The Wreckage: A Thriller (19 page)

She’s not going to cal him. She probably blames him for what happened.

Ruiz thinks of his own children and how he abandoned them after Laura died. Fled the memories. Replaced one horror with another. He lost himself in Bosnia, Sarajevo under siege, where snipers gunned down people as they queued for bread and col ected water. He can remember flowers in the flower boxes, climbing roses that clung to the whitewashed wal s like living tapestries.

He was gone for so long that he lost touch with Claire and Michael. One night, as he lay in bed, listening to distant gunfire, he tried to picture the twins but could only see holes in his mind, blank spaces. He had forgotten what they looked like. That’s when he realized that he had to get out of that terrible place where blood ran in the gutters and bul ets tore through children. If he didn’t escape he’d be swal owed by the blank spaces, the black holes.

That was nearly twenty years ago. Water under the bridge. Blood. Washed away.

Sitting on a bench, Ruiz makes a phone cal . He leaves a voicemail message for Vorland asking him to trace the number plate on the dark blue Audi and the mobile phone number left beneath his windscreen. He hangs up and notices a rowing eight skim past him with oars dripping, facing backwards but going forwards. His life feels like that—as though he’s looking into the past, seeking answers to old questions, but getting further and further from them.

Back at the house, the locks have been changed and the broken glass replaced with plywood sheets. The uniformed police have been and gone, taking statements but showing little interest. Campbel Smith arrives unexpectedly to survey the damage, walking through the house like a bailiff deciding what furniture is worth seizing.

Ruiz tel s him about the envelope of cash and his conversation with the mysterious American who said that Hol y Knight had the key.

“Could be a key of heroin,” says Campbel .

“I don’t think he was talking about drugs. He offered me twenty-five grand if I gave her up.”

“What did you tel him?”

“I told him I’d think about it.”

Campbel smirks. “Maybe that’s why you wouldn’t press charges and invited her home.”

Ruiz doesn’t react. He knows Campbel is trying to wind him up.

The commander fil s the silence. “Money, narcotics and violence—ticks al the boxes for me. Hol y Knight was a junkie’s girlfriend.”

“She’s a victim.”

“She’s a
liar
.”

“She needs protection.”

“We
tried
to protect her, remember? But you got her released. Now if she wants our help, she can come and ask for it. She can start by tel ing us the truth about Zac Osborne. You tel her that.”

Campbel tears a kitchen towel from a rol and wipes his hands, folding the paper into a neat square before placing it on the sink. He leaves without shaking Ruiz’s hand, pausing at the makeshift front door to examine the damage.

One parting comment: “Enjoy your retirement.”

Ruiz sits at the kitchen table, staring at the twisted grain in the wood. His stepfather made the table after the 1987 storms brought down dozens of oak trees on the farm. Sturdy, heavy, solid, it reminds him of the man.

He kneels in front of the sink and opens a cupboard, pushing aside bottles of floor cleaner, brass polish and old rags. There is a loose brick at the very back, with worn edges.

Wedging his fingers at the corners he pul s out a stained rag with something heavy wrapped inside. A Glock 17, oiled, gleaming. Unused since he last took it to the range three, no four, years ago.

Setting it on the table he goes to the freezer and has to move ice trays and a leg of lamb to reach the frozen peas. Opening the packet, he takes out a zip-loc plastic bag with two boxes of ammunition.

He weighs the Glock in his hand, enjoying the way it fits into his palm. It’s his old service pistol. He thought about getting rid of it when he retired, but there were too many skeletons rattling in his cupboards to feel completely safe. He doesn’t like guns, but they serve a purpose. They speed things up and spel things out and they win arguments without words.

Careful y loading the ammunition clip, he snaps it into place and slides the pistol into a leather holster that fits over his shoulder. He tries it on. Adjusting the straps.

Picking up his car keys, he puts in another cal to Vorland. He’s gone for the day. Ruiz knows where to find him.

South of the river, opposite Battersea Park, a fitness center ful of mirrors and narcissists; men with no necks and bulging forearms, women with hard bodies and little left that is feminine.

