Book of Souls

Kenyon pursed his lips and handed him a plastic carrier bag, bulging with objects. “At least take these and think about it. Call us if you change your mind.” He plucked a cell phone off his belt clip and waved it at Will. “They’re preprogrammed with our number. Plenty of minutes. We’re going to have to fly back to Las Vegas. I’ll get someone to deliver the bus.”

Will looked inside the bag. There were a half dozen AT &T prepaid mobile phones. He knew the drill well enough. The watchers were bugging and tapping everything in sight. Anonymous prepaids were the only communication systems they couldn’t breach. The sight of the phones and all they implied nauseated him, but he took the bag with him when he climbed down and left the bus.

He didn’t look back, and he didn’t wave.

One of the uniformed security guards at the lobby desk recognized Will and called out, “Hey, look what the cat dragged in! How you doin’, man? How’s retirement?”

“Life goes on,” Will answered. “Any chance I can go up and surprise my wife?”

“Sorry, man. Got to be signed in and escorted. Same ole same ole.”

“I understand. Can you call her for me and tell her I’m down here?”

She flew off the elevator and flung her arms around his neck and when he straightened his back, her feet lifted off the floor. The lobby was crowded, but neither of them cared.

“I missed you,” she said.

“Ditto. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. You’re home. It’s over.”

He let go of her. She knew there was something very wrong when she looked up into his mournful face. “I’m sorry to tell you this, Nancy, but it’s not over.”

DeCORSO SAT ON the hard bench of his detention cell in the basement of the Met’s Heathrow Airport Police Station. They had his belt and shoelaces and had stripped him of his watch and papers. If he was nervous, he didn’t show it. He looked more like an inconvenienced passenger than a murder suspect.

When three policemen came to collect him, he assumed they’d be escorting him all the way to the terminal, where he’d be bundled onto a flight stateside, but instead, he was deposited only yards away in a bare, harshly lit interview room.

Two middle-aged men in dark suits came in, sat down, and announced that their conversation would not be recorded.

“You going to tell me who you are?” DeCorso asked.

The man directly across the table from him looked over the top of his glasses. “It’s not for you to ask.”

“Did someone forget to tell you guys I invoked diplomatic immunity?”

The other man sneered. “We don’t give a flying fuck about diplomatic immunity, Mr. DeCorso. You don’t exist, and neither do we.”

“If I don’t exist, why are you interested in me?”

“Your lot killed one of our lads in New York,” the fellow with glasses said. “Know anything about that?”

“My lot?”

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” the other man said. “We’re going to tell you what we know, so we can cut through all the bullshit, okay? You’re Groom Lake. Malcolm Frazier’s your boss. He was on our patch quite recently trying to buy an interesting old book. He was outbid by a telephone bidder in New York. Our man delivers it, and before he can report in, he’s snuffed. Then you show up this morning reeking of accelerants fresh from a barbecue involving the book’s original owner.”

DeCorso kept his best poker face and said nothing.

The second man picked up the thread. “So here’s the thing, Mr. DeCorso. You’re a guppy, nothing more. You know it, and we know it. But we’re going to turn you into a very large whale as far as your government is concerned if you don’t play along with us. We want to know things. We want to know about the current operational capabilities of Area 51. We want to know why you’re so keen on the missing book. We want to know the intel behind the Caracas Event. We want to know what’s coming down the lane. In short, we want a window into your world, Mr. DeCorso.”

DeCorso hardly reacted. All they got was, “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

The man with the glasses took them off for a handkerchief polish. “We’re prepared to fight your immunity claim. We’re prepared to publicly leak your role in the arson attack, which will embarrass your government and inconvenience your career, I should think. On the other hand, if you come over the wall and work with us, you will find yourself greatly enriched, the proud owner of a Swiss bank account. We want to buy

you, Mr. DeCorso.”

DeCorso shook his head in disbelief and fell out of stony-faced character to exclaim, “You want me to work for MI6?”

“It’s called the SIS now. This isn’t a Bond movie.”

DeCorso huffed out a laugh. “I’m going to say this one more time: I’m claiming diplomatic immunity.”

There was a sharp metallic knock, and the door opened. One of the senior Met officers barged in and declared to the man with glasses, “Sorry to interrupt, sir, but there are gentlemen to see you.”

“Tell them to wait.”

“It’s the US ambassador and the Foreign Secretary.”

“You mean their people?”

“No, it’s them. In person!”