Wales Larrison, these days the global director of Echelon, didn’t smile. He sized her up as though she were a challenging puzzle.
‘Do you remember the young girl you brought to us, just before you left and came home, here?’ he asked, waving a hand to take in the lounge room and the farm beyond it.
‘Sofia,’ said Caitlin. ‘Of course I do. How’d she work out? She’d have been in the field for a few years by now.’
Larrison took his time again.
‘As always,’ he said eventually, ‘you’ve done well for us, Caitlin. She was a good find. We haven’t had an asset as good as her since … well, since you left, to be truthful.’
‘That’s very flattering, Wales. But I left. And I’m not coming back.’
The scar tissue just under her hairline, where they’d opened her up to remove the tumor back in ‘03, was throbbing. It did that at times.
‘She wasn’t just good for us, for the office,’ Wales continued, swirling his whiskey before holding the tumbler up to the firelight. The flames threw long, snaking shadows across the room. ‘I still believe, Caitlin, that there was a chance your last mission in Texas could have ended very differently. There was a good chance that if Blackstone had lived, and if Kipper moved against him with the information you took, I think there was a very good chance he would have tried to take Texas out of the union. It could have meant civil war. Sofia Pieraro averted that outcome when she put him down. Those three IDs she left at the scene, the road agents, they helped us sell the story of Blackstone’s death as a bandit raid.’
Caitlin took a sip on her drink. Unlike the others, she had switched to mineral water hours ago.
‘Funny thing about those guys,’ she said. ‘They belonged to Blackstone. They were in McCutcheon’s files. That never came out, did it?’
‘It didn’t need to,’ replied Wales. ‘She gave us more than enough to start spinning up the myth that Jackson Blackstone was a murdered patriot. And you gave us her.’
‘Yeah. A patriot. Nicely fucking done, Wales.’
Larrison finished his drink and put it aside. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘And she’s done very well for us ever since.’
‘How did Sofia take to that? The idea that Blackstone gets to go down in history as a martyred hero.’
The smile on Wales’s long, deeply lined face was wintry. ‘Like you, Caitlin, she’s a realist these days. Or she would be …’
‘I sense there’s a “but” coming.’
‘But,’ nodded Larrison, ‘now she has disappeared for real.’
Caitlin said nothing, but Wales seemed disinclined to add anything to his statement.
‘That’s too bad,’ she eventually replied. ‘But what does that have to do with me?’
‘You spent a lot of time with Sofia, staying low after Fort Hood,’ said Larrison. ‘You got to know her at a very vulnerable time. You probably know her as well as anybody in the agency, including her mentor. On all of her profiles and evaluations, she identified you as a significant figure in her salvation.’
‘It’s late, Wales. Really late.’
‘I’d like you to come back, Caitlin. I need you to find Sofia Pieraro. She’s somewhere in the South American Federation. She was working deep inside Roberto’s regime for us. And then she went dark. The same way you went dark after Fort Hood. We need you back, Caitlin. We need to know what’s happened down there. What might be about to happen.’
Larrison held up one hand before she could reply. ‘I don’t want you to answer me now, because I know what your answer will be, now. Will you promise me you will sleep on it, though, and talk to Bret in the morning? And then talk to me. Morales is a problem we’ve never encountered before. Not since the Disappearance, anyway. A madman in charge of an emerging super-state. He’s already rattling the sabre over the Falklands. You know what that means, Caitlin. You know how far the consequences can run. How people like this can imperil innocents, even on the far side of the world.’
He didn’t do anything so gauche as letting his gaze drift upstairs to where her children were sleeping. He didn’t have to. He knew her too well.
Caitlin was quiet for a long time. Finally she pushed herself up out of her chair.
‘I’m going to bed, Wales. I’ll see you in the morning.’
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
So, the end of a story. Time not just to look back and say thank-you to everyone who contributed to this book, but also to the other two that came before it. Some have been with me all the way. Betsy Mitchell, Cate Paterson, Joel Naoum, Jon Gibbs and Nicola O’Shea at Random and Pan Macmillan. Russ Galen, my agent. You don’t know them, but without them you would not be holding this book in your hands.
Others popped in and out during the long journey, editing here, publishing there, sprinkling fairy dust on the marketing and publicity machine. Yes, that black engine. They all need to be given a hearty slap on the back and bought a drink as well, because the Disappearance series was mostly published in the darkest days of the Great Recession and the tireless efforts of the sales and marketing teams from both houses need a particularly loud ‘Huzzah!’ Most of you, I never even meet. But you have my deep thanks for what is largely a thankless job.
And hell, while we’re on it, how about a shout out to the frontline troops. The guys and gals in bookstores, actual real world bookstores, with shelves and everything, who’ve sold so many copies of these babies for me. Some of you I do know personally. Most I don’t. Again, thank you.
On a personal note, as ever, props to my blog buddies. They know who they are and how much they contribute to the creation of each book. One of the really lovely things about the modern world is the way that authors don’t have to hide themselves in the garret all the time now. If you want to reach out and spend time with your readers, even make some of them your friends, you can do so. My readers and friends hang out my blog, Cheeseburger Gothic.
Many more hang out at the digital cocktail party known as Twitter. Hugely distracting, but enormous fun, this social not-working service has become a very important part of my work. The cloud is the greatest instant feedback service ever cobbled together from electrons and rubber bands. I can’t possibly even begin to name everyone who’s helped me out with a research question or a bit of encouragement there. They know who they are.
And last, but most importantly. Jane, Anna and Thomas. The rest of you get the best of me. My public face. All shiny and smiley and scrubbed till my belly button shines.
They get the real me. The deadline me. The scruffy, smelly, grumpy where’s-my-goddamned-cup-of-coffee me. Feel for them.
I do.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Birmingham is the author of the cult classic He Died With a Felafel in His Hand, the award-winning history Leviathan and the trilogy comprising Weapons of Choice, Designated Targets and Final Impact as well as Without Warning and After America.
Between writing books he contributes to a wide range of newspapers and magazines on topics as diverse as the future of media and national security. Before becoming a writer he began his working life as a research officer with the Defence
Department’s Office of Special Clearances and Records.
John Birmingham refuses to build a website, but you can find him online at his blog, http://cheeseburgergothic.com and on Twitter @johnbirmingham.