THIRTY-FIVE

I STOOD ON SEVENTH AVENUE WITH MY BACK TO THE TRAFFIC and answered Leonid’s phone. I heard Lila Hoth’s voice, soft in my ear. Precise diction, quaint phrasing. She said, ‘Reacher?’

I said, ‘Yes.’

She said, ‘I need to see you, quite urgently.’

‘About what?’

‘I think my mother might be in danger. Myself also, possibly.’

‘From what?’

‘Three men were downstairs, asking questions at the desk. While we were out. I think our rooms have been searched, too.’

‘What three men?’

‘I don’t know who they were. Apparently they wouldn’t say.’

‘Why talk to me about it?’

‘Because they were asking about you too. Please come and see us.’

I asked, ‘You’re not upset about Leonid?’

She said, ‘Under the circumstances, no. I think that was just an unfortunate misunderstanding. Please come.’

I didn’t answer.

She said, ‘I would very much appreciate your help.’ She spoke politely, appealingly, a little submissively, even diffidently, like a supplicant. But notwithstanding all of that something extra in her voice made me fully aware that she was so beautiful that the last time any guy had said no to her was probably a decade in the past. She sounded vaguely commanding, like everything was already a done deal, like to ask was to get. Just let it go, Springfield had said, and of course I should have listened to him. But instead I told Lila Hoth, ‘I’ll meet you in your hotel lobby, fifteen minutes from now.’ I thought that avoiding her suite would be enough of a safeguard, against whatever complications might ensue. Then I closed the phone and headed straight for the Sheraton’s taxi line.

The Four Seasons’ lobby was divided into a number of separate areas on two separate levels. I found Lila Hoth and her mother at a corner table in a dim panelled space that seemed to be a tea room during the day and might have been a bar by night. They were alone. Leonid wasn’t there. I checked carefully all around and saw no one else worth worrying about. No unexplained men in mid-priced suits, nobody lingering over the morning newspaper. No apparent surveillance at all. So I slid into a seat, next to Lila, across from her mother. Lila was wearing a black skirt and a white shirt. Like a cocktail waitress, except that the fabrics and the cut and the fit were like nothing a cocktail waitress could afford. Her eyes were twin points of light in the gloom, as blue as a tropical sea. Svetlana was in another shapeless house dress, this time muddy maroon. Her eyes were dull. She nodded uncomprehendingly as I sat down. Lila extended her hand and shook mine quite formally. The contrast between the two women was enormous, in every way. In terms of age and looks, obviously, but also in terms of energy, vivacity, manners, and disposition.

I settled in and Lila got straight to the point. She asked, ‘Did you bring the memory stick?’

I said, ‘No,’ although I had. It was in my pocket, with my toothbrush and Leonid’s phone.

‘Where is it?’

‘Somewhere else.’

‘Somewhere safe?’

‘Completely.’

She asked, ‘Why did those men come here?’

I said, ‘Because you’re poking around in something that’s still a secret.’

‘But the press officer at the Human Resources Command was enthusiastic about it.’

‘That’s because you lied to him.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘You told him it was about Berlin. But it wasn’t. Berlin in 1983 was no kind of fun, but it was stable. It was a Cold War tableau, frozen in time. Maybe there was a little back and forth between the CIA and the KGB and the Brits and the Stasi, but there was no real U.S. Army involvement. For our guys it was just a tourist destination. Take the train, see the Wall. Great bars, and great hookers. Probably ten thousand guys called John passed through, and they didn’t do anything except spend money and catch the clap. Certainly they didn’t fight and they didn’t win medals. So tracking one of them down would be next to impossible. Maybe HRC was prepared to waste a little time, just in case something good came of it. But from the beginning it was a ridiculous task. So you can’t have gotten a positive outcome from Susan Mark. She can’t have told you anything about Berlin that made it worth coming over here. Just not possible.’

‘So why did we come?’

‘Because during those first few phone calls you softened her up and you made her your friend and then when you judged the time was right you told her what you really wanted. And exactly how to find it. For her ears only. Not Berlin. Something else entirely.’

An unguarded person with nothing to hide would have responded instantly and openly. Probably with outrage, possibly with hurt feelings. An amateur bluffer would have faked it, with bluster and noise. Lila Hoth just sat quiet for a beat. Her eyes showed the same kind of fast response as John Sansom’s had, back in his room in the O. Henry hotel. Rethink, redeploy, reorganize, all in a brief couple of seconds.

She said, ‘It’s very complicated.’

I didn’t answer.

She said, ‘But it’s entirely innocent.’

I said, ‘Tell that to Susan Mark.’

She inclined her head. The same gesture I had seen before. Courteous, delicate, and a little contrite. She said, ‘I asked Susan for help. She agreed, quite willingly. Clearly her actions created difficulties for her with other parties. So yes, I suppose I was the indirect cause of her troubles. But not the direct cause. And I regret what happened, very, very much. Please believe me, if I had known beforehand, I would have said no to my mother.’

Svetlana Hoth nodded and smiled.

I said, ‘What other parties?’

Lila Hoth said, ‘Her own government, I think. Your government.’

‘Why? What did your mother really want?’

Lila said she needed to explain the background first.

THIRTY-SIX

LILA HOTH HAD BEEN JUST SEVEN YEARS OLD WHEN THE Soviet Union had fallen apart, so she spoke with a kind of historical detachment. She had the same kind of distance from former realities that I had from the Jim Crow years in America. She told me that the Red Army had deployed political commissars very widely. Every infantry company had one. She said that command and discipline were shared uneasily between the commissar and a field officer. She said that rivalry was common and bitter, not necessarily between the two as individuals, but between tactical common sense and ideological purity. She made sure I understood the general background, and then she moved on to specifics.

Svetlana Hoth had been a political commissar assigned to an infantry company. Her company had gone to Afghanistan soon after the Soviet invasion of 1979. Initial combat operations had been satisfactory for the infantry. Then they had turned disastrous. Attritional losses had become heavy and constant. At first there had been denial. Then Moscow had reacted, belatedly. The order of battle had been reorganized. Companies had been merged. Tactical common sense had suggested retrenchment. Ideology had required renewed offensives. Morale had required unity of ethnicity and geographical origin. Companies had been reconstituted to include sniper teams. Expert marksmen were brought in, with their companion spotters. Thus pairs of ragged men used to living off the land had arrived.

Svetlana’s sniper was her husband.

His spotter was Svetlana’s younger brother.

The situation had improved, both in military and in personal terms. Svetlana’s and other family and regional groupings had spent down time together very happily. Companies had dug in and settled down and achieved acceptable safety and security. Offensive requirements were satisfied by regular night-time sniper operations. The results were excellent. Soviet snipers had long been the best in the world. The Afghan mujahideen had no answer to them. Late in 1981 Moscow had reinforced a winning hand by shipping new weapons. A new-model rifle had been issued. It was recently developed and still top secret. It was called the VAL Silent Sniper.