Crisis Four (51 page)
Authors: Andy McNab
‘All rightttt!’ A big, conspiratorial grin lit up his face. We both sat down, him on a chair, me on the settee.
‘Next important question, how is Kelly? She get to her grandparents OK?’
‘She’s fine. Yes, everything went OK. I spoke to her today; she’s missing you and the crew. I think you’ll be getting a thank-you card from her soon.’
The small talk was already killing me. Normally I would chat happily about that sort of shit; it was what our relationship was all about. But at the moment all I could think about was the fact that I was about to fuck him over big time – even though I knew it was the right thing.
The door opened and Sarah came in. Josh stood up. ‘Anyone for a brew?’
I laughed. To Americans, a brew means a beer; I’d once been with Josh and had said, ‘Do you fancy a brew?’ He’d looked at me as if I should be certified. One, we were driving; two, we were looking after kids, and three, it was nine o’clock in the morning. It had been a bit of a standing joke ever since.
Sarah was out of this one. She sort of smiled to look as though she got it, but she probably wasn’t used to being offered a brew at embassy cocktail parties, and it certainly wasn’t going to be a big thing in her social circle.
He turned to Sarah. ‘Coffee good for you?’
‘Thank you.’
He turned and walked towards the door, talking as he went. ‘The kids will be back from singing practice soon and all hell will break loose. It’ll be so cool for them to find you here.’
We listened to him pottering around in the kitchen. Sarah went and sat on one of the chairs – only a short distance from me, but significant in the circumstances. I said, ‘Sarah, we’re sharing a room tonight.’
She got it immediately, stood up and came and sat next to me. ‘What now?’
It was pointless bullshitting her. ‘I don’t know, switch on and take my lead. It’s far too early yet.’
She looked anxiously at the carpet. ‘I’m worried, Nick. This has got to work.’
‘Trust me. Look over there,’ I nodded towards the books to the right of the fireplace. ‘Second shelf down.’ What had caught my eye was
Designing Camelot – the Kennedy White House Restoration.
I looked at her through her glasses. ‘That’s got to be a good omen.’ I hoped I sounded more confident than I felt.
Designing Camelot – the Kennedy White House Restoration.
I looked at her through her glasses. ‘That’s got to be a good omen.’ I hoped I sounded more confident than I felt.
She saw it, and her expression gained a new determination. Josh came back with the coffee pot, mugs and biscuits as she was pulling it from the shelf. He started to pour. ‘Flat white?’ he asked. We nodded.
He saw Sarah flicking the pages, admiring the pictures of the White House interior.
She looked up and caught his eye. ‘Now there’s a classy lady.’ She turned the book round so we could see the picture of Jackie O.
‘Yes ma’am, she certainly turned this town upside down. That’s her in the State Dining Room. She was our Princess Diana, I guess you could say. Geri loved her. I bought her that book for her birthday, just before she left.’
He started to open the packet of biscuits. ‘I have to hide these from the kids, otherwise there’d be none left.
‘You know what?’ he said through a mouthful of biscuit, ‘I didn’t realize all the things you have to do when you’re looking after kids single-handed. I’ve had to learn so much.’
Sarah looked surprised.
Josh looked over at me, quite happily, ‘You didn’t explain?’
‘I thought I’d leave it to you,’ I said, trying to turn it into a joke. ‘Yeah, leave it to you, then I’d tell her the truth later on.’
He looked at Sarah. ‘Geri had gotten more and more involved in local projects and classes, that sorta thing, so that she could’ – he pulled a face to underline the words – ‘better herself.’ He passed a mug of coffee to her. ‘One of them was yoga. You know, I guess I was too busy working and stuff to see what was going on. I just didn’t notice the classes were lasting longer as the months passed.’
I smiled in sympathy as he passed me my mug, and we had eye-to-eye. ‘In fact, she got to like the classes so much she never really wanted to come home.’ I could see him looking at Sarah for her reaction. He’d managed to make it sound like a joke, but I knew that deep down he was devastated. I felt guilty as hell as I listened to Sarah doing a number on him, but I knew it was the only way.
