Gone Tomorrow jr-13 Page 10

  Sansom wasn’t in it.

  No sign of him, no sign of his wife, no sign of the guy who had called himself Browning, no pack of eager staffers or campaign volunteers.

  I backed out again and the woman at the hostess station looked at me quizzically and asked, ‘Who were you joining?’

  I said, ‘John Sansom.’

  ‘He isn’t here.’

  ‘Evidently.’

  A kid at a table next to my elbow said, ‘North Carolina Fourteenth? He left town. He’s got a fundraiser breakfast tomorrow in Greensboro. Banking and insurance, no tobacco. I heard him tell my guy all about it.’ His last sentence was directed at the girl opposite him, not at me. Maybe the whole speech was, My guy. Clearly the kid was a hell of an important player, or wanted to be.

  I stepped back to the sidewalk and stood still for a second and then set out for Greensboro, North Carolina.

  * * *

  I got there on a late bus that was scheduled to stop first in Richmond, Virginia, and then in Raleigh, and then in Durham, and then in Burlington. I didn’t notice the itinerary. I slept all the way. We arrived in Greensboro close to four o’clock in the morning. I walked past bail bond offices and shuttered pawn shops and ignored a couple of greasy spoon eateries until I found the kind of diner I wanted. I wasn’t choosing on the basis of food. All diner food tastes the same to me. I was looking for phone books and racks of free local newspapers and it took a long walk to find them. The place I picked was just opening for business. A guy in an undershirt was greasing a griddle. Coffee was dripping into a flask. I hauled the Yellow Pages to a booth and checked it for hotels. Greensboro had plenty. It was a decent-sized place. Maybe a quarter-million people.

  I figured a fundraising breakfast would take place in a fairly upscale location. Donors are rich, and they don’t go to the Red Roof Inn for five hundred dollars a plate. Not if they work in banking and insurance. I guessed the Hyatt or the Sheraton. Greensboro had both. Fifty-fifty. I closed the Yellow Pages and started leafing through the free papers, looking for confirmation. Free papers carry all kinds of local coverage.

  I found a story about the breakfast in the second paper I opened. But I was wrong about the hotels. Not the Hyatt, not the Sheraton. Instead Sansom was fixed up at a place called the O. Henry Hotel, which I guessed was named for the famous North Carolina writer. There was an address given. The event was planned to start at seven in the morning. I tore out the story and folded it small and put it in my pocket. The guy behind the counter finished his preparations and brought me a mug of coffee without asking. I took a sip. Nothing better than a fresh brew in the first minute of its life. Then I ordered the biggest combo on the menu and sat back and watched the guy cook it.

  * * *

  I took a cab to the O. Henry Hotel. I could have walked, and it took longer to find the cab than to make the drive, but I wanted to arrive in style. I got there at a quarter after six. The hotel was a modern facsimile of a stylish old place. It looked like an independent establishment, but probably wasn’t. Few hotels are. The lobby was rich and dim and full of clubby leather armchairs. I walked past them to the reception desk with as much panache and confidence as was possible for a guy in a creased nineteen-dollar shirt. There was a young woman on duty behind the counter. She looked tentative, as if she had just come in and wasn’t settled yet. She looked up at me and I said, ‘I’m here for the Sansom breakfast.’

  The young woman didn’t reply. She struggled to find a reaction, like I was embarrassing her with too much information. I said, ‘They were supposed to leave my ticket here.’

  ‘Your ticket?’

  ‘My invitation.’

  ‘Who was?’

  ‘Elspeth,’ I said. ‘Mrs Sansom, I mean. Or their guy.’

  ‘Which guy?’

  ‘Their security person.’

  ‘Mr Springfield?’

  I smiled to myself. Springfield was a manufacturer of auto- loader rifles, the same as Browning was. The guy liked word games, which was fun, but dumb. False names work better if they’re completely unconnected with reality.

