you any authorization documents,” he said. “You know what the security’s like here: the mice carry ID!”
The man who looked too young to be here at all was trying his best, O’Farrell conceded. He said, “No walks?”
“Afraid not.”
O’Farrell indicated the telephones. “What about outside calls? I need to speak to my wife.”
“Not just yet,” Lambert said apologetically. “Maybe tomorrow.”
“Or the day after,” O’Farrell said.
“Maybe,” Lambert agreed.
“You going to lock the door?”
“No.”
“There’s a guard at the back as well as at the front of the building?”
“Yes,” Lambert confirmed.
“Where I would be stopped, forcibly if necessary, if I tried to go by.”
“It’s the way they’re trained in a place like this.”
“So I’m under arrest? Imprisoned?” O’Farrell demanded.
“I wouldn’t have described it as that.”
“Describe it to me your way,” O’Farrell insisted.
“Protected,” Lambert said. “Extremely well protected. I would have thought you’d be grateful.”
The men rode for a long time without speaking to each other. Petty contacted an emergency number from the car phone and had himself patched through to McCarthy for a brief, monosyllabic conversation. When he replaced the instrument, Petty said, “Our antiterrorist unit at the embassy has been allowed access by the British. More theories than you can shake a stick at. Current favorite is that it’s political, Latin American-based. Forensics has identified the explosive as Semtex and the metal left from the detonator as of Soviet manufacture.”
“Looks good, then?” Erickson, was pleased to get in first with a question rather than having to provide an answer.
“Exactly as it was planned, apart from the victim,” Petty confirmed. Before Erickson could speak again, he said, “So what about O’Farrell?”
“I think we need to get the result of the debriefing to be sure,” Erickson said. “He looked as flaky as hell when he came off that airplane. And there was the booze. There was quite a bit of it in London, too.”
“He seemed to sober up quickly enough,” Petty said. “But there’s a lot of guilt there. He’s supposed to be trained to control guilt.”
“Retire him?”
“McCarthy wants to talk to me about it.”
“What’s there to talk about?”
Petty shrugged. “Who can tell? You know what a devious bastard McCarthy is. He’s had quite a conversation with Lambert, apparently.”
“This time we seem to have gotten away with it,” Erickson said. “I think to risk using O’Farrell again would be madness.”
Petty gave another shrug. “Who knows?” he said again.
“In the immediate future we don’t have to get within a million miles of Jose Gaviria Rivera.”
Back in Fort Pearce, O’Farrell actually considered kneeling by the bedside, like a kid, but shook his head against the idea, looking around the empty room in positive embarrassment. He tried to pray, lying in bed in the darkness, but shrugged that attempt off, too. There could be no forgiveness, no absolution, for what he’d done. Had there ever been?
TWENTY-THREE
IT WAS an odd room. Because of the construction of the building, it should have had an outside window, but it didn’t. Neither did it really look like a proper office. There was a desk and a telephone, but books were haphazardly stacked all over it, and more books spilled over from the bookcase beyond. The television was on, showing a game in which men and women who were supposed not to know each other were romantically paired, and Lambert was propped on the edge of the desk, watching it. At O’Farrell’s entry, he turned like a man surprised and then waved him in.
“Good to see you,” Lambert said, as if their last meeting had been a long time ago. “Don’t these programs blow your mind! Can you imagine making yourself look stupid in front of millions of people!”
“I’ve never seen it before,” O’Farrell said. “But no, I can’t imagine it.”
Lambert held the remote control in his hand for several moments before reluctantly switching the television off and turning his full attention upon O’Farrell. They fascinate me,” he said. “Just fascinate me.”
Definitely a psychologist, O’Farrell thought. He supposed it had been obvious but he’d hoped Lambert wasn’t. He looked around for shapes to fit into holes but couldn’t see any. There were couches and chairs around a dead fire-place and two extension telephones on side tables. There were a lot of large plants in pots. O’Farrell recognized a rubber tree; its leaves were very dirty and dry. All the plants sagged from lack of water.
Lambert gestured vaguely toward the easy chairs and couches and said, “Make yourself at home. You like some coffee? I’ve just made some fresh coffee.”
“Thank you,” O’Farrell said. He was indifferent to the coffee but it pleased him to have Lambert fetch and carry for him. Why? he asked himself at once. Careful; he wasn’t the psychologist.
Lambert served the coffee with powdered cream and sugar in little pots on the side. With his head still bent, the man said, “So you killed her? The wrong target?”
O’Farrell blinked at the abruptness. “Yes,” he said. His headache wasn’t too bad, considering the previous day’s intake, but he felt tired, although he’d slept.
“It was an accident.”
“How the hell can you say that!”
“You intend to kill her?”
“You know I didn’t!”
“So what else can it be but an accident?”
“I wired the car, for Christ’s sake, turned it into one fucking great bomb! How can planting a load of explosives in a vehicle, which blows up and kills a person, be minimized as an accident!”
Lambert had been standing. Now he took his own coffee to an opposite chair. “What about Rivera? What if he’d turned the key and he’d been the person killed?”
O’Farrell frowned. “What about it? I’ve gone through all the evidence against him. He’s guilty; involved in criminal activity against the interests and security of this country.”
“So it’s okay to blow him away! No conscience problem there!”
This was like getting into the ring with a far superior boxer constantly able to jab past your defenses. O’Farrell said, “That is the function I am employed to carry out on behalf of the United States of America.”
“Well recited!” Lambert mocked. “You comfortable with that?”
“Of course I am.”
“Why of course? Where’s the natural consequence come in?”
O’Farrell was sweating and put his cup down before he spilled it. This man was bewildering him. Hopefully he said, “There are some people, a few, who are beyond normal parameters; beyond the law, if you like. People capable of great harm, great hurt. The judgment against them is not reached by a court of law, but it is as fair and impartial as if it were.”
“Hitler … Stalin … Amin. Killing saves lives,” Lambert completed. “I’m familiar with the list; it’s a cliche. You know what? I don’t think you believe that. Maybe once, but not anymore.”
O’Farrell was glad he was sitting down because his head was swirling. The ache was worse, too. He thought he saw an escape and went for it. “It’s an academic debate anyway, isn’t it?”
“Why?” asked Lambert.
“I’m hardly likely to be used again, after this debacle, am I?”
