Gone Tomorrow

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 canceling 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 bread-stick 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.”
    The room service guy brought my meal and I moved Sansom out of his chair and ate at the table. Sansom took a cell phone call and confirmed that as of that moment I was off the hook for the subway transgression. I was no longer a person of interest as far as the NYPD was concerned. But then he made a second call and told me the jury was still out at the FBI, and the signs did not look good at all. Then he made a third call and confirmed that the DoD brass definitely would not let go. They were like dogs with a bone. I was in all kinds of trouble at the federal level. Obstruction of justice, assault and battery, wounding with a deadly weapon.
    “End of story,” Sansom said. “I would have to go to the Secretary direct.”
    “Or the President,” I said.
    “I can’t do either. On the face of it the DoD is currently in hot pursuit of an active Al Qaeda cell. Can’t argue against that, in today’s climate.”
    Politics is a minefield. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t .
    “OK,” I said. “Just as long as I know the shape of the battlefield.”
    “It’s not your battle, strictly speaking.”
    “Jacob Mark will feel better with a little closure.”
    “You’re doing this for Jacob Mark? The feds can give him all the closure he needs.”
    “You think? The feds are nowhere. How long do you want to drag this out?”
    “So are you doing it for Jacob Mark or for me?”
    “I’m doing it for myself.”
    “You’re not involved.”
    “I like a challenge.”
    “There are lots of other