TWENTY-TWO
At seven in the evening D.C. was going dark and all the Dupont
establishments had their lights on. The Afghan place had paper lanterns strung out all over the courtyard. The kerb was clogged with limousines. Most of the courtyard tables were already full. But not with Sansom and his party. All I saw were young men in suits and young women in skirts. They were gathered in pairs and trios and quartets, talking, making calls from their cells, reading e-mails on hand-held devices, taking papers from briefcases and stuffing them back. I guessed Sansom was inside, behind the wooden door.
There was a hostess podium close to the sidewalk but before I got to it Browning pushed through a knot of people and stepped in front of me. He nodded towards a black Town Car twenty yards away and said, ‘Let’s go.’
I said, ‘Where? I thought Sansom was here.’
‘Think again. He wouldn’t eat in a place like this. And we wouldn’t let him even if he wanted to. Wrong demographic, too insecure.’
‘Then why bring me here?’
‘We had to bring you somewhere.’ He stood there like it meant absolutely nothing to him whether I went along or walked away. I said, ‘So where is he?’
‘Close by. He’s got a meeting. He can give you five minutes before it starts.’
‘OK,’ I said. ‘Let’s go.’
There was a driver sitting in the Town Car. The engine was already running. Browning and I climbed in the back and the driver pulled out and drove most of the way around the circle and then peeled off south and west down New Hampshire Avenue. We passed the Historical Society. As I recalled New Hampshire Avenue there wasn’t much ahead of us except for a string of hotels and then George Washington University.
We didn’t stop at any of the hotels. We didn’t stop at George Washington University. Instead we swept a fast right on to Virginia Avenue and drove a couple hundred yards and pulled into the Watergate. The famous old complex. The scene of the crime. Hotel rooms, apartments, offices, the Potomac dark and slow beyond them. The driver stopped outside an office building. Browning stayed in his seat. He said, ‘These are the ground rules. I’ll take you up. You’ll go in alone. But I’ll be right outside the door. Are we clear?’
I nodded. We were clear. We got out. There was a security guy in a uniform at a desk inside the door, but he paid us no attention. We got in the elevator. Browning hit four. We rode up in silence. We got out of the elevator and walked twenty feet across grey carpet to a door marked Universal Research. A bland title and an unremarkable slab of wood. Browning opened it and ushered me inside. I saw a waiting room, medium budget. An unoccupied reception desk, four low leather chairs, inner offices to the left and the right. Browning pointed me left and said, ‘Knock and enter. I’ll wait for you here.’
I stepped over to the left hand door and knocked and entered.
There were three men waiting for me in the inner office.
None of them was Sansom.
TWENTY-THREE
The room was a plain spare space mostly empty of furniture. The three guys were the three federal agents who had made the trip up to the 14th Precinct in New York City. They didn’t seem pleased to see me again. They didn’t speak at first. Instead their leader took a small silver object out of his pocket. A voice recorder. Digital. Office equipment, made by Olympus. He pressed a button and there was a short pause and then I heard his voice ask, ‘Did she tell you anything?’ The words were fuzzy with distortion and clouded by echo, but I recognized them. From the interview, at five o’clock that morning, me in the chair, sleepy, them alert and standing, the smell of sweat and anxiety and burnt coffee in the air.
I heard myself reply, ‘Nothing of substance.’
The guy clicked another button and the recorded sound died away. He put the device back in his pocket and pulled a folded sheet of paper from another. I recognized it. It was the House notepaper the Capitol guard had given me at the door of the Cannon Building. The guy unfolded it and read out loud, ‘Early this morning I saw a woman die with your name on her lips.’ He held the paper out towards me so that I could see my own handwriting.
He said, ‘She told you something of substance. You lied to federal investigators. People go to prison for that.’
‘But not me,’ I said.
‘You think? What makes you special?’
‘Nothing makes me special. But what makes you federal investigators?’
The guy didn’t answer.
I said, ‘You can’t have it both ways around. You want to play all cloak and dagger and refuse to show ID, then how should I know who you are? Maybe you were NYPD file clerks, showing up early for work, looking to pass the time. And there’s no law about lying to civilians. Or your bosses would all be in jail.’
‘We told you who we were.’
‘People claim all kinds of things.’
‘Do we look like file clerks?’
‘Pretty much. And maybe I didn’t lie to you, anyway. Maybe I lied to Sansom.’
‘So which was it?’
‘That’s my business. I still haven’t seen ID.’
‘What exactly are you doing here in Washington? With Sansom?’
‘That’s my business too.’
‘You want to ask him questions?’
‘You got a law against asking people questions?’
‘You were a witness. Now you’re investigating?’
‘Free country,’ I said.
‘Sansom can’t afford to tell you anything.’
‘Maybe so,’ I said. ‘Maybe not.’
The guy paused a beat and said, ‘You like tennis?’
I said, ‘No.’
‘You heard of Jimmy Connors? Bjorn Borg? John McEnroe?’
