Nord was one of the busiest railroad terminals in the world. A big change of pace.
O’Day said, ‘That’s the concourse just ahead of the Euro-star tracks. The London train pulled out ten minutes later. We should assume he was on it.’
Casey Nice said, ‘Why isn’t Carson with him?’
O’Day said, ‘We should assume they travelled separately. Much safer that way. They wouldn’t risk both getting nailed, by the same piece of bad luck.’
Then he opened a file and pulled out a bunch of paper. The gang analysis from MI5 in London. He said, ‘They’re sure it’s the local English guys. They own the streets around the target, and they moved in on Karel Libor’s operations very fast. Too fast for the news of Mr Libor’s demise to have reached them through conventional channels. They knew it was going to happen beforehand. Because they set it up.’
He read out a list of four names, a top boy and three trusted lieutenants, White, Miller, Thompson, and Green, like a law firm, and then he described an inner circle of thirty more, supplemented when and where necessary by contract labour anxious to prove its worth. He said collectively they were known as the Romford Boys, and always had been, because they were based in a place called Romford, which was on the eastern edge of the city, north of the river, just inside the orbital highway. He said they were largely white and largely native born. He described their business activities, which were drugs, girls, and guns, the same as Libor’s activities, with protection rackets and loan sharking as the icing on the cake. He had no lurid tales to tell us, of gruesome murders and horrific punishments and sadistic tortures. He said over the years their many and various victims had simply disappeared into thin air, and were never seen again.
Casey Nice went to pack, and I showered again and dressed again and put my toothbrush in my pocket. We met in the Gulfstream’s cabin. She was wearing her Arkansas outfit. She said, ‘General O’Day told me you’re dubious about all of this.’
I said nothing.
She said, ‘Working with me, I mean.’
I said nothing.
She said, ‘What happened to Dominique Kohl was not your fault.’
‘O’Day showed you the file?’
‘I had already read it, on Kott’s bedroom wall. It wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t have known.’
I said nothing.
She said, ‘I’m not going to arrest anyone. I’m going to hang way back. It’s not going to happen again.’
‘I agree,’ I said. ‘These things are generally the exception, not the rule.’
‘It could be over before we get there. The Brits must be busting a gut.’
‘I’m sure they are.’
‘We’ll have all their data a minute after O’Day gets it. We’ll be OK.’
‘Now you sound dubious.’
‘I’m not quite sure what to expect.’
I said, ‘Neither am I. No one ever is. On either side. Which is a good thing. It means the game goes to the fastest thinker. That’s all you need to be.’
‘We can’t both be the fastest.’
‘I agree,’ I said again. ‘I might slip into second place. In which case someone is going to start shooting at me with a rifle. So you better stay seven feet away.’
‘Suppose I’m in second place and they start shooting at me?’
‘Same thing. Seven feet away. At least I’ll get a sporting chance.’
The Atlanta airport was so big we had to catch a cab from the General Aviation offices to the passenger terminals. Casey Nice checked in at a thing that looked like an ATM, but I went to the desk instead, where a glance at my new passport got me a boarding pass made of old-fashioned pasteboard. We were in premium coach, which struck me as an oxymoron. Nice said it meant extra leg room. She explained a long and complicated algorithm by which the government saved taxpayer money. Everyone started out in regular coach, unless and until there were compelling reasons why not. The only box we checked was that we were expected to start work immediately after disembarkation. Which got us the leg room.
Which turned out to be not very much. We went through security, shoeless and coatless and with empty pockets, and then we wandered through what looked like a shopping mall to the gate area, via a coffee cart for me and a juice bar for her. She had a small suitcase with wheels, and a thing about halfway between a handbag and a shopping bag. She fit in better than I did, as a regular citizen. We