to antagonise everyone, the voice of reason whispered in her ear. ‘Sorry, I can’t… er… I haven’t eaten yet. Sorry Dan.’
‘Ok… maybe some other time then.’
Wait a minute; maybe Dan Hall could answer some of the questions that were vexing her. Perhaps she could subtly grill him for information. ‘No wait Dan… what I meant was can we go someplace where I can get a light meal or something. Have you eaten yet?’
‘Well no; going out someplace was what I had in mind.’
‘Could you give me twenty minutes please Dan?’
‘Great I’ll see you in the lobby if that’s ok.’
Gerry looked at herself in the mirror above the desk and plucked at her rather sweaty shirt. Her rain-drenched hair was a mess and she had been wearing her clothes all day.
‘Actually can you make it seven thirty? That’s fifty minutes from now.’
‘Ok sure, see you then!’
After a shower she dried her hair and pulled clean jeans and a polo shirt from the closet. She checked the time. Still twenty minutes before Hall was due to pick her up. She picked up the TV remote control and lounged on the bed and began to flick through the channels. Her attention was caught by a wincing Sandra Bullock who was having her legs waxed in preparation for her transformation from grungy detective to beauty pageant detective. Many years ago Gerry had heard one of her colleagues mutter ‘Here comes Miss Congeniality… not!’ in a whisper plainly meant for her to hear and she had subsequently watched the film during a flight to Boston. At the time she had viewed it with amused derision but now perhaps if she was going to pump information out of Dan Hall she should try the feminine wiles approach. She rather suspected she would be no bloody good at it but nevertheless she quickly pulled off her jeans and top and put on her shorter skirt and a blouse that would display some cleavage. She put on some high heeled shoes, wishing for a thousandth time that her feet were a size smaller, but then she decided that she did not want to be taller than him. She kicked off the shoes and chose sandals with a low heel and then rushed to the bathroom and busied herself with mascara and eyeliner and lipstick. By 7:30pm she decided she had done the best she could. Time to go.
The restaurant Dan chose was busy so they sat down on barstools with a beer each while waiting for a table.
‘Sorry we’re having to wait, but this is a good place,’ he apologised.
‘No problem,’ Gerry replied, wondering how she would steer their conversation in the direction she wanted.
‘I’ve sort of known you for years now Gerry but this is the first time I’ve seen you alone since that unfortunate conversation in the hotel in Fujairah.’
She nodded, remembering his anger. She had returned to her room with a surprisingly guilty conscience and as a result of her distraction she had been stabbed.
‘You haven’t changed much,’ he continued as she seemed at a loss for words. Then he added ‘I’m sorry about your fiancé. Vince told me he died in a road accident while on duty.’
This was not the conversation Gerry wanted. ‘Look Dan, I didn’t come out here to discuss my personal life with you!’ she snapped. He looked somewhat mortified. Gerry cursed herself for an idiot. If she wanted to pump him for information then she should stop sounding so bad tempered. She reached out and touched his arm.
‘God, I’m sorry Dan; if it wasn’t for you I would probably be dead, but my life’s been turned upside down since we were in Fujairah. It’s really painful still, but actually you’re someone I feel I can talk to, if you’re happy to listen. You saved my life back then; I had rather forgotten that I owe you my thanks and now I owe you an apology…I’m sorry.’
He smiled and seemed slightly embarrassed, but was saved from making a reply by the arrival of the maître d’ who appeared at his elbow.
‘Your table’s ready now, sir.’
‘Oh…er… good, thank you.’
Their table was in a quiet corner. Gerry sat down, took a tissue from her handbag, gave a little sniff and wiped away imaginary tears from the corners of her eyes, taking care not to disturb her make up. ‘Philip, my fiancé, was out in Abuja as an Arabic speaker. He wasn’t really a field operative, but they needed a good translator out there. Anyway he was working with Dean Furness and Dean thinks that a kill order was put on the two of them because they learned some highly sensitive information. Phil died in a car accident and Dean escaped to London and came to see me. He was killed in my apartment and I was arrested for his murder.’
‘That must have been a bad time, but I can’t believe your people didn’t back you up.’
She shook her head. ‘I was put on trial, convicted of murder and I’ve been in prison until a few days ago. I expect you remember I was pregnant; I didn’t have an abortion, I had the baby in prison and I gave her up for adoption. I was only released because Ali Hamsin insisted on seeing me.’
‘Holy shit, how perfectly awful for you!’
Having engaged Dan’s sympathy Gerry tried to turn the conversation around so he was talking.
‘How about you? Did you get married, have kids?’
She glanced down at his injured left hand but she remembered from their meeting two days ago that he had no ring on the stub of his finger. She looked up again, but he had followed her gaze.
‘That was my closest brush with death in Helmand province. Presumably a bullet, or shrapnel maybe,’ he mused, gazing at his hand. ‘But no, not married. Nearly, once; but not.’
‘So what have you been doing since we last met?’ she asked, but at that moment the maître d’ appeared at his elbow. They spent a couple of hurried minutes reading menus and ordering their dinner.
‘You asked me what I’d been up to,’ said Dan. ‘After our adventure I spent two years in Iraq from where I emerged unscathed. Then I was in a training post back home for a year and then I transferred to Special Forces in Afghanistan. After my hand was injured I went back home; I needed a surprisingly intricate operation to repair tendon damage.’ He held out his hand and Gerry took it and inspected the scars. For a moment she considered kissing it, but decided that would be over the top.
‘I met this nurse called Sylvia in the hospital. We were together for two years or so but in the end it didn’t work out and I left the army and joined the agency. When I was in hospital I’d met this guy Jasper White who’d been shot through the leg. We used to meet up in physio, and he said that perhaps if I decided to leave the army I should give him a call. When I split from Sylvia, I did.’
Gerry latched on to this opportunity. ‘This Jasper White guy must have made a good impression on you. I don’t think I’ve ever met him but I’ve heard his name mentioned.’
‘His background is similar to mine. He was a colonel in the marines but then he was recruited by the agency. He was brought in by his former CO, General Robert Bruckner.’
‘Oh yes, I know him,’ said Gerry. ‘Go on.’
‘Well White and Bruckner head up the section on Middle East Special Projects, which has obviously been very active over the last few years. We try to keep as low a profile as possible though, because of all the stuff about extraordinary rendition and harsh interrogation.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ said Gerry, ‘it was pretty brutal.’
Hall looked up sharply at her. ‘Well don’t sound so prissy,’ he muttered, ‘you were a friggin’ assassin for chrissake!’