Final Winter

Another yawn. The photos were coming in at a rapid pace from the Customs station just up the coast. Must be having a busy day there, for Dan was already over quota, and it might mean a chunk of overtime, if it played right. Which was not a problem, because he had his eye on a new WaveRider, and the extra cash would be just fine.

Face, face, face. Dan’s job was to set them in some sort of order, following a template of ethnic appearance and background — hello, racial profiling — and then feed it along another chain of command until the photos, using the latest facial-matching software, were compared with the CIA, FBI and everybody else’s watch-list of terrorists. Or, as some memos primly put it, ‘persons of interest’.

Another sip of coffee. Most of the photos were straight-on head shots, but sometimes you had to deal with other types as well. Like those two. He clicked on the mouse, froze the program. Two guys standing outside, arguing, it looked like, with a female Customs officer. The head shots weren’t so bad, but he had seen better. One guy was white, the other dark-skinned. Maybe Mediterranean. Hell, maybe Caribbean. Who knew?

Dan clicked the mouse one more time, as the program went on its merry way. He finished off the coffee. Just another day, he thought, in the front line against terrorism.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Brian Doyle sat in his room at a Sheraton Hotel in Memphis, staring at the phone. Another in a series of lousy phone calls with the growing young boy who was his son, and who still couldn’t understand why dad couldn’t do a better job of being around. Good question, boy, and time to get somebody to answer it for you.

He got up and left the room. It was late at night: he didn’t know the particular hour and he didn’t particularly care. The hotel was nice, with an outdoor cafe covered with canvas awnings and an outdoor pool, but he didn’t give a shit about that stuff right now. He strolled down the hallway until he found the door he was looking for, and he gave it a good pounding.

No answer.

He resumed the hammering on the door.

Down the hallway, a young guy poked his head out from an open door.

‘Hey, will you shut the fuck up down there?’ he called out.

Brian turned and glared at the guy. The guy rubbed at his face, muttered something, and went back into his room. Brian raised his hand again and then the door opened. Adrianna was there, yawning, wearing a white terrycloth robe.

‘Brian… what is—’

He pushed by her and went into her room. ‘We’ve got to talk now, princess, and I mean now.’

He turned to her, just as she closed the door. She tightened the robe around her neck. There were a couple of lights on in the room but the television wasn’t on. He guessed that he had woken her up. He didn’t care.

‘All right, then,’ she said. ‘What’s up?’

Brian said, ‘Lots of things. Let’s start with the first. Why am I here?’

‘You know why.’

‘No, I don’t. Explain.’

Adrianna said, ‘I needed some security assurance, with what Victor was carrying. It was essential that Victor and his package arrived at General Bocks’s office without any difficulty.’

‘Bullshit.’

Her expression didn’t change. ‘That’s not bullshit.’

‘Sure it is,’ he said. ‘Except for our regular meetings, most of us are out in the field, working on our own little assignments, whatever they are. When was the last time I was assigned security for anything? Short answer: never. So. Why am I here?’

Adrianna was silent. Brian stepped up to her, feeling the blood and the anger race through him. ‘You know why I’m here. I’m the super-patriot sock puppet, brought out to help close the deal. The good general was waffling there yesterday and then you went into this God-bless-America routine that mentioned my dad died in the World Trade Center. That’s why you brought me along. Nothing more than that. When it came to crunch time, you trotted out the story of the bereaved New York cop and his dead hero dad. Don’t tell me anything else, Adrianna. Don’t insult my fucking intelligence.’

She pushed at her hair with a free hand. ‘I won’t insult your intelligence, Brian. Security was one aspect of why you are here. And I confess the truth. Your personal history is another reason you are here. For that, I make no apologies.’

‘Well, goodie for you. I’m getting the hell out of here, and the hell back to my job.’

Brian started to brush past Adrianna and she held on to his upper arm. ‘Please. Just for a moment. May I say something?’

When Brian was in a pissy mood like right now, and especially when he was on duty, having someone grab his arm usually meant a quick slap and takedown or something equally violent. All right, but not now.

‘Okay. Say whatever the fuck you want. But I’m still leaving here and paying whatever I have to pay to fly out of Memphis tonight and get back to New York and my boy and my job. And I don’t care if the big nasty Feds cause me to lose a grade on my job or even bust me back to patrolman. So you say your piece.’