Nodding towards the pictures above the gas log fire, Sarah continued to reel him in. ‘What about the children? They’re such beautiful kids; whatever got into her to make her leave them?’
He picked up his coffee and sat back. ‘The yoga teacher, that’s what got into her.’ He tried a laugh, but it was starting to really hurt him now.
Sarah took a second or two to get that one, but I could see from her eyes that she’d picked up on Josh’s sadness.
‘She calls once a week,’ Josh said. ‘The kids miss her real bad.’
‘How long has it been?’ she asked quietly.
‘Must be about nine months or so.’ He looked over at me. I nodded; the timing was about right. Not that he didn’t know; I bet he’d counted every single day. He took a sip from his mug, deep in thought.
We all sat in silence for a while, until Sarah asked a couple of polite, ice-breaking questions about the children, and Josh told her what she already knew. She was good; they were bonding. He was almost enjoying having a woman listen to the story and appear to understand his point of view.
There came a sound of crashing and slamming, and shouting in heavily accented English. Maria was back with the kids and telling them to slow down. She put her head through the door. ‘
Hola!
’
Hola!
’
A second or two later, the kids came surging past her to see their dad. At that moment they spotted me. ‘Nick! Nick! Is Kelly here?’
Then they stopped and got embarrassed because they saw somebody they didn’t know.
‘Hiya,’ I beamed. ‘No, Kelly’s at school. Did you enjoy your time in London?’
‘Yeah, it was cool. It’s a shame Kelly can’t be here, though.’ They were all excited. They went over to their dad, kissing and cuddling him until he was buried. ‘You guys, this is Sarah, Nick’s friend. Say hello to Sarah.’
All together they shouted, ‘Hello, Sarah.’
‘Hello everybody, very nice to meet you.’ She shook each of them by the hand.
Formalities over, it all changed. It was straight into, Dad, can I do this? Dad, can I do that?
‘Dad, it’s really cool! There are kids from everywhere, even New Mexico. Some of them are going swimming. Can we go swimming?’
Josh said, ‘Yes, yes, yes – but later. Maria’ll arrange it. Go and have something to eat. Go, go, go.’
The kids went out in a whirlwind and headed for the kitchen. I heard the radio go on, tuned in to a Latin music station. We heard them all squabbling, and Maria making the most noise of all, telling them to keep the noise down.
I carried on looking for a time when I could hit him with my pitch. The kids went out, came back, eventually went to bed, and Maria went home. By then we’d seen the new garden shed, we’d talked about Christmas, Easter, even about Thanksgiving and the different ways Americans and Brits stuff their turkeys. I still preferred Paxo to peanuts. Josh told Sarah about tomorrow’s events and what the kids were going to be doing. He couldn’t disguise his pride that his kids were part of it all. He was going to be watching it with some of the ERT (Emergency Response Team) people, whose kids were also involved.
Sarah was perfect all the time; maybe it wasn’t even put on, because something told me she genuinely liked Josh. I was glad, as these were the only two adults I had any feeling for. I wanted them to like each other. It mattered to me. Fuck the job in hand; I knew it had to be done, and soon, but we seemed to be moving into something more important between us. I hoped so. Once the job was finished, I needed Josh to appreciate our reasons for keeping him in the dark.
Before we knew it we’d had pizza, nachos, a couple of bottles of wine, and it was nearly ten o’clock. We seemed set to spin shit all night, but I knew I had to wait for the right moment. I listened to the other two as they put the world to rights.
I heard Josh saying, ‘Have you met Kelly yet?’
Sarah was just sitting back drinking wine next to me. ‘Kelly? No, I haven’t, not yet. You know Nick, he keeps his cards very close to his chest.’ She gave me one of those strange looks couples give each other when they’re talking about one thing, but thinking about something else. ‘I have spoken to her, though.’ She was keeping the lies close to the truth. It was always the best way.
Josh said, ‘She’s a really good kid, you’ll like her a lot. Maybe if Geri was here Kelly would have come to live with us and the kids. It’s been really hard for her.’
Sarah looked at me to carry on the story. I began to think she was liking this, finding out about me.
