The Night Manager

"Suppose I asked you to trash your whole life till now in favour of a better one," he suggested. "Not better for you maybe, but better for what you and I are pleased to call the common good. A five-star unimpeachable cause, guaranteed to improve the lot of mankind or your money back in full. Bye-bye to the old Jonathan, enter the new blue improved product. Resettlement afterwards, a new identity, money, the usual. There's a lot of people I know might find that quite attractive. I'm not sure I mightn't, to be frank, except it wouldn't be fair on Mary. But who've you got to be fair to except yourself? Nobody, not so far as I know. You'll be feeding the rat three meals a day, hanging on by your fingernails in force-twelve gales, there's not a scrap of you won't be used, not an hour you won't be frightened stiff. And you'll be doing it for your country, same as your dad, whatever you thought of Ireland. Or Cyprus, for that matter. And you'll be doing it for Sophie, too. Tell him I need a receipt, will you? Benton. Lunch for two. What do I give? Another five? I won't ask you to sign for me, not like some. Let's move."

* * *

They were strolling beside the lake. The snow had disappeared. An afternoon sun shimmered on the steaming pathway. Teenaged drug addicts, huddled in costly overcoats, gazed at the disintegrating ice. Jonathan had thrust his hands into the pockets of his overcoat, and he was listening to Sophie congratulating him on his gentleness as a lover.

"My English husband was also very gentle," she was saying while she drew her fingers admiringly over his face. "I had preserved my virginity so jealously that it took him days to persuade me I was better off without it." Then a presentiment seized her, and she drew him against her for protection. "Just remember you have a future, Mr. Pine. Never again renounce it. Not for me or for anyone. Promise me."

So he had promised her. As we promise anything in love.

Burr was talking about justice. "When I get to run the world," he announced comfortably to the steaming lake, "I'm going to hold the Nuremberg Trials Part Two. I'm going to get all the arms dealers and shit scientists, and all the smooth salesmen who push the crazies one step further than they thought of going, because it's good for business, and all the lying politicians and the lawyers and accountants and bankers, and I'm going to put them in the dock to answer for their lives. And you know what they'll say? 'If we hadn't done it someone else would have.' And you know what I'll say? I'll say, 'Oh, I see. And if you hadn't raped the girl some other fellow would have raped her. And that's your justification for rape. Noted.' Then I'd napalm the lot of them. Fizz."

"What's Roper done?" Jonathan asked in a kind of angry frustration. "Apart from... Hamid, all that."

"It's what he's doing now that matters."

"If he stopped today. How bad is he? How bad's he been?"

He was remembering Roper's shoulder riding unconsciously against him. Pergola over the top, view of the sea at the end. He remembered Jed: Most beautiful place on earth.

"He plunders," said Burr.

"Where? Who?"

"Everywhere and everyone. If the deal is bent, our chum is in there cutting it, and getting Corkoran to sign for him. He's got his white operation, and that's Ironbrand: venture capital, hairy land deals, minerals, tractors, turbines, commodities, a couple of tankers, a bit of corporate raiding. Offices in the whitest part of Nassau, smart young men with short-back-and-sides, tapping at computers. That's the part that's in deep trouble, and that's the part you've read about."

"I'm afraid I haven't."