'Still vague.'
'He knew the sniper's name. Grigori Hoth. From his dog tags. I figured he had the tags as souvenirs. He said, no, those tags were locked up with the after-action reports and everything else. It was like a slip of the tongue. And everything else? What did that mean?'
Lee said nothing.
I said, 'We talked about the fate of the sniper and the spotter. Sansom said he had no silenced weapons. Which was like another slip of the tongue. Delta would never set up for clandestine nighttime incursions without silenced weapons. They're particular about stuff like that. Which suggests to me that the whole VAL episode was an accidental byproduct of something else entirely. I thought the rifle was the story. But this thing is like an iceberg. Most of it is still hidden.'
Lee said nothing.
I said, 'Then we talked about the geopolitics. He saw a danger, for sure. He's worried about Russia, or the Russian Federation, or whatever it is they call themselves now. He thinks they're unstable. He said things could blow up big, if the Korengal part of the story gets out. You hear that? The Korengal part of the story? It was like a third slip of the tongue. It was effectively a direct admission that there's more. Direct from the horse's mouth.'
Lee didn't answer. Jacob Mark asked, 'What kind of more?'
'I don't know. But whatever it is, it's information-intensive. Right from the start Lila Hoth was looking for a USB memory. And the feds assume there's one out there somewhere. They said their task is to recover the real memory stick. Real, because they took a look at the one I bought and assumed it was a decoy. They said, it's empty and it's too small anyway. Hear that? Too small? Which means there are some big files in play. Lots of information.'
'But Susan didn't have anything with her.'
'True. But everybody assumes she did.'
'What kind of in format ion?'
'I have no idea. Except that Springfield talked to me here in New York. Sansom's security guy, at the Sheraton. In a quiet corridor. He was very uptight. He was warning me off. He chose a specific metaphor. He said, you can't afford to turn over the wrong rock.'
'So?'
'What happens when you turn over a rock?'
'Things crawl out.'
'Exactly. Present tense. Things crawl out. This is not about things just lying there, that died twenty-five years ago. This is about things that are squirming and wriggling right now. This is about things that are alive today.'
I saw Theresa Lee thinking it through. She glanced at the phone on the night table. Her eyes narrowed. I guessed she was rehearsing the morning call to Sansom. She said, 'He's kind of careless, isn't he? He made three slips of the tongue.'
'I said, 'He was a Delta officer the best part of seventeen years.'
'And?'
'You don't last seventeen days if you're careless.'
'So?'
'He seems very engaged to me. He's aware of everything to do with his campaign. How he looks, what he says, how he travels. Every last little implication.'
'So?'
'So I don't think he's careless.'
'He made three slips of the tongue.'
'Did he? I'm not so sure. I wonder if he was setting a trap instead. He read my record. I was a good MP, and pretty close to his generation. I think maybe he was looking for help, any old way he could get it.'
'You think he was recruiting you?'
'Maybe,' I said. 'I think maybe he was dropping a couple of breadcrumbs, and waiting to see if I would follow them.'
'Because?'
'Because he wants the lid back on, and he's not sure who can do it for him.'
'He doesn't trust the DoD guys?'
'Would you?'
'That's not my world. Would you trust them?'
'About as far as I can spit.'
'Doesn't he trust Springfield?'
'With his life. But Springfield is just one guy. And Sansom has a big problem. So maybe he figures if some other guy is in, he might as well stay in. The more the merrier.'
'So he's bound to help us.'
'Not bound,' I said. 'His jurisdiction is strictly limited. But he might be inclined. Which is why I want you to call him.'
'Why don't you call him?'
'Because I'm not going to be here at start of business tomorrow.'
'You're not?'
'I'll meet you at ten, in Madison Square Park. A couple of blocks south of here. Be careful getting there.'
'Where are you going?'
'Out.'
'Where?'
'To look for Lila Hoth.'
'You won't find her.'
'Probably not. But she's got a crew. Maybe they'll find me. I'm sure they're out looking for me. And they've got my picture.'
'You're going to use yourself as bait?'
'Whatever works.'
'I'm sure the cops are out looking for you too. And the Defense Department, and the FBI. Maybe people we've never even heard of.'
'Busy night all around.'
'Take care, OK?'
'Always.'
'When are you leaving?'
'Now.'
FIFTY
NEW YORK CITY. ONE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING. THE BEST place and the worst place in the world to be hunted. The streets were still warm. Traffic was light. Whole ten second intervals went by with no cars on Madison. There were still people around. Some of them were asleep, in doorways or on benches. Some of them were walking, either purposefully or aimlessly. I took the aimless route. I chose 30th Street and crossed to Park, and then Lex. I was never trained in the art of staying invisible. They picked smaller guys for that. The normal-sized people. They took one look at me and gave up on the whole proposition. They assumed that a guy my size would always be too easy to make. But I get by. I taught myself a few techniques. Some of them are counterintuitive. Night is better than day, because places are lonelier. When places are lonelier, I stand out less, not more. Because when people look for me, they look for a big guy. And size is easier to judge when there are handy comparisons all around. Put me in a crowd of fifty civilians, and I stand out, literally head and shoulders above the rest. On my own, people are less sure. No benchmarks. People are bad at judging height in isolation. We know that from experiments with eye-witness testimony. Stage an incident, ask for first impressions, and the same guy can be described as anywhere between five-eight and six-four. People see, but they don't look.
Except for people trained to look.
I paid a lot of attention to cars. No way to find an individual in New York City except by cruising the streets. The place is just too big for any alternative method. The NYPD's blue and white cruisers were easy to spot. Their light bars made a distinctive silhouette even far in the distance. Every time I saw one coming I paused in the nearest doorway and laid myself down. Just another homeless guy. Unconvincing in winter, because I didn't have a mound of old blankets over me. But the weather was still hot. The real homeless people were still in T-shirts.
Unmarked cop cars were harder to make. Their front-end silhouettes were the same as everything else's, which was the point. But domestic politics and law enforcement budgets restrict choice to a specific handful of makes and models. And most individual vehicles are characteristically neglected. They're dirty, they sag, they wallow.
Except for unmarked federal cars. Same makes, same models, but often new and clean and waxed and polished. Easy enough to spot, but not easy to distinguish from certain car service rides. Limousine companies use some of the same makes and models. Crown Vics, and their Mercury equivalents. And livery drivers keep their cars dean. I spent some time horizontal in doorways only to see T amp;LC plates flash past. Taxi and Limousine Commission. Which frustrated me, until I remembered Theresa Lee's comment about the NYPD's counterterrorism squad cruising around in fake cabs. After that I erred on the side of caution.
I figured Lila Hoth's crew would have rentals. Hertz, Avis, Enterprise, or whoever else was new on the scene. Again, a fairly specific handful of makes and models, mostly domestic pieces-of-shit, but new and clean and well maintained. I saw plenty of vehicles that fit the bill, and plenty that didn't. I took all reasonable precautions to stay out of law enforcement's way, and I made all reasonable efforts to let Lila Hoth's people see me. The late hour helped. It simplified things. It categorized the population. Innocent bystanders were mostly home in bed.