Gone Tomorrow

I stepped over to the TV cabinet and took a bottle of water. Unscrewed the cap and took a long drink. The room was on Springfield’s card, which meant that Sansom was paying. And Sansom could afford eight bucks. Then I smiled, briefly.

‘Hence the photograph in your hook,’ I said. ‘And on your office wall. Donald Rumsfeld with Saddam Hussein, in Baghdad.’

‘Yes,’ Sansom said.

‘Just in case. To show that someone else had done the very same thing. Like a trump card, just lying there in the weeds. No one knew it was a trump. No one even knew it was a card.’

‘It’s not a trump,’ Sansom said. ‘It’s not even close. It’s like a lousy four of clubs. Because bin Laden is way worse than Saddam ever was. And Rumsfeld wasn’t looking to get elected to anything afterwards. He was appointed to everything he did after that, by his friends. He had to be. No sane person would have voted for him.’

‘You got friends?’

‘Not many.’

‘No one ever said much about Rumsfeld’s photograph.’

‘Because he wasn’t running for office. If he had ever gotten into an election campaign, that would have been the most famous photograph in the world.’

‘You’re a better man than Rumsfeld.’

‘You don’t know me.’

‘Educated guess.’

‘OK, maybe. But bin Laden is worse than Saddam. And the image is poison. It doesn’t even need a caption. There I am, grinning up at the world’s most evil man like a puppy dog. People fake pictures like that for attack ads. And this one is real.’

‘You’ll get it back.’

‘When?’

‘How are we doing with the felony charges?’

‘Slow.’

‘But sure?’

‘Not very. There’s good news and bad news.’

‘Give me the bad news first.’

‘It’s very unlikely that the FBI will want to play ball. And it’s certain the Department of Defense won’t.’

‘Those three guys?’

‘They’re off the case. Apparently they’re injured. One has a broken nose and one has a cut head. But they’ve been replaced. The DoD is still hot to trot.’

‘They should be grateful. They need all the help they can get.’

‘Doesn’t work like that. There are turf wars to be won.’

‘So what’s the good news?’

‘We think the NYPD is prepared to be relaxed about the subway.’

‘Terrific,’ I said. ‘That’s like cancelling a parking ticket for Charles Manson.’

Sansom didn’t reply.

I asked him, ‘What about Theresa Lee and Jacob Mark? And Docherty?’

‘They’re back at work. With federal paper on file commending them for helping Homeland Security with a sensitive investigation.’

‘So they’re OK and I’m not?’

‘They didn’t hit anybody. They didn’t bruise any egos.’

‘What are you going to do with the memory stick when you get it back?’

‘I’m going to check it’s right, then I’m going to smash it up, and burn the pieces, and grind the ash to dust, and flush it down about eight separate toilets.’

‘Suppose I asked you not to do that?’

‘Why would you?’

‘I’ll tell you later.’

Depending on your point of view it was either late in the afternoon or early in the evening. But I had just woken up, so I figured it was time for breakfast. I called down to room service and ordered a big tray. About fifty bucks’ worth, at Sheraton New York prices, with taxes and tips and charges and fees. Sansom didn’t bat an eye. He was sitting forward in his chair, seething with frustration and impatience. Springfield was much more relaxed. He had shared that mountain journey a quarter of a century earlier, and he had shared the ignominy. Sometimes our friends become our enemies, and sometimes our enemies become our friends. But Springfield had nothing riding on it. No aims, no plans, no ambitions. And it showed. He was still exactly what he had been back then, just a guy doing his job.

I asked, ‘Could you have killed him?’

‘He had bodyguards,’ Sansom said. ‘Like an inner circle. Loyalties over there are fanatical. Think of the Marines, or the Teamsters, and multiply by a thousand. We were disarmed a hundred yards from the camp. We were never alone with him. There were always people milling about. Plus kids and animals. They lived like the Stone Age.’

‘He was a long lanky streak of piss,’ Springfield said. ‘I could have reached up and snapped his scrawny neck any old time I wanted to.’

‘Did you want to?’

‘You bet I did. Because I knew. Right from the start. Maybe I should have done it right when the flashbulb went off. Like a breadstick in an Italian restaurant. That would have made a better picture.’

I said, ‘Suicide mission.’

‘But it would have saved a lot of lives later.’

I nodded. ‘Just like if Rumsfeld had stuck a shiv in Saddam.’