Vorland steps off a running machine. Ever since his heart attack he’s been exercising as though death were only one step behind him, walking in his shadow. He slides along a weight bench, legs apart, arms braced beneath a bar carrying close to his body weight. Blowing out his cheeks, he starts his next set, sucking in air, grunting. Eight… nine… ten.

Slowing down. The veins on the back of his neck are poking out, blue and hard.

“You want me to spot you?” asks Ruiz.

“I’m good.”

“Suit yourself.”

Vorland does another four reps and drops the weight bar into the cradle.

“You didn’t return my cal .”

“So you came looking.”

“I couldn’t wait.”

Vorland wipes sweat from his eyes. “How did you find me?”

“You’re a creature of habit.”

“Maybe I didn’t
want
to get back to you.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“That number you wanted me to run—the dark blue Audi—drew a blank.”

“It’s unregistered?”

“No.”

“I don’t understand.”

“There’s a lock on the information. I don’t have the security clearance.”

“There’s hardly anyone above you.”

“There’s
always
someone with a higher clearance.”

Vorland drapes the towel around his neck. “So I rang a mate of mine who works for Special Branch. I asked him if they were running an op in Hammersmith this morning.”

“What did he say?”

“He told me he couldn’t talk. Then he told me not to cal him again. About an hour later I had a visit from a grey suit. Said he was from the police complaints commission. He wanted to know why I was accessing the DVLA computer. I said I was fol owing up a tip-off. He wanted to know the details.”

“What did you tel him?”

“The truth. I told him your house got broken into and you wanted to know if it was a special ops—MI5 or MI6.”

“Did he react?”

“No.”

“So what do you think?”

“I think you should tread softly on this one.”

“I’m very light on my feet.”

“I’m being serious, Vincent. Don’t cross these people. I’ve seen how they operate. In South Africa, during the independence struggle, they simply made people disappear—and I’m not talking about the blacks. They were targeting the white journalists, sympathetic judges, social workers, doctors… You don’t just lose a career if you cross these guys.”

“That was South Africa.”

“You remember Nick Maher?”

“Yeah.”

“He worked undercover for SOCA investigating people-smuggling. He arrested one of the ringleaders, had him bang to rights, but MI5 came in and said the guy was one of their informants, so this guy walked. Maher decided to leak the story. Big spread in the
Sunday Times,
an Insight Team investigation.”

“What happened?”

“A month later someone found a kilo of heroin in Maher’s garden shed and sixty grand in his wife’s bank account. Nick denied any knowledge. Two weeks later he jumped in front of a train at Clapham Junction.”

Ruiz and Vorland look at each other, something knowing and sad in both their eyes.

“Don’t contact me again,” says Vorland. “Not for a long while…”

4

LONDON

From an office overlooking Tower Bridge, above the grey, grey river, the only signs of vegetation are smudges of green between the buildings. Brendan Sobel looks at his wristwatch and then at the row of whisky glasses gleaming on the shelf above the drinks cabinet.

It’s too late for lunch, too early for sundowners. In Washington it is mid-morning. They’l have finished their egg white omelets and skinny lattes, ready to make decisions about current wars and future conflicts, discussing “ops,” “intel” and “assets.”

They must be drinking somewhere in the world, thinks Sobel. What time is it in Australia? Aussies like a drink. He pours two fingers of bourbon and drops in a handful of melting ice.

Why can’t the Brits make a decent ice-cube? How difficult is it to freeze water? Their pipes freeze al the time.

His secretary appears in the doorway, head to the side, noticing the glass in his hand. Sobel feels a pulse of embarrassment. Anita is twenty-four, fresh out of training, too young for him, but keen to learn the ropes.

“Mr. Chalcott is on line two.”

“Thank you, Anita.”

Sobel watches her calves as she leaves, wondering if she’s wearing tights. Women don’t wear stockings any more—not unless they’re hookers or getting married.

“Artie.”

“How’s Blighty?”

“Smal and soggy.”

Arthur Chalcott chuckles with al the sincerity of a salesman. “Andy tel s me we’re close.”

“There have been a few smal complications.”

“Complications?”

“We tried to pick up the girl, but we missed her.”

“That sounds like a fuck-up, not a complication.”

“We’re searching for her.”

“You’ve lost contact.”

“For the moment.”

Chalcott grinds his teeth. “Who did you send to get her?”