‘Yeah, but me and her, it’s all right,’ I mumbled.
Sarah reached out and grasped my hand.
Josh broke the silence. ‘Ah… you sure you two don’t want to be alone?’
We all started laughing. I looked at Josh and remembered that I had a job to do, and now was the time to do it. ‘Mate, I’ve just had a brilliant idea. Well, good for us, but maybe hard for you to sort out.’
He sat back and took a sip of wine. ‘Yesss… and what could that be?’ He suddenly sounded like my dad.
‘Well, if there was any chance of a trip round the White House for us – you know, like the time you took me round before? – Sarah would love me for ever.’ I smiled at her.
She picked up the ball, blushed and her eyes lit up. ‘That would be absolutely brilliant. Can you really fix that, Josh?’
Josh wasn’t looking too sure. ‘Well…’
I decided to jump in and keep it all upbeat. Looking at Sarah, whose face now resembled that of a child at a funfair, I said, ‘This boy is the greatest. He took me round the White House last year. He was running the vice-presidential protection team.’
‘Oh, I’d love that. That would be fantastic!’ She was making all the right noises.
I said, ‘There’s a bowling alley in the basement so Bill can go and have a bit of a practice, and some of the stonework still has scorch marks from when the Brits tried to burn it down in eighteen hundred and something or other.’
She turned to Josh. ‘Is he bullshitting me?’
He shook his head as he took another sip of wine. ‘No, the Brits came to Washington and burned the lot down. It was Eighteen fourteen.’
I said, ‘Come on then, mate, what do you say? I’ll even buy a crap tie to make me look like Secret Service if you want. What do you say?’ I always took the piss out of the way they dressed. The White House team’s uniform seemed to be either a grey suit, or a blue blazer and dark grey trousers. The only thing they were allowed to have choice over, it seemed, was their ties. I had never seen so many Daffy Ducks and Mickey Mouses in one place, apart from the window of Tie Rack. Josh had an impressive display of sheep jumping over gates and Bugs Bunny eating carrots.
It was time for him to insult me in return. ‘Lard-arse, you will never look like an agent. No matter how hard you try.’
Sarah stood up. ‘This is way over my head,’ she grinned. ‘So I’m going to pop upstairs again.’ She knew it was time to leave us alone. She raised an eyebrow at Josh. ‘I’ll shut the door this time, so you won’t be embarrassed if I make a noise.’
Josh rocked back on his chair and started laughing as the door closed behind her. He looked at me. ‘She’s cool, man, real cool.’ I could see his smile tighten; I was sure he was thinking about Geri and how much he missed her. I felt sorry for him, but I didn’t want to let him off the hook. ‘What do you reckon then, mate? Any chance? It would be great for her, and on top of that I’d score an unbelievable number of Brownie points, if you know what I mean?’
He sat back in his chair, holding his arms up in mock surrender. ‘Whoa, man, chill. Chill out on trying to sell it to me. I got it.’ He put his arms back down and got serious. ‘I’ll try, but I can’t say for sure,’ he said. ‘I’ll phone up in the morning. What’s your cut-off time?’
‘It’s got to be three at the latest. We’re on the six-something flight from Dulles to Newark.’
He held up his hands again. ‘OK, OK, I’ll see what I can do. Tomorrow’s a big deal up there, but maybe we can go in the morning. Nothing’s going to kick off until around midday, and the kids won’t be doing their thing until one.’
He put his glass down, filled it up again and offered me some. I nodded and passed mine over. He hadn’t noticed that I was only sipping whilst he was knocking it back.
Josh held up his glass. ‘It’s really good to see you, man.’
I raised mine. ‘And you, lard-arse.’
Sarah walked back in, probably having listened behind the door the whole time. I gave her a big smile as she sat down. ‘Josh says we might be able to get in tomorrow before we go back to New York. He’s going to see what he can do.’
She gave him the sort of look that would have made a blind man’s heart beat faster.
His face lit up. ‘Hey, you know what? I have a neat idea. If I can’t take you in myself, I could probably get you onto one of the tours. You could always come back and go round with me another time.’
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