Page 20 of Nobody's Hero
Draper shook her head. ‘No, you don’t. Koenig’s the best you have. And he’s met her, which means when he finds her, she might not kill him.’
Smerconish went silent. Neither Koenig nor Draper broke it. After a minute he nodded, once, like he’d come to a decision. ‘There’ll be diplomatic passports waiting for you at the airport,’ he said. ‘Go to London. Report to the embassy. A woman called Bernice Kopitz will be expecting the pair of you.’
Koenig wondered if it had been Smerconish’s plan all along. He guessed he’d never know.
‘I can’t go,’ Draper said. ‘I have far too much on right now.’
‘And he’s not going without you,’ Smerconish replied. ‘The UK is an important ally and I need you there to make sure we don’t have another Gauntlet, Texas, on our hands.’
‘I’ll need to go home first then,’ Draper said. ‘I wasn’t expecting to be away for more than a few hours.’
‘Your bag is already at the airport, Miss Draper. We had someone contact your assistant. She’s packed some hand luggage for you. If you need anything else, ask Bernice. She’ll get it for you.’
Which kind of answered Koenig’s question about whether this had been Smerconish’s plan all along. The DIA spook might not know what was going on, but he knew enough to know he needed boots on the ground in London. And if those boots were worn by a woman with her own intelligence agency and a man the New York mob used to call the Devil’s Bloodhound, then all the better. Koenig was tempted to punch Smerconish in the bladder. He hated being manipulated.
Instead, he said, ‘How big is this diplomatic pouch I keep hearing about?’
Chapter 17
Michael Gibbs let out a gentle burp. He smiled as theshot de sang béarnais, the spiced pig’s blood, repeated on him. The American palate didn’t usually stretch to things likesang béarnais, but despite La Terrasse being in Maine, it was an unashamedly French restaurant. It had been an excellent meal. A succession of small plates, one after the other as if from a conveyor belt. Room-temperature asparagus drizzled with a mustard-anddill sauce.Coquilles Saint-Jacques, a single scallop poached in white wine and topped with mushroom puree and grilled Gruyère. Soft-cooked egg with shaved truffle. Crispy pork belly with Corsican honey.Blanquette de veau, a rich, creamy stew of veal and carrots. A delightful tarte Tatin served with brown-butter ice cream. Chocolate truffles to finish.
The kind of meal that stayed in the memory.
He’d even flirted with the girl mixing his Martinis, the one with the birthmark on her face and the tattoos on her arms. She’d smiled when she’d taken his coat, and she’d smiled each time she’d mixed his drink. He’d never cheated on his wife, and he never would, but when a pretty girl is flirting with you, it’s polite to flirt back. She even offered to bring his car around to the front of the restaurant. Gibbs thought that was the kind of touch people came back for.
*
Harper Nash’s job that night was easy. Boring, really. All she had to do was ensure Gibbs’s car wouldn’t cause problems later. She’d already been out to the parking lot for a cigarette break – she didn’t smoke, but it was a useful reason to go outside – and checked through the windows. There was a smiley-face air freshener that would need to be gotten rid of. Otherwise, the interior was good to go. When Gibbs agreed she could bring his car around, she got inside and made sure she hadn’t missed anything. She hadn’t. The smiley-face air freshener was hooked around the rearview mirror with white elastic string. She removed it and put it in her pocket. She then started the engine, put the car in drive, and took it to the front. Gibbs was waiting for her.
She smiled at him.
He smiled back.
Men.
Park Loop Road is the primary route through the Acadia National Park. It’s twenty-seven miles long and has the coast on one side, mountains and forests on the other. Gibbs left La Terrasse and, after a couple of smaller roads, hit Park Loop Road. He always took this route. It wasn’t the quickest way home, but it was the most scenic, and after a meal at La Terrasse, he was in no hurry. His wife would be asleep anyway.
Gibbs usually drove a BMW X5, but he was in his wife’s old station wagon tonight. He enjoyed driving the Park Loop Road in the station wagon. It didn’t have power steering, it didn’t have airbags, and the windows had to be cranked up and down with a handle. It added spice to what could occasionally be a challenging drive. Parts of Park Loop ran alongside a sheer drop down to the ocean. Sometimes there were deer on the road. He’d stopped for a black bear once, although he knew his wife thought he was bullshitting. The Park Loop Road was like a fine French meal, there to be savoured, not rushed. He brought the station wagon up to forty-five miles per hour, then eased back on the gas.
Forty-five was a good speed.
Something bad would have to happen to send him crashing through the barrier.
The ‘something bad’ was a tripod-mounted Chinese ZM-87 portable laser disturber. It looked like the crew-served blasters the stormtroopers used inThe Empire Strikes Back, but instead of firing energised particles, its neodymium laser discharged five pulses a second and was capable of temporarily blinding someone six miles away. It would cause permanent eye damage at the distance Stillwell Hobbs planned to fire it. Blinding weapons were banned by the Geneva Conventions in 1998, but by then, several ZM-87s had already entered the market. Hobbs had bought one from a Hungarian arms dealer in 2014, but he’d not yet used it. He was looking forward to seeing what damage it could do.
Park Loop Road was quiet at this time of year, particularly this late at night. Hobbs hadn’t seen a car for five minutes. The next one would be the station wagon. Harper had called when Gibbs left the fancy restaurant he ate at once a month, and Hobbs had timed the route enough times to know exactly when to expect him. He checked his watch. Unless something had happened between La Terrasse and the bend in the road, Gibbs should arrive in the next couple of minutes.
Hobbs heard the station wagon before he saw it. He hunkered down behind the ZM-87 and stared through the sight. He smiled in satisfaction. Gibbs was right on schedule. The next part was all about timing. Too early, and Gibbs would panic and hit the brakes while on a straight stretch of the road, stopping before he went through the barrier. Too late, and he would already be committed to the bend. Those old cars were stubborn when it came to steering. When you let go of the steering wheel on a modern car, the power steering straightened the wheels. It wasn’t a safety design; it was just the path of least resistance. Physics. But the old station wagon didn’t have power steering. When Gibbs took his hands off the wheel, which he would when he suddenly went blind, the station wagon would take longer to straighten out. It would drive around the bend itself. The optimum time to pull the trigger would be a fraction of a secondbeforehe committed to the bend. That way, when he braked, he would go straight into the crash barrier. The barrier was made of a lightweight steel and wouldn’t be enough to stop a station wagon travelling at forty-five miles per hour. But to be sure, Hobbs had loosened the bolts of the section he knew Gibbs would crash into. He didn’t remove them. That would look suspicious. He just loosened them enough so they had some give. Maybe half an inch. When the station wagon crashed into the barrier, there’d be enough momentum to ensure the bolts would shear off, the barrier would come away, and the station wagon would tumble down the cliff.
When Gibbs was one hundred yards away, Hobbs smiled again. He couldn’t help it. He loved his job.
One minute Michael Gibbs was tapping the steering wheel to the beat of ‘Fortunate Son’, by Creedence Clearwater Revival; the next he was completely blind. His vision didn’t blur. The road didn’t go hazy, then fade away. He could see and then he couldn’t see. His first thought was that the station wagon’s lights had finally gone.
And then he felt the burning. It felt like his eyes had been filled with fire.
He screamed and tried to slam on the brakes. In his panic he hit the gas, and instead of slowing down, he went through the sabotaged barrier going faster, not slower.
It saved his life.