Gone Tomorrow

House briefing. We were told to pucker up and kiss ass at every possible opportunity.”
    “And did you?”
    “You bet.”
    “It was twenty-five years ago.”
    “So?”
    “So who cares anymore? It’s a detail of history. And it worked, anyway. It was the end of Communism.”
    “But it wasn’t the end of the mujahideen. They stayed in business.”
    “I know,” I said. “They became the Taliban and Al Qaeda. But that’s a detail, too. Voters in North Carolina aren’t going to remember the history. Most voters can’t remember what they had for breakfast.”
    “Depends,” Sansom said.
    “On what?”
    “Name recognition.”
    “What name?”
    “The Korengal was where the action was. Just a small salient, but that was where the Red Army met its end. The mujahideen there were doing a really fine job. Therefore the local mujahideen leader there was a really big deal. He was a rising star. He was the one we were sent to meet. And we did. We met with him.”
    “And you kissed his ass?”
    “Every which way we could.”
    “Who was he?”
    “He was a fairly impressive guy, initially. Young, tall, good-looking, very intelligent, very committed. And very rich, by the way. Very connected. He came from a billionaire family in Saudi. His father was a friend of Reagan’s Vice President. But the guy himself was a revolutionary. He quit the easy life for the cause.”
    “Who was he?”
    “Osama bin Laden.”

Chapter 66
    The room stayed quiet for a long moment. Just muted city sounds from the window, and the hiss of air from a vent above the bathroom. Springfield moved away from his position by the TV cabinet and sat down on the bed.
    I said, “Name recognition.”
    Sansom said, “It’s a bitch.”
    “You got that right.”
    “Tell me about it.”
    “But it’s a big file,” I said.
    “So?”
    “So it’s a long report. And we’ve all read army reports.”
    “And?”
    “They’re very dry.” Which they were. Take Springfield’s Steyr GB, for instance. The army had tested it. It was a miracle of modern engineering. Not only did it work exactly like it should, it also worked exactly like it shouldn’t. It had a complex gas-delayed blow-back system that meant it could be loaded with substandard or elderly or badly assembled rounds and still fire. Most guns have problems with variable gas pressures. Either they blow up with too much or fail to cycle with too little. But the Steyr could handle anything. Which was why Special Forces loved it. They were often far from home with no logistics, forced to rely on whatever they could scrounge up locally. The Steyr GB was a metal marvel.
    The army report called it technically acceptable .
    I said, “Maybe they didn’t mention you by name. Maybe they didn’t mention him by name. Maybe it was all acronyms, for Delta leader and local commander, all buried in three hundred pages of map references.”
    Sansom said nothing.
    Springfield looked away.
    I asked, “What was he like?”
    Sansom said, “See? This is exactly what I’m talking about. My whole life counts for nothing now, except I’m the guy who kissed Osama bin Laden’s ass. That’s all anyone will ever remember.”
    “But what was he like?”
    “He was a creep. He was clearly committed to killing Russians, which we were happy about at first, but pretty soon we realized he was committed to killing everyone who wasn’t exactly the same as him. He was weird. He was a psychopath. He smelled bad. It was a very uncomfortable weekend. My skin was crawling the whole time.”
    “You were there a whole weekend?”
    “Honored guests. Except not really. He was an arrogant son of a bitch. He lorded it over us the whole time. He lectured us on tactics and strategy. Told us how he would have won in Vietnam. We had to pretend to be impressed.”
    “What gifts did you give him?”
    “I don’t know what they were. They were wrapped. He didn’t open them. Just tossed them in a corner. He didn’t care. Like they say at weddings, our presence was present enough. He thought he was proving something to the world. The Great Satan was bending its knee before him. I nearly puked a dozen times. And not just because of the food.”
    “You ate with him?”
    “We were staying in his tent.”
    “Which will be called their HQ in the report. The language will be very neutral. The ass-kissing won’t be mentioned. It will be three hundred tedious pages about a rendezvous attempted and a rendezvous kept. People will