42
Aaron Stutz, chairman of Oryxis, came towards them: late fifties, balding, grey suit, dark blue tie, round wire-rimmed glasses, reminiscent of the US bureaucrats Tom used to see in the Green Zone, the ones who wore suit jackets over their body armour. He wondered if Skip’s miraculous facial-recognition software would work on Stutz. His face was so uniform and featureless; surely it couldn’t be picked out from a crowd. Nonetheless, he had to have something unique about him: everyone did. He cracked a brief, almost subliminal, smile and held out a chubby hand. He might have looked like a Central Casting average corporate animal but the small blue eyes blazed with intelligence. ‘Welcome to Texas, Tom. It’s good to have you here.’
Stutz glanced briefly at the screens and shook his head. He had evidently heard the last part of Skip’s informal presentation. ‘Please forgive the boy’s… enthusiasm. His work gets him so carried away he forgets his manners. So, you’re gonna be Vernon’s new recruit? Congratulations. Vernon is a very dear friend of mine, so you can believe me when I tell you he has no greater admirer than myself.’
Recruit? That wasn’t how Tom saw it. ‘Well, let’s say I’m just here to do my bit, for the moment.’
Stutz put a hand on Tom’s shoulder and guided him away from Skip towards the door. ‘We just got the news about the bomber. How’s that for timing?’
Tom frowned. ‘In what sense?’
Stutz smiled grimly. ‘The folks you’ll be speaking to tonight, they know you guys are on the front line over there. They know what’s wrong and what it’s gonna take to put it right. You’re among friends.’
Tom was mystified. He nodded while he digested this and struggled to find some appropriate reply. ‘Well, that’s good to know.’
Stutz clasped Tom’s arm. His grip was surprisingly firm. ‘Vernon’s lucky to have people like you around him, men he can count on.’
‘Thanks for the compliment, but I’m pretty new to this.’
The grip tightened. ‘I’m familiar with your story. So believe me when I say how deeply I feel your anger about what happened in Afghanistan with that ANA asshole. Don’t forget, we’re grateful for your service alongside our people.’
Stutz’s cheeks had started to go an alarming purple colour.
Skip’s pictures of Delphine, and now this. Tom felt as if he was being sent a covert message. We know a lot more about you than you’ve bargained for, so watch it.
He held Stutz’s gaze. The door he had tried to close on Afghanistan had just been wrenched open again. But what was Stutz’s agenda? The best way to find out, he reminded himself, was to play along, for now. ‘Well, thank you for acknowledging that. I appreciate it.’
Stutz’s face began to ease back from purple to light plum. ‘Son, I’m getting the feeling we’re gonna get along real fine.’
43
Tom’s room was on the forty-eighth floor. He gazed out at the Houston panorama, where streaks of pink cloud were ranged across the darkening sky. He had shaken Beth off in Reception, resisting her pleas to check his room was okay, and was making the most of a few hours alone. In any normal circumstances a tall blonde offering to make sure his pillows were plumped would have been ushered in, not shooed away. But these were not normal circumstances, and to him, her solicitousness smacked more of anxiety to please her bosses than the desire to get closer to those pillows.
Tom checked himself in the mirror. Hugo Boss tropical-weight wool suit, Sea Island cotton shirt and Regimental silk tie: his body armour for the evening, plus a crossed-flag pin in his lapel — Stars and Stripes with the Union flag. As well as a first-class ticket, Rolt had provided him with a generous float. ‘Anything you need, any gear, it’s on me, okay?’ He certainly wanted Tom to impress his Americans. But Tom wasn’t ready to feel too beholden to him, not yet anyway.
His own phone was buzzing again. He decided to put Woolf out of his misery and took out one of the pay-as-you-go Samsungs he had taken the precaution of buying at the airport.
Woolf was as breathless as ever, diving in without a greeting. ‘You saw the hostel damage for yourself. Was there anything at all that struck you as strange?’
One detail had stuck in Tom’s mind. ‘The damage was pretty extensive for explosives carried in a vest. Why?’
‘There’s a suspicion the bomber was dead before the device was detonated. CCTV from the street has two men, both white, making a delivery an hour before the blast from a van that was subsequently found burned out forty miles away.’
‘Has Rolt heard any of this?’
‘No, and we’re keeping it out of the press. But you know what this means?’
‘That’s two incidents now that have been deliberately made to look as if someone else was responsible for them.’
‘Glad you see it my way.’
‘Are you having trouble convincing them?’
‘You could say that. Also I’ve been reassigned. They’re trying to clamp down on returnees from Syria, Mandler’s insisting. Phoebe stays in place for now. But I’m afraid you’re rather on your own. That is, if you’re still speaking to us.’
Well, that’s just great, thought Tom. First they trick me into working for them, then they cut me loose.
‘So, if it’s not an impertinent question, where are you now?’
‘Houston.’
‘As in “Houston we have a problem”?’
Tom could tell he was trying to stifle his disappointment.
‘I’d hoped you’d come around, you know, to giving us a hand.’
‘It’s not quite a vacation. I’m here for Rolt, standing in for him, sort of.’
Woolf sounded genuinely alarmed. ‘Look, you do realize we’ve got no backup for you out there?’
‘I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself. This isn’t exactly Kandahar. The biggest danger is dying from a surfeit of enthusiasm.’
Woolf sounded like he was on the move, running up some stairs. ‘Well, I’m late, as usual. But, if anything, this business about the bomber has made me even more suspicious of Rolt. Keep your eyes and ears open, will you? Something really isn’t right about this.’
‘I will,’ Tom found himself saying.
There was a gust of relief from Woolf’s end. ‘So you are with us. Thank fuck for that.’
‘Don’t push your luck.’
There was a cheery knock on his door: Beth.
‘Gotta go.’
44
Sam wanted the first impressions to be the right ones. Earlier in the day, he had put new sheets on the beds, and bought a large bouquet, which he laid on the coffee-table in the living room. He had drawn the curtains, which were heavy and plush. He had then spent some time fussing around, turning up the lights, then dimming them and moving them around to create the most welcoming atmosphere. Eventually he settled for just the single table lamp, which gave off the cosiest glow. The low light and the enclosed feeling, with the outside world and its distractions now excluded, made the place feel much more intimate. Even as he was denying it to himself, he was hoping this would create the right conditions for what he wanted, which was to shut out the rest of the world and be alone with her. The rest of the night lay ahead, full of possibility.
At last they were alone.
The big flat-screen TV faced them across the sofa. Nasima, remote in hand, was flicking between BBC News and CNN. He looked at her luggage, a small wheelie case collected on the way there from Victoria station.
‘Is that all you have?’
‘I don’t need much.’
He was starting to notice how deftly she rebuffed any questions she evidently construed as intrusive. Fair enough, he thought. Take your time. But where was the rest of her life?