Nevertheless, this was not a normal situation, nor the kind of clients he was used to dealing with. I knew that if we didn’t lay some ground rules right from the start, in an emergency things were going to go pear-shaped at somewhere approaching the speed of sound.
I was coward enough to let Sean tell it to them straight. I didn’t think they liked me any better, but at least I felt my father was likely to hold whatever Sean said in rather higher esteem.
“You are not under house arrest and we will not restrict your movements unless our experience and our judgment of the situation tell us it’s vital that we do so,” Sean said, disregarding the cynical twitch of my father’s mouth. “But, these people, whoever they are, are serious. If you take risks with your safety, just remember that you take even bigger risks with our safety. As today should have shown you, we will always attempt to put ourselves between you and the threat. That’s what we do.” He let his eyes slide over me briefly, making a point of it. “Is that clear?”
“We understand,” my father said stiffly.
“Good,” Sean said, and although he kept his face and voice and body entirely neutral, I could tell how much he was enjoying this. “In that case, there are a couple of things you’ll need to remember in case of attack. If we shout ‘Get down!’ at any point, all we want you to do is bend double and keep your head low, but stay on your feet and be ready to move unless we actively push you to the ground. Don’t try and stick your head up to see what’s happening. Don’t try and look round to see where the other one is. You’re going to have to trust us to have you both covered, yes?”
He paused and, after a second’s hesitation, they both nodded.
“One last thing,” Sean said, and now he did allow his voice to go soft and deadly. “This is not a democracy. We will do whatever we have to in order to preserve your lives and keep you safe. What we will not do is stand there in the middle of a firefight and discuss alternatives as you see them, or justify our actions. If we tell you to do something, just do it. Afterwards, we can talk about it all you like.”
“So,” my father said, matching his tone to Sean’s almost perfectly, “what happens when, in the cold light of day, you find you can’t justify your actions?”
There was a long silence while they stared each other down. Here were two men who had both handled death, from one direction or another, and never flinched under the weight of that responsibility.
“I don’t know, Richard. It’s never come up,” Sean said deliberately. He checked his watch, a wholly dismissive gesture, and started to turn away. “But if it ever does, I’ll be sure to let you know … .”
Sean, Parker, and I formed a three-man detail to get them out of the building and into the Navigator that Joe McGregor had waiting by the curb. This time, we took no chances, but whoever had been behind the wheel of the rogue cab did not spring out at us for a second attempt.
Nothing happened on the journey to their hotel, where McGregor took station. He had nothing to report when Sean and I arrived to relieve him in the morning, and nothing untoward happened the following day, either. Unless you counted the excruciating politeness with which Sean and my father treated each other. It screeched at my nerves like a tone-deaf child with their first violin.
We spent the day shopping for a replacement suitcase for my mother, and new clothes to fill it. She picked out another hard-shell case just like the last one. Where previously I might have tried to talk her into something lighter, now I voiced no such objections. Structural suitcases, I decided, were my friend.
Parker, meanwhile, was working furiously behind the scenes and providing us with regular updates on progress—or lack of it.
He’d sent to his various contacts Sean’s rudimentary photos of the couple we’d found baby-sitting my mother back in England. Apart from the fact that everyone seemed to think Blondie’s pic had been taken post mortem, nobody initially offered any clues as to their background.
Then Parker got a possible hit on Don, last name Kaminski. It turned out he was an ex-marine with a disciplinary record, who’d been spat out by the military machine two years previously and disappeared into the private contractors’ market. In other words, he was either a bodyguard or a mercenary.
Parker had uncovered the firm Don apparently worked for. Unfortunately, due to delusions of grandeur on their part, they seemed to think they were equal to—and therefore direct rivals of—Parker’s outfit. The result was that they refused to tell him anything about what their guy might or might not have been up to.
They wouldn’t even confirm Don was outside the mainland U.S., which I felt was a bit pointless, given the circumstances. But, Parker did at least manage to pick up a useful little snippet from an unguarded comment. From that, he deduced that Don Kaminski’s employers were growing increasingly alarmed by the fact they’d lost contact with their man. I thought of May and her shotgun, and the aggressive porcine guards around his temporary prison, and decided that it was probably going to be awhile yet before he got in touch.
It took longer to get any information on the woman I knew only as Blondie, although I admit that the state of her face probably didn’t make her any easier to identify.
We were just coming out of Macy’s department store when Parker called on Sean’s mobile. Sean let the answering machine pick up and didn’t make any attempt to respond to the call until we were back in our vehicle and on the move again. I returned Parker’s call while Sean dealt with the lunchtime traffic.
“Are you all together and close by?” Parker demanded.
“Yes,” I said, being cagey over the phone. “About ten minutes, give or take traffic. Trouble?”
“Nothing desperate,” Parker said. Yes, it could be trouble. “Just get back to the office as soon as it’s convenient, would you?” And yes, it’s urgent. And he ended the call before I could satisfy my curiosity any better than that.
By dint of only a small number of minor moving-vehicle violations, Sean made it back to base inside my ten-minute estimate. We rode the elevator in silence and Bill Rendelson intercepted us before we’d taken more than three steps out into the lobby.
“The boss wants to see you two alone first,” he said quietly to me, not giving away any clues. He turned to my parents. “If you’d come with me, sir, ma’am?” I saw a flicker of impatience cross my father’s face, but he allowed the pair of them to be ushered into one of the conference rooms. Bill promised to be back soon with refreshments, then shut the door on them smartly and hurried across towards Parker’s office, jerking his head much less deferentially that we should follow.
Inside, Parker Armstrong was sitting in his usual position behind the desk. Opposite him, in one of the client chairs, sat a nondescript little man in a badly cut gray suit. He looked like a second-rate salesman or a clerical drone who has trudged the same furrow for so long he’s worn a groove deep enough to bury himself.
The man looked up quickly as Sean and I entered. He had a mournful, rumpled face, with baggy eyes that were slightly bloodshot, but they didn’t miss a trick. I knew before the door had closed behind us that he’d pinpointed the fact we were carrying, and we weren’t exactly being obvious about it.
A pro, then. But what kind?
“This is Mr. Collingwood,” Parker said as both men rose for the introductions. “He’s with—”
“Er, let’s just say I’m with one of the lesser-known agencies of the U.S. government and leave it at that, shall we?” the man said, glancing at Parker almost with mild reproof. He offered us both a perfunctory handshake, letting go almost before he’d gripped.