Personal

‘You should have joined the army, not the CIA.’

‘Why?’

‘Because this whole stress thing you’ve got going on is because you think national security is on your shoulders alone. Which is an unreasonable burden. But you think it because you don’t trust your colleagues. Not all of them. You don’t believe in them. Which leaves you isolated. It’s all down to you. But the army is different. Whatever else is wrong with it, you can trust your brother soldiers. And believe in them. That’s all there is. You’d have been much happier.’

She was quiet for a beat, and then she said, ‘I went to Yale.’

‘You could switch right now. I’ll take you to the recruiting office.’

‘Right now we’re in London. Waiting for a text from Mr Bennett.’

‘When we get back. You should think about it.’

She said, ‘Maybe I will.’

The text from Bennett came through two hours later. I was alone in my own room, which was the same as Nice’s, but on a higher floor, and facing in the opposite direction. My view was of Mayfair’s prosperous rooftops, all grey slate and red tile and ornate chimneys. The American Embassy was close by, somewhere just north of me, but I couldn’t see it. I was on the bed, and my phone was charging on the night stand, and it buzzed once and the screen lit up: Lobby 10 minutes. I called Nice on the house phone, and she said she had gotten the same message, so I lay back down for five more minutes, and then I put my reloaded Glock in my coat pocket, and I headed out to the elevator.

Nice was already in the lobby, and Bennett was already in a car at the door. The car was a local General Motors product, called a Vauxhall, new and washed, midnight blue, so completely anonymous it could only be a law enforcement car. I guessed the Skoda had already been wiped and dumped, or set on fire. It was early in the evening, and the sun was very low over the park.

I got in the back seat, and Nice sat up front next to Bennett, who hit the gas and launched out into the traffic. I asked him, ‘Where are we going?’

He didn’t answer for a long moment, because he had to get off Park Lane heading south and back on Park Lane heading north, which because of construction involved a high-speed 360 all the way around Hyde Park Corner, which was a hub just as crazy as the Place de la Bastille. Then he said, ‘Chigwell.’

‘Which is what?’

‘The next place north and west of Romford. Where you go when you get a little money. Some of it is very suburban. Big houses, and plenty of space between them. Walls, and gates, and things like that. Some trees, and open spaces.’

‘And Little Joey lives there?’

‘In a house of his own design.’

We saw plenty of houses and plenty of designs before we saw Joey’s. The trip was slow. Traffic was bad, because we were heading basically out of town, along with about a million other people trying to get home. Every light and every corner had a traffic jam. But Bennett didn’t seem worried about time. I guessed he was happy to wait for the sun to go down.

We made it through some historic districts, and then out into the further reaches, heading always a little east of north. We drove a short stretch on a motorway, one ramp to the next, and then we were in Chigwell, and we soon saw streets that would have melted the iciest heart, with the setting sun golden behind them, with substantial houses all in glowing red brick, some with iron fences, or walls and gates, like miniature Wallace Courts, most with trees and shrubberies, all with expensive late-model automobiles on their driveways, their chrome ornaments flashing bright wherever the sun escaped the shadows.

I said, ‘Are we driving right up to his door?’

Bennett said, ‘No, it’s a lot more complicated than that.’