So she reached up behind her and pulled out whatever elastic band she had in there, and she shook her head, and her hair fell loose. She slipped the jacket off one shoulder, and then the other, and she pulled it down over her arms, and she laid it on the bed, and she turned back to face me.
Did she look like Dominique Kohl? Yes and no. Not really, in that she shaded towards the Scandinavian end of the gene pool, and Kohl was closer to the Mediterranean. Kohl had darker skin, and darker hair, and darker eyes. The weeks I had known her had been exceptionally hot, even for D.C. in the summer, and she had gotten browner and dustier as the days went by. She had worn shorts most of the time, and a T-shirt. And it was the T-shirt that connected her to Nice. Kohl’s had been olive green, and Nice’s was white, but under those flimsy garments were young, fit women in the peak of condition, lean, smooth, somehow flexible and fluent and elastic, somehow identical. Outwardly, at least. Inwardly was different. Where Nice was diffident, Kohl had been bolder, completely sure of her capabilities, notably self-confident, absolutely ready to beat the world.
It hadn’t saved her.
I said, ‘Take care.’
Nice said, ‘I’ll be back in ten.’
She left, and I heard her footsteps fade in the hallway. I ducked away from the window for a second and put my hand in her jacket pocket. I pulled out the orange plastic bottle.
She had three pills left.
TWENTY-NINE
I SAT ALONE and watched the little supermarket’s parking lot, and I saw the same things repeated over and over again. Drivers would park their cars, and get out, and glance at the black van, suddenly startled and unsure, and then they would avert their eyes and hustle inside the store. They would come out again minutes later and drive away as fast as they could.
Ten minutes passed, and Casey Nice didn’t come back.
The sky behind the light on the pole went full dark, and a little night mist came down, and a scrim of dew formed on the black van, which rocked and bounced from time to time. The live guy inside must have been getting desperate. Maybe he needed the bathroom.
Fifteen minutes gone, and Casey Nice didn’t come back.
Then finally a driver parked his car, and got out, and glanced at the black van, and didn’t walk away. He was a young guy, maybe twenty, with a pudding-bowl haircut all slicked down with grease. He took a cautious step towards the van and cocked his head and listened. He took another step and peered in through the driver’s window, from the side, and then he craned his neck and peered in through the windshield, from the front.
He took his cell phone out of his pocket. Contract labour, maybe, anxious to prove his worth. He listened again, presumably to the live guy inside, dictating a number, and he dialled.
Behind me a key turned in the lock and Casey Nice walked in the room. She had two stacked pizza boxes balanced on spread fingers, and a thin plastic bag in her other hand, with wet soda cans in it.
‘OK?’ I said.
She said, ‘So far so good.’
I nodded towards the window. ‘Some kid just made a call.’
She put our dinner on the dressing table and took a look. The young guy was talking on his phone. He bent down and read out the van’s licence plate. Then he held the phone away from his mouth, and shouted a question through the seal between the driver’s door and the pillar, and then he put his ear close to the same crack and listened to the answer. The live guy’s name, presumably, which the young guy repeated into his phone.
Casey Nice asked, ‘Why doesn’t he break the window or force the door?’
I said, ‘You think he knows how?’
‘I’m sure he does. Looking at him, I mean. Not that I should rely on stereotypes.’
‘I’m guessing the guy on the phone is telling him not to. This is a hard world. These are not conquering heroes. They screwed up. They’re not worth damaging a vehicle for. Someone will bring a spare key.’
‘How soon?’
‘Five minutes,’ I said. ‘Maybe ten. Quick enough, anyway. They don’t care about their guys, but they’ll want to hear the story.’
I got up off my chair and opened a pizza box. Plain cheese, white dough, a little bubbled and blackened here and there by the oven, and smaller than the giant hubcaps sold in America. I said, ‘Thank you for my dinner,’ like my mother had taught me to.
She said, ‘You’re very welcome,’ and she took hers, and we both ate a slice. The soda was Coke, and it was ice cold. In the lot below us the young guy was off the phone, stumping around, waiting. For congratulations, without a doubt. Definitely contract labour, racking up the bonus points.
Casey Nice’s phone dinged, like a tiny bell.
‘Incoming text,’ she said. She checked. ‘From General O’Day. He wants to know why we’re static.’
I said, ‘Tell him we’re resting.’
‘He knows we’re not at our hotel. Because of the GPS.’
‘Tell him we’re at the movies. Or the theatre. Or in a museum. Tell him we’re furthering our cultural education. Or getting our nails done. Tell him we’re at the spa.’
‘He knows we’re not. He’ll have checked Google Maps, surely. Street View, probably. He knows where we are.’
‘Then why ask?’
‘He wants to know why we’re not mobile.’
‘Tell him to relax. Micromanaging from three thousand miles away is pointless.’
‘I can’t. He’s updating us, and I’m supposed to update him. That’s the only way this thing is going to work.’
I looked down at the scene below. No change. The van, inert. The kid, waiting. I said, ‘OK, tell him we’re acting on Shoemaker’s suggestion. Tell him we’re attempting contact with the outer cordon.’
‘I’ll have to tell him how, I’m afraid. As in, not with a phoney business proposal.’
‘Go ahead. He won’t mind.’
‘He might. They were worried about you.’
‘Scarangello was. Shoemaker might have been. But O’Day won’t get all bent out of shape.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Try it,’ I said. ‘Tell him exactly what happened.’
So she swiped and dabbed at her screen with dancing thumbs and I glanced back at what was happening out the window. Which wasn’t much. The light, the mist, the van, the kid. I looked away again and saw her finish up and put her phone on the bed and take a second slice of pizza. I chewed cheese and sipped Coke and waited. Below us the young guy was watching the road, and ducking back to the van every few minutes, laying his hand on it and calling through the door seal, with reassurances, probably. Yes, I called, they said they were coming, they’ll be here in a minute.
Nice’s phone dinged again. O’Day’s reply. She checked it twice and told me, ‘He sends his sincere congratulations and says keep it up.’
I nodded. ‘Human life means nothing to him. All he cares about is the result.’
Nice didn’t reply.
I said, ‘Ask him for the intel he got from MI5, about these Romford people. Pictures, histories, rap sheets, everything he’s got. We should know exactly who we’re dealing with here.’
She started texting again. Below us the young guy was talking through the door seal again. His body language was placatory. He was squirming and patting the air and glancing hopefully towards the road. They’re coming, I promise.