JJ nodded appreciatively and said, “Quantum physics, I like it.” He paused then and added, “So anyway, do you have any idea what’s going on?”
Tom frowned slightly, like they really had started talking quantum physics. “We’re in the dark,” he said, suddenly speaking as an organization. “We know something’s going on, but we’re basically in the position of sitting on our hands and watching it unfold.” A blue pinstripe approached and started leafing through the array of thrillers. Tom looked around and said, “There’s a café in here, isn’t there?”
“Upstairs.” JJ led the way, again making a point of being unguarded, of letting Tom out of his sight line.
The café was crowded, a lunchtime crowd, office and shop workers on their own or in pairs, more noise coming from the service and kitchen area than was coming from the room itself. They found a small table over to one side which hadn’t been cleared. Tom moved the empty glass and a plate with remnants of a salad and baked potato on it. “You hungry?”
JJ shook his head.
“I’ll get the coffee then. No, you don’t drink coffee. Mint tea or lemon or something like that, right?”
“Yeah, whatever they have.” He watched as Tom went over and got a tray and stood in the line, still something of the Ivy League student about him, a lightness of mood that gave nothing away of the information swimming around inside his head.
When he got to the head of the line he said something to tease the surly woman behind the counter into a smile, and kept at the banter while she loaded the tray with cups and pots of hot water and so on, leaving her with a glow, bashful and flattered. It was the way he was. Middle-aged women probably would have thrown themselves in the path of bullets to protect Tom Furst, JJ uncertain only as to whether he’d have let them.
He came back smiling and sat down, unloading the tray as he spoke. “Peppermint for you.”
“Thanks.”
“So, you didn’t come into the lion’s den for chitchat and wordplay. What can I do for you, JJ?”
“I had a call from someone called Ed Holden. He seems to think you might know him.” Tom looked impressed, either by the name or by the fact that Holden had referred JJ to him.
“Known him since I was a kid,” he said, “friend of my dad’s; they worked together in Berlin. He’s an art history professor at Yale now, officially retired years back but, you know, he’s been active in one capacity or another. Very well connected.”
The final words were weighted with meaning, but if he was so well connected JJ wondered why he wasn’t using those connections rather than enlisting the help of a stranger, unless of course he no longer trusted them, or unless JJ unwittingly had more to offer. He didn’t think for a moment there was any altruism involved. “Well this friend of yours thinks the same person’s trying to kill him and me. He says this present business is cover for a settling of scores.”
Tom nodded thoughtfully and sipped at his coffee, spurring JJ to try the tea, the peppermint vapor almost overpowering.
“He could be onto something there. Some of the people being taken down are minor players. I mean, some of them don’t even register. So it could be smoke and mirrors to cover something else.”
“What though?”
“Beats me.” Tom looked around then before adding in a lower voice, “Did Ed tell you who he thought wanted you dead?”
“Philip Berg.”
That was met with raised eyebrows, another sip of coffee, Tom thinking it over before he replied. “I heard he was killed two days ago. Not that what I heard means very much. And it wouldn’t be without precedent.”
“What do you mean?”
Tom looked around again. JJ was amused by the way it looked, like they were discussing some kind of office gossip—where the next demotion was coming, who was sleeping with whom.
“Berg was involved in a joint operation in the Middle East in the late eighties. It went wrong—spectacularly wrong if you know what I mean—and Berg was in it up to his neck. Then people started to have accidents, couple of people got taken down conventionally. This was before my time, but apparently we were pretty certain Berg was responsible. London was having none of it though, so it was allowed to drop. But within a year there was no one left who could point the finger at Berg.”
JJ knew Berg had been in the Middle East, but it was the first time he’d heard anything like that about him, the man recast now as someone who looked after his people. Maybe the only unusual thing in retrospect was that Viner had never really spoken about him, perhaps knowing where it was best for his indiscretions to end. As of the previous afternoon though, discretion had stopped being enough.
“I think Berg’s alive,” JJ said, telling himself as much as Tom. “Even with what you’ve just told me though, one part of the equation doesn’t fit.”
“And what’s that?”
“I’ve never worked for him, never crossed his path. I don’t even really know anything about him.”