The Old Enemy by Henry Porter (read with me .TXT) 📕

Don’t take your usual phone. Go and come back by different means. I suggest you don’t go to the apartment but get Angel to bring it to you.’ Angel looked after the place for them.

He made to leave but she stopped him. ‘There’s more, Jim. How much was Denis paying Zillah Dee?’ She’d met the former National Security Agency employee who owned and ran Dee Strategy after her kidnap to thank Zillah for her part in bringing about her release. She knew Denis rated her abilities and that he must have used her.

Tulliver grimaced at the question.

‘So, she was working on this. How much?’

‘About three, maybe nearer four million.’

‘Jesus! That’s lot of money.’

‘Could be much more. I wasn’t aware of all the ways he paid her. She set up a separate team, effectively a special operation. It was a big deal.’

‘They were checking stuff the young team brought in?’

‘I believe so, but Denis held it all. That I do know. He received hundreds of thumb drives that were destroyed after one use. They didn’t transfer by email or over the Web and it was all encrypted.’

Tulliver knew a lot more than he’d ever let on, which annoyed her, but she said nothing because she needed him on her side and he seemed more willing now that Denis’s recovery was obviously going to take a long time. ‘I’ll need to see her. Are you able to fix that in the next twenty-four hours?’

‘Won’t be a problem – she’s in DC.’

He left and she called Matthew Corner in Warren Speight’s office, with Martin Reid’s warning ringing in her ears. Snake he might be, but she and Denis, who had, after all, been Mila Daus’s primary target for the past three years, had nothing to lose. Corner put her through to Speight and it was agreed that she would appear in front of the committee at 2 p.m. on the following Monday. The chairman of the committee, Harry Lucas, had allotted two and a half hours.

‘That’s like a confirmation hearing,’ she said. ‘How will you fill it?’

‘Oh, we’re not going to have any problem with that, Mrs Hisami. I have plenty of questions, and I know that when my colleagues on both sides hear that you’ll be appearing, there’ll be no shortage of interest.’

‘When will that be?’ she asked.

‘Considering recent history, we thought it advisable not to announce your participation in these proceedings until after the committee has risen for lunch. A few members will be informed ahead of time, but for the majority your evidence will come as a pleasant surprise.’

‘Can I be open with you, Congressman Speight?’

‘I would expect nothing less.’

‘Please regard this as confidential. My husband is not at all well. They’re not sure what’s the matter with him, but he is not responding in the way they hoped. If his condition worsens, I will need to be by his side. I hope you understand.’

‘I don’t wish to presume, but it is my assessment that your husband would, in these dire circumstances, wish you to appear, even if things look very bad.’

‘I need that option,’ she said. It was not only an option to be with Denis, but one that allowed her to bow out of the hearing if things went wrong, or if they didn’t manage to prise the secrets from Denis’s computer.

‘That’s reasonable. I will tell Chairman Lucas.’

‘Thank you. I want to say something else. When I met you I felt that I could trust you, Congressman. But since then I’ve been most specifically warned against doing that.’

He thought about this. ‘I’m grateful for your candour, and you’re right that in this line of work it’s advisable to watch who you trust. But I have found that when two people have the same interests at heart and hope for a particular outcome, no matter where they start from, trust is never an issue. Do you play bridge, Mrs Hisami?’

‘No.’

‘A good practice in bridge is to trust your partner. Never assume he or she has made a mistake. Watch closely. Keep the faith and we will prevail. I’ll see you Monday.’

From the rooftop, she phoned Special Agent Reiner. Three times it went straight to voicemail, so she left a message for him to call her on the fourth. It was odd that he hadn’t been in touch since her return.

She returned to Denis’s bedside and, between talking to him, played his favourite music. He was oddly catholic in his taste – AC-DC, Dire Straits, the Cranberries, Bach, Haydn and Mozart. As a young man, he’d listened to heavy metal on a Walkman when fighting in Northern Iraq, and it was still his practice, if he had something to think through, to go to the end of their property in Mesopotamia with his headphones on and look out at the ocean. She found a video that Denis admired of the Cranberries performing ‘Zombie’, a raw protest against the violence in Northern Ireland. At the end of the number her phone signalled an incoming call. It was Special Agent Reiner.

‘You were trying to reach me, Mrs Hisami. What can I do for you?’

‘Are you aware of my husband’s condition?’

‘I had heard, yes.’

‘We’re trying very hard to reach him and stimulate his memory with familiar sounds and objects, and I wondered if you could return his briefcase to me. I understand that you’ll need to retain the calendar, but there are things in there that I would like to use to try to remind him who he is. Can you do that for us?’

Reiner coughed. ‘That won’t be possible, I’m afraid.’

‘It’s my husband’s property, and you have all you need on the attack in Congress. I’ve given you as much help as I know how. The suspect is dead. Why?’

‘The investigation is still ongoing. I’d truly like to oblige, but there’s really nothing I can do at this time.’ She thought briefly of asking for the calculator, but dismissed it as too risky. ‘Was there anything else, Mrs Hisami? No? We will no doubt