Page 43 of Nobody's Hero

But as Hobbs would tell his daughter afterwards, the only thing they could control was how much they prepared. After that they were dealing with that most unpredictable of things: human nature. Everything they knew about Louise Durose indicated she was a quiet, studious woman. She would deliver her talk, eat a meal at a decent restaurant, then go back to her hotel. Nothing in the exhaustive checks they’d completed indicated that Louise would hook up with a colleague.

But that’s what she did.

Staging Louise’s suicide only worked if she was alone. Harper sent her father the abort code. He wouldn’t ask why; he trusted her judgement. They had a problem, though. The next name on the list was already lined up, and delays in New Jersey would have knock-on effects. Louise had to die tonight. Simple as that.

Harper trailed Louise and her new friend for a block and a half before she had an idea. She entered a pharmacy and made some purchases. If the woman behind the counter had questions, she kept them to herself. By the time Harper was back on the street, Louise was out of sight. That was OK. Harper knew where she was headed.

She also knew a shortcut.

Louise Durose was having second thoughts. She never hooked up with random guys, and she didn’t think it was a good idea to start now. She was in her forties. It wasn’t dignified. And she still had to prepare the next day’s workshop. Landfill management was becoming increasingly complex, and unless some of her ideas were taken on board, garbage was going to become a big problem. When a hole is full, it’s full.

She was figuring out how to say goodnight when a young girl staggered out of an alley. She was a skinny thing. Covered in tattoos with a weird birthmark on her face. Her eyes were wet, and her vest was ripped. For some reason she was wearing disposable nitrile gloves.

‘You OK, honey?’ Louise asked.

The girl didn’t answer. She pointed into the alley, then burst into tears.

Louise never knew if the guy she’d hooked up with acted out of genuine concern, or through a misguided attempt at increasing his chances later, when he marched into the alley. But that’s what he did. Louise followed him and the skinny girl followed her. The guy got to the end. There was no one there. He looked at Louise and shrugged.

‘Boy, did you get horny at the wrong time,’ the skinny girl said to the man.

She then brought out a brick from behind her back and smashed it into Louise’s mouth. Louise collapsed like her strings had been cut. Her teeth scattered like cheap pearls. She gurgled. The guy stared in horror, his brain failing to comprehend what had just happened. By the time he realised the danger he was in, it was too late. The skinny girl was on him. She swung the brick and caved in his skull. She hit him again. And again. She hit him until his skull was softer than warm ice cream.

She jogged over to Louise and checked her pulse. It was weak and fast. She raised the brick again and brought it down onto her temple. She did it a couple more times to be safe.

After throwing the brick behind a dumpster, somewhere she knew it would be found, she removed the nitrile gloves and put them in her pocket. She slipped on another pair, then took a roll of condoms and a packet of over-the-counter erectile dysfunction pills from a different pocket. She put them both in Louise’s purse, then left the alley without a backwards glance.

Ten minutes later, after Harper had told her father what she’d done, he said, ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been prouder.’

Part Two

A Toddler with a Machine Gun

Chapter 41

Koenig wasn’t in a good place.

It was called the Trafford Centre. It was a shopping mall in Manchester. Koenig hadn’t been in a mall for years. Malls had CCTV. They had security guards who didn’t like people who looked the way Koenig did. More importantly, they had nothing he wanted. But his contact had said to meet in the Trafford Centre.

He chose a coffee shop, one of the smaller chains. The sign outside said, ‘Piping Hot Coffee’s’. It was written in paint, the kind that was supposed to look like chalk. Koenig ignored the misplaced apostrophe and went inside. He was curious to see why piping hot coffee was a big deal. Maybe everywhere else sold warm coffee. Or tepid coffee. Maybe piping hot coffee wasn’t the norm. He ordered a large Americano, black, and a Reuben sandwich. He asked the barista about the piping hot coffee. She stared at him, then said, ‘I hate working here.’

He took a seat near the rear exit and waited for his food. The same barista brought it over. He lifted the lid and grimaced. The sandwich was made with British corned beef, a fatty sludgy mess sold in cans. Looked like cat chow. Nothing like the paper-thin slices of salt-cured brisket they had in Boston. He ate it anyway.

*

His contact was called Rob Miller, and unsurprisingly, given what he did for a living, he was on time. To the second. He slipped into the seat opposite Koenig, picked up a sachet of sugar, and shook it. He tore off the end and emptied it into the black coffee Koenig had waiting for him. He repeated this four times. He had always liked his coffee sweet.

‘You in trouble?’ he said.

‘Not this time.’

‘Heard about that banjo in Texas.’

‘Banjo’ was SAS slang for a fight, used to describe anything from a barroom brawl to a brigade-sized assault. Koenig had met Miller when he’d trained with an SAS sabre squadron. Two months learning breach techniques, two months in the Horn of Africa shadowing radicalised Brits.

‘You did, huh?’ Koenig said.

‘Wealldid,’ Miller said. ‘Some ex-regiment work for that boss of yours. Jen Draper. They say you went all in.’