and he feared he’d be inundated with the vast reservoir of marital advice that all elderly ladies seemed to carry around with them, whatever the culture. Louise charmed them as well, asked about their grandchildren and even more important their ailments, and they liked her. And Kovic also humoured them because they were the next best thing to CCTV. Anyone looking for him, checking his door, they’d be the first to notice and tell him, in officious, concerned-but-nosy tones.
He gestured at his face.
‘She’s very cross with me.’
They thought this hilarious. The row was forgotten.
He stepped out of the courtyard through the main gate of the shikumen and into the narrow street. Two cars, a Chery and a locally made Audi, faced one another like bucks in a clearing, the drivers both resolute, determined not to give ground. This would take some time. Shanghai’s planners couldn’t have dreamed of the automotive revolution that would wreak havoc on the narrow one-lane streets, and bring out the worst in its newly automated citizens. Just the other day they’d passed a similar stand-off, and Louise had said, ‘I wonder what the record is?’ And he’d told her.
‘One pair went through the night. A local restaurant brought them both breakfast.’ And she’d smiled. Whether it was true or not, he couldn’t remember, but it made a good story.
He took a right into the even narrower street where he garaged his Buick, a grudging concession to American flag flying, but also a popular import so it didn’t stand out. He didn’t use it much but today he felt a little fragile for the scramble of the Metro. The sanitation truck parked across the garage door was no surprise. A group of hard-hats were bent over a hole in the road from which a pungent smell was drifting.
His backup phone buzzed. Cutler was getting impatient. How long?
He texted back: Traffic. ETA 40 . He wanted the meeting, but he wasn’t going to be hurried, probably another thing about him thatgot up Cutler’s nose. Above all, he needed to be on the front foot. He knew how these things usually played out, and he was damned if he was going to be made to carry the can for any of this.
He gestured at the blocked garage door. ‘How long?’
‘Two minutes,’ replied a hard-hat without much conviction. Kovic thought about having a cigarette, remembered that he had given up – at Louise’s suggestion. But there was a still a packet in his jacket. Try to do one good thing today, he told himself.
He had checked the morning headlines some hours ago. Characteristically, Beijing was ‘unable to confirm’ reports of disruption on the border. They could keep that up to eternity and beyond. North Korea’s news agency had put out the usual risible nonsense: ‘ Foreign insurgents have been repelled by the valiant populace .’ No one was going to take that seriously. But Washington was a different matter. US press and TV would already be all over the White House, demanding their version of the story.
What bothered Kovic right now wasn’t what the media would say, but what had actually taken place. He reviewed what facts he had. There were far more unknowns. He couldn’t even be a hundred per cent sure that Highbeam was a plant, only that he had been turned into a human bomb against his will. What wasn’t in question was that it had been a set-up, a trap they had walked right into. But whose trap? There was nothing considered or elegant about the ambush. Mounting an ambush with machine-gun toting conscripts was a recipe for chaos – they were more likely to kill each other than have any impact on their quarry. There was no evident chain of command; the officers who were supposedly in charge had tried to flee the scene in their jeeps. Even by North Korea’s pitiable standards it was a mess.
But what happened after that was in another dimension. Kovic picked over his memory of what he saw from the snowdrift one more time. By his reckoning the assassins
He gestured at his face.
‘She’s very cross with me.’
They thought this hilarious. The row was forgotten.
He stepped out of the courtyard through the main gate of the shikumen and into the narrow street. Two cars, a Chery and a locally made Audi, faced one another like bucks in a clearing, the drivers both resolute, determined not to give ground. This would take some time. Shanghai’s planners couldn’t have dreamed of the automotive revolution that would wreak havoc on the narrow one-lane streets, and bring out the worst in its newly automated citizens. Just the other day they’d passed a similar stand-off, and Louise had said, ‘I wonder what the record is?’ And he’d told her.
‘One pair went through the night. A local restaurant brought them both breakfast.’ And she’d smiled. Whether it was true or not, he couldn’t remember, but it made a good story.
He took a right into the even narrower street where he garaged his Buick, a grudging concession to American flag flying, but also a popular import so it didn’t stand out. He didn’t use it much but today he felt a little fragile for the scramble of the Metro. The sanitation truck parked across the garage door was no surprise. A group of hard-hats were bent over a hole in the road from which a pungent smell was drifting.
His backup phone buzzed. Cutler was getting impatient. How long?
He texted back: Traffic. ETA 40 . He wanted the meeting, but he wasn’t going to be hurried, probably another thing about him thatgot up Cutler’s nose. Above all, he needed to be on the front foot. He knew how these things usually played out, and he was damned if he was going to be made to carry the can for any of this.
He gestured at the blocked garage door. ‘How long?’
‘Two minutes,’ replied a hard-hat without much conviction. Kovic thought about having a cigarette, remembered that he had given up – at Louise’s suggestion. But there was a still a packet in his jacket. Try to do one good thing today, he told himself.
He had checked the morning headlines some hours ago. Characteristically, Beijing was ‘unable to confirm’ reports of disruption on the border. They could keep that up to eternity and beyond. North Korea’s news agency had put out the usual risible nonsense: ‘ Foreign insurgents have been repelled by the valiant populace .’ No one was going to take that seriously. But Washington was a different matter. US press and TV would already be all over the White House, demanding their version of the story.
What bothered Kovic right now wasn’t what the media would say, but what had actually taken place. He reviewed what facts he had. There were far more unknowns. He couldn’t even be a hundred per cent sure that Highbeam was a plant, only that he had been turned into a human bomb against his will. What wasn’t in question was that it had been a set-up, a trap they had walked right into. But whose trap? There was nothing considered or elegant about the ambush. Mounting an ambush with machine-gun toting conscripts was a recipe for chaos – they were more likely to kill each other than have any impact on their quarry. There was no evident chain of command; the officers who were supposedly in charge had tried to flee the scene in their jeeps. Even by North Korea’s pitiable standards it was a mess.
But what happened after that was in another dimension. Kovic picked over his memory of what he saw from the snowdrift one more time. By his reckoning the assassins
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