Fortress

43

Tom’s room was on the forty-eighth floor. He gazed out at the Houston panorama, where streaks of pink cloud were ranged across the darkening sky. He had shaken Beth off in Reception, resisting her pleas to check his room was okay, and was making the most of a few hours alone. In any normal circumstances a tall blonde offering to make sure his pillows were plumped would have been ushered in, not shooed away. But these were not normal circumstances, and to him, her solicitousness smacked more of anxiety to please her bosses than the desire to get closer to those pillows.

Tom checked himself in the mirror. Hugo Boss tropical-weight wool suit, Sea Island cotton shirt and Regimental silk tie: his body armour for the evening, plus a crossed-flag pin in his lapel — Stars and Stripes with the Union flag. As well as a first-class ticket, Rolt had provided him with a generous float. ‘Anything you need, any gear, it’s on me, okay?’ He certainly wanted Tom to impress his Americans. But Tom wasn’t ready to feel too beholden to him, not yet anyway.

His own phone was buzzing again. He decided to put Woolf out of his misery and took out one of the pay-as-you-go Samsungs he had taken the precaution of buying at the airport.

Woolf was as breathless as ever, diving in without a greeting. ‘You saw the hostel damage for yourself. Was there anything at all that struck you as strange?’

One detail had stuck in Tom’s mind. ‘The damage was pretty extensive for explosives carried in a vest. Why?’

‘There’s a suspicion the bomber was dead before the device was detonated. CCTV from the street has two men, both white, making a delivery an hour before the blast from a van that was subsequently found burned out forty miles away.’

‘Has Rolt heard any of this?’

‘No, and we’re keeping it out of the press. But you know what this means?’

‘That’s two incidents now that have been deliberately made to look as if someone else was responsible for them.’

‘Glad you see it my way.’

‘Are you having trouble convincing them?’

‘You could say that. Also I’ve been reassigned. They’re trying to clamp down on returnees from Syria, Mandler’s insisting. Phoebe stays in place for now. But I’m afraid you’re rather on your own. That is, if you’re still speaking to us.’

Well, that’s just great, thought Tom. First they trick me into working for them, then they cut me loose.

‘So, if it’s not an impertinent question, where are you now?’

‘Houston.’

‘As in “Houston we have a problem”?’

Tom could tell he was trying to stifle his disappointment.

‘I’d hoped you’d come around, you know, to giving us a hand.’

‘It’s not quite a vacation. I’m here for Rolt, standing in for him, sort of.’

Woolf sounded genuinely alarmed. ‘Look, you do realize we’ve got no backup for you out there?’

‘I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself. This isn’t exactly Kandahar. The biggest danger is dying from a surfeit of enthusiasm.’

Woolf sounded like he was on the move, running up some stairs. ‘Well, I’m late, as usual. But, if anything, this business about the bomber has made me even more suspicious of Rolt. Keep your eyes and ears open, will you? Something really isn’t right about this.’

‘I will,’ Tom found himself saying.

There was a gust of relief from Woolf’s end. ‘So you are with us. Thank fuck for that.’

‘Don’t push your luck.’

There was a cheery knock on his door: Beth.

‘Gotta go.’