“A freelance team.”

“Limeys.”

“They’ve done the job before.”

Sobel takes a sip of bourbon and pictures Chalcott in the bunker, sitting on his inflatable bal . The two of them were interns together. Old buddies. One was promoted faster than the other. Understood the politics.

Chalcott was a desk jockey who talked like a veteran despite serving only six months in the field—South America; a summer in La Paz, sipping sangrias and sleeping with cheap whores. Agents like him prefer to refashion their own history, making it sound like they served in Iraq or Afghanistan.

“OK, so let’s be clear on this—you’ve lost Richard North and now you’ve lost the girl. Does she know anything?”

“Ibrahim believes so.”

“How are you playing it?”

“I need clearance to pay twenty-five thousand.”

“Dol ars or pounds?”

“Pounds.”

“Recoverable?”

“That’s the plan.”

Chalcott is silent for a time. Sobel thinks the line has gone dead.

“You there, Artie?”

“I’m here.”

“We might have to involve MI6 on this one. You want me to liaise?”

“Say nothing about the main game.”

“What do I tel them?”

“Tel them the girl has compromised one of our people—a married man. Stolen something of value. We’re trying to be discreet.” Sobel thinks about the three men who stormed the house in Hammersmith. It was hardly discreet.

The cal ends and he pours himself another drink, thinking about Kansas. Home has never seemed further away or felt less like home. He has been away too long, moving from one conflict to the next. The true America has become harder to identify.

He remembers a rendition prison in Afghanistan. A Taliban leader he interrogated for three days—sensory deprivation, waterboarding, stress positions—until he broke. Cried.

Scratched at his face in shame.

“I weep for my land,” he said, “but mostly I weep for yours.”

5

LONDON

Rowan has stopped crying. His injured finger, wrapped in a sticking plaster, is held aloft so that everyone at the bus stop can see how brave he is. Then he imagines that his bandage is a new top secret Spiderman weapon. He aims it at an elderly gentleman who is crossing the road.

“Pchoong!”

Then he mows down a group of pre-school children who are walking in single file along the pavement.

“Perhaps you shouldn’t shoot any more people,” says Elizabeth. “It’s not very polite.”

“What should I do?”

“Say hel o.”

Rowan looks at his bandaged finger and back to his mother. Then he turns to different people at the bus stop and says hel o. They smile at him, wondering about the odd little boy dressed as Spiderman.

Elizabeth has a dozen messages on her mobile, none of them from her husband. Family and friends have ral ied around her since North disappeared, which is why the fridge is ful of casseroles and cakes. Why do people assume she wants to eat?

The bus pul s up. Elizabeth makes no attempt to get on. Rowan tugs at her hand. “Come on, Mummy.”

“We’re going somewhere else.”

“Where?”

“On an adventure.”

“I like ’ventures.”

Elizabeth hails a black cab and checks her purse to make sure she has enough money. It drops her in Old Brompton Road. Rowan wants to look at the holiday posters in the Thomas Cook window. Beautiful young people cavorting in impossibly blue water.

Phoenix Investigations is on the third floor. They take the old-fashioned lift, which rattles and bangs as it rises through the floors. Along the corridor, there is light behind the frosted glass door. The receptionist has red-rimmed eyes and a rash under her nose. The tissues in the wastepaper bin look like melting snowbal s.

“I don’t have an appointment,” explains Elizabeth. “I was hoping Mr. Hackett might see me.”

The receptionist blows her nose.

“He just stepped out. Won’t be long.”

Elizabeth sits on the lone plastic chair. Rowan climbs on to her lap. There is a license in a wooden frame hanging on the wal , some sort of diploma. Elizabeth wonders what a private detective has to study. How to rifle through rubbish bins? How to peer through windows? The whole idea of seeing a private detective embarrasses her. She’s not that sort of person. She trusts her husband.

There is a photograph next to the diploma—a young soldier in battle fatigues, war paint on his cheeks; a half-forgotten conflict.

There are footsteps outside. Colin Hackett nudges the door with his hip. He’s carrying a tray of coffees and something sweet and sticky in a bag. Heavy-set with broad shoulders, he reminds her of Bob Hoskins with a ful head of hair.