I said, ‘Tennis players, from way back.’
‘What would happen if they played the U.S. Open next year?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘They would get their asses kicked all over the court. They would get their heads handed to them on a plate. Even the women would beat them. Great champions in their day, but they’re old men now and they come from a whole different era. Time moves on. The game changes. You understand what I’m telling you?’
I said, ‘No.’
‘We’ve seen your record. You were hot shit back in prehistory. But this is a new world now. You’re out of your depth.’
I turned and glanced at the door. ‘Is Browning still out there? Or did he dump me?’
‘Who is Browning?’
‘The guy who delivered me here. Sansom’s guy.’
‘He’s gone. And his name isn’t Browning. You’re a babe in the woods.’
I said nothing. Just heard the word babe and thought about Jacob Mark, and his nephew Peter. A girl from a bar. A total babe. Peter left with her.
One of the other two guys in the room said, ‘We need you to forget all about being an investigator, OK? We need you to stick to being a witness. We need to know how Sansom’s name is linked with the dead woman. You’re not going to leave this room until we find out.’
I said, ‘I’ll leave this room exactly when I decide to. It will take more than three file clerks to keep me somewhere I don’t want to be.’
‘Big talk.’
I said, ‘Sansom’s name is already way out there, anyway. I heard it from four private investigators in New York City.’
‘Who were they?’
‘Four guys in suits with a phony business card.’
‘Is that the best you can do? That’s a pretty thin story. I think you heard it from Susan Mark herself.’
‘Why do you even care? What could an HRC clerk know that would hurt a guy like Sansom?’
Nobody spoke, but the silence was very strange. It seemed to carry in it an unstated answer that spiralled and ballooned crazily upward and outward, like: It’s not just Sansom we’re worried about, it’s the army, it’s the military, it’s the past, it’s the future, it’s the government, it’s the country, it’s the whole wide world, it’s the entire damn universe.
I asked, ‘Who are you guys?’
No answer.
>
I said, ‘What the hell did Sansom do back then?’
‘Back when?’
‘During his seventeen years.’
‘What do you think he did?’
‘Four secret missions.’
The room went quiet.
The lead agent asked, ‘How do you know about Sansom’s missions?’
I said, ‘I read his book.’
‘They’re not in his book.’
‘But his promotions and his medals are. With no clear explanation of where else they came from.’
Nobody spoke.
I said, ‘Susan Mark didn’t know anything. She can’t have. It’s just not possible. She could have turned HRC upside down for a year without finding the slightest mention.’
‘But someone asked her.’
‘So what? No harm, no foul.’
‘We want to know who it was, that’s all. We like to keep track of things like that.’
‘I don’t know who it was.’
‘But clearly you want to know. Otherwise why would you be here?’
‘I saw her shoot herself. It wasn’t pretty.’
‘It never is. But that’s no reason to get sentimental. Or in trouble.’
‘You worried about me?’
No one answered.
‘Or are you worried I’ll find something out?’
The third guy said, ‘What makes you think the two worries are different? Maybe they’re the same thing. You find something out, you’ll be locked up for life. Or caught in the crossfire.’
I said nothing. The room went quiet again.
The lead agent said, ‘Last chance. Stick to being a witness. Did the woman mention Sansom’s name or not?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘She didn’t.’
‘But his name is out there anyway.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It is.’
‘And you don’t know who’s asking.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t.’
‘OK,’ the guy said. ‘Now forget all about us and move on. We have no desire to complicate your life.’
‘But?’
‘We will if we have to. Remember the trouble you could make for people, back in the 110th? It’s much worse now. A hundred times worse. So do the smart thing. If you want to play, stick to the senior circuit. Stay away from this. The game has changed.’
They let me go. I went down in the elevator and walked past the guy at the door and stood on a broad paved area and looked at the river flowing slowly by. Reflected lights moved with the current. I thought about Elspeth Sansom. She impressed me. Don’t come dressed like that, or you won’t get in. Perfect misdirection. She had suckered me completely. I had bought a shirt I didn’t need or want.
Not soft.
That was for damn sure.
The night was warm. The air was heavy and full of waterborne smells. I headed back towards Dupont Circle. A mile and a quarter, I figured. Twenty minutes on foot, maybe less.
TWENTY-FOUR
Restaurant meals in D.C. rarely run shorter than an hour or longer than two. That had been my experience. So I expected to find Sansom finishing up his entrée or ordering his dessert. Maybe already drinking coffee and thinking about a cigar.
Back at the restaurant about half the courtyard tables had turned over their clientele. There were new boys in suits, and new girls in skirts. More pairs now than threesomes or quartets, and more romance than work. More bright chatter designed to impress, and less scanning of electronic devices. I walked past the hostess station and the woman there called after me and I said, ‘I’m with the Congressman.’ I pushed through the wooden door and scanned the inside room. It was a low rectangular space full of dim light and spicy smells and loud conversation and occasional laughter.
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 H 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 autoloader 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