  I asked, ‘Have you seen them yet this morning?’ It was an attempt at finesse. I was guessing Greensboro wasn’t in Sansom’s own congressional district. A Senate campaign needed state-wide funding and exposure. I figured Sansom’s own patch was already sewn up tight, and that by now he would be trawling farther afield. Therefore he had probably stayed in the hotel overnight, to be ready for the early start. But I couldn’t be sure. To ask if he had come down from his room yet would make me look like an idiot if he lived five minutes away. To ask if he had arrived yet would make me look just as bad if he lived two hundred miles away. So I aimed for neutrality.

  The woman said, ‘They’re still upstairs, as far as I know.’

  I said, ‘Thanks,’ and walked back into the lobby, away from the elevators, so she wouldn’t have anything to worry about. I waited until her phone rang and she started tapping on her keyboard and concentrating on her computer screen, and then I drifted around the edge of the room and hit the up button.

  * * *

  I figured that Sansom would be in a big suite, and that the big suites would all be on the top floor, so I hit the highest number the elevator had to offer. A long moment later I stepped out in a hushed carpeted corridor and saw a uniformed cop standing easy outside a double mahogany door. A patrolman, from the Greensboro PD. Not young. A veteran, with first dibs on some effortless overtime. A token presence. I walked towards him with a rueful smile on my face, like Hey, you’re working, I’m working, what’s a guy to do? I figured he must have processed a few visitors already. Room service coffee, staffers with legitimate reasons to be there, maybe journalists. I nodded to him and said, ‘Jack Reacher for Mr Sansom,’ and leaned beyond him and knocked on the door. He didn’t react. Didn’t complain. Just stood there, like the window dressing he was. Whatever Sansom was going to be next, right then he was still only a congressman from the sticks, and he was a long way from getting serious protection.

  There was a short delay, and then the suite door opened. Sansom’s wife stood there with her hand on the inside handle.

  She was dressed, coiffed, made up, and ready for the day.

  ‘Hello, Elspeth,’ I said. ‘Can I come in?’

  TWENTY-FIVE

  I saw a fast, expert, politician’s-wife calculation run behind Elspeth Sansom’s eyes. First instinct: throw the bum out. But: there was a cop in the corridor, and probably media in the building, and almost certainly hotel staff within earshot. And local people talk. So she swallowed once and said, ‘Major Reacher, how nice to see you again,’ and stood back to give me room to pass.

  The suite was large and dark because of draped windows and full of heavy furniture in rich and muted colours. There was a living room with a breakfast bar and an open door that must have led to a bedroom. Elspeth Sansom walked me to the middle of the space and stopped, like she didn’t know what to do with lie next. Then John Sansom stepped out of the bedroom to see what the fuss was all about.

  He was in pants and a shirt and a tie and socks. No shoes. He looked small, like a miniature man. Wiry build, narrow through the shoulders. His head was a little large compared to the rest of his body. His hair was cut short and neatly brushed. His skin was tanned, but in a creased, active, outdoors kind of a way.

  Rugged. No sun lamps for this guy. He glowed with wealth, and power, and energy, and charisma. It was easy to see how he had won plenty of elections. Easy to see why the news weeklies were in love with him. He looked at me and then looked at his wife and asked, ‘Where’s Springfield?’

  Elspeth said, ‘He went downstairs to check on things. They must have passed in the elevators.’

  Sansom nodded, not much more than a fast up-and-down with his eyelids. A practised decision maker, and a pragmatic man, not much given to crying over spilled milk. He glanced at me and said, ‘You don’t give up.’

  I said, ‘I never have.’

  ‘Didn�
�t you listen to those federal boys in Washington?’

  ‘Who were they, exactly?’

  ‘Those guys? You know how it is. I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you. But whatever, they were supposed to warn you off.’

  ‘Didn’t resonate.’

  ‘They copied me on your record. I told them they’d fail.’

  ‘They talked to me like I was a moron. And they called me too old. Which makes you way too old.’

  ‘I am way too old. For most of this shit, anyway.’

  ‘You got ten minutes?’

  ‘I can give you five.’

  ‘You got coffee?’

  ‘You’re wasting time.’

  ‘We’ve got plenty of time. More than five minutes, anyway. More than ten, even. You need to lace your shoes and put a jacket on. How long can that take?’

  Sansom shrugged and stepped over to the breakfast bar and poured me a cup of coffee. He carried it back and gave it to me and said, ‘Now cut to the chase. I know who you are and why you’re here.’

  ‘Did you know Susan Mark?’ I asked him.

  He shook his head. ‘Never met her, never even heard of her before last night.’

  I was watching his eyes, and I believed him. I asked, ‘Why would an HRC clerk be coerced into checking you out?’

  ‘Is that what was happening?’

  ‘Best guess.’

  ‘Then I have no idea. HRC is the new PERSCOM, right? What did you ever get from PERSCOM? What did anyone? What have they got there? Dates and units, that’s all. And my life is public record anyway. I’ve been on CNN a hundred times. I joined the army, I went to OCS, I was commissioned, I was promoted three times, and I left. No secrets there.’

  ‘Your Delta missions were secrets.’

  The room went a little quieter. Sansom asked, ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘You got four good medals. You don’t explain why.’

  Sansom nodded.

  ‘That damn book,’ he said. ‘The medals are a matter of record, too. I couldn’t disown them. It wouldn’t have been respectful. Politics is a minefield. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Either way around, they can always get to you.’

  I said nothing. He looked at me and asked, ‘How many people are going to make the connection? Besides you, I mean?’

  ‘About three million,’ I said. ‘Maybe more. Everyone in the army, and all the vets with enough eyesight left to read. They know how things work.’

  He shook his head. ‘Not that many. Most people don’t have inquiring minds. And even if they do, most people respect secrecy in matters like that. I don’t think there’s a problem.’

  ‘There’s a problem somewhere. Otherwise why was Susan Mark being asked questions?’

  ‘Did she actually mention my name?’

  I shook my head. ‘That was to get your attention. I heard your name from a bunch of guys I’m assuming were employed by the person asking the questions.’

  ‘And what’s in this for you?’

  ‘Nothing. But she looked like a nice person, caught between a rock and a hard place.’

  ‘And you care?’

  ‘You do, too, if only a little bit. You’re not in politics just for what you can get out of it for yourself. At least I sincerely hope you’re not.’

  ‘Are you actually my constituent?’

  ‘Not until they elect you President.’

  Sansom was quiet for a beat and then he said, ‘The FBI briefed me, too. I’m in a position where I can do favours for them, so they make a point of keeping me in the loop. They say the NYPD feels you’re reacting to this whole thing with a measure of guilt. Like you pushed too hard on the train. And guilt is never a sound basis for good decisions.’

  I said, ‘That’s just one woman’s opinion.’

  ‘Was she wrong?’

  I said nothing.

  Sansom said, ‘I’m not going to tell you a damn thing about the missions.’

  I said, ‘I don’t expect you to.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘How much could come back and bite you in the ass?’

  ‘Nothing in this life is entirely black and white. You know that. But no crimes were committed. And no one could get to the truth through an HRC clerk, anyway. This is a fishing expedition. This is half-baked amateur muck-raking journalism at its worst.’

  ‘I don’t think it is,’ I said. ‘Susan Mark was terrified and her son is missing.’

  Sansom glanced at his wife. Back at me. He said, ‘We didn’t know that.’

  ‘It hasn’t been reported. He’s a jock at USC. He left a bar with a girl five days ago. Hasn’t been seen since. He’s presumed AWOL, having the time of his life.’

  ‘And you know this how?’

  ‘Through Susan Mark’s brother. The boy’s uncle.’

  ‘And you don’t buy the story?’

  ‘Too coincidental.’

  ‘Not necessarily. Boys leave bars with girls all the time.’

  ‘You’re a parent,’ I said. ‘What would make you shoot yourself, and what would make you not?’

  The room went quieter still. Elspeth Sansom said, ‘Shit.’ John Sansom got the kind of faraway look in his eyes that I had seen before from good field officers reacting to a tactical setback. Rethink, redeploy, reorganize, all in a fast second or two. I saw him scanning back through history and coming to a firm conclusion. He said, ‘I’m sorry about the Mark family’s situation. I really am. And I would help if I could, but I can’t. There’s nothing in my Delta career that could be accessed through HRC. Nothing at all. Either this is about something else entirely, or someone is looking in the wrong place.’

  ‘Where else would they look?’

  ‘You know where. And you know they wouldn’t even get close. And someone who knew enough to want Delta records would know where to look for them, and where not to, surely. So this is not about Special Forces. Can’t be.’

  ‘So what else could it be about?’

  ‘Nothing. I’m spotless.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Completely. One hundred per cent. I’m not an idiot. I wouldn’t have gotten into politics if I had the tiniest thing to hide. Not the way things are now. I never even had a parking ticket.’

  ‘OK,’ I said.

  ‘I’m sorry about the woman on the subway.’

  ‘OK,’ I said again.

  ‘But now we really have to go. We have some serious begging to do.’

  I asked, ‘You ever heard the name Lila Hoth?’

  ‘Lila Hoth?’ Sansom said. ‘No, I never heard that name.’

  I was watching his eyes, and I felt he was telling the absolute truth. And lying through his teeth. Both at the same time.

  TWENTY-SIX

  I passed Springfield on my return trip through the hotel lobby. I was heading for the street door, he was coming out of a dining room. Beyond him I saw round tables with snowy white tablecloths and large floral decorations in their centres. Springfield looked at me with no surprise in his face. It was as if he was judging my performance, and finding it satisfactory. As if I had gotten to his principals in about the span of time he had expected. Not fast, not slow, but right there in the middle of the window he had allowed. He gave me a look of professional appraisal and moved on without a word.

  * * *

  I went back to New York the same way I had left it, but in reverse. Cab to the Greensboro depot, bus to D.C., and then the train. The trip took all day and some of the evening. The bus schedule and the train schedule were not well integrated, and the first two trains from D.C. were sold out. I spent the travel time thinking, firstly about what Sansom had said, and what he hadn’t. Nothing in this life is entirely black and white. But no crimes were committed. And no one could get to the truth through an HRC clerk, anyway. No denial of questionable activity. Almost the opposite. Practically a confession. But he felt he hadn’t strayed outside the envelope. No crimes. And he had absolute confidence that the details were locked away for ever. Altoge
ther a common position, among sharp-end ex-military. Questionable was a big word for all of us. Twelve letters, and a textbook’s worth of implications. Certainly my own career would not withstand extended scrutiny. I don’t lose sleep over it. But in general I’m happy that the details stay locked away. And so was Sansom, clearly. I know my details. But what were his? Something damaging to him, obviously. Either personally, or to his election bid. Or both, inevitably. The feds had made that perfectly clear. Sansom can’t afford to tell you anything. But damaging in a wider context too, or why else would the feds be involved in the first place?

  And who the hell was Lila Hoth?

  I asked myself these questions all the way through the jolting bus ride, and all the way through the long layover at Union Station, and then I gave them up when the train I made rolled north through Baltimore. I had gotten nowhere with them, and by then I was thinking about something else, anyway. I was thinking about where exactly in New York City Susan Mark had been headed. She had driven in from the south and had planned to ditch her car and arrive at her destination by subway. Tactically smart, and no other choice, probably. She wouldn’t have worn her winter coat in the car. Too hot. She probably had it on the back seat, or more likely in the trunk, with the bag and the gun, where the gun would be safe from prying eyes. Therefore she chose to park, and get out, and get herself battle-ready at a distance and in relative privacy.

  But not at too much of a distance. Not too far from her ultimate destination. Because she had been delayed. She was seriously late. Therefore if she was headed way uptown, she would have parked in midtown. But she had parked downtown. In SoHo. Probably joined the train at Spring Street, one stop before I had. She was still sitting tight past 33rd Street. Then things had unravelled. If they hadn’t, I figured she would have stayed on the train through Grand Central and gotten out at 51st Street.