“I’ll cuff him about a bit,” said Ginger. “Loosen some teeth, maybe it’ll loosen some words.”
“I’m not having that, Ginger. We’re the gentlemen sort of torturers, not the mad brutes bruisin’ our fists up. All right, Swagger, play it hard down the line. But I’m laying something on you now that may keep the sleep away, even if we leave you alone in the dark for some hours. You listen now: no better offer will you ever get, ever, never, no way in the whole black parade of a life full of so many wanton killings. Call it professional courtesy, call it sniper’s honor, call it me own damned sentimental weakness, but listen and then sleep, and then we’ll see if you can keep your silence.”
Anto took a deep breath and sat back, peering intently at Bob.
“It’s this. Here’s an offer you never thought you’d hear. Your life.”
“Anto,” said Ginger. “Have you cleared this with his lordship?”
“Hush now, Ginger. His lordship is off playing cowboy. So it’s on me, if you’re worried, but I tell you his lordship is no Clara Barton. So yes, boys, we’ll let him walk. We require only his cooperation, then his word. He can walk, go back to them daughters and that handsome woman and that farm or whatever piece of paradise it is. Think of it, Sniper. Put it in your mind: home, hearth, love. You’d bade ’em good-bye, but maybe prematurely.”
The silence in the room grew uncomfortable. Bob simply looked off into nothingness, as if what Anto had said didn’t matter.
“Next you’ll be offering him swag,” said Jimmy.
“He would spit on swag, am I right, Sniper? He’s the ideal, of which us four are only poor third-gen copies. Swag would tarnish the holiness of his cause. No, not swag but something else will buy him for us. We need to pay him in honor.”
“What are you talking about, Anto? Honor’s not a coin to be handed out.”
“It is. Here’s the offer, Sniper. You agree to walk away from all this. Being a man of your word, I know you will. And for us, the issue is finished. We’ve done our mercenary mission for his lordship. But a rub’s coming and here it is: I then move not to Spain but to some other, nastier place, and I blow the caper from there. I give you his lordship on a platter by way of a confession to the federals, with copies to all the papers and nets. I put it on the bloody Internet. I offer up some specific pieces of hard evidence, so there can be no denying. Thus is brother Hitchcock cleared and reelevated to his rightful spot. Thus is his lordship felled. Thus I blaspheme the mercenary code, and I do it the coward’s way, in some land that lacks an extradition treaty with America. I live in decadence and guilt, go to drugs, kill meself in five years on an overdose of pleasure. I don’t expect his lordship goes on trial or to prison, but I am most certain that the done thing equates to the ruin of his reputation and the hounding of him over his last few years, perhaps even hastening that end. So, Sniper, there you go: right has been restored to the world, and you yourself are alive to see it happen. A better offer no man was ever given.”
Swagger said nothing.
“In his eyes, though,” said Ginger, “I seen the reflection of thought. They widened, narrowed, and looked to sky, signifying recognition and cognition. It’s in his brain. That’s a hell of a break you’re cutting the man, Anto, and he knows it. I’d never do it. Sniper, I’d put a Browning bullet through your head, I would. You’re lucky Anto’s running things here; he’s so much smarter than we are.” Then he turned back to Anto. “He ain’t ready to talk yet, but let him sleep upon it, and when he wakes up and faces either the water eating his lungs permanently or a world with more justice than he ever dreamed, maybe he’ll make the right choice.”
“Maybe he’s just tired, Ginger,” said Raymond. “After all, he’s been up longer than we have, and I know I’m tired.”
“All right, boyos,” said Anto, “get him trussed tight in flex-cuffs again, wrists and ankles; he’s got too much movement in them manacles. Take him to his cell; we’ll give him some sack time and take some for ourselves. Then we’ll get this thing finished, one way or the other.”
42
It was like being a movie star, only without the fun part. When the car pulled into the driveway, Nick was swarmed as he walked to it, amid a whirring buzz of digital Nikons, lit up by the flashbulbs and the Sony Steadicam lights, as if they expected him to wave and bow and escort a goddess to the car. Instead the bright blades of light cut at him and he winced and hunched furtively like a felon. The questions hung in the air, and though he pretended not to hear them, how could he not?
“Nick, how much gun company money did you take?”
“Nick, will you resign today?”
“Nick, was it worth it?”
“Nick, will this ruin your wife’s career as well as your own?”
“Nick, do you regret your love affair with guns? Has it ruined your life?”
“Nick, are you in the NRA?”
Nick ducked, bobbed, wove, sidestepped, and ultimately got into the limo with no dignity intact.
“Go on,” he said to the driver, “back out, kill ’em all, I don’t care.”
But the driver, a decent guy from the Federal Protective Service, just laughed and handled the issue coolly enough, and soon had Nick hurtling downtown along the parkwayed banks of the federal river amid the usual assortment of inspirational marble monuments, arching white bridges decorated with valiant steeds, and Greek-styled buildings that were designed, on such broad avenues, to glow white with the fervor of democracy. Yeah, well, whoever thought up democracy never heard of the Times, he thought.
The driver got him there a little early and in by an obscure entrance on H Street, so when he dipped into the fortress of the Hoover Building, he was spared the Evil Clark Gable treatment. With a little time to kill before the meet with the director, he headed up to the Major Case Section, curious to see if his various IDs with their computer chips still admitted him or he’d already been classified a nonperson by the hall watchers, who had their ear to the ground as stealthily and efficiently as anyone. Yet all doors opened, the elevator stopped at all floors, and in another surprisingly quick transit, he stepped into what had been the work area he commanded, and before they saw him, he saw them, Fields and Starling talking at her computer monitor, a dozen others on phone or monitor, all intently absorbed in their tasks, as if this huge cloud weren’t whirling about them. He looked, saw his own glass-enclosed office with its glory wall still intact-the photos of his career, all the stops in hick towns and taco circuit cities, the triumphs, the setbacks, the pics of himself and Sally at this vacation spot or that, the pics of himself and the four men who’d served as director in his time, a couple of grateful senators and other DC lizard species, so forth, so on. The Robot sat erect at his desk, and though Nick should have despised the Robot, he really didn’t, as a man did what a man did to keep a career running hard, and the Robot hadn’t made a fetish of clearing out all traces of disgraced former team leader Nick Memphis.
Fields finally saw him.
“Nick, hey!” said the big guy, and a dozen faces snapped toward his. It wasn’t like he’d been in a POW camp or anything and his unofficial exile had only run a week, but still there seemed to be a sense of welcome, as people rose and came forward to wish him luck.
“Good to see you back, Nicky,” said Fields warmly, his eyes brilliant but not with brainpower. “I know you’ll beat this shit. We all know who’s behind it.”
Starling smiled. He smiled back, and then others clustered about, so he uttered banalities like, “Oh, nice to see you guys. Hey, how’s it going? Great haircut. New tie, huh? How’s Mary?”
Finally he asked, “So can anyone tell me what’s going on?”