More silence. Across the café, someone worked the coffee machine.
‘Do you hate your job?’ asked Carla quietly.
A thin smile. ‘Not as much as I hate the people I chase.’
‘Chris, my husband, hates his job. So much that it’s killing him.’
‘Then why doesn’t he just quit?’ There was scant sympathy in the ombudsman’s voice.
‘That’s so fucking easy for you to say.’
Kirsti shot her a warning glance. ‘Truls, Chris was born and brought up in the London cordoned zones. You’ve seen that, you know what it’s like. And you know what happens to the ones who manage to claw their way out. First-generation syndrome. If quitting means going back to the zones, he probably would rather die. He’d certainly rather kill. And in the end, we know how closely those two can be intertwined.’
Another smile, somewhat less thin. ‘Yes. First-generation syndrome. I remember that particular lecture quite well, for some reason.’
Kirsti joined him in the smile. She flexed her body beneath her sweater in a fashion that made her daughter blush.
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I hadn’t realised it was that memorable.’
It was as if something heavy had dropped from Vasvik’s shoulders. He sat up a little in the moulded plastic chair, turned back to Carla.
‘Alright,’ he said. ‘I don’t deny it. Someone like your husband could be useful to us. The information he has alone would probably be enough to build a couple of dozen cases. And, yes, a background in Conflict Investment would go a long way to making a good ombudsman. But I can’t promise you, him, a job. For one thing, we’d need an extraction team to get him away from Shorn. But, yes, if he really wants out, I can ask around. I can set some wheels in motion.’
It was what she wanted to hear, but somehow it didn’t fill her with the feeling she’d expected. Something about Vasvik’s clamped anger, the news of sudden death or maybe the bleak landscape outside, something was not right.
And later, when they got up to go and Kirsti and Truls embraced with genuine affection, she turned away so that she would not have to watch.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Monday was soft summer rain and a nagging pain behind the eyes. He drove in with a vague sense of exposure all the way, and when he parked and alarmed the car, tiny twitches of the same discomfort sent him scanning the corners of the car deck for watchers.
This early, there was nobody about.
There were phone messages on the datadown – Liz Linshaw, drawling, ironic and inviting, Joaquin Lopez from the NAME. He shelved Liz and told the datadown to dial up Lopez’s mobile. The Americas agent had called four times in the last two hours and he sounded close to panic. He grabbed the phone at the third ring, voice tight and shaky.
‘Si, digame.’
‘It’s Faulkner. Jesus, Joaquin, what the fuck’s the matter with you?’
‘Escuchame.’ There was the sound of movement. Chris got the impression Lopez was in a hotel room, getting up from the bed, moving. The agent’s voice firmed up as he crossed into English. ‘Listen, Chris, I think I’m in trouble. I got down here last night, been making some enquiries about Diaz and now I got a clutch of Echevarria’s political police all over me like putas on payday. They’re in the bar across the street, downstairs in the lounge. I think a couple of them have taken a room on this floor, I don’t—’
‘Joaquin, calm down. I understand the situation.’
‘No, you don’t fucking understand my situation, man. This is the NAME. These guys will cut my fucking cojones off if they get the chance. They bundle me into a car, and that’s it, I’m fucking history, man—’
‘Joaquin, will you just shut up and listen!’ Chris went direct from the command snap to enabled conciliatory without allowing the other man a response. Textbook stuff. ‘I know you’re scared. I understand why. Now, let’s do something about it. What do these guys look like?’
‘Look like?’ A panicky snort. ‘They look like fucking political police, what do you want me to say? Ray Bans, bellies and fucking moustaches. Get the picture?’
Chris did get the picture. He’d seen these cut-rate bad guys in operation on his own trip to the Monitored Economy with Hammett McColl. He knew the gut-sliding sense of menace they could generate simply by appearing on the scene.
‘No, Joaquin, I meant. Did you get pictures? Have you got your shades set down there?’
‘Yeah, I brought them.’ A pause. ‘I didn’t use them yet.’
‘Right.’
‘I freaked. I’m sorry, Chris, I fucked up. I didn’t think.’
‘Well, think now, Joaquin. Get a grip. You can fuck up on your own time, right now you’re on the Shorn clock. I’m not paying you to get your arse killed.’ Chris glanced at his watch. ‘What time is it there? One a.m.?’
‘A little after.’
‘Right. How many of these moustaches are there?’
‘I don’t know, two down in the lobby.’ The panic started to seep back into Lopez’s voice. ‘Maybe another two or three more across the road.’
‘Can you get me pictures?’
‘I’m not fucking going outside, man.’
‘Alright, alright.’ Chris paced, thinking. Trying to put himself in the hotel room with Lopez. The Nikon sunglasses and the data transmission gear had been an end-of-quarter gift from Shorn – they were very high spec. ‘Look, can you see the ones in the bar from your window? Go and check.’
More movement. Lopez came back calmer.
‘Yeah, I can see their table. I think I can get a decent shot from here.’
‘Alright, that’s good. Do that.’ Chris cranked his voice down, as soothing as possible. ‘Then I want you to go down to the lobby and get full frontals of the other two. They shouldn’t try anything there. Are you armed?’
‘Are you kidding? I came through US security at the airport, just like everybody else.’
‘Fine, doesn’t matter. Just get the pictures and mail them through to me as quickly as you can. I’ll be waiting. And, Joaquin. Remember what I said. You don’t get killed on the Shorn clock. We’ll pull you out of there. Got it?’
‘Got it.’ A brief pause in which he could hear Lopez breathing down the line.
‘Chris. Thanks, man.’
‘De nada. Stay cool.’
Chris waited until he heard the disconnect. Then he slammed a foot against the desk leg, knotted a fist.
‘Fuck.’ Another kick. ‘Fuck.’
Back to the datadown. He estimated Lopez’s performance time, placed forward calls. Then he went to the window and stared out at the London skyline until the phone chimed.
The images came through, two clear face-and-trunk shots that must have been taken from less than five metres. Lopez had got close. The two parapoliticals were grinning unpleasantly into the Nikon’s hidden lens. Their teeth showed, spotted brown with decay. The café snap was less to rejoice about, but there was a pavement table centred in the shot, three clear figures around it, faces turned in the camera’s direction.
The first of the forward calls went through. Even with the forewarning, the other end took a while to pick up, and the first sound to come through was a noisy yawn. Chris smiled for the first time that day.
‘Burgess Imaging.’ The screen caught up, filled with a dark unshaven face in its late teens. ‘Oh, hello, Chris. What can I? Uh, those satellite blow-ups okay?’
‘Yeah, fine, it’s not that. Listen, can you do me step-ups of a street shot, right now? Faces good enough for machine ID?’
Jamie Burgess yawned again and scratched at something in the corner of one eye.
‘Cost ya.’
‘I guessed. Look, I’m wiring it through on inset. Just